Hog Bait by Randy Rowley

Ingredients

• Three bags of corn ($25.47; Academy’s price – $8.49/40-lb. bag)
• Five bags of “Hog Wild Wild Beast Attractant” ($39.95; Academy’s price – $7.99/5-lb. bag)
• 20 two-Liter bottles of Big Red or equivalent ($20.00)

Makes five five-gallon buckets of hog bait (total cost = $85.42/$17.08 a bucket)

The above prices are current as of 3/7/14.

Directions:

• Fill 1/3 of a five-gallon bucket full of corn
• Add 1/2 bag of Hog Wild
• Cover the ingredients with two two-liter bottles of Big Red
• Stir it
• Add another 1/3 of a bucket of corn
• Add the rest of the bag of Hog Wild
• Cover the ingredients with another two two-liter bottles of Big Red.  Do not fill the bucket all the way to the top (if you do the concoction will expand in the heat and crack the lid)!
• Stir it again
• Put a cover on the bucket tightly (use a rubber hammer).
• Put it out in the sun (works best in warm and hot weather)
• Periodically check the bait and add more Big Red if it has gotten dry

Grape, Orange, Lemon/Lime, etc. soda and 24 twelve-ounce cans of cheap beer can be substituted for the Big Red.  I use Big Red because my uncle taught me how to make catfish dough bait with it (using Big Red and bread; some people use Big Red and Corn Flakes).  Catfish and hogs are similar in their eating habits, so I figured that my recipe would work on hogs.  It does and I have had no reason to change it.

The longer you let it set the stinkier it will become.  The Big Red version starts out as a sweeter mixture and the beer version starts out as a sourer mixture, but they’re both very sour in a few days.  I’ve had hogs come readily to both versions.

I’ve read of diesel versions on http://www.texasboars.com/.  The guys and gals there indicate that the diesel will not bother or hurt the hogs.  Deer, other animals, and birds will stay away from it.  So far, I haven’t gotten the nerve to try it.

If you put about eight ounces of yeast in the Big Red mixture it will ferment faster (it’s not needed for the beer mixture), but it’s really not needed.

Some guys use maze (milo) instead of corn.  I tried it once and came to the conclusion that hogs prefer corn.