Boar Hunt Issue in Know News this weekend

Open season on hogs is not a popular move with hunters

By Bob Hodge

The Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency has a hog problem on its hands, and it's not just the hogs. Its hogs, hog hunters, hog movers, hog haters and state legislators that have left the agency with one big hog-induced headache.

And since just about everybody on all sides has a legitimate gripe, it's a hog-induced migraine.

When the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Commission voted in May to take hogs off the big game list and put them on the nuisance list, it was to manage the state's wild hog population . . . right out of existence. When it comes to hogs forget the word "hunt" and insert "eradicate."

From now on, hogs are about as welcome in Tennessee as bed bugs and Lane Kiffin.

An exotic species like carp or kudzu, hogs have thrived in the state but mostly in pockets of the Cherokee National Forest and on the Cumberland Plateau. No doubt they are a nuisance, but in the traditional areas where there were wild hog populations there has also been a tradition of hunting them.

Therein lies the rub: While hog hunters may be scarce in much of Tennessee, a lot of people from the Plateau east have grown up hunting them.

Confession time . . . I really like hunting hogs myself.

Faced with losing a sport they love some hunters, allegedly, took out their anger on the Catoosa Wildlife Management Area. Hog hunters are suspected of being behind vandalism at Catoosa that kept the WMA closed for over two weeks until it was re-opened Saturday.

Hog hunters also called a meeting with TWRA to air their grievances on Aug. 12 in Crossville.

In a nutshell, TWRA told them the gloves are off when it comes to hogs and landowners can do everything they want from baiting and shooting to trapping to hunting them at night with spotlights. As long as the landowner lets the TWRA know what's going on and who's doing it, there's not too much that can't be done to a wild hog.

Read the rest at the following link

http://www.knoxnews.com/news/2011/aug/2 ... move-with/

You know lack of knowledge make Bob Hodge and alot of other people idiots do the homework before you write a news artical like that