HansETX

I'm only afraid of two things... and makin' bacon pancakes ain't one of them!  Here's a preview picture of an upcoming video and it's a doozy.  This guy was 1 of 4 hogs that came in for a late night snack at one of my bait holes.  I dropped him right away and gave one of his buddies a big Texas Howdy with a .223 round right to the butt as he ran off...  Thank y'all so much for watching the videos and for all of the great comments.  It truly is a blast for me to get to share some of these funny and sometimes crazy huntin' stories with you... Thank you, Hans

New video is up!  Check it out...

Putting the final touches on this week's video.  I'm excited about y'all seeing it tomorrow afternoon.  In the video I briefly mention a calling technique called "lip squeaking".  It's exactly what it sounds like, basically using your lips to make a squeaking noise that sounds like a mouse or small rabbit.  Funny story... I was "lip squeaking" late one night and instead of calling in a coyote, I somehow managed to call in an owl that landed above my head in a tree that I was sitting under.  Now.. y'all know that owls are huge!!... Sometimes 5 or 6 foot wing spans.  That dang owl scared me half to death when it landed in that tree!  But that owl, thinking I was some dying varmint, landed right above me thinking he was about to get his next meal.  Can you imagine what went through his head when he looked down and saw a 200 pound redneck!... Haha

Here's a preview for this week's video that will be released on Wednesday!  Had this grey fox come out about 100 yards away and was able to "lip squeak" him in to about 15, which is way too close...  I really didn't feel very confident with a shot that close so I let him run out to about 30 yards.  I dropped him with the first shot from my .223 using the Maker Overwatch Field 62 grain ammo, but that little turd jumped up and managed to run into the woods.  I found him about 10 yards inside the tree line.  Check out the video Wednesday afternoon at my HansETX YouTube Channel.   Can't wait for y'all to see it...

After eating half a sweet potato pie by myself and passing out in a food coma, I decided to walk out and see if anything was going on outside.  Walked out about midnight and saw 4 boar hogs at one of my piles of corn.  I'm telling you, with all of the leaves and acorns on the ground it's hard to walk without making alot of crunching noises.  I thought for sure that I was going to spook these hogs and they would end up running off before I could get a shot off.  Luckily, they didn't spook and I was able to drop this 150 pound boar right away.  The other's took off and I threw some shots at the them but the ran off in the woods.  It was a great end to good Thanksgiving..  Hope y'alls was good too...

Wild/Feral dogs are turning into a big problem here in East Texas.  So much so, that I've even heard of these wild dogs joining up with coyotes in the same pack.  One of my good buddies that lives close by called me up and said that these wild dogs have been killing his calves, about 10 thousand dollars worth.  Now,  he owns thousands of head of cattle and these packs of wild dogs are causing him to have to continuously move his cattle from one piece of property to another... a huge amount of time, money, and hard work is involved in moving cattle around, especially just because of dogs.  He asked me to come over and and help him kill these things once and for all.  Now... I've never hunted wild dogs before, really have no clue how to bring them in.  Do I just sit there and wait?.. Do I call them in like a coyote?... I have no clue, so I just start using the electronic coyote caller and had zero luck.  Didn't see nothing..  I don't know if an...

If you haven't already check out this week's video...  Makin' some more East Texas Bacon Pancakes!!

I'll be mixing up some East Texas Bacon Pancakes again this week.  Check out the HansETX YouTube Channel tomorrow to see the video.  I was able to stalk up from 120 yards out to a shooting spot about 45 yards from a close to 200 pound boar hog.  I don't want to spoil the end of the video but he falls hard.... real hard!  Can't wait for y'all to see it...       

Man.. it's cold outside!  It was in the mid 30's outside tonight and anything cooler than about 60, my body starts shivering.  Here I am perched up and setting up for the nights hunt.  It's a nice clear night and Orion's Belt is in clear view.  Can't wait to see what comes out of the woods tonight!...  

This has been my daily routine for as long as I can remember.  On the days when I'm not out on the road traveling, you'll find me shortly before dark throwing out soured corn and checking the game cameras.  You can see my redneck hunting stand in the distance, which is nothing more than a flat bed dump truck.  I've killed a many a hog sitting on the bed of that old yellow truck. Believe it or not...before building my new house, I used this old dump truck to haul in almost 70 loads of dirt before they poured the cement slab for the foundation.   When it comes to baiting in hogs, or really any type of animal, it's all about consistency.  To train the hogs to come in, you have to make sure that you are throwing out bait as often as you can.  Now, not everyone is able to bait everyday because most people don't live where they hunt... I'm pretty lucky.  But, feeders work well for baiting a place that you're not able to get to everyday....

Yeah.. Yeah... I see ya.  You show up on my camera all the time, with your big, beautiful rack..  I've been watching this buck almost every night chasing young Does around the field, only to have them run away from him.  Now if this good lookin' buck can't get a doe, then no other buck has a chance. He eventually gives up and goes back to grazing on the wet grass.  I've never seen this guy out in the daytime but he definitely uses my fields as a play ground at night!!

I hate to say it, but hog hunting is the easy part... This picture is from one of my game cameras and was taken at midnight shortly after shooting a 195 lb. boar hog.  After the hunt is when the work really begins.  I'm the Hunter, Photographer, and Videographer.... and I enjoyed every aspect of it.  For those of you that create content for YouTube, you know how much work goes into the videos that we produce.  In the picture below, I'm setting up the camera tripod for pictures and video.  The lights to the far right are the LED's from my four wheeler that I use for filming...  Video from this hunt will be out next week!  Check out my YouTube channel at  HansETX YouTube .  Thanks for stopping by and watching the videos!!

Man… I don’t know if I got my hands on a lucky scope or what but the first two times that I’ve taken this Pulsar Trail XQ38 out I’ve been able to drop a hog each time.  Now this guy came out at about 9:30 at night, he trotted out, stuck is nose up in the air and ran back into the woods.  I sat there and watched him for a few minutes and I could barely see the top of his head on the other side of the hill.  I wasn’t too worried about it because I pretty sure that this was the same lonely boar that keeps showing up on my game camera, and I based on what I’ve seen on the camera, I was pretty confident that he’d be back. So I sat there for a little bit to see what he was going to do but he didn’t buge from the other side of the hill.  I figure that this we be a good time to walk back to the house to make a pit stop if you know what I mean.. Now, when I walked back out about into the field about 20 minutes later I wasn’t surprised to see a boar out there, but I was su...

After not seeing any hogs on camera for several days, I finally had this nice 195 lb. boar hog skiddishly walk out into the field.  Well, he actually came out into the field twice, he spooked the first time and ran back into the woods, but the second time that I saw him he was over one of the bait piles.  I was able to put him down quickly with one headshot from my DiamondBack .223, using Maker Overwatch Field 62 grain ammo.  The Video from my Pulsar Trail XQ38 turned out great.  Check it out tomorrow at  HansETX YouTube Channel !

I love this time of year... being able to walk out of my front door and see the Little Dipper in the Southern Sky.  In East Texas, at night, it seems like you can see as many stars in the sky as you can count blades of grass on the ground..

Tonight's hunt started like any other hunt, me checking the fields for hogs, maybe walking around the edge of the woods to see if anything was bedded down in the thick brush... a pretty normal night.  That was until I started hearing some Coyote's nearby calling out.  And actually, I need to back up, because when I first walked outside I walked up on a Coyote in my front yard.  Of course, it spooked and darted off as soon as I walked out, but I knew that there was a chance to call him back.  I Proceeded to check the field for hogs and didn't see anything except a bunch of deer, so I started trying to call in a coyote.  Now, I didn't have my electronic caller with me but I've gotten really good at a calling technique called lip squeaking, which is exactly what it sounds like.  I started lip squeaking and had want I thought to be a small coyote come out of the woods.  I continued the call and she kept coming closer...and closer... until she got about 15 ...

After not seeing any hogs for a couple days, which has happened..never, and getting a good rain yesterday, saw a few hogs on the game camera that came by last night between 12:30am to about 1:30am.  It's chilly out tonight, clear skies, and no wind.  Heading out into the field very soon...Hopefully one of these guys will star in a future hunting video...

I've been on the road the past few days and finally had a chance to check the game camera after not checking it since this past weekend.... 0 hogs!!  First time that I've ever checked the game camera and not had at least 1 picture of a hog.  This time of year there are plenty of Acorns on the ground and plenty for them to eat.  The corn isn't bringing the hogs out of the woods and bottoms like it normally does.  Pretty soon they'll be back and we got a good rain come in today and dropped a few inches which usually helps to bring the hogs back out.  The good news is that I'm seeing tons of deer and I'm getting pictures of several bucks, just like this young one below, every night...

Happy Tuesday and YouTube Video upload day!!  Man this poor hog, bless his heart.   He had no clue that I just sighted in my new scope and was comin’ in hot and locked in the pocket.   Now, just two hours earlier I was out on the range sighting in my new Pulsar Trail XQ38, and I’ll put a link to the review video that I did last week in the description of this video, but man this scope has completely changed my hunting game completely.   Not only does this scope display a great thermal image but the features like picture-in-picture display and internal video recorder along with the quality of the Pulsar brand made this thermal scope perfect for my rig.. Honestly yall, this boar hog and I walked out into the field at the same time. He was super cautious and skiddish and I knew that I had to take him sooner rather than later.   As soon as he looked up at me, I gave him a big Texas Howdy with a 62 grain .223 round right to the face. I took a couple extr...

Got a new video coming out in next day or so.  Sitting in a hotel room in Houston right now putting the final touches on the edit.  I'm excited for ya'll to see this one because this video will show my first thermal hog kill using the new Pulsar Trail XQ38.  Bless his heart y'all...This poor boar hog had no clue that I was comin' in hot and locked in the pocket!  I just sighted this scope in 2 hours earlier and I promise you, we both walked into the field at the same time.  Just as I'm rounding the tree line that leads into the field this lonely boar comes strutting out of the woods heading towards my pile of corn.   I swear that he starts looking at me, or at least in my direction, and I put my dot right on his face and fire a round off.  Now, I'm only afraid of two things and shooting a hog in the face ain't one of them.  That first round from my .223 hits him right in the face and then he squats down and leaps 4 or 5 feet in the air and falls d...

It doesn't get much better than being out in a field in East Texas on a cool fall evening, sitting under a full moon.  Saw about a dozen deer, more rabbits than I can even remember, and a armadillo.... but no hogs!...  I read and hear stories all the time about hog hunters hunting under a full moon and having great success.  They even say that the full moon is so bright that they were able to hog hunt without needing night vision, just using their normal day time scopes.  I'm hear to tell ya... I've never had any luck hog hunting under a bright, full moon.  I've been picking up hogs on my game cameras at around 3am to 6am and that seems to be the norm around here during this moon phase.  Looking forward to the moon cycle to change and being able to get some action earlier in the evening.  Here's a game camera pic at one of my bait holes.   The big bright moon in the picture is pretty... but it would have been a lot more beautiful with a 300 lb hog...

Well.. not every hunt is YouTube worthy, but some videos are definitely funny enough to share.  I guess you should consider this video as my first submission for the HansETX blooper reel.  Me and 4 other buddies went out to shoot some hogs that were totally destroying a beautiful yard.  Now... I usually hunt alone and I prefer it that way.  Mainly because it's difficult to quietly stalk up on a large sounder of hogs when you have 5 grown men trying to tip-toe around, but also it's hard to get the "start shooting" countdown right.  Some knucklehead always starts shooting half a second too early and it messes up everybody else's shot.  So to setup this video, there are 5 of us total.  Three guys are shooting with .308's and two of us using .223's, all of us have fully loaded magazines.  After we start shooting and the dust settles, we embarrassingly find out that out of the dozens of hogs that we were shooting at we only managed to knock down 2. Yea...

Went out the other night and only saw one lonely boar that spooked before I could even get close.  About 11:30pm I decided to throw out the Coyote caller and let it run on and off for about 30 minutes... nothing! Didn't see nothing, didn't hear nothing, decided to go inside at around midnight.  I'll be dang if a Coyote didn't show up on my game camera almost in the exact spot that I had the caller at about 10 minutes earlier...  Can't win them all..

Hey ya'll... I'm excited to share with you that I have partnered up with the good people at Outdoor Legacy Gear and have officially joined their ProStaff ( HansETX OLG ProStaff Link). I have collaborated with this great night vision optics company on two videos already, the  Pulsar Quantum Lite XQ23V Monocular and the  Pulsar Trail XQ38 Thermal Scope reviews.  What this means for the HansETX YouTube Channel is that you will get to see and learn about the latest gear in the world of night vision optics from all the major brands! I'm lucky to be part of such an amazing group from top to bottom and with all of the choices out there for night vision hunting optics, to me, it's nice to know that I'm working with a company that prides themselves on customer service.  When you call the folks at Outdoor Legacy Gear they will match you with the perfect optic that will serve all of your needs...  They did for me!!! Give these folks a call: Outdoor Legacy Gear-Nigh...

Some of you have commented on some of the videos with questions about my rig and what I'm running with.  Right now, I'm hog hunting with a .223... and I know, most hog hunters prefer a larger caliber.  I've used many other styles and types of rifles in the past and I really like the versatility of the .223.  Many of my trips out into the fields will start as a hog hunt but may turn into a predator hunt if I hear Coyotes near by, and I love the speed and accuracy of the round.  I've had a lot of success hog hunting with the .223, mainly because I stalk in close and take headshots whenever possible.  I do realize the limitations with knock down power at longer ranges but in East Texas, with all of the thick trees, I rarely get the chance to take shots over 100 yards.  I'm looking to convert my AR-15 to a Grendel 6.8 sometime in the near future, but here's what I'm running with now.  I'll also include links to some of these items: Diamondback AR-15 .223...

Here in East Texas, we definitely have some big hogs but you aren't going to see big bucks here like you would in West Texas.  Been catching this decent size 8 point buck on camera almost every night. You can tell that he's a nice, big bodied, mature deer and would be a nice East Texas trophy to put on the wall.  Now that I'm thinning out the hogs, I'm see a lot more deer every night out in the fields...

There’s no telling how much this big guy weighs.  I’ve caught him on camera twice and even had a thermal dot on him once, but he ran off before I could get a shot off.  Let me tell ya, he makes those other hogs look tiny but I know for a fact (because I’ve seen them through my scope) that the others are well over 100 pounds each.  This group doesn’t come often and they actually are coming over from the next property.  I want to get this big boy just so I can weigh him...  if I do y’all will be the first to know!

I keep catching these pretty good size Boar on camera but they aren't coming out until after 3am, way past my bedtime!!... I've seen this same group now for a couple weeks and let me tell you...these hogs ain't dumb.  They are super skiddish and they don't stay for very long, they're always on the move.  I'm hoping to catch them one night when their hunger bell starts ringing a little earlier in the evening.  I'll keep y'all posted...

There is an exciting new change coming to the HansETX YouTube Channel.  You are about to start seeing a huge improvement in the quality of thermal video.  Thanks to my friends and partners at Outdoor Legacy Gear, who helped match me with the perfect thermal scope to fit all of my needs, I finally decided to go with the Pulsar Trail XQ38. My three  "Must Have's" were internal video recorder, rechargeable battery, and picture-in-picture display.  I was able to get everything that I needed and more!  The picture quality is amazing and here are some of the features that it includes: Pulsar Trail XQ38 Features: 384 x 288 Thermal Core Resolution 17 Microns 50HZ Refresh Rate AMOLED Display 2.1x-8.4x Magnification Internal Video Recorder Removable/ Rechargeable Long Life Battery Stream Vision App. Here's my review video for the Pulsar XQ38.  Also, if you what to talk to an expert, not just about this scope but anything related to Night Vision Gear, give...

Hey Y'all... This is HansETX.  If you're new to this hunting blog, well...then...that makes two of us.  You may have seen some of my Thermal Hog and Predator hunting videos on YouTube and that's great, I appreciate you watching.  If not, I'd invite you to jump over and take a look.  I started this hunting blog because there is so much to share with you that doesn't make it into a 5 minute video.  On here, we'll talk about hunting strategies, new thermal hunting gear, and really, just some of the wild and crazy stuff that I run into while trekking through the woods and fields in the middle of the night.  I hunt alone, and I really prefer it that way, but I'll tell ya... I've had some hair raising moments.  Whether it be coming almost face-to-face with a big wild boar or throwing a fist full of sand at a bobcat to keep it from walking right into me.  I hope that you stop back by from time to time to check things out.  Also, you can subscribe to...