Baiting for hogs is a way to control populations, keep agricultural crops where they should be and for hunting. Baiting hog isn’t too complicated as they’ll find and eat just about anything that’s edible. The best hog bait will bring them in from miles away and keep them coming in for a long time.
The Best Hog Bait On the Market Today
While it's quite easy to make wild hog attractant at home, many hunters choose to buy the stuff. If you're looking to purchase the best hog attractant, then here a list of the top 5 followed by reviews:
Wildgame Innovations Hog Heaven
Wildgame Innovations is a one stop shop for hunting and wildlife attractants as well as monitors. They are one of the few companies offering a commercially made glandular wild boar attractant. This is a great option for people who prefer to use feeders but want a little extra oomph than just standard corn or want to have an old school bait pile. It’s held together by gelatin and recommended to be spread out and mixed with corn where ever you need your pigs to go.
The jellies and syrups that are popular today work really well and put out a lot of scent but unless you mix it with bait the hogs just don’t readily eat it. This glandular formula is like junk food and the hogs go crazy for it. It comes in a 5lbs bag and works. Nothing too special or over the top it just does its job very well of bringing in hogs to a central spot for hunting or photography.
Evolved Habitats Pig Out Hog Attractant
Evolved Habitats is one of the largest companies making wild life attractant products. They make this product to get wild pigs to congregate in a single spot. This formula smells a lot like soured cherries and they love to wallow in it. It sure has that tangy sweet smell that hogs love and they find it fast.
They don’t like to eat this product so it’ll work well in places that they already have a lot of food sources. It should work especially well on travel corridors and places the hogs travel to wallow or rub on. It comes in a one-gallon jug ready to pour out onto the ground and hunt. This is a really good product for people wanting to hold the hogs’ attention without having to haul large amounts of corn or bait to a site.
Moultrie Tusk Taker Corn Cocktail Liquid Wild Hog Attractant
Moultrie has been known for years for their wide range of game cameras and feeders. Now they have recently made a foray into the market of wild hog bait. This is one of their new products, a corn flavored syrup designed to bring hogs into an area for hunting. It's a yellow syrup, almost jelly like that pours onto just about anything and works as a hog attractant.
This product is great because you can bring them in with the smell of corn, a longtime favorite of hogs, without having to carry the heavy feed sacks to remote locations. The hogs will eat anything this stuff touches, like leaves, sticks and dirt so try not to get this on trap doors or steaks because they’ll be gnawed on and torn up more than usual.
Moultrie Tusk Taker Apple Smash Liquid Wild Hog Attractant
This is an interesting product also by Moultrie who have really taken to bringing these syrupy concoctions for wildlife to the market. It's a unique apple scented syrup for hogs but is so concentrated that it comes in a 32oz bottle instead of the standard 1-gallon jug. This is a step towards making it even easier to carry to your stand or hunting location because it’s even smaller and lighter than before.
Being apple flavored you might have more than just hogs check this out so be sure of your target until hogs really start to overrun the bait site. Being a syrup flavored like food, they may or may not eat whatever gets coated by it so be ready to lose anything that it touches. This is perfect for freshening up old wallows or creating a stop on a major hog highway to get a shot off. This is really just a pour onto the ground hog bait.
Hog Candy Premium Hog & Wild Boar Animal Attractant
This is a cool product from a relatively unknown company. It is a berry flavored dust made to mix with corn to supercharge the attractant for hogs. It can be mixed with 1,600lbs of corn, which is real value considering how much corn that is. When you mix this with a mechanical feeder it creates a cloud of dust. It throws out feed that spreads out the sweet berry flavor in a cloud that travels and carries the scent.
The directions also state that it can be spread out as a stand-alone product for attracting hogs. As a stand-alone product it’s expensive and the jury is still out on how well it works, but hogs have been known for their love of tangy sweet smelling fruit, so it should work well. This is a great product for small acreage landowners using bait for hunting that may have competition from neighboring landowners and need to bring in the bacon.
Why Bait Hogs?
Hunting over bait is a great way to ensure that new hunters or youth will have at least the opportunity to see and observe animals while hunting. It also allows for a better shot because the animals are busy and not moving around as much. Especially in big woods areas hogs will travel long distances every night to find food and keeping them in a relatively small area by aggressive baiting tactics can help with hunting and eradication.
Baiting hogs makes it possible to trap them as well. Baiting and trapping hogs can transform an ecosystem to better suit heritage game species like whitetail deer, turkey, and fowl. Hogs are a huge stressor on the game animals, not to mention causing millions of dollars in agricultural damage every year. Baiting hogs makes it possible to remove them in large numbers.
What Makes a Good Hog Bait?
There’s three main things that make a good hog bait:
- Smell
- Amount
- Location
If you do these three things correctly almost anything will work as a good hog bait. More on these in the following tips.
Hog Baiting Tips
- Hogs LOVE sour fruits. Use things like powdered jello, soured melons or strawberries to bring them in
- Put the bait in a relatively open area near a heavy trail. Hogs will feed in the open without fear, unlike deer
- Make sure to bait hogs with a sufficient trap. A single hog pushing against the door is no big deal, however five hogs can ruin the trap
- Use a good game camera to find out when the hogs are coming and going
- Hogs will sometimes sleep on a bait pile and do nothing but eat until it's gone. Make sure you stalk into your stand, the hunt could end quickly
HOMEMADE HOG BAIT RECIPE
Making a homemade hog bait involves using house hold materials to ferment corn to make it stink profusely. This stinky corn brings hogs in from far away, this is the key, hogs are omnivorous and move very large distances every night. The have been known for as much as 5 miles in a single night. The more the bait stinks the more they’ll stay in the area to be shot or trapped.
INGREDIENTS
- 5 gallon bucket with lid
- 50lbs sack of corn
- 10 packs strawberry cool aid
- 5lbs sugar
- 1 roll of yeast packages
- Water hose
DIRECTIONS
1. Wash out the 5-gallon bucket and be 100% sure the lid fits securely
2. Fill the bucket half way with corn
3. Add all the other ingredients into the bucket
4. Fill with water until the corn starts to float
5. Add as much corn and water as possible while still getting the lid on
6. Mix the entire bucket. Make sure the corn, sugar, cool aid, and yeast are well mixed
7. Leave it in the sun for at least a week to ferment and rot. DO NOT put the lid on tightly. The pressure will build and the bucket could rupture and spray rotten corn everywhere
If you’re going to transport this a long distance, consider adding a layer of duct tape around the lid after you seal it up. This recipe will stink worse than anything you’ve ever experienced and you do not want to spill it.
Trapping
Trapping hogs is a great way to reduce the ecological impact of feral swine cheaply and quickly. While hunting can only target so many hogs you can remove as many as 10 or 20 hogs in a single week if done correctly. Focus on putting the trap near high traffic areas. Hogs move long distances quickly and you need to be able to get their attention before they move out of the area.
Make sure the trap is easy to get into and out of. This may seem backwards but if you get the hogs used to coming and going for a week or so, and then arm the trap, you’re much more likely to trap adult sows that have the large litters of piglets. These hogs generally won’t go into an area without a clear escape route. You’ll also get the hogs used to seeing and smelling the trap and the bait you put out making it more effective in the long run.
Make sure to check your local regulations before trapping. Many have very liberal laws that govern things like the transportation of live hogs very closely. Also be sure you’re using a legal trap design and legal bait. Many favorite baits such as diesel fuel have become illegal in recent years.
The Bottom Line
Hogs generally aren’t picky and finding a good hog bait is easy. Any range of store bought syrups, homemade mixes and even food stuffs from the grocery store can be used to bring in hogs. The best hog bait is the one that works best in your area. Look to provide something different than what’s available in their habitat and you’ll have a deep wallow in no time.
