Anybody ever go looking for hogs in the Sam Houston National Forest? It’s the nearest public patch and I’d love any advice on where to start looking.

Or, generally- the pictures I’m trying to include are of a big finger of forest that appears to be shot through with marsh and waterways. Is that likely enough habitat to be worth exploring?

That's a section on here Public Hunting Several threads of Uncle Sam's forest...
Bigfoot hunts thar, he has several threads on it..
Have hunted several of the public land further North...
Only one or two (they were smaller acrage) didnt see hogs.
Did find sign of hogs..
Public land hunts can be hot spots for hog hunting
Do ta the limited, period of time hunting, vs the 24-7-365 hunting pressure on surrounding privet land...
PL no baiting on most, (few have some) no night hunts, some have coon hunts, (usedta), limited hunting...
Best wish's
Keep your head held high & your powder dry...
Used Topo USA ta do scouting @ home scanned maps, with gps quardanance for areas look promising, & gps
on land hadn't hunted, theirs some land with big acreage... tis a BLAST

Thanks kindly for the response! Some excellent points here!

I encourage every able bodied person to please go hunt public land hogs. I'm tired of running in to them.

Tell me where and I will do it

There are hogs in all of the areas of the SHNF. Your pic above has tons of hogs. Walk the creeks do some footwork. That is how you find hogs.

1. Hogs typically move and are active at dusk and dawn but not always. The deeper you get in the woods the more the day time sightings occur
2. find the freshest hog wallows and signs that you can and set up for an ambush
3. You have to pay your dues to be successful.

I suggest that if you are going after pigs only to wait until deer season is over. Too many people in the woods now which will move them around a lot and no reason to screw it up for the deer hunters. Typically I will start to hunt the sam at the end of January. I have never seen another hunter while I was hog hunting ever in February or March. The forest is just empty. Its like I have the hogs all to my self.

Typically I will go to my favorite area which is about 1.75 mile walk from the main road. I am a firm believer of the deeper you get the more animals hang out there. My area is along several creek intersections and plenty of hardwoods. The area holds hogs and deer. But if I go sit there one night and they dont show up then the next trip I will just walk a new creek. And that typically pays off. Ill find an area on the topo map that looks hoggy and go look for fresh wallows. Once I find them I stage up and wait and success is 50/50. Sometimes you see em sometimes you dont. It took me 2-3 years to actually see a hog when I first started but I started from scratch as a total beginner hunter. Nothing is guaranteed out there. Public land hunting is difficult and the amount of factors that you have to deal with are large.

My biggest advice to anyone hunting in the SHNF is to pay attention to what is above you. Limbs come down everywhere in that forest and make sure you are not staging up under a dead limb or dangerous situation. I was out there 5-6 years ago in an ice storm and it was downright scary. The whole place was falling down!!! I have seen giants limbs just crash for no reason in normal conditions.

Oh yeah dont forget about bigfoot. I have found 2 crazy [censored] tree structures in totally different areas. Sitting in my favorite spot one day in the middle of the day I heard a "WHOOOP"!!! It wasnt very far either. I thought it was people at first but people just dont make one whoop. People make noise and beat on trees and whoop over and over and a person would have a hard time making this type of noise. At the time I wasnt even thinking bigfoot until I read about 20 to 25 reports of sightings in this particular area a few weeks later and I spoke to a bigfoot researcher familiar with the area. Im not saying there is bigfoot out there all I m saying is I have no idea what made that WHOOP! It wasnt normal.

If the area you're trying to highlight is where I think it is, there's hogs in there. Pretty much there's hogs everywhere there's water and food in SHNF. Get away from the main roads and you won't encounter many deer hunters outside of opening weekends. If hogs are currently or have recently been in the area, you'll know it right away.

Y’all are an inspiration. I’m gonna do it!