I'm in eastern Red River county and since Sept the hog hunting has sucked big time. I blame most of it on the banner crop of acorns we had, but by now I would expect most of them to be gone or rotten and I'm still not seeing many hogs. The local feed store owner in Clarksville tells me people are reporting seeing lots of hogs up by the Red River, but few elsewhere.

Does anyone have any idea what's going on?

On the Red River (Prarie Dog Town Fork) in the panhandle our numbers haven't declined at all. Our hunting pressure is very low compared to your area. Are your sightings down across the board, daylight and dark? If yes would you agree that it may be that hunting pressure has finally caught up for your area and they've migrated away?

As kry226 mentioned, we're probably still dealing with the huge population drop due to the "big freeze".

I have never heard of someone wanting “more” hogs, what’s the world coming to.

When your in the firearms and bullet business there is no better testing than actually killing game and hogs are perfect for that.

When your in the firearms and bullet business there is no better testing than actually killing game and hogs are perfect for that.

No land owner in his or her right mind wants a single wild pig on their property.

They are a scourge on the landscape. Fun to kill, yes, but I wish they were back where they came from, and it ain't the U.S.

True Story from when I was on the Red River County lease, on the Sulphur River. I had shot A LOT of hogs in a short period of time, like 35-40 from the same two stands that were in the same area and while spot and stalking. I hadn't seen one in a couple of weeks, like they just all went some where else........

I commented to one of my hunting partners that I wasn't seeing any hogs, and couldn't figure out why. This guy had the heaviest East Texas accent you had ever heard, kinda like the old guy that always wore overalls and no shirt from The Water Boy. He asked me, "What would you do if eva time you went out der one of yo frinds got his blooowed off?..............I'd stop going there........to which he says, "Well alright then".

I do recall the freeze, our rancher stacked up cattle like cord wood just next door to you. With all the breeding cycles since then I would think the #'s would be back with normal to light hunting pressure.

I'd buy the too much pressure theory if it wasn't for the fact we are actually putting less pressure on them than back in 2018/2019 and I've talked to numerous land owners in Bowie, Lamar and Red River counties that don't really hunt much but they say the hog population is way down?

i'm not on a big piece of property and the landowner told me in April of 2021 he had never seen a hog on his place. I had one on camera in July after I started a corn feeder. They come and go without much of a pattern. I've killed one at a pig pipe I set up last spring. They were coming every morning to a tank we had in September but the morning I was there they no-showed. After that I had one set of pictures in late September until this...

You may be putting less pressure on them, but in 2018 and 2019, there were a LOT less people with thermal and night vision gear that were out and hunting 5 and 6 years ago. Overall, the pressure on hogs has increased. There are less places for them to go where there isn't somebody with thermal or night vision.

Used to be that if you told folks that you hunted with thermal, they were hugely impressed. Nowadays, you tell a landowner that you use thermal and you get something back like, "My nephew has an ATN..."

DNS, Yes I'm sure thermal is making an impact, but like I posted on the forum elsewhere I think overall the #s being down is due to other factors too.

Super cold winter a few years back
Extremely dry summers
Helicopter shooting
Thermal night hunting
The hogs are adapting and getting smarter

But what I don't understand is unless it's the acorns why we went from seeing quite a few hogs back in the summer to seeing very few now???