Eddie, The seminar I attended last week gave me the chance to meet the Gov guy in that area who is in charge of feral hog control. You two are mostly in agreement but he didn't mentiion diesel or Koolaid. The traps they use are portable knockdown traps that can catch over 20 hogs at a time and are real simple construction, easy to duplicate.

They did have samples of smaller traps that could easily be hauled in a pickup and hold 5 or so hogs easily. When they aren't on a "HIGH DOLLAR" helicopter based search and destroy to quickly lower a population they use traps. They recommend traps as MUCH MORE EFFECTIVE than running around with a gun hunting hogs. Where on foot you might shoot a couple the traps can catch several (dozen or two) which you then dispatch with ease.

I too have a Ruger Super Blackhawk but the barel is slightly shorter than the standard 7 1/2, a factory mistake. Hogs have hard heads and you can easily bounce one off if it doesn't hit right. One of my .44 jacketed hollow point handloads fired center of boddy mass will take most of the steam out of the largest hog. A shoulder shot will drop one and prevent it from charging you and slow it down considerably so you can take your time with a follow up kill shot.

I have been thinking that I might try my luck with my M1 carbine, a fine close range "brush" gun. Soft point expanding rounds instead of millitary ammo makes a considerable diffenence in stopping power. Still, a trap never sleeps. A deer feeder dropping corn would sure train them to come at "feeding" time. The Gov guys just put out corn and whatever else is handy in the traps.

Funny thing, they say that after several hogs get in the trap, other hogs will still go in to get some of whatever the others must be getting to stay there. They also say that once trapped or nearly so that you will never get a hog in a trap again so you need to shoot them in the trap and not give a chance of escape.

To overcome trap "shyness" they kept a sow in a small section of trap between two larger sections and the trap warry boars went right in.

Good pix of the pigs. Fiancee is nice too AND she shoots... what a deal.

Thanks for sharing your experience. As your bio is just a tad skimpy... maybe you could mentiion what part of the planet you are on.

[img]/forums/images/icons/smile.gif[/img] Pat [img]/forums/images/icons/smile.gif[/img]