Yes the hogs won last night, but I think I helped them. I got off early yesterday and headed towards my farm to check on my bees, my tomatoes and see how my cover crops were coming. Of course I had other motives as well..I wanted to hunt. I also had a solar powered, motion activated, red light I wanted to put on my feeder for hunting hogs at night. Before doing my chores, around 3:00pm, I went to my feeder, spread some more corn, and attach the red-light and left the area. Around, 4 or 4:30 I put my dog away to wait for a possible track and headed out to my tree stand. It was early but the moon phase voodoo had me thinking. My target was either a deer - more meat in the freezer - or a hog - more meat.
The weather was great, breeze was in my face but nothing moved during the daylight except a hawk that was harassing the squirrels. At 6:09 my feeder failed to go off - ****. It fell over when I moved it. Yes I moved my feeder about 8-feet so that the solar cell would have more daily sunlight.
7:00 - nothing
8:00 - nothing
8:30 - (bright full-moon is now out) I hear leafs being crushed in the brush below me and to my left. Didn't think much about it, maybe an armadillo or racoon. Then I hear the low deep grunt. He keeps moving around but won't leave the brush and move towards the feeder/red-light and into my kill-zone. For what seemed like 5-minute he just stood there hardly moving. I couldn't see him but I could hear slight movements in the leaves and he grunts occasionally. Finally he follows the brush line and eventually triggers the red light. He was not happy when this happened. The light makes a slight clicking sound when motion activated. He went back in the brush. About 5 minutes later the same hog, or different hog,briefly comes out of the brush - he's right below me - and moves back into the brush triggering the light. For the next 3 hours this happens about 8 to 10 more times. On a side note, I saw plenty of deer moving about. They won't commit but instead circle around the feeder, staying out of the bright moonlight. Around 11:30 I had enough and left.
I figured that the combination of me moving the feeder, adding a light and the fact that the moon was freakin' bright really affected the hogs behavior. My game cameras have them all over the place from about 6:50pm to 5:00am. They've really rutted up the area around the feeder after the rains. They instinctively knew to be wary and cautious; you gotta respect that. They spiked the ball at the end because when I was walking back to my truck, at an intersection of three trails there was fresh pig dung. It wasn't there when I went in - it was fresh. Some boar just expanded his territory. Well played pigs...well played.
The weather was great, breeze was in my face but nothing moved during the daylight except a hawk that was harassing the squirrels. At 6:09 my feeder failed to go off - ****. It fell over when I moved it. Yes I moved my feeder about 8-feet so that the solar cell would have more daily sunlight.
7:00 - nothing
8:00 - nothing
8:30 - (bright full-moon is now out) I hear leafs being crushed in the brush below me and to my left. Didn't think much about it, maybe an armadillo or racoon. Then I hear the low deep grunt. He keeps moving around but won't leave the brush and move towards the feeder/red-light and into my kill-zone. For what seemed like 5-minute he just stood there hardly moving. I couldn't see him but I could hear slight movements in the leaves and he grunts occasionally. Finally he follows the brush line and eventually triggers the red light. He was not happy when this happened. The light makes a slight clicking sound when motion activated. He went back in the brush. About 5 minutes later the same hog, or different hog,briefly comes out of the brush - he's right below me - and moves back into the brush triggering the light. For the next 3 hours this happens about 8 to 10 more times. On a side note, I saw plenty of deer moving about. They won't commit but instead circle around the feeder, staying out of the bright moonlight. Around 11:30 I had enough and left.
I figured that the combination of me moving the feeder, adding a light and the fact that the moon was freakin' bright really affected the hogs behavior. My game cameras have them all over the place from about 6:50pm to 5:00am. They've really rutted up the area around the feeder after the rains. They instinctively knew to be wary and cautious; you gotta respect that. They spiked the ball at the end because when I was walking back to my truck, at an intersection of three trails there was fresh pig dung. It wasn't there when I went in - it was fresh. Some boar just expanded his territory. Well played pigs...well played.