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Hog Heaven


LHarris

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Hog Heaven

Written by: Len Harris

Crawford County Wisconsin has been dubbed the Wild Hog Capitol of Wisconsin. One need not go any further than Bob *Hogman* Messlings home to talk hunting wild hogs and maybe if you are really lucky...Go hog hunting with Bob. Bob's partner in Hog Heaven is John Feyen.

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From left to right, John Feyen, Luke, Buck, Hogman, Blackie

Bob's dogs first started out as Coon Dogs and have been trained by Bob to hunt Hogs now exclusively. Bob's dogs have very different personalities.

The Head Dog *Buck* is fearless. He is English Red Tick Coon hound. Buck is 4 years old. Buck leads all hunts and is the aggressor. Buck is the first on the hog and always takes the head. Buck has a huge scar on his stomach from a 500 pound plus Boar that got away. The injury required 77 sutures and staples to close. Buck was ready to go again the next day.

Luke is a Black/White/Tan Treeing Walker Purebred.Luke is 5 years old. Luke always follows Buck and when the 2 corner a Hog, Luke boxes in the Hog and takes the rear. Luke is much more laid back and manageable.

Blackie is a Brindle Mountain Cur and usually stay near Bob during a hunt. Blackie is the clean-up dog. He usually aids the other 2 when the hog is too big.

ALL dogs are fitted with location collars. Bob uses the Wildlife Material brand. The tracking collars and antenna costed 670 dollars and are good out to 14 miles.

The dogs are let out on a active trail. Bob scouts the area prior and finds the active trails and gets permission from landowners. The dogs usually run silent until they actually see a Hog. The dogs (Buck & Luke) corner the hog. If the hog is a larger hog the dogs barking becomes louder and and more frequent. Blackie usually joins the fray when he hears the action. If the hog is smaller the dogs quit barking and all you hear is the pig squealing. Buck takes the front Luke the back. It is very important to get to your dogs quickly so they are not injured. Bob has a couple 4 wheelers to expedite getting to dogs.

Bob uses a 7MM as his weapon of choice for hogs. He has used a 243 in the past and believes the caliber is too small. Bob says he does NOT take a typical front shoulder shot on hogs. The shoulder blades and hips are almost armor plated and hard to get a good kill shot. Bob tries to place his shot directly in front of the hide leg centered. The hog usually dies with 15 seconds of shot. Bob biggest Boar (male) he ever shot absorbed a shot from a 243 in the front shoulder and didn't even flinch. Bob uses ONLY iron sights due to the close proximity of the shot and scope doesn't show whole picture.

The best times of the year to hunt wild hogs in Hog Heaven is at the end of deer hunting and before turkey hunting starts. Bob believes the Russian hog lines were brought in by a now closed game farm from the area that had escapees. Most of the wild hogs in the area have a certain percentage of Russian and domestic hog in them.

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Hogman and Dave Benzing with a 130 lbs hog. Benzing shot the hogs from 125 yards running. Iron sights

Couple other photos.

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hogman001.jpg

Below information supplied by Mike Cross (Conservation Warden Crawford County)

Thanks Mike.

.

Feral hogs in Wisconsin are an unwanted species for several reasons. Disease, crop damage, property damage, erosion, and competition for food top the concerns. Presently feral hogs are classified as an unprotected species. Anyone interested in hunting them must possess a small game hunting license. There is no registration, tagging, season, or hunting hour restrictions.

The DNR and USDA-Wildlife Services confirm that feral hogs cause "considerable" crop damage, primarily to corn during it's early development stage and "milk" stage. In addition to the crop damage concern is the disease risk. Feral hogs are know to carry pseudo rabies and Swine Brucellosis. Being a wild animal the risk of attack to humans exists, however there has been no attack reports received in our area. Like any other wild animal, especially a feral hog, it's a possibility. But, not a cause to stay indoors. The feral hogs are extremely wild and flee when human scent or presence in detected.

Origin at the present time is unknown. They are either domestic hogs gone feral or they were illegally stocked. For the most part, the feral hogs appearance is like a Russian Boar, even though color varies from black, to brown, to multicolor.

During the 2008 winter trapping efforts, USDA-Wildlife Services was responsible for the removal (trapping/shooting) of 20 feral hogs and the DNR killed one other. Private property owners/hunters killed another 4. 25 total killed this winter that we are aware of. The DNR, State Dept. of Ag and USDA encourage citizens to report sightings.

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  • Your Responses - Share & Have Fun :)

    • Brianf.
      I'm not there, so I can't tell exactly what's going on but it looks like a large area of open water developed in the last day with all of the heavy snow on the east side of wake em up Narrows. These two photos are from my Ring Camera facing north towards Niles Point.  You can see what happened with all of snow that fell in the last three days, though the open water could have been wind driven. Hard to say. .  
    • SkunkedAgain
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    • LakeofthewoodsMN
      On the south end...   Thanks to some cold spring weather, ice fishing continues strong for those still ice fishing.  The bite remains very good.  Most resorts have pulled their fish houses off for the year, however, some still have fish houses out and others are allowing ATV and side by sides.  Check social media or call ahead to your favorite resort for specifics. Reports this week for walleyes and saugers remain excellent.   A nice mix of jumbo perch, pike, eelpout, and an occasional crappie, tullibee or sturgeon being reported by anglers. Jigging one line and using a live minnow on the second line is the way to go.  Green, glow red, pink and gold were good colors this week.     Monster pike are on a tear!  Good number of pike, some reaching over 45 inches long, being caught using tip ups with live suckers or dead bait such as smelt and herring in 8 - 14' of water.   As always, work through a resort or outfitter for ice road conditions.  Safety first always. Fish houses are allowed on the ice through March 31st, the walleye / sauger season goes through April 14th and the pike season never ends. On the Rainy River...  The river is opened up along the Nelson Park boat ramp in Birchdale, the Frontier boat ramp and Vidas boat ramp.  This past week, much of the open water skimmed over with the single digit overnight temps.   Areas of the river have popped open again and with temps getting warmer, things are shaping up for the last stretch through the rest of the spring season, which continues through April 14th.   Very good numbers of walleyes are in the river.  Reports this week, even with fewer anglers, have been good.  When temps warm up and the sun shines, things will fire up again.   Jigs with brightly colored plastics or jigs with a frozen emerald shiner have been the desired bait on the river.  Don't overlook slow trolling crankbaits upstream as well.   Good reports of sturgeon being caught on the river as well.  Sturgeon put the feed bag on in the spring.  The bite has been very good.  Most are using a sturgeon rig with a circle hook loaded with crawlers or crawlers / frozen emerald shiners. Up at the NW Angle...  Ice fishing is winding down up at the Angle.  Walleyes, saugers, and a number of various species in the mix again this week.  The bite is still very good with good numbers of fish.  The one two punch of jigging one line and deadsticking the second line is working well.   Check with Angle resorts on transport options from Young's Bay.  Call ahead for ice road guidelines.  
    • CigarGuy
      With the drifting, kind of hard to tell for sure, but I'm guessing about a foot and still lightly snowing. Cook end!
    • PSU
      How much snow did you get on Vermilion? 
    • Mike89
      lake here refroze too...  started opening again yesterday with the wet snow and wind...  very little ice left today...
    • Hookmaster
      A friend who has a cabin between Alex and Fergus said the lake he's on refroze. He texted me a pic from March 12th when it was open and one from 23rd when it wasn't. 🤯
    • SkunkedAgain
      I don't think that there has been any ice melt in the past few weeks on Vermilion. Things looked like a record and then Mother Nature swept in again.   I'll give my revised guess of April 21st
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      As I get older it's really not just about sending bullets down range.  Some of it's just the workmanship of the gun and the wow factor. The other two guns I have really wanted which I'll never have now because of their price, is a 8mm Jap Nambu and 9mm German Luger.   Just thought they always looked cool!  
    • jim curlee
      I had a guy hit me with a lightly used 1969 BAR, he wanted $1650 with an older Leupold scope. More than I think they are worth, I made an offer, he declined end of story.   You know if you look at the old brochures, a grade II BAR sold for $250 in the late 60s, $1650 would be a good return on your investment.    Why would anybody want a 50 year old gun, they are heavy, have wood stocks, and blued metal.  I guess mainly to keep their gun safes glued to the floor. lol   You can probably buy a stainless rifle that you never have to clean, with a synthetic stock you never have to refinish, is as light as a feather, and for half as much money, perfect.   I'm too old for a youth gun, although I've shrunk enough that it would probably fit. lol   No Ruger 10/44s.   Jim      
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