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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.

Suggest you do a search on the forum. It has been discussed in the past.

I'm pretty sure that no centerfire rifles are allowed around Grapevine Lake. But that said, I bought my M1A primarily for hog hunting... ...that and TEOTWAWKI.

How did I live in Grapevine and not know about this?

Time to pick up an AK and go to work

I was using a 22-250 this past weekend. The hogs I was tracking were under 60lbs, so the 22-250 was adequate, and I can get a good shot from 200+ yards. Bigger hogs would get either a 7mag or 30.06.

I wonder how an M44 or SVD knockoff (both 7.62X54) would fare. Aren't those rounds comparable to 30.06, or do I have some bad info?

the 7.62x54r would fare fine. really just about any rifle round will do. Plenty are taken with 5.56. 7.62x39 in an AK also makes a great brush gun as does a 30-30 lever. If your want is to just hunt them then a standard deer rifle setup will work wonderfully. otherwise for population control something that you can follow-up shots fairly fast is helpful.

Just like any other animal. hit 'em in the vitals and they will go down no matter what it was that hit 'em.

How do I get in on some of this. i only live about 15mi away.

Maybe we should set up a group hunt...

You need to call in and check. Yes on published info on the grapevine lake park. Only archery is allowed to hunt deers and feral hogs. However, when you call in someone will tell you to come in and register and hand you a packet of info on how to hunt. It seems that on site regulations could be different.

If someone know more please let us know.

Beiruty wrote:You need to call in and check. Yes on published info on the grapevine lake park. Only archery is allowed to hunt deers and feral hogs. However, when you call in someone will tell you to come in and register and hand you a packet of info on how to hunt. It seems that on site regulations could be different.

If someone know more please let us know.

I believe that you can also use shotguns, but I am pretty sure that centerfire rifles are verboten.

.17 cal HMR is what I use.

I shoot all head shots and they go down like a bowling pin. My biggest weighed around 250 lbs.

My neighbor uses a .22 Magnum with the same result.

There's no need for a huge center fire caliber.

My experience with the larger hogs is that anything .223 or smaller is insufficient unless you are getting excellent shot placement like Abraham implied above.

I once filled a large hog (maybe it was a small hippo?) with .223 rounds aimed at the chest area and it danced off into the woods never to be seen again. Another time it took about 5 shots with the 30-30 to bring one down. Like The Annoyed Man, I now keep an M1A around for hogs.

Yes, all head shots and one other neighbor I forgot to mention also uses a .17 cal HMR on feral pigs.

While I use fmj's, he uses the ballistic tipped round, but again, he places all his shots in the head too.

At this count, I have taken two hogs with with a .17 cal, my next door neighbor has taken two with a .22 mag., and my other neighbor has take taken three with a .17 cal.

All of these cartridges, of course, fall into the rimfire category.

No, I wouldn't want to body shoot these critters with .17 HMR or .22 mag., but the calibers will take them down when shot in the head.

Any caliber that is recommended for deer hunting in Texas will do just fine for hog hunting. I would use a .223 put place the shot and .30cal round will do great.