I just posted on the other part of Tman , has any one got trap plans for hogs that they have seen in use?

Check with "Thirstyunderwater", he was doing this as a Gov trapper in Hawaii.

What kind? I prefer corral traps with repeating doors but boxes have their place.

Be glad to point you in a good direction. What size groups are you after?

For a basic design TX A&M has a nice hog pub, so do most of the southeast states at
this point.

For my time investment the corral trap with 3-4 20 foot horse panels (4x4 squares), then a kerville style repeating rooter
gate. Of course that's for whole sounders, if you are after particular individuals or solo boars, box
traps are a good way to go, bonus too if you are dragging in behind an atv or using a small pickup.

Be glad to talk hog traps all day, pm if you want more details, have a mountain of info just collecting dust these days.

Justin

Justin, have you checked out Rod Pinkston's site, www.jagerpro.com. Specifically his ideas on trapping and his special sized panels with smaller mesh at the bottom to keep the shoats from squirting out.
Expensive as [Please excuse my language... I'm an idiot] but his thoughts make sense to hear him tell it.

I am a full time feral hog trapper in Florida. I catch alot of hogs. I have and use a variety of traps, snares, etc., but my most used go to type of hog trap is a 4' x 8' portable style trap with a vertical sliding guillotine style door. I have 23 of these traps with only slight differences. To give you an idea of how well they work, I have caught 33 hogs in the last 5 days using 4 traps.

The trap is 4' wide, 8' long, and 3' high. It's frame is 1 1/2" x 1/8" steel angle, has a top and bottom to prevent escapes. The 32" wide door is 3/4" square steel tubing that ressembles a jail house door. The sides, ends, etc., have galvanized heavy gauge welded hog panels welded in place. This trap is very portable and can be dragged by ATV or truck or carried on a small utility trailer.

I have only one coral style trap. It works OK as long as there are hogs in that area but once all hogs in that area are caught or they move on to another area, the coral trap is worthless and sits idle for months at a time. It can be torn down, moved, and re-assembled in another area, but that takes alot of time and work. I can move and set up one of the portable traps and have it baited and set in a couple of hours.

Dave

Thanks Dave lotsa good info , that may be a welding project .

You can build a portable 4x8 hog trap such as I described for about $200-$250 in materials and a weekend (or two) of fabricating and welding. There are also some finished ready to use portable hog traps for sale from builders, about $450-$500.

There are many variations of design, search "hog trap" on the Internet and you will see many.

Dave

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Good thread, I'd agree with all the positive aspects of portability that Davexx1 noted. I had colleagues who worked brushy country where corral trapping and dragging the supplies is was prohibitive.

I worked on hogs trapping wise in low density arid landscapes where hogs are tied to water and water is limited. My goal every time was complete removal of a sounder (family group), rather than removing whatever was available or being in high density and high resource areas like so many are in the southeastern states. I've got colleagues in all of those states and the hog trapping tactics do vary from what we've found works best and most efficiently in arid areas.

My preference if you can is to establish baited sites, setup with game cams (don't have to be the most expensive, the $99.00 type will get you plenty of good photos to say yay or nay to setting it), and keep them running once you see sign in the area. I've seen more times than I need to on camera where 10+ hogs showed up and only 3-4 were inside when the trap fired. With single drop guillotine doors the game is over till you convince those hogs to come in the next time. Hogs aren't dumb by any means and they learn very well. So if you see 4 of your crew in the trap and you ultimately don't see them come back, this provides an education. You can still catch them and I have, but what I prefer is this scenario.

3-4 are inside and the door drops as they trip the wire. The other 5-6 mill around outside taking in some pre-bait and finally they decide all the feeding activity inside the trap is too much to ignore and they one by one push into the repeating door rig. I had a ton of this footage and thanks to one bad flight where they made me check my bag years ago, I lost it all when they crushed my hard drive.

Others prefer the guillotine, and when you are in high density where hogs are behind every bush and tree, so be it, but in many states where hogs are just getting a population built, you may be targeting low density populations similar to mine and therefore why not try to corral them all in one shot?

Economics is a factor, but if you weld your own gates, you can build a rooter gate or something similar, put up the panels, heavy t posts, wire, etc..., even put a top on the trap (to keep climbers in...it happens more than folks think) and still not be out much more than a nice box trap.

In the end these are all good tools, box traps, corral traps, snares, foot snares, firearms, all tools in the feral hog control kit.

So I would say to truly be ready to go, having a couple boxes, a corral trap or two and a firearm capable of consistently and cleanly removing hogs would be a good kit.

For bait, you'll find soured corn is about the simplest thing in the world. You can buy all kinds of "hot" baits that
are marketed, but I know folks who tested those literally, and found sour corn to be just as good in most cases and without the
heavy price tag.

Few packets of yeast, and some good sunshine and your on your way!

So to be clear, I do agree with Dave, box traps can be excellent and will absolutely remove hogs, I just prefer corrals wherever possible based on my particular experience and the states I've worked traps in (both box and corral).

Cameras tell us a bunch about what we get and what we miss over time with any device for any species.

*****

David, I have seen Rod's info, saw him speak a few years back at the national conference on wild pigs as well, good speaker.

I'm with him on the size of squares, in my opinion you want them all caught, so taking a chance on losing the little stripers is foolish
if you've got the budget.

I've also seen folks use chicken wire to wrap the bottom, but for the time and money, I'd just buy the more expensive panel. Usually you
are talking about a step up from a $32.00 panel with large squares or "cattle panel" to a $49.99 "horse panel" with 4" squares that will keep nearly
everything inside.

Quoting old prices, steel changes all the time and these panels do fluctuate, but if you are going into a serious project and have the funding
buy in bulk from any major supplier and you'll get a decent break that will be worth stepping up.

****

Justin