All of my hog hunting buddies and I are having a tough time finding hogs up in the NE (Bowie, Lamar and Red River counties) now and it seems the population has been in decline for the past 2 years. I'm blaming a lot of it on a local guy who does lots of helicopter shooting as well as lots more hunters now having thermal.

Also the hogs I do find are now completely nocturnal (I probably don't see more than one group of hogs per month during daylight hours now) and MUCH more wary than they were a couple years ago.

Is anyone else seeing this trend?

Do you think the hogs will come back if the local guy were to cease helo hunting?

Hunting pressure certainly has an effect. Hogs are pretty dang smart. Weather and food can cause them to migrate as well. I'm assuming the helo guy is a commercial operator and is in the air a lot. I don't know if the hunters with thermals would have any major influence. Hogs reproduce so fast.

There's been a major decline in my area the last 3 years.

I think your summation of why is correct.

I saw the helicopter 2019 and 2020 winters. No one ever called asking for permission on my land. I would have given it to them. But maybe only 70 acres wasn't worth the phone call.

Well, we are not helicopter hunting in my area, so that is a non-issue, but we are missing hogs, particularly on properties we hunt extensively.

Same boat here. I have killed probably 100 pigs since I started there 6 years ago. I think the pressure is on and they know it.

No shortage here. The bacon bits even clean up under my bird feeder.

Couple cold February's.

But, more likely last summer's drought got a bunch of em. At least that's one theory.

Not only that, but it kept the sows from reproducing. They tend to not get pregnant when when prolonged nutritional stress kicks in and with the drought we saw the fat stores on hogs go down to next to nothing in many cases. When under such stress, females tend not to ovulate and hence cannot get pregnant. Boars will tend to have significantly reduced sperm counts as well, and so their chances for successful mating also drop even if they have a viable female.

So not only would some hogs not survived the drought, but of those that did, far fewer will reproducing successfully and so there were 1-2 generations that were far smaller than they would have been under normal circumstances.

No doubt, there were parts of the state where the hogs did just fine, despite the drought, such as along permanent waterways/source and where farmers irrigated fields and provided the hogs with plenty of calories. Some areas of the state were not impacted nearly as hard as other areas.

So now seems like a good time to keep the hammer down on them! As 45 has said, when you see a competitor drowning, stick a garden hose in their mouth and turn it on.

^^^^this! I have seen a decline in the last year, but we've still got plenty left that need killing.

We are seeing the same, my pig numbers are way down

-historic winter a few years ago
-last years historic summer
-the drought and all our surrounding wheat fields look as bad as they ever have
-the thermal game is probably more popular than ever

Those are my best guesses

In January 2023, we probably got 15 and had to work really hard, February maybe 5, then I went last month one night and didn’t see a single pig. And the place I hunt I used to see 50-75 EVERY TIME I went.

No, which means you are exactly right as it relates to your unique situation. Your ranch hasn't been as impacted by the drought in any way like our Briscoe County lease has. I do know the big freeze a few years back dealt a blow as shown by the pile of dead cattle your neighbor gathered immediately afterwards but there have been plenty of breeding seasons and litters to recover from that. Our range conditions are awful, but there is still plenty of water for drinking, but no rainfall for natural browse. Our hog population is constant if not on the rise. We put very little hunting pressure on our place, no thermal or helicopter hunting anywhere near us and we have plenty of hogs to hunt. Currently I'm seeing the normal number of litters. Our hogs are just as adaptive as yours. Ours have found a way to make it on very little food during the tough times. We have one feeder for hogs on 16k acres and when it's running for hunting we murder them there, only killing large, lone boars. Hogs in your area have adapted to the helo and thermal hunting by leaving your area, staying in cover or holding their position when they hear the Mule or get a scent.

How has your deer population been during the last two years? Judging by your pic's of the bucks you killed, it doesn't look like rack development has suffered at all. If your deer population and their habits are unchanged during this time of hog decline, your onto something solid in your belief that it's related to the hunting pressure from helo and thermal hunting.

The helo in your area really has to cover a lot of territory to hunt it. True he owns ALOT of acerage, but it's not all contiguous for hunting, creating a lot of pressure flying from pasture to pasture. I base these two statements on my reasonable assumption that I know who responsible for the air traffic and the lead hitting the ground.

I don't think it has anything to do with habitat since our deer, turkey and coon populations are all doing VERY well. However I'm sure we lost hogs during the brutal BIG FREEZE a couple years ago.

Our helicopter guy flies all 3 counties where I have hunting buds and also up into OK (where he crashed once) so he covers a LOT of ground. About 4 weeks ago they flew my perimeter two days in a row for 6hrs a day!!! So this is what I'm primarily blaming our local reduced #s on.

Hmmm...........solution?

Our rancher uses a helo twice per year to gather cattle. No one shooting hogs from the air but you can still count on not seeing hogs for a couple of days after this. Helo activity like you have sounds like a real issue.

Don't know the reason but hog sign is way down around Navarro Mills lake. I did see a big one disable a small car when hit and killed. Car on one side of the road and the hog on the other.

Lots of rain lately here has grass and weeds tall and thick so I'm not seeing them.
Still seeing a few acorns laying around too although they are getting pretty thin but the pigs seem to be keeping to the creek bottoms and low lands.
My property is mostly open with some small brush and about a mile long and 1/2 mile wide with deep woods on two of the long sides and one short side follows Walnut Creek most of the way around.
There are 3 major travel trails across my place and there are lots of deer, pig and a few coyote tracks on the trail but they only seem to be passing thru right now.
As summer and dry weather sets in, they will spread out again.

My neighbor has the sounders, and I don’t know why they don’t visit my feeders. But, I do have this fellow that has finally started showing up at a reasonable hour. Only problem is that I’m not there right now.

Hogs down on our ranch too since the big freeze. I wouldn’t say the numbers are “low” but definitely less. We’ve hunted them hard and have taken out between 30-50 each year the last couple years.

Still see a few sounders down in the creek which normally has running water except for this last year. There is still plenty of water in all the tanks though. Upland hogs are fewer and farther between.

I thought it was just me...I haven't seen a hog on my place for several months, although still see sign occasionally...just not to the levels of the past. More good news...my turkey population is the best it has been in the 8+ years we've owned the property.

Same at our little place, hogs are gone which is crazy because the last 15 plus years it's been overrun with lots of them.

The fewer hogs you have, the greater number of turkey eggs that will hatch!!

We have way more hogs and less turkeys this year thanlast

Nowadays, if I see many hogs, they are on any property that isn't one I hunt. The hogs seem to know where the pressure is and isn't. So they hang out where they are safe, on sanctuary properties. These hogs are adjacent to 2 properties I hunt, but the landowner isn't a big hunter and doesn't allow people to hunt or trap his property. My landowners report seeing hogs in this pasture just about any time of the day.

DNS: That must mean the non-hunting landowner has a very high tolerance for hog damage. Hard to figure.