How Smelly should smelly be?

[rickyrick]

Tried the standard soured corn bait recipe that you can find all over the internet, waited the required time(2weeks) and still only smells of beer.



According to what I have read it should stink to high heaven. As of this time its only mildly unpleasant. What gives?

[Lavid2002]

I cant imagine it would smell any worse than that.... People like to exaggerate. I know they said making beer is supposed to be awful. It smells good.


Keep it in a warm humid spot I guess?

[hogdogs]

Ricky, My recipe has proven very effective drawing in hogs...
I use NO BEER!!! I feel it isn't needed at all.

Here is mine...
You need...
1 50# bag of corn
3 envelopes of yeast (wine making yeast is stronger acting)
3 5 gallon buckets with lids

To make it...
Evenly divide the corn in the 3 buckets
Add one envelope yeast to each bucket
Slowly fill each bucket with water being careful not to overfill which will waste the yeast.
Place lid on each bucket but do not latch as it may blow up the bucket.
Let "cook" for at least a week in a location where the sun can help heat the mixture which speeds the souring.

The odor is not noxious it is exactly "sour mash" of whiskey making fame.
It don't need to be a foul odor to draw in the hogs.

One thing i always do is drain the juice back into the bucket from my scoop cup. Scatter the corn and then use the juice to sling onto trees, brush and scrub around the baited area.

You may wish to buy a bag of crushed corn and use it 50/50 with whole corn as it seems to sour quickly.

Brent

[rickyrick]

Thanks,

I did mostly the same, but I swiped the wifes yeast jar and dumped some in and added a jello packet but I don't think it's needed because you can't tell the jello's in there any more.

I think it smells as it should as you described.

[hogdogs]

Hogs have a super acute sense of smell (way better than any blood hound) and will smell the bait applied as I suggest (juice up high will carry faster and further in the breezes) from miles away...

The jello can help as it has a fruity scent as well as the "protein" of the gelatin may add another factor that entices them further...
Brent

[hogdogs]

Also the yeast needs to be fresh or it may be dead...;)
Brent

[troy_mclure]

Another trick i learned it to dig a couple of narrow holes 2-3 feet deep with post hole diggers, and fill them up with the corn.

The pigs keep coming back to dig up that last bit of corn.

Also adding a cup or so of brown sugar or molasses to your buckets will make the smell "richer" and the corn will ferment faster.

[zxcvbob]

Bread yeast should work better than wine yeast (bread yeast can somewhat break down starch into glucose) even though wine yeast is stronger in a sugar-rich enviroment.

This is for hogs or bears or what? (I'm not a hunter) Probably not deer. Have you tried rotten blood, fish, and cottonseed meal?

[rickyrick]

hog, I hope not bear, lol.

trapped one successfully.

moved the trap a few yards no new visitors, I know some still around, think I spooked'em or something. trying to make it more irresistible.

[troy_mclure]

ive heard adding grape koolaid will make it irrestible to pigs.

[hogdogs]

Hey Troy, ever since I learned that brown sugar is just white sugar mixed with molasses, I refuse to buy brown sugar... A couple cups of white sugar and a 1/4 cup molasses added to the mix will rock that sour corn! Good idea!;)

Momma loves my home made BROWN SUGAR... I get better rewards than them fellers shootin' bats off the corner moulding of the ceiling if'n ya' know what I mean!:eek::p
Brent

[robhof]

Pigs are surprisingly smart and seeing others caught, they'll avoid the area of the trap for awhile, some trappers in Fla. that I knew would move and either repaint or spray their traps with cover scents to get additional pigs in the same area. One trapper actually had the pigs turn over one of his traps after he had caught some earlier near the same spot.

[hogdogs]

Robhof speaks truth! I used palm fronds and scrub cuttings woven into the cage mesh to break the outline and I often changed that up to further conceal the heart of their herd mates demise...

The juice I mentioned was slung onto this dead foliage as well, I took old socks and t-shirts and soaked them then tied them to the top wire as well... I have to admit these hogs would give me a run for my money in the "who outsmarts who" dept.... Hogs are a tuff critter to outsmart!

You will find a ratio of about 10-15 to 1 small little piggies (better eating) to brood hogs (the crux of the population issue) with a trap...
Brent

[troy_mclure]

why trap? they are tastier shot wild.

[rickyrick]

The trap can stay awake longer than I can, LOL,.

Mainly doing it for pest control but trying to have a little fun since i'm at it. I try to sit out on weekends and hunt them, but I think all of wildlife takes the weekends off around here.

[skydiver3346]

Hey Brent,
Your hog attracting formula sounds great. Am trying it out this weekend on some maurading porksters that have entered our neighborhood recently. Will be bowhunting from a new stand I will be placing over this bait. Wish me luck.....

[hogdogs]

Good luck skydiver! Can you get power to the spot? If so, a simple motion detector light over the bait with red out on the bulbs (red majic marker)... Then you can hunt the darkness when they will be feeding heavy... heat is comin' on and all...

Also another H.A.D. (hog attracting device) is a "rubbin' post". Get a super thick 8' +/- wooden post (utility pole diameter is great). Dig a nice DEEP hole and plant the post. Now take a piece of carpet that has been soaked in OLD motor oil and nail it to the post...

Hogs sense the medicinal (anti cootie) value and will use it as they do trees to rub and scratch on.

You will know they are using it by hair and dirt on the carpet and the hoof damage on the ground as they put tremendous effort into this activity...

Brent

[rickyrick]

If I rub used oil on myself will the hogs......never mind.

I was wondering, and was going to ask about the red light because I have a red lensed light for my scope.
Also do you think you can red out those cheapie solar lights?

[hogdogs]

Those little solar "foot lights" may not be bright enuff when you red them out. With enuff of them, you may have enuff to see a hog approach. I use this...
http://www.amazon.com/Rayovac-Sportsman-LED-Headlight-Pack/dp/B001F0RCIC/ref=dp_cp_ob_hi_title_0
...when runnin' the dogs... The incandescent main bulb is very rarely used, the white LED is only a single diode and the red is 2 diodes... Runs a long time if you don't use the main bulb much. we turn them all the way off most of the time. The red is 2-fold as it don't spook game much and it don't steal your night vision much at all.

It may be all you need.
Brent

[rickyrick]

can you use the red constant or momentarily on and off?

thanks for all the info

[hogdogs]

None of the positions have a momentary switch... One end of the battery chamber has a twist switch with all positions... I really like this light as the red is first position then white LED and finally is the regular bulb.
Brent

[hogdogs]

thanks for all the info
That's why I am here... Give help and get help!!!;)
Love to see the success of those who start out knowing little of their task and pin it down with the help of those of us who been there done dat...

I got tons of help and info from the experienced and I must pass it on!
I have no clue how many pigs and hogs I trapped once I got rollin'!

BTW, a trapped pig is a handful but 4 in the trap is a real HOOT!:D

We use lassos to "choke them out". Mule tape to tie them up.
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=170463052929&rvr_id=&crlp=1_263602_263622&UA=WXF%3F&GUID=d8f973991270a0e203c1eea1feefdc03&itemid=170463052929&ff4=263602_263622

Then pen them if possible. After a week or 2 of feeding a good food, you have purged any possible chemicals from their wild food sources (they eat everything including rattlesnakes) that may impart bad flavors.

Brent

[TMUSCLE1]

They seriously eat rattlesnakes? I have heard of this before, but thought it was just a little tomfoolery on my part.

[hogdogs]

T, Yes it has been witnessed by many including biologists... It is thought that they are immune to the venom... possibly a study with controlled tests may have been done IIRC...

Brent

[hogdogs]

Here ya'll go... hogs eat snakes exert from a book...
http://books.google.com/books?id=cHm52QeFIi0C&pg=PA1070&lpg=PA1070&dq=hog+eat+rattlesnake&source=bl&ots=oLAYccEjrK&sig=qq4MDxP4ehRmecFmfrxsinp3jmI&hl=en&ei=96-8S97tL5OE8wStzbT9Bw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=2&ved=0CAoQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=hog%20eat%20rattlesnake&f=false
Brent

[rickyrick]

Sorry, I'm still typing on a pocket pc. The red light will not spook them if it is on constantly?

[hogdogs]

Ricky, I have snuck up to my traps and flicked on the light and even with a new light source, they continued feeding on the corn... Turned on the white and they scattered like cockroaches...

For gun hunting, I would set up with no light and when I hear activity, I would turn on the red with weapon already to engage...

If it is already on constant, I highly doubt they would stay away or be spooky. The spookiest thing to any wild animal is the instantly new stimuli. some may spook if the red light is turned on but in my experience, it rarely bothers hogs.

Brent

[rickyrick]

cool,thanks again

[troy_mclure]

we used to feed copperheads to our neighbors hogs. man you shoulda seen them stomp/trample them snakes before they chomped them.

[TMUSCLE1]

Thank hogs! That was awesome reading that post because the book clearly state that the hogs LIKED eating them! That is some cool stuff to know! Like you guys in Florida, here in SC I have seen some monster Eastern Diamondbacks and Canebreak rattlers. I guess that's why I don't see many snakes when I'm hunting when I know there are hogs roaming around.

[markj]

They seriously eat rattlesnakes?

Pigs will eat anything, each other if food gives out. My cousin has a hog farm, as a kid in the early 60s we went there and stayed to help out this time of the year, we moved the females and their offspring to summer pastures. My brother would grab a bab y and take off running, the sow would be hot on his heals after her piglet. He would get 1/2 way into the fenced pasture and let the piggy loose, running for the far side. That sow would chase him to that point. We would then move all the others.

We would catch bull snakes and toss em in to watch them eat it up. Never fall into the pen tho, you will be food for them.

:) I worked at the "Pig Palace" in Omaha stockyards years ago in Omaha, seen them eat things that the guys threw in there I sure wouldn't eat.