Night Time is the Right Time for Hogs

There was a time when the majority of wild hogs I killed was during daylight hours.

- Luke Clayton

Twenty years ago, when the wild hog boom was just getting underway in Texas and several other states, hogs were routinely and successfully hunted during daylight hours. Then, as wild hog numbers and hunting pressure increased, the wild porkers became more nocturnal. While it’s still possible to locate sounders of hogs up and feeding during the day in areas with little disturbance from man, it’s become much more difficult to successfully kill hogs without the use of some sort of night hunting equipment.

Hogs pattern well to timed corn feeders, and many of us have learned to set the timers to sling corn about 30 minutes before dark. The reasoning here is to entice the porkers within shooting range while there is still enough light to see the sights. Sounders of porkers will often bed within hearing distance of the electric feeders and come a-running with the sound of dinner hitting the ground. I still kill many hogs during the last few minutes of daylight using this method, but the trick is to slip into the hunting area at least an hour before the feeder goes off so as not to spook the porkers. Regardless, when I hunt hogs, I always wear rubber boots and approach from downwind unless there is a bedding area of thick cover that blocks my approach to the stand I plan to use.

Hunting hogs at night puts the game in a whole new “light.” I remember my first attempts at night-hunting many years ago. An electrician buddy of mine who also likes to take his pork chops from the wild called and informed me of a method he was devising that would keep us in pork.