Hello THF brethren, I have been not too seriously looking at land to buy for the last year or so and have been bitten by the hog hunting bug, especially with thermal. My questions are these.....

What areas or counties have y'all found within 2 hours of DFW to consistently have the highest hog populations?

Does it matter what the terrain is like in consistently holding hogs? Wooded, pasture, combination? Is water necessary, ponds or creeks?

I have places to deer hunt, but ideally I would like to look in an area where I can consistently kill pigs and varmints as well.

Any advice or insight is greatly appreciated.

Im pretty sure if you look hard enough you can find the pesky devils in every county. Heck I was 30 miles from New Mexico in October and saw pig tracks. I think they have taken over like the illegals. Hunting pressure, good water sources, grazing fields and acorn bottoms, good bedding areas all come into play, but hunting pressure is a real kicker when it comes to hogs. Ive actually put small amounts of pressure on groups of hogs and they moved onto the next property. They travel like jypsy's raping and pillaging along the way. Good luck. Think heavy cover and water. maybe that will work. Low areas too.

The county does not matter. Habitat does.

What type of habitats should I be looking for?

Thanks, btw, love your hog videos!

Man if you truly want to hunt hogs on a regular basis, build a giant hog pen. Im not into the high fence scene, but a low fence for hogs is cool, because after all theyre just hogs. Ive seen it done with 5 ft goat wire on a 40 acre property. You will have to feed them, because they will devour your pens forage. You will get all the hog action you desire and then some. You can do this to a portion of your property and keep them out of the rest of your property with traps. You can actually make a catch pen connecting to your hunting pen and just open the gate to let them in. Eventually you may get sick of hogs, trust me. I hunt them free range and will never see the end of them. Glad I don't have to feed them.

Look around Bonham and make sure a creek is nearby. I hunt up there and its endless hogs. Best part is its only 45 minutes from Plano!

Habitat? If you are hunting a big enough place, then you likely have everything you need. If a small place, use Google Earth to see if they have things like water for hogs if your place doesn't, but I would not want a place that is without water.

You need food, water, and shelter. Food can be in the form of feeders, crops, natural goodies (pecans, oaks, grapes, persimmons, wild onions, etc.). Water is for drinking, cooling off, and mud baths. Shelter is mostly in the form of trees.

A totally forested area can be harder to hunt because of the lack of open viewing area to see hogs.

Bottomland always seems to be a sweet spot for hogs. It usually has everything you need. It can be nasty to hunt, but hogs love it.

A place with cattle on the property can keep down the vegetation and make hunting somewhat easier, but also be problematic in that they are curious about everything, can turn over feeders, ruin tree stands, and get in the way of shooting, but they also often make the hogs feel very comfortable and even live amongst the cattle like they are part of the herd.

I have seen this activity The hogs hang out with the cattle. Then your in a situation. You don't want to shoot around the cows, but if you do get a good shot off, the next shots will involve multiple animals running in all directions. I hate cows. Ive tried to make a few sneaks on the hogs that are hanging with the cows and the crazy a s cows haul butt. The hogs don't know what is going on ,but they run too. I have dropped some hogs that were right in the middle of a cow herd. I can play smart a s too. I want the hog to know that it isn't safe anywhere when Im around.

We've always had good luck w hogs in cattle. The hogs feel secure and the cattle help hide your noise and smell.

Watchen them thar hog hunten videos with NV & Thermal is addicting go do a solo hunt at OSBWMA its got every thing for holding hogs... Limited pressure, no night hunting, low bottom land, downed trees, leaves mud wallows were roots wete pulled up, & hogs lay on oposet side in shade, & unnder the limbs... Switchcain, palmedo plants tall grass, Boundry for N & S is river.. Bottom land, have ta walk ta get ta good places, unless river up, take boat... Even an amiture like me can find hogs, & dont have ta worry bout livestalk, do have ta wear orange witch makes it tougher, they see solid color moving, but its for your protection... i keep my shots close range.... Some good tips... Its like trapping hogs larger the trap the better... At house here got small area that set up for laser-tag hog hunt, cornfeeder on both sides of tree stand with creek, & small food plot with cellular lights... If i want a hog, OSBWMA were can hunt, instead of waiting... Best wishes..

Granted, when there are cattle in the vicinity you have to be extra careful about where you're shooting, but my experience has been that, at worst, the cows will trot away once the shooting starts. Generally they don't go far nor fast, and more often than not they just raise their heads and look around to see what's happening. Cows are not dumb, but they typically don't startle easily.

I agree ... the terrain is nothing to write home about,,,

also anything close to the red river

Another tv western myth put to rest... Cows don't stampeed at sound of gun fire..

The cows I sometimes hunt around don't get a lot of old man attention, so when they do see a human that is violating their 200 yrd space they run like hell. One time this cow and her calf was walking about 100yrds in front of me. I was hunting in a ground blind for deer and she couldn't see me, but when she caught my wind she looked right at my ground blind and started burnin up the grass all the way to the woods. When she hit the woods the tree limbs sounded like a 22 mag going off when she plowed through them. She was a stray and the rancher had several failed attempts at catching her. Yall haven't seen these kind apparently.

Ive had cows do everything while hunting hogs, they run away, run straight at the hogs, just sit there and look at you while you pop the hogs, I even had one heard that would put themselves in between myself and the hogs after watching me shoot some hogs one night Had to move that heard off. Cows will also help you locate downed hogs in high grass they seem to like to go look at the dead hogs. Pigs like to flip over the cow pies and eat the stuff underneath.

Maybe they like to get stoned on the Psilocybin shrooms?

leases i've been on didnt have livestock, so never done night hunts around livestocks.. Whin their was cattle here, hunted pastures that were closed ta livestock, rotate livestock, tis why we leased... Worked some crazy cattle... Ever see what locoweed does ta horse?

On more than ten occasions Ive been walking through a huge pasture, lets say 50 acres, and intentionally walking way way around a cow herd. What do they do, they are 200 to 300 yards away and feel the need to do the cow run. This consist of running all the way across the pasture in attempt to just run in front of me and across my path to go to the other side of the pasture. Ive narrowed this down to stupid cows thinking that some how Im going to try to trap them in the huge portion the pasture they were saftley in. Oh ya that stray cow that had that calf and ruined my hunt, well I had been scouting that ridge for some time and finally moved in to set up a make shift brush blind. I had spotted a huge buck working that ridge in the evenings from a distance. Never saw a deer that day but a month later a guy killed the deer in the next pasture. It scored 189 and was missing a point. Thanks cows.

LOL, cows don't like you and enjoy messing with you.

Fixed it for ya