Hunting feral hogs encouraged in Texas town

Hunting feral hogs may not be as popular as hunting deer or ducks during the holiday season, but with an estimated three million wild hogs in the state, the sport is helping to control the nuisance.

There’s no mistaking the damage done by feral hogs. Only one hog probably was responsible for a lot of rooting at Marshall Creek near Grapevine Lake.

Neighboring homeowners in Southlake have spent thousands of dollars repairing the wild hog damage in their front yards.

“The wild hogs are using the lake to travel,” said Matt Falkner, a park ranger with the Army Corps of Engineers. “They’ll get on a creek bed, and they’ll follow that creek bed plum to downtown Dallas if they could find a path to go.”

That’s one reason the Corps allows hog hunting on their property. The Grapevine Lake Wildlife Management Area is 2,500 hundred acres of free range.

“We basically allow people to hunt them year round on our property,” Falkner said. “And there’s no bag limit.”

The program is only a year old, but there are already plans to expand.
“Feral hogs, we’re going come up with some creative ways to probably open that up a little bit more to folks in the future,” Falkner said.

“Possibly some trapping, permitting. We’d like to do some youth hunts.”
But in the short term, park rangers are preparing for the weekend holiday hunting rush.

“We’re right down the road from two million people, and it’s a quick hunt,” Falkner said. “You can get a quick hunt Thursday morning before Thanksgiving.”

So hunt as many hogs as you want.

Gary Scheel
NAHC LM,RMEF LM,NRA Member, Lonestar Bowhunter, TexasHogHunter Pro Staff Member

FYI Gary---It's now looking like I will be going down to visit my folks in San Antonio in mid March to early April time frame.  I'll give you a heads up when I know the exact date because I would sure like to hunt some hogs with you while I'm down there!

Mike Stephenson
aka Topgun----30-06

You just let me know top and I'll leave the light on for ya. We'll get you some "good for ya pork" to take home.  LOL

Gary Scheel
NAHC LM,RMEF LM,NRA Member, Lonestar Bowhunter, TexasHogHunter Pro Staff Member

I'm more than looking forward to hooking up with you and the rest of your family when I head down.  Save a couple good "eatin size" ones for me, LOL!

Mike Stephenson
aka Topgun----30-06

No prob. Maybe I'll put them in the pen, fatten them up for ya, then when you get here, we make up all kinds of lies for you to tell when you get back home about how mean they were and have a great time.  lMAO!!!!!!!!

Gary Scheel
NAHC LM,RMEF LM,NRA Member, Lonestar Bowhunter, TexasHogHunter Pro Staff Member

  Gary, did you tell Top the part about only letting him hunt 'em with a Bowie knife???  Just want to keep it interesting....

Jeff

Show him the pic of the hog tied hog. Topgun thought me got to use a gun.

Whatever he wants to use is cool wth me. Wrestle them, hog tie them, play pig poker with us whatever.  LOL  There will definately be some good stories afterwards. That you can bet on.  LMAO!!!!!!!!!

Gary Scheel
NAHC LM,RMEF LM,NRA Member, Lonestar Bowhunter, TexasHogHunter Pro Staff Member

Nope; don't thing I will do a Tred Barta knife thing on any, LOL!!!  I'll probably use the old pre 64 Model 70 30-06 on em.  Hey, has anybody heard how Tred is doing after that stroke he had some time back?

Mike Stephenson
aka Topgun----30-06

Topgun I have a pre 64 model 70 winchester 22 Hornet. Was my grandfathers I have been entrusted with it. It has a weaver scope K-6 power. only thing bad about the gun is the trigger pull is kind of stiff. Here is what it looks like.

[image]local://406/CD4506704D4A420D98B12C19BA8F07BB.jpg[/image]

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The trigger on mine was also pretty hard and for $40 I had a good gunsmith take it down to less than 3#.  It's now so light that you need to be real careful when you're ready to shoot because it's almost too touchy!  It will sure shoot a tight group on the range with that trigger though!

Mike Stephenson
aka Topgun----30-06