We have a hog problem at our ranch in North central Texas. While shooting them is fun, we have goat fenced a hundred or so acres and the hogs are tearing the fencelines and ground up. Can't shoot enough to matter, and I want to start running goats out there and improve the land, deer population,  and hopefully get quail established. Hogs have got to go.

To do that, I bought and set up a Pig Brig passive trap. This is kind of like a fly bag trap writ large- pigs can root under a circular net, about 16' in diameter, to the inside of the trap and then can not root their way back out. There is not trigger or one-time tripping of the trap to catch what you can- in theory, hogs can continue to make their way in for as long as they like and are not spooked by already trapped pigs freaking the fuck out. We shall see

Set-up was straightforward and a fine 1-person job,  but a bit of an asskicker driving t-posts and stakes in rocky ground. Definitely not something you want to be taking down and moving very often. Setup took about 3 hours, working steadily but not in a rush.

I currently have it set up with the nets lifted, in the 'acclimatizing' configuration.  This Friday I will bait it again and drop the nets, monitoring a cellular game camera to see how it does. And hopefully the next problem will be figuring out what to do with the pigs - a few good sows will go to a processor if I get any. Any big fuckers will be ballistic test studies for my 7mmWSM.

Interesting, didn't understand the concept till I watched the video. Looks like they work.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C_msYPrngeo

Interesting, please post some pics and vids when you get them.
I'm sure they'll freak out more than that when the shooting starts.

The Wild and Free Pigs of the Okefenokee Swamp
based on a telling by George Gordon

Some years ago, about 1900, an old trapper from North Dakota hitched up some horses to his Studebaker wagon, packed a few possessions -- especially his traps -- and drove south.
Several weeks later he stopped in a small town just north of the Okefenokee Swamp in Georgia.

It was a Saturday morning -- a lazy day -- when he walked into the general store. Sitting around the pot-bellied stove were seven or eight of the town's local citizens.

The traveler spoke. "Gentlemen, could you direct me to the Okefenokee Swamp?"

Some of the old timers looked at him like he was crazy.

"You must be a stranger in these parts," they said.
"I am. I'm from North Dakota," said the stranger.
"In the Okefenokee Swamp are thousands of wild hogs." one old man explained.
"A man who goes into the swamp by himself asks to die!"
He lifted up his leg. "I lost half my leg here, to the pigs of the swamp."
Another old fellow said, "Look at the cuts on me; look at my arm bit off!"
"Those pigs have been free since the Revolution, eating snakes and rooting out roots and fending for themselves for over a hundred years. They're wild and they're dangerous. You can't trap them. No man dare go into the swamp by himself."

Every man nodded his head in agreement.

The old trapper said, "Thank you so much for the warning. Now could you direct me to the swamp?"

They said, "Well, yeah, it's due south -- straight down the road."

But they begged the stranger not to go, because they knew he'd meet a terrible fate.

He said, "Sell me ten sacks of corn, and help me load it in the wagon." And they did.
Then the old trapper bid them farewell and drove on down the road. The townsfolk thought they'd never see him again.

Two weeks later the man came back. He pulled up to the general store, got down off the wagon, walked in and bought ten more sacks of corn.

After loading it up he went back down the road toward the swamp.

Two weeks later he returned and again bought ten sacks of corn.

This went on for a month. And then two months, and three.

Every week or two the old trapper would come into town on a Saturday morning, load up ten sacks of corn, and drive off south into the swamp.

The stranger soon became a legend in the little village and the subject of much speculation. People wondered what kind of devil had possessed this man, that he could go into the Okefenokee by himself and not be consumed by the wild and free hogs.

One morning the man came into town as usual. Everyone thought he wanted more corn.

He got off the wagon and went into the store where the usual group of men were gathered around the stove. He took off his gloves.

"Gentlemen," he said, "I need to hire about ten or fifteen wagons. I need twenty or thirty men."

"I have six thousand hogs out in the swamp, penned up, and they're all hungry. I've got to get them to market right away."

"You've WHAT in the swamp?" asked the storekeeper, incredulously.

"I have six thousand hogs penned up. They haven't eaten for two or three days, and they'll starve if I don't get back there to feed and take care of them."

One of the old-timers said, "You mean you've captured the wild hogs of the Okefenokee?"

"That's right."

"How did you do that? What did you do?" the men urged, breathlessly.

One of them exclaimed, "But I lost my arm!"
"I lost my brother!" cried another.
"I lost my leg to those wild boars!" chimed a third.

The trapper said, "Well, the first week I went in there they were wild all right."

"They hid in the undergrowth and wouldn't come out. I dared not get off the wagon."
"So I spread corn along behind the wagon. Every day I'd spread a sack of corn."
"The old pigs would have nothing to do with it."
"But the younger pigs decided that it was easier to eat free corn than it was to root out roots and catch snakes. So the very young began to eat the corn first."
"I did this every day. Pretty soon, even the old pigs decided that it was easier to eat free corn."

"After all, they were all free; they were not penned up. They could run off in any direction they wanted at any time."
"The next thing was to get them used to eating in the same place all the time. So I selected a clearing, and I started putting the corn in the clearing."

"At first they wouldn't come to the clearing. It was too far. It was too open. It was a nuisance to them."
"But the very young decided that it was easier to take the corn in the clearing than it was to root out roots and catch their own snakes. And not long thereafter, the older pigs also decided that it was easier to come to the clearing every day."
"And so the pigs learned to come to the clearing every day to get their free corn."

"They could still subsidize their diet with roots and snakes and whatever else they wanted. After all, they were all free. They could run in any direction at any time. There were no bounds upon them."

"The next step was to get them used to fence posts."
"So I put fence posts all the way around the clearing. I put them in the underbrush so that they wouldn't get suspicious or upset."
"After all, they were just sticks sticking up out of the ground, like the trees and the brush. The corn was there every day. It was easy to walk in between the posts, get the corn, and walk back out."

"This went on for a week or two. Shortly they became very used to walking into the clearing, getting the free corn, and walking back out through the fence posts."

"The next step was to put one rail down at the bottom. I also left a few openings, so that the older, fatter pigs could walk through the openings and the younger pigs could easily jump over just one rail."

"After all, it was no real threat to their freedom or independence. They could always jump over the rail and flee in any direction at any time."

"Now I decided that I wouldn't feed them every day. I began to feed them every other day."
"On the days I didn't feed them the pigs still gathered in the clearing. They squealed, and they grunted, and they begged and pleaded with me to feed them."

"But I only fed them every other day. And I put a second rail around the posts."

"Now the pigs became more and more desperate for food. Because now they were no longer used to going out and digging their own roots and finding their own food. They now needed me. They needed my corn every other day."
"So I trained them that I would feed them every day if they came in through a gate. And I put up a third rail around the fence."

"But it was still no great threat to their freedom, because there were several gates and they could run in and out at will."

"Finally I put up the fourth rail."
"Then I closed all the gates but one, and I fed them very, very well."

"Yesterday I closed the last gate. And today I need you to help me take these pigs to market."

Sounds like Joe Biden's plan.

I think it's a cool concept, but like all traps I think once the older hogs get shy of it you will still have to clean up the remainder with a rifle or dogs.

One week of familiarization and the hogs have swept the interior of the trap clean of corn, and all about.

I re-baited it and lowered the nets, as well as set up a cell camera.

My 3.5 year old daughter helped today - we threw a bunch of Twizzlers Pull and Peel in there with the corn, something she is not allowed to have because they are a choking hazard. We had talked about trapping hogs, but I hadn't broached the subject of what I'll do with them. 'So they will go away, ...'

Daughter: Why do we want to trap the hogs?
Me: Because they are mean to the other animals and mess things up.
Daughter: Oh. I am giving them Twizzlers so they choke and die...'

In the set configuration:

7:02 Almost dark and there are two pigs nosing about under the net, getting closer to entering. I bet they make entry, the Twizzlers man.

7:08 Edit: 8-point just chased those two off before they made it in. The night is young, though!

Figuring out how to export pics from camera app to phone so I can upload

Player 1 has returned to the match:

We have our first two captures! Interesting to see if they can escape.

The same two pigs are there. I haven't seen any others investigating, yet.

No other pigs, yet. These two are probably starting to finish up the corn, and have been nosing around the perimeter.


I am worried that the bottom of my net in places may be lifted a bit too much and might allow them to get out.
Now my dilemma:
A. let it ride and go get them in the morning
B. head to the ranch (30 minutes) to dispatch these two sometime soon before they might escape.

I am leaning towards A.

go with "A", I would leave early in morning...
Thanks for making this thread!

Go Braves!

I thought those two black pigs had escaped, but my camera just does not seem to be resolving them real well in the dark, through the net. Their eyes are still visible, but they aren't triggering the camera.

Pig 3, a bigger sow we haven't shot  because she is spotted white and easy to spot ( we always shoot the next bigger she is running) with has arrived :

Well...they stay in all night? You have sausage this morning?

X2 inquiring minds need to know.

Well, it was a bust.
They made their way under at some point.
I think the bottom inner edge of the net was not resting on the ground- I should have brought a weedeater to clear the grass out, and spent more time adjusting the net tension.

I am going to give it a few days and rebait with cooilaid/diesel corn.

Update:
They came back!
This time I hopped in the truck and got down there in 30 minutes.  I walked the last 75 yards in to the trap in the dark and surprised these two boars. I actually haven't shot many hogs, and none with a pistol, so each took 3 or 4 rounds.

I drug them out and reset the trap. Have pics of deer investigating the trap already, might get more pigs soon.

That is a g17 with 19 grip chop for scale. Any guestimations of weight on these two?

I always like a happy ending!

Nicely done.

Maybe 100lb each? You'll know if you get a big one...

I am going to try this sort of trap on another property.
We've always called those 'hog panels,' fittingly enough.

Strange occurrences at the trap:

I drug those two hogs off after shooting them Sunday night, and had not been back out to check the trap until this afternoon.  I had left them lying next to each other.

Today, I found one of the hogs, and it had been drug back right next to the trap - basically where I had drug them out to take the picture with that pistol. The other one is gone. I walked all over looking and smelling for the thing ( I could smell the remaining one from 15 yards out), searching about in a 100 yard area surrounding the trap. No hog, fur, blood, bones etc. The thing is gone.

We have only seen one coyote out there, and in my experience coyotes aren't much for dragging something that much larger than themselves. They typically eat whatever they can from the asshole up, which is how the remaining hog looks.
And hogs just eat whatever right where they find it.

So, I suppose that leaves a lion as the most likely explanation? We had a calf killed earlier this year, and removed the fresh carcass from the cow pasture adjacent to this one to this 'goat pasture,' where the trap is. The carcass went missing, but was found a half mile away, intact other than consumed internal stuff.

Remaining pig carcass:

I think you are right.
Got pics on my feeder cam of a biggun.

How do you get them out alive if you want to sell them?

They may have bee cannibalized by their own kind. I have seen that happen before where I had killed and piled the dead ones.

There is a seam in the net where two panels are joined together with aircraft cable. You build a chute out of hog panels affixed to the net at the tposts on either side of the seam, and back the trailer up to the chute.  Pull that cable and the two sides come apart, pigs run through the hog panel chute into the trailer.

Funniest thing I seen back before they made it illegal to sell hogs. My buddy brought his girl friend along to load a couple of 125# boars we caught. She decided the safest place was in the back of the truck we had hooked to the little topless stock trailer. Well them pigs got a good run up the alley plus the length of the stock trailer. They launched and almost made it over the front of the stock trailer. The ole gal let out a squeal and was out of the back of the truck in a flash. Of course the pig blew blood snot and drool all over her. She didn't last to long as girl friend material for my buddy.

Round two success!
These pigs got in and were there about 1.5 hours before I got to them.
They definitely tried getting out, and were not able.
One wary sow would not enter,  but made the mistake if sticking around until I got there and got plugged anyways.
5 pigs of various sizes in the trap, maybe 30 to 80 pounds? Plus the suspicious sow makes 6 for the day.

I had seen this group on a deer feeder cam a few times, but not on my trap cam until this morning when they showed up and entered. Surprisingly,  I don't think they had even gone through the trap during the familiarization phase.

How freaked out were they when you pulled up?

Very. I need to get a gopro.
They all froze when one heard me approach. I shot the sow outside of the pen, and the 5 inside let loose like billiard balls off the break, rebounding off the nets and running over each other etc. The smallest (light spotted one) actually squared up and charged me.

I am getting the hang of shot placement.

Although I shot them all through the net, it does not look like I snapped any netting.
Right before the 'oh shit' moment:

Nice! I typically grab the suppressed 22LR when I have any in the trap. I've had them take full "sprints" and bend the grating. They know what's coming...

Yeah I've seen them hit the panels so hard the break their jaws.

I haven't read any reports of a boar making it through the net to get after somebody. People have had them jump/climb out, which I can believe after seeing these small pigs go crazy and make it nearly to the top. The company makes a net ring to prevent that.

I'm 200 days in on my first can, a Rugged Oculus, can't wait to get it.

I would be a feared that a boar would defend his team and come at you from the brush as you approached