This is nice read for any Texas hog hunter.
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It was 2 million before 2005, LOL.

Are there is free places to hunt hogs in Texas?

I find it hillarious that they keep mentioning the number of feral hogs in Texas or any other state for that matter. THERE IS NO WAY TO KNOW! the TPWD doesn't do hog surveys. I know I help do the surveys. Two; even if they did, they still wouldn't have a clue. There is no way possible to do a realistic survey. Safe to say we have more than our fair share over most of the state.

To answer the question about free hutning.
Yes there is LBJ and caddo public land. Also corp. land available to the public. Might not hurt to do some door knocking or leave a free hog removal sign at the local feed stores.

Hunt the Corps of Engineers lands - the pigs are there but not easy. If you really want to hunt this will require scouting and patience. I was amazed at how many hogs are at Lake Lavon just 10 miles from my house until I started scouting there. Folks with a huge hog problem usually hire a professional outfit with dogs or traps to get rid of the dogs. Not alot of folks want hunters they do not know the property with guns and or bait.

Right, I have gone back and tracked the reported hog population estimates since the mid 90s as reported by "experts" (usually TPWD and/or TAMU folks) and later count-based estimates of the early 2000s and then looked at the various projections for population growth. There is no correlation between the claimed numbers of a few years ago and the projected population growth rates. We would almost appear to be stagnated with approximately 2-3 million hogs despite claimed growth rates that would put the population at closer to 9 or more million hogs.

It would appear that not only are the counts bogus, but so too are the ways in which they derive growth rates which are based, apparently on things like the number of hogs reportedly killed on public lands, hogs reported to slaughter houses, litter sizes, etc. The problem there is that you can't really base the population's growth on the growing number of kills as that assumes a direct correlation between the number of kills being made with the number of hogs being present and that cannot work anymore than you could estimate population growth in the US of people based on firearms deaths. For it to work, you would have to first establish certain "knowns" in the formula first and we don't have those knowns.

I think the problem with projections: is that they were basing it in the beginning with sows having 3 litters a year which is impossible. At best they have two litters a year.I saw one that said 5 litters every two years.

My hogs living under ideal conditions would have basically 3 litters in 2 years some 4 litters in 2 years. Some would only have 1 litter a year in the same month each year.

Second they would base litter sizes on domestic hogs and on number of piglets seen with sows in the wild. Problem is When a sow dies in a family group or Sounder the other sows will allow her pigs to stay with them and in some cases let them nurse. This gives the appearance of 10-12 piglets per litter. I've seen as many as 16 with one sow four different sizes.We killed her and all but 2 of the pigs are still there in the same group{we will eliminate them soon, just wanted to see how many would survive}. The most common numbers I've seen are 3-5 pigs per litter. One of my sows had 7 once. I think that is the largest litter I've had.

That would also severely over estimate pop growth.