Author Topic: Looking for affordable hog hunt (Read 2556 times)

JimFromTN · « **on:** December 22, 2009, 08:50:52 AM »

My wife has given the ok to set up a hog hunt this year for the 2 of us but I can't afford a high dollar hunt. I am in TN but I am willing to go as far as Texas or south Florida. We have pigs in TN but I don't have the time to scout any areas around here and the likelyhood of actually seeing one is pretty slim. The guides here want around $600 ($1200 total with my wife) or more to kill a hog and they are high fenced. I can't afford it.

I need to find something for about $300 per hunter for a 2 to 3 day hunt with no trophy fees. I found a couple of places in TX but I am not real sure of them because I have heard mixed reviews.

These guys seem interesting but I have heard some bad things about them. They sell hunts on ebay. I like the idea because there is spot and stalk in addition to stands over feeders. They have a hunt that is 3 day 2 night with food and lodging for $289 and you can kill 2 pigs.

www.WildHogHunt.com

This guy also sells hunts on ebay for allot less than listed on their website. They are $350 for 3 days/2 nights, food and lodging, and 2 pigs.
www.HuntingWithJeff.com

If I could get it down to $250 a hunter, that would be optimal.

swordfish · « **Reply #1 on:** December 22, 2009, 09:36:02 AM »

Go to Hog Heaven Ranch in LaBelle Florida. You won't be disappointed. Bob and Daina are good people.

http://www.hogheavenpreserve.com/about.html

Won't beat their prices anywhere.

Graybeard · « **Reply #2 on:** December 22, 2009, 10:20:51 AM »

You need to rethink your logic. You can pay $600 each near home (actually generally less if you don't take advantage of their lodging) and still come out as cheap or maybe more cheaply than driving to TX or FL either. There is a cost associated with such a long drive. Darn few places are going to give you a hunt for anything larger than meat hogs for less than $450-$500 each.

JimFromTN · « **Reply #3 on:** December 22, 2009, 11:23:11 AM »

After doing a little more research on the guides here in TN, it will cost me more like $700 to $750 which would probably be around $1600 total and thats driving straight there hunting and driving straight back. None of them give you the option not to stay at their lodge and eat their food. If I go with the $289 hunt in Texas, I can take a few extra days and make a mini vacation out of it and stop off and see the sites and eat the local fare and still come out at least $300 cheaper, maybe more, than going to someone in state.

Graybeard · « **Reply #4 on:** December 22, 2009, 11:45:08 AM »

Wow I didn't realize they had gotten that high. I've not been to TN on a hog hunt since the early '90s tho so I guess that's not out of line for the time that's gone by since those days. Still I was under the impression that $500 trophy hog hunts were still the norm. I'm surprised they won't discount if you're a local and don't need their lodging and food.

Yes a $289 hunt in TX likely would be cheaper but make sure of what you're getting for that. I'm sure it's limited to one hog and likely an under 100 pounder at that. Extras likely will cost extra. It might also be free range which very well might mean no hogs. What do you REALLY want? Do you want a hog/hogs to show for the trip or do you want a free range hunt with the understanding that such hunts are at best around 25% or less successful. Make sure you know what experience you want and what they are offering in advance.

I think the last trip we made from here in Bama out to the OK panhandle for a PD hunt ran us at least that $1600 just for the trip not counting anything we did while there.

drdougrx · « **Reply #5 on:** December 23, 2009, 01:51:33 AM »

I think the $750 number is about what it costs these days. I'm not willing to travel to hunt hogs as a primary animal unless there's some reason to do so. I hunt'm in VT at a long standing preserve. To me they are a commodity and a vacation item...so...I can drive to it in under 3 hours and the place is huge, offers three nights lodging, guides, 2 dinners, 3 lunches and 3 breakfasts, has a butcher service and generally takes care of everything so that I can relax, be in the woods and get some downtime. For $750....worth it to me....

JimFromTN · « **Reply #6 on:** December 23, 2009, 04:25:42 AM »

Allot has changed since the early 90's. I went to college in Cookeville, TN and had a friend whose father inlaw owned ClarkRange Hunting Reserve which is now owned by Glenn Moody. They charge $675 now and they have a $50 skinning fee. I would prefer to skin and butcher myself but I am finding that most places make you pay them to skin and quarter it. Back in the late 80's early 90's, I could kill hogs out there for $250 with no food and lodging. I don't know how these lodges stock their hogs now but back in those days all of the hogs were transported in illegally from Florida.

My wife and I don't mind the drive because we can take a week or so and make a vacation of it. Neither of us have seen much of Texas and would not mind doing a little exploring/sight seeing plus we can stop off in LA and get some good cajun food.

Graybeard · « **Reply #7 on:** December 23, 2009, 07:59:33 AM »

I think that's Ken Moody tho there maybe a Glenn involved with him. Last time I spoke with him tho Ken was still owner. At the time he agreed to trade me a hunt for advertising but the fellow I was going with had to cancel out and we never made the trip.

My hunt ('93 as best as I can recall) was with Joe Meeks at Telico Junction Lodge. Joe founded it and ran it for a great many years before selling out. I think he bought it back but have no clue current status. He told me it was 2000 acres I dunno. It wasn't really high fenced tho was fenced and at one time it might have been hog proof but really wasn't when I was there as there were large holes in it. He caught hogs with traps baited with corn. He had holes in his fence with trap on his side. If the hog met his standards he turned it loose on his side and if not ran it back out onto the National Forest land it had lived on.

Lodging but not meals were included. The trailer we stayed in had a kitchen tho so we prepared our own meals there. Shortly after our visit they put in a new lodge I heard. His daughter did the taxidermy across the road from his home and did an excellent job on my boar. He had a meat cutter come in each evening to cut and wrap the hog if you wanted at a very reasonable fee. Gutting and skinning was included in cost of hunt along with lodging. I seem to recall it cost me $450. We had a good time.

drdougrx · « **Reply #8 on:** December 23, 2009, 08:15:14 AM »

I'd heard about Joe Meeks GB...back in the early 1990's, but, couldn't justify the drive from N.E.

JimFromTN · « **Reply #9 on:** December 23, 2009, 10:29:36 AM »

You are right. Its Ken Moody not Glenn Moody. The guy who owned it before him was John Gilbert. I remember seeing pictures of animals that were killed on his property. I swear I think I saw a picture of a brown bear killed on his property. I don't think there was any kind of regulation back in the 60's and 70's as to what you could release on a hunting preserve. I think Tellico Junction Lodge is still there. I don't know anything about it or who is running it. I did find one guide who would take you running thru the mountains after the hounds chasing hogs for $250 a day. The only problem is that I don't know that my wife would be up for it. She is in better physical shape than me, I just don't think thats her kind of hunting. She is more of a spot and stalk or hunting from a blind kind of hunter. I don't think she would get into shooting a bayed hog.

Graybeard · « **Reply #10 on:** December 23, 2009, 12:07:27 PM »

Some lodges prefer to use dogs. I really don't care for it but am not a dog person anyway. We stalk hunted all morning long until I had blisters on my feet climbing those TN hills. I saw one hog and didn't get a shot. I honestly think I'd have killed it had the guide not interferred and sent it running before I was in position. I really don't think he wanted me to shoot that one. I believe they use it to take folks to after the morning hike to show there really are hogs there.

After lunch they broke out the dogs. One guide took the dogs up on a hill with the bow hunters and I and my guide sat in his truck in the valley. I noticed one dog had chased a nice red boar of about 200 pounds down the hill and went after it. The guide kept telling me not to shoot I might hit the dog even tho I was sure I could hit a hog and miss a dog both. It turned and came for us. We were on a narrow raised portion of road where a creek ran under it thru pipes so the hog had a rather narrow path and didn't appear he intended to avoid us. The guide started back tracking kinda fast telling me to shoot, shoot, shoot. I did and dropped it with a single Hornady 300 XTP from my S&W 29 between the eyes. It dropped at most 15' from my boot toes.

I did then tag along while the last of the two bow hunters got his hog. He turned down one he felt not large enough to suit him likely cuz his buddy had killed a shore nuff monster up on the hill. He later shot a much smaller one than he had turned down cuz the guide told him he wasn't taking the dogs back out the next day since he wouldn't shot one when they caught it for him. One of his dogs got a pretty bad cut from the one he refused to shoot. My guide jumped down into a narrow little ditch it was in with it, grabbed its hind legs and held on while the other guide go the dogs out and tied them so they could release the hog. My guide did some fast climbing to get out of that ditch once he turned the hog loose.

qajaq59 · « **Reply #11 on:** December 24, 2009, 10:34:57 AM »

You might give this outfit a call. They are down near Lake Okachobee. FL

http://www.ronsguideservice.com/

mannyrock · « **Reply #12 on:** December 24, 2009, 11:08:16 AM »

I will not name any names, but I went on a Tennessee boar hunt in the mid 1980s, at a place that advertised that they had 2,000 acres. It was a total lie.

The guide walked me around and around, in a heavily wooded area that had a low fence, for hours and hours, and I can guarantee you that it was no more than 40 acres of woods.

NOBODY is going to fence 2,000 acres of Tennessee mountain land and raise wild boar (especially Russian) in it. What they do is fence approximately 40 acres of really thick woods with a low fence, turn two hogs loose from a holding pen into it on the morning you are going to start your hunt, help you kill one, and then recapture the other with a corn baited trap, and put it back into a holding pen for the next "hunt."

Sorry, . . . but that's the way its done. I've seen the holding pens.

Regards,
Mannyrock

Graybeard · « **Reply #13 on:** December 24, 2009, 01:30:36 PM »

If you are talking about Telico you are just plain wrong or at least wrong at the time I was there. I can't speak to the actual acreage of course but I've walked woods all my life and I was on a hell of a lot more than 40 acres it was as a minimum many hundreds. They do have some high fenced areas on the other side of highway from the lodge area which can be seen from highway. They do take folks there who specifically require an over 300 pound hog and those are brought in from outside. They keep the exotics over there as well.

The big hog hunting area is quite huge and low fenced with many gaps hogs can get thru. Hogs are trapped on National Forest land adjoining and turned loose. I saw lots of such traps as I walked the area.

If you're talking some other lodge I have no clue about them.

john keyes · « **Reply #14 on:** December 24, 2009, 02:34:02 PM »

hook up with VDTW and the crowd at Marlinowners for the hawgfest, should be a riot

I don't go anywhere anymore, I pretty much direct all my resources to my chunk of land at my lease in east texas

dougk · « **Reply #15 on:** December 24, 2009, 04:38:55 PM »

Quote from: JimFromTN on December 22, 2009, 11:23:11 AM

After doing a little more research on the guides here in TN, it will cost me more like $700 to $750 which would probably be around $1600 total

Dang
I just walk out the door and go feral hog hunting.

Some times I only need to walk 100 yards until I'm on them.

Mad Dog · « **Reply #16 on:** December 25, 2009, 06:03:41 AM »

I don't know anything about this place, but its in your price range, and not as long a drive as TX.

http://www.floridaslamoutfitters.com/rates.html

Mad Dog

Mad Dog · « **Reply #17 on:** December 29, 2009, 04:16:29 AM »

Jim, is ole John Gilbert still alive? I hunted with him in the 70's/80's when he owned Clarkrange Hunting Lodge. Loved the ole boy, he was quite a character! I know his wife Bobbi passed away several years ago, and he also did Taxidermy for Ken Moody, after Moody bought the place in the early 90's.

Mad Dog

JimFromTN · « **Reply #18 on:** December 29, 2009, 06:13:55 AM »

I have no idea if John is still alive. I had heard he was still working out there after he sold the place. I have not been out there since about 1990 and I have not spoken to my friend who was married to his daughter Georgia in probably 15 years. He was definately a character. He could definately tell a story. I think he was arrested twice for making moonshine. He was making wine one time when I was up there and I asked him what kind it was and he said it was the $10 a bottle kind.

Mad Dog · « **Reply #19 on:** December 29, 2009, 07:56:16 AM »

Jim, yep that was ole John. Remember being thre for a hunt in about 1977/1978. Hunting was over, and it was raining. I mosied down to the taxidermy shop, and there was John doing something I'd never seen before....he was wrapping copper tubing around a hedge post. I said "John, whatcha doin?" He said "I'm the only man in Fentress Co. that ain't made no whisky before, and I'm makin a worm for a still. Now you gonna stand there and watch or you gonna help?" Of coaurse I hepped....

Mad Dog

JimFromTN · « **Reply #20 on:** December 29, 2009, 10:08:16 AM »

So you helped get John thrown in jail.

Just Kidding. He did not need your help for that. John introduced me to a christmas cocktail about this time of year where he would break off a big chunk of one of those giant candy canes and drop it in a mason jar of moonshine and when it is completely disolved, its ready to drink. That stuff was dangerous.

Reverend Recoil · « **Reply #21 on:** December 29, 2009, 10:27:05 AM »

Check out Lost Acres Ranch in Jena, Lousiana. I have been on two hunts there. Both hunts were great. $200 for a meat hog, $400 to $450 for something big to mount on the wall. Fee includes skinning and quartering. No kill, no pay policy. No lodging is availible at the camp. We stay at the local motel down the road. No state hunting license is needed.

http://lostacresranch.com/

BBF · « **Reply #22 on:** December 29, 2009, 01:45:07 PM »

Quote from: swordfish on December 22, 2009, 09:36:02 AM

Go to Hog Heaven Ranch in LaBelle Florida. You won't be disappointed. Bob and Daina are good people.

http://www.hogheavenpreserve.com/about.html

Won't beat their prices anywhere.

Their website does NOT give prices which puts me on alert $:-\$

Mad Dog · « **Reply #23 on:** December 30, 2009, 03:37:17 AM »

Jim, back in my early days of going to John's place, I learned the hard way that it takes exactly 24 cokes to cut 1/2 pint of that stuff he was makin.....

Mad Dog

qajaq59 · « **Reply #24 on:** December 30, 2009, 03:46:16 AM »

The prices come up when you click on the "bookings"

http://lostacresranch.com/booking.php