Can Hunting Control Feral Hogs? Why Trapping the Whole Sounder Works Better.

Short answer: no.

You can’t shoot your way out of a hog problem.
Hunting chips away at the edges, but sounders just regroup and repopulate. If you’re not taking the whole group, you’re not making a dent.

Why Hunting Falls Short

When the pressure’s on, hogs get smarter fast.
They switch to night shifts, move miles to new feeding grounds, and teach the rest of the sounder what to avoid. Every shot fired makes them wiser and harder to catch next time.

Hunting might feel productive, but it rarely outsmarts the sounder long enough to make real progress. Feral hogs are survivors. They adapt fast, and if you’re not ahead of their behavior, you’re already behind.

A Better Way: Think Eradication, Not Recreation

At Pig Brig, we recommend an integrated approach using an eradication mentality.
That means treating every effort as part of a full removal plan — not just recreation or “thinning them out.”

Start with the most efficient tool first: a trap.
Trapping removes the majority of the population by catching the entire sounder at once. Once those pigs are out of the system, you clean up the few that remain — over bait, opportunistically, or with dogs if needed.

This adaptive, step-by-step approach works. The biggest challenge comes when folks mix or misuse methods — hunting while trapping, or switching tools too soon. That just scatters hogs and resets your progress.

Smarter Trapping Starts Here

The Pig Brig® Trap System was built around this same eradication mindset:
You can’t shoot your way out of a hog problem.

Our patented net trap was designed with hog behavior in mind.
It’s a passive, continuous-entry system that takes advantage of their natural rooting and feeding instincts. Hogs push under the net to reach the bait, entering calmly and without alarm — letting you capture the whole sounder, not just a few wary stragglers.

No gates. No triggers. No constant monitoring.
Just a smarter trap built to work the way hogs think.

But not all traps are created equal.
When it comes to Choosing the Right Hog Trap: Details Matter, design details like mesh size, setup flexibility, and how the system handles pig behavior make all the difference in long-term success. Learn what separates a good trap from a great one — and how the right design helps you catch more hogs with less effort.