Just past the stroke of Mississippi midnight, on a July evening teetering between sticky and steamy, the Yawt Yawt hunts from the domestic comforts of a soft recliner bathed in the climate-controlled crisp of sweet air. Yawt Yawt, also known as David Ellis, fixates on an iPad screen featuring the fruits of a week’s worth of his labor—a full sounder of wild pigs contentedly slop-feasting on bait beneath a circular trap. Satisfied with the haul, Ellis pushes an app button and remotely drops a 600 lb. curtain around the pigs: The wrath of Yawt Yawt has descended.
Five hours and a fitful bout of sleep later, with camera rolling, Ellis pulls a trailer down a turnrow separating an endless stretch of pines from the flats of a massive corn field. He pulls up to a wild pig tornado—Gadarene swine swirling within the 12’-diameter trap. Ellis grabs a .22 rifle, exits the truck, and sucks in an overpowering stench of hog musk, rotting food, urine, and feces. In the glare of headlights, 20 wild pigs chill in the beams, momentarily calmed by the blinding glow. Ellis moves methodically, peering down an iron-sight barrel, and sends a lead bullet between the eyes and into the brain of the bully pig—the boss hog.
Pig by pig, shot by shot, Ellis goes down the pecking order and dispatches the entire sounder. Minutes later, as sunrise climbs over the corn, he stacks the hogs in the trailer bed and chatters incessantly as enthusiasm explodes from his core. “Pile of pigs, baby. Piiiiiile of pigs,” Ellis whoops in deep Mississippi cadence, barely pausing for breath. “Welcome to the Yawt Yawt Show.”
Nobody does wild pigs like the Yawt Yawt. Nobody. Ellis’ hunting and trapping videos are viral cocaine for a growing YouTube and Facebook audience addicted to his wild pig content. From backwoods redneck to social media star, he is a force unleashed—part hunter, teacher, preacher, raconteur, and ringmaster. No airs, pretensions, or masquerade. “I’m just a brother from the trailer hood trying to make it to Hollywood,” explains Ellis with a wink, wide smile, and infectious laugh.
What happens when a human wrecking ball is crossed with the most buck-wild North American beast on four legs? Ask Ellis, likely the most recognized wild pig trapper in the United States.
Toss him a question, get out of the way, and prepare for a genuinely rip-roaring hunt alongside the incomparable Yawt Yawt.
Broke and Known
Across a childhood spent tailing the shadow of his father, Keith, through the woods of Clay County in northeast Mississippi, Ellis learned the nuances of hunting turkey, deer, and small game. Gobblers became his game of choice—an avian obsession that brought most all other aspects of life to a screeching halt each spring. Wild pigs, however, were an alien species during his youth—an off-the-radar creature in someone else’s county or state.
Partially raised in a rural trailer park, Ellis learned life, guns, and a big dose of hardscrabble: “We never did without, but those trailers sure had thin walls,” he recalls. “I knew when my buddy was getting a whupping in trailer #34 and I could tell you exactly how many licks he got.”
Out of high school, Ellis spent 22 years as a lineman and foreman, and handler of electrical issues that popped across Clay County. He walked the standard career path until the script flipped in March 2017, when Ellis posted several turkey hunting videos meant for a circle of 200 online Facebook friends. Instead, the public got its first glimpse of Yawt Yawt in the making and clamored for more. Much more.
“It was a total social media fluke,” he says. “I was having fun, posting with no intention. Suddenly, the videos went nuts. Out of nowhere, millions of people were watching.”
Truly. As Ellis watched the video views tally into the stratosphere, the entrepreneurial sparks flew. The crowd came for the hunting videos; they stayed for the infectious personality of Ellis.
Yawt Yawt was born.
“I sure wasn’t rich and famous,” he says, “but I was broke and known.”
“Maybe They Reincarnate”
In a nutshell, Yawt Yawt is explained best as a turkey hen yelp expressed via a Southern accent. Ellis, 43, turned the yelp into his alter ego, hunting identity, trademark, meme, company, nom de guerre, catchphrase, and catchall.
Ellis is a master turkey hunter—a runner-and-gunner, almost always crawling toward birds and rarely calling them in. Simply, he possesses enough rollicking turkey stories for a 1,000 campfires or tailgates.
Yet, despite Ellis’ turkey-based surge out of the viral gate as Yawt Yawt on Facebook and YouTube, he recognized a mathematical limitation: Turkey season lasts 41 days in Mississippi. Even stretched to include surrounding states, spring season covers roughly 60 days across state lines. “How could I keep finding material for social media momentum? I couldn’t afford to travel to make videos,” Ellis says. “Why not trapping?”
With 15 years of experience trapping a wide variety of game, Ellis suspected the public’s wild pig appetite was unsated, i.e., plenty of meat remained on the hog bone.
He began posting wild pig trapping videos in September 2017 and the audience engagement broke the internet and filled his message box with pleas from insatiable followers: GOT ANYMORE HOGS?
The beast hooked Yawt Yawt.
“I realized the future,” he says. “Why? Because nobody else was doing it like me on the platforms. Sure, there were videos from all kinda states where guys were catching or hunting wild pigs, but I humbly say nobody had ever seen it done the Yawt Yawt way.”
Currently, Ellis lifts the veil higher on wild pigs than any predecessor by taking viewers to a hot zone of infestation. “I show just how wild things are and how bad these pigs are getting. People are naturally curious and fascinated by a crazy wild pig world hiding in the dark.”
“People get freaked out when they realize an animal as big and dangerous as a wild pig is capable of surviving and hiding in plain sight in major, major numbers—right outside their front doors, but at the same time, they want to see big monsters,” he continues.
“I give them a front-row seat to an animal that tears up land like no other and is a survivor that’ll outlast the apocalypse. Kill one, and two more appear, because maybe they reincarnate.”
Unleash Hell
On countless boyhood hunting trips, Ellis never encountered wild pigs or signs of hog presence in the 1980s and early 1990s. Yet, a wild pig blanket was sweeping Mississippi by Ellis’ teen years. In 1999, he spotted a sounder of 37 hogs, and soon after killed his first specimen—a massive boar. “I shot it with a bow and his size was incredible. I’m talking so big that I cut his head off to take it out, because I didn’t have a four-wheeler to haul him. I was used to man-hauling deer, but he was too big to drag. I should have quartered him, but at the time, I was just blown away by his monster size.”
“At first, I was young and thought having a new animal to hunt was awesome. I started hunting wild pigs with friends and hog dogs, and we had some box traps, but we didn’t know these hogs were going to take over. We didn’t know we were looking at an animal about to unleash hell on our land. Pigs don’t move like other animals. They push out; they steamroll.”
Wild pigs have exploded in numbers across the United States, possibly exceeding 6.5 million in roughly 40 states, and their proliferation involves an outrageously high birth rate, extreme intelligence, and physical prowess. Wild pig control is one of the greatest challenges in U.S. wildlife management history.
Generally, wildlife biologists place the wild pig control bar at roughly 66% to 75%. In theory, if a given area has a wild pig population of 100,000, then 66,000 to 75,000 must be killed each year—just to keep the population at a floor of 100,000. Once a population is established, sustained wild pig control is a monumental task.
Sows produce two litters per year—six young on average, but litters can be as large as 12 piglets. Although rare, sows are biologically capable of conception as early as four months and boars are sexually mature at five months.
Breeding rate and intelligence are enough to make wild pigs a grand survivor, but dietary superpowers elevate the species to an opportunistic masterclass. The latitude in a wild pig’s ability to obtain food is remarkable, from foraging roots in the woods, to feasting in pecan orchards, to hitting freshly planted rows of corn and precision-rooting seed every 6” for 100 yards, to consuming the remains of dead mammals or functioning as a predator.
All things considered, farmland and hunting ground is a wild pig grocery store surrounded by trees. Crop fields, pasture, timber, ponds, bottoms, and irrigation sources provide food, water and cover. From a wild pig’s survivalist perspective: Why leave?
Answer: Yawt Yawt.
Waiting for the Reaper
In 2017, Ellis didn’t own a wild pig trap. Only five years later, he is the most high-profile hog trapper in the hunting industry. He deploys several traps, but primarily uses a Big Pig Trap and HogEye Camera.
A live-footage system, the HogEye provides a remote viewer with an instant release-option on the drop trap. As pigs feed and huddle in live-action, a single button drops the trap in real-time, allowing an operator to know exactly how many pigs are trapped in the moment.
From his home in Mathiston, Miss., Ellis mainly traps in Clay, Oktibbeha, and Webster counties, essentially a one-hour radius. When working a hunting club or farm, he targets a complete sounder—the entire herd. However, the task is filled with nuance, especially when dealing with multiple sounders within the same vicinity.
“Bait-and-wait does not work if you want to catch big numbers,” Ellis says. “To catch close to 100%, pre-bait for about five days. Feed them every night with plenty of corn and don’t let them go hungry. The pigs will get so satisfied, they’ll eventually lay down. They’ll get to the point where they lay on the corn, mouths moving sideways, eating grain at leisure.”
As the general trapping area becomes saturated by the smell of corn and hog presence—bigger crowds arrive. Whether 9 p.m., midnight, or deeper in the night, Ellis obsessively checks the camera feed. Television doesn’t hold his attention—but hogs do. “I can’t describe how much I’ve learned from watching the camera for five years straight. Sometimes I’ll get up at 3 a.m., tune in to the camera, and learn, watch, and wait. I want to know who is the bully setting the tone and which group to wait on.”
“Sometimes there’s more going on than one sounder—maybe multiple sounders. If the particular sounders won’t come together, I have to learn that fast. Let’s say one sounder comes in at 10 p.m. and the other comes in at 2 a.m. every day. I always let the first sounder eat and leave peacefully. Eventually, I’ll catch the 2 a.m. group first, reset the trap, and catch the 9 p.m. sounder that night. My most is seven drops in a chain—50 hogs.”
“Scouting is crucial. It’s hard to get 20 hogs in a round trap because as the pigs come in, other pigs root them out. Sometimes I have to make a choice—push the button and catch 18, and try to shoot the other two. Then again, there are some nights when they huddle like a football team and I’ll catch every single one.”
Once the trap drops, the pigs have a tiny window—several hours—of potential escape over the top. Before sun rises, the reaper will arrive. Enter Yawt Yawt.
20 Million
Pulling a trailer via truck or side-by-side just before daylight, Ellis’s infectious zeal is impossible to hide as he rumbles toward his trap wearing a wide smile, decked in standard hog-trapping attire: t-shirt, blue jeans, Yawt Yawt ball cap, LITE boots, pocketknife, and .22 rifle. (He keeps a .22 mag rifle in the truck for any wild pig getaways, stragglers, or chance encounters.)
Late arrival to the trapping site risks pig parkour. “When hogs can see land on the other side of the trap, things can get wild. Hogs don’t jump—except when they need to. The whole life of a wild hog has been to seek shelter at daylight, and they’ll start jumping for the top of the trap. The big ones can sure get out, even at a height of 7’. They get those front legs over the top, scramble up, roll out, and they’re gone.”
Every trapping effort brings a unique haul, from 350 lb. boars to tiny piglets. Ellis stops recording during shooting to keep down the gore level and placate the lords of social media. After killing the hogs, lifting the trap, and loading the carcasses, Ellis’s accompanying Yawt Yawt videos are gobbled by 450,000 Facebook followers and 120,000 YouTube subscribers. The viewer comments on typical videos break all demographic barriers and reveal a crosspollinated audience of blue and white collar, male and female, old and young, domestic and foreign, and farm and city.
And what of the meat? Ellis distributes the fare to his community. “I give away about 85% to anyone in need. Sometimes people criticize that and talk about diseased meat, but that is not the case. Those same people knocking me for giving away a hog don’t seem to have any trouble with a veteran eating out of a dumpster.”
It’s not unusual for Ellis to receive provision requests and he goes the extra mile to respond. In late fall, out of season for trapping when pigs are sated with acorns and unwilling to congregate around corn in big numbers, Ellis runs low on wild pig meat. “One time my phone rang with someone needing meet for a family in trouble. I had no wild pork to give, so I went to the store, bought $273 in meat, and delivered it. I didn’t know anything about the family, but they had little kids, and whatever they were going through couldn’t be blamed on the children.”
Beyond wild pigs, turkey, and trapping, Ellis uses the Yawt Yawt platform as a ministry, and he runs a madhouse schedule filled with speaking events at outdoor shows and churches, hunts across the country, social media presence, and most pressing—family priorities.
All told, he estimates his reach nears 20 million people per month. “God has given me an opportunity I won’t waste to let 20 million people hear the name of Jesus in some way every time I make a video or speak. Whether it’s job loss, divorce, or being broke that people are going through, I’ve been right there and lower. I’m just a guy who tells where he’s been, where he’s at now, and where he’s going, and how God has helped me.”
Caught by the Yawt
Mississippi is home to approximately 500,000 wild pigs—extreme job security for Ellis. Even with toxic baits on the horizon, he puts little faith in potential population checks. “In the future, I don’t see anything slowing down these hogs. I hear about new baits, but we’ve been baiting rats forever and never slowed them down.”
“I didn’t grow up with this animal, but I admit I have developed a deep respect for a creature with such a will to live. When this world comes to the end of times, the hogs will still be here.”
An American original with few peers, Ellis churns out in-the-vein entertainment in pursuit of an extraordinary mammal, yet his lust for life trumps the captivating footage. Again, tune in for the pigs, stay for the Yawt Yawt.
“The Lord has blessed me and I get to do something I love that is worthwhile. It’s a great feeling to know I helped a landowner,” he says. “These hogs just keep coming and I’ll be waiting.”
Indeed. Caught by the Yawt.
To read more stories from Chris Bennett (cbennett@farmjournal.com 662-592-1106) see:
Young Farmer uses YouTube and Video Games to Buy $1.8M Land
Cottonmouth Farmer: The Insane Tale of a Buck-Wild Scheme to Corner the Snake Venom Market
Tractorcade: How an Epic Convoy and Legendary Farmer Army Shook Washington, D.C.
Bagging the Tomato King: The Insane Hunt for Agriculture’s Wildest Con Man
While America Slept, China Stole the Farm
Bizarre Mystery of Mummified Coon Dog Solved After 40 Years
The Arrowhead whisperer: Stunning Indian Artifact Collection Found on Farmland
Where’s the Beef: Con Artist Turns Texas Cattle Industry Into $100M Playground
Fleecing the Farm: How a Fake Crop Fueled a Bizarre $25 Million Ag Scam
Skeleton In the Walls: Mysterious Arkansas Farmhouse Hides Civil War History
US Farming Loses the King of Combines
Ghost in the House: A Forgotten American Farming Tragedy
Rat Hunting with the Dogs of War, Farming’s Greatest Show on Legs
Evil Grain: The Wild Tale of History’s Biggest Crop Insurance Scam
