(Sorry for the long post, but I tried to include multiple pics/videos to help describe what I built.)
Well, like most of y’all that use feeders and have hogs, you know that they come at all hours of the day and night and 99% of the time, they come while you’re not in your stand. At least this seems to always be my problem! I have used the traditional BOX TRAP with a dropping or swinging door and trip wire, but have only caught a few hogs over a long period of time and we usually only catch 1 at a time.
This is when I realized that the traditional box trap wasn’t the way to go anymore. The way I look at it is that in any given month (excluding deer season) I might go to the lease one maybe two weekends out of 4 weekends that month. So, if there are 30 days that month, I will have spent 3-6 days down there or 10-20% of that month. I can’t really keep my box trap baited or chummed consistently while only being there an average of 15% of the time. I realized that I need to find a way to trap my hogs where they know there will always be food!!
Last year I went to Tractor Supply and bought 4 16’ long cattle panels for my deer feeder to keep unwanted cows and hogs out. After having my 5’ tall fence up, I noticed I wasn’t getting nearly as much traffic at my feeder. I think my feeder pin was a little too small and the deer may have felt too claustrophobic inside my pin, so I decided to cut my cattle panels in half and double my circumference. At this time, I decide to build a Figure 6 hog trap around my deer feeder. This would allow the hogs to develop a routine and allow them to safely enter my trap (while it was locked in the open position). Then, whenever I’m there, I will simply arm my trap and try to catch these hogs while they make their normal trips to my deer feeder for an easy meal! Using my math from above, 85% of the time that I’m not there the hogs will have full access to my feeder, but when I’m there the other 15% of the time I will set my trap and hopefully catch multiple hogs at a time!
My plan is to set my trap as soon as I get to the ranch. I will do this every trip. Then, once deer season gets here, I might still set my trap. If I walk to my stand at 5:30am and have 8 hogs trapped under my feeder, well then I might try another place to hunt for the morning and then come back later and kill and remove the trapped hogs. On one hand it would kind of suck if the trapped hogs keep me from hunting my stand, but on the other hand I would end up killing multiple pigs! If this becomes a common problem and it’s always messing up my hunting, then I will lock my trap door closed so hogs can’t enter my trap/feeder pin. I think this is probably what I’ll end up doing when the rut starts.
Now to the pictures….
Here is the entire trap.
This is the entrance to the trap. Same concept as a minnow trap…easy to enter, but confusing to exit. I added a small piece of scrap panel to the entrance and bent the wire out. This is to keep cows/calves out.
Here is a close up of my funnel. The left side is the “O-CIRCLE” portion of my trap and the right side is the branched off section that catches the hogs as they circle my trap. I added a post on the right branch to keep it stiff so the cows or pigs don't knock it over.
This is how I have my door setup. At first I had a spring rigged to close the door and a tree branch to hold my door open and act as my trip wire. The spring would close the entrance door too tight and it seemed as if it would be hard for another hog to enter from the outside. So I just decided to rig up a simple rope/pulley deal with a weight that would shut the door. The weight I used is half of an old brick. Heavy enough to close the door, but light enough to allow other hogs to enter. Truthfully, I probably don't really need any form of weight since the fence panel is springy enough and will close by itself.
Here is how it looks when the TRIP BRANCH is tripped and the door shuts.
This is a close up of the entrance door from inside my trap. On the actual door, I added some barb wire just in case these hogs try to stick their snout through the door to get out. I made sure to bend the barbs towards the inside so hogs that try to enter, once the door has been tripped, won’t be poked by the barbs.
Here is a picture from the top
This is a picture of my trap from a few weeks ago. This is my chum line that I had to get the pigs to enter through the door. I've added more posts and updated the entrance since I took this pic.
Here is video #1. I think you have to click on the picture to start the video.
Video #2-Trap Door. I'm still not 100% satisfied with it, but I’ll see how it works in a few weeks when I go back. If it’s not working properly, I just might bend the door a little more and not worry about having the pulley/weight method. Like I said before, the panel has enough spring to shut on its own.
Video #3-Close up of my cattle panels. The next trap I make will probably only need one strand of barb wire. I just used a second stand because I tried to salvage an old piece of cattle panel, but this made it have a small gap where the two met.
Here is a picture from a few weeks ago when my trap wasn’t fully complete. I added about 6 more posts to make my fence tougher and I also added barb wire all the way around it. Notice the 4 hogs under the feeder eating and the one hog about to exit on the far right.
Another picture of a hog eating under my feeder and a hog outside my trap trying to find his way in. You can see a piece of my scrap panel lying on the ground. That piece is used as the “funnel catcher” or the top portion of a “6”. I read that if hogs want to enter an area, they will just circle the perimeter until they can find out where to enter. Even though the cows knocked over my branched finger, this hog was still able to make his way in
Here are 8 more piggies enjoying a free and easy meal. I think there is a 9th one trying to find his way in.
This picture makes me believe that cows wouldn’t screw with my trap! This cow sadly looks into my trap and sees the hog peacefully eating while she just stands outside the fence!!
This made me confident that deer could easily jump over my fence/trap without any issues. Yeah, I might have an issue with fawns, but we’ll see.
Here is a link that kind of gave me this idea. I did some research on the internet and found this link pretty helpful:
http://www.texashuntingforum.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/topics/1321152/1
Anyway, I just wanted to posts these pictures and videos and share my project with everyone. Hope y’all enjoyed it!
[This message has been edited by AGGIE WH08P (edited 5/30/2011 11:56a).]
Well, like most of y’all that use feeders and have hogs, you know that they come at all hours of the day and night and 99% of the time, they come while you’re not in your stand. At least this seems to always be my problem! I have used the traditional BOX TRAP with a dropping or swinging door and trip wire, but have only caught a few hogs over a long period of time and we usually only catch 1 at a time.
This is when I realized that the traditional box trap wasn’t the way to go anymore. The way I look at it is that in any given month (excluding deer season) I might go to the lease one maybe two weekends out of 4 weekends that month. So, if there are 30 days that month, I will have spent 3-6 days down there or 10-20% of that month. I can’t really keep my box trap baited or chummed consistently while only being there an average of 15% of the time. I realized that I need to find a way to trap my hogs where they know there will always be food!!
Last year I went to Tractor Supply and bought 4 16’ long cattle panels for my deer feeder to keep unwanted cows and hogs out. After having my 5’ tall fence up, I noticed I wasn’t getting nearly as much traffic at my feeder. I think my feeder pin was a little too small and the deer may have felt too claustrophobic inside my pin, so I decided to cut my cattle panels in half and double my circumference. At this time, I decide to build a Figure 6 hog trap around my deer feeder. This would allow the hogs to develop a routine and allow them to safely enter my trap (while it was locked in the open position). Then, whenever I’m there, I will simply arm my trap and try to catch these hogs while they make their normal trips to my deer feeder for an easy meal! Using my math from above, 85% of the time that I’m not there the hogs will have full access to my feeder, but when I’m there the other 15% of the time I will set my trap and hopefully catch multiple hogs at a time!
My plan is to set my trap as soon as I get to the ranch. I will do this every trip. Then, once deer season gets here, I might still set my trap. If I walk to my stand at 5:30am and have 8 hogs trapped under my feeder, well then I might try another place to hunt for the morning and then come back later and kill and remove the trapped hogs. On one hand it would kind of suck if the trapped hogs keep me from hunting my stand, but on the other hand I would end up killing multiple pigs! If this becomes a common problem and it’s always messing up my hunting, then I will lock my trap door closed so hogs can’t enter my trap/feeder pin. I think this is probably what I’ll end up doing when the rut starts.
Now to the pictures….
Here is the entire trap.
This is the entrance to the trap. Same concept as a minnow trap…easy to enter, but confusing to exit. I added a small piece of scrap panel to the entrance and bent the wire out. This is to keep cows/calves out.
Here is a close up of my funnel. The left side is the “O-CIRCLE” portion of my trap and the right side is the branched off section that catches the hogs as they circle my trap. I added a post on the right branch to keep it stiff so the cows or pigs don't knock it over.
This is how I have my door setup. At first I had a spring rigged to close the door and a tree branch to hold my door open and act as my trip wire. The spring would close the entrance door too tight and it seemed as if it would be hard for another hog to enter from the outside. So I just decided to rig up a simple rope/pulley deal with a weight that would shut the door. The weight I used is half of an old brick. Heavy enough to close the door, but light enough to allow other hogs to enter. Truthfully, I probably don't really need any form of weight since the fence panel is springy enough and will close by itself.
Here is how it looks when the TRIP BRANCH is tripped and the door shuts.
This is a close up of the entrance door from inside my trap. On the actual door, I added some barb wire just in case these hogs try to stick their snout through the door to get out. I made sure to bend the barbs towards the inside so hogs that try to enter, once the door has been tripped, won’t be poked by the barbs.
Here is a picture from the top
This is a picture of my trap from a few weeks ago. This is my chum line that I had to get the pigs to enter through the door. I've added more posts and updated the entrance since I took this pic.
Here is video #1. I think you have to click on the picture to start the video.
Video #2-Trap Door. I'm still not 100% satisfied with it, but I’ll see how it works in a few weeks when I go back. If it’s not working properly, I just might bend the door a little more and not worry about having the pulley/weight method. Like I said before, the panel has enough spring to shut on its own.
Video #3-Close up of my cattle panels. The next trap I make will probably only need one strand of barb wire. I just used a second stand because I tried to salvage an old piece of cattle panel, but this made it have a small gap where the two met.
Here is a picture from a few weeks ago when my trap wasn’t fully complete. I added about 6 more posts to make my fence tougher and I also added barb wire all the way around it. Notice the 4 hogs under the feeder eating and the one hog about to exit on the far right.
Another picture of a hog eating under my feeder and a hog outside my trap trying to find his way in. You can see a piece of my scrap panel lying on the ground. That piece is used as the “funnel catcher” or the top portion of a “6”. I read that if hogs want to enter an area, they will just circle the perimeter until they can find out where to enter. Even though the cows knocked over my branched finger, this hog was still able to make his way in
Here are 8 more piggies enjoying a free and easy meal. I think there is a 9th one trying to find his way in.
This picture makes me believe that cows wouldn’t screw with my trap! This cow sadly looks into my trap and sees the hog peacefully eating while she just stands outside the fence!!
This made me confident that deer could easily jump over my fence/trap without any issues. Yeah, I might have an issue with fawns, but we’ll see.
Here is a link that kind of gave me this idea. I did some research on the internet and found this link pretty helpful:
http://www.texashuntingforum.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/topics/1321152/1
Anyway, I just wanted to posts these pictures and videos and share my project with everyone. Hope y’all enjoyed it!
[This message has been edited by AGGIE WH08P (edited 5/30/2011 11:56a).]
