Ten Tips For Hunting Hogs

1) Keep trees and brush between you and the hog to break up your silhouette as you try to stalk to within bow range of the hog, if you spot him in the woods, and you're downwind of him. Remember that hogs have poor eyesight.

2) Don't walk across the trail that you expect hogs to come from to reach your tree stand. Even when wearing rubber boots, you can leave enough human odor in the area to spook a hog, which has a very keen sense of smell.

3) Scout for hogs the day before you plan to hunt. Hogs are very nomadic and may be in an area one day and gone the next.

4) Remember that hogs will go most anywhere but generally prefer to bed and travel close to water and in thick cover.

5) Do your homework. If you find a tree that hogs have rubbed against or boars have sharpened their tusks on, the higher you see the tusk slashes from the ground, generally the bigger the boar. Although this sign means a big boar has frequented this region, don't put a tree stand there. You're more likely to catch hogs moving on trails leading from feeding to bedding areas.

6) Plan to change stands if you shoot at or miss a hog on one stand because more than likely that same hog or group of hogs won't return to that stand site anytime soon.

7) Place your arrow behind the gristled shield on the hog's shoulders that covers the hog's vitals for your best chance to recover a hog once you've hit it. Your best shot is a quartering-away shot.

8) Take a dog that has a good nose into the area where you've arrowed a hog. Big hogs are usually fat, and their wounds close up quickly. Often they won't leave a very good blood trail. However, a dog with a good nose that's accustomed to locating wounded game, often will find your hog for you.

9) Hunt the trails leading to a feeder to see hogs the most consistently. Don't hunt right over the feeder. If you take or wound a hog on the trail leading to the feeder, more than likely the hogs will continue to use that feeder but may take a different trail to it. However, if you shoot at, hit or miss a hog at a feeder, the hogs may not return to the feeder for several days.

10) Identify the two types of hogs, offensive hogs and defensive hogs. An offensive hog will be a boar that weighs 200 pounds or more that has large tusks. Your chances of seeing him are slim. If you do take him, the meat probably will be strong tasting, unless the boar has been castrated and released before you take him.

A defensive hog, either a sow or a boar, will weigh between 50 and 150 pounds. You'll see more of this size hog when you hunt, and you'll find them easier to take and delicious to eat. They don't have as much fat as the offensive hogs and also will be low in cholesterol and usually tender. I generally enjoy taking one of these defensive hogs first. Then I'll still have time left in the trip to hunt for that trophy tusher.

The Phillips Coat of Arms shows that John E. Phillips' family has hunted hogs with a bow for many centuries. Notice the boars' heads and the broad heads in the Coat of Arms.

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