Do hogs pattern your feeder?

I had a sounder intermittently hitting my feeder. I caught them there and killed four of the seven. The other three waited 8 days to come back and have only been back twice, both at odd times. The first time they stayed five minutes, the second time they stayed thirteen. Why aren't they hitting the feeder more often and did they really learn not to stay very long? They don't come running when it goes off (but the deer sure do).

Do you have more acorns on the ground now then before? They might not hit the feeder as frequent for many reasons. I doubt they learned to hit and run at your feeder. They may be more cautious at the approach and during the feed but if food is short, mine will stay until it's gone. Of course I'm in E TX and a sounder of 7 is small so it doesn't take as long. Hogs aren't like deer, they may come everyday at x time for x days straight then not come back for a week, or ever. It has been my experience that if you feed, they will come. What time and what days is up to them.

Thank you, Gary! I appreciate the response. They're a weird lot for sure. The first few times the whole sounder came to the feeder they would stay as long as there was corn. Two hours, one time! They were only coming about every five to eight days even then, and they only once came right after it went off. The odd thing is there's only one water source in that pasture and they never go to it. There is one possible spot they can get to the neighbor's place. I need to go check that hole. Acorns are definitely helping them out.

There is always a chance that your neighbors are shooting at them also and disrupts their pattern

I. had a sounder that would hit several neighbors in a row along the road. I heard my closest one shooting about 8:30 one night and knew they were headed my way. Sure enough, about 20 minutes later here they came. Not all of them left though.

good for you

If there is anything I have learned about pigs, it is this. IME, pigs usually follow a pattern, and then suddenly change that pattern. They don't need to be shot at or harrassed to change that pattern either. Sometimes, you can shoot them and they still won't change their pattern. I don't know why they do it, but they do. The one thing that is consistent...if there is food there, they will eventually be back.

Nope. Just deer. Pigs come at efferent times.

I wish I had y’all’s pigs routine, these stinky turds will lay under the feeders waiting for them to go off and even if you skull shoot a half dozen of thr buddies thr right back the next day waiting for more. I’ve taken the approach of simply trying to run the feeders with very heavy throws on the outer edges of certain properties to try to keep them pulled into those spots and it works to an extent but we have very little hunting pressure around us so we’re a little different than most places and will be calling in reinforcements very soon to blast the crap out of them.

The only thing predictable about hogs is that they are not predictable on a reliable basis. I used to have cellular game cameras and if a hog showed up on Tuesday night, I would be there on Wednesday and shoot it, claiming I "patterned" the hog. A few good folks pointed out that you can't pattern based on a single data point and I argued that obviously I could, have done so repeatedly where I killed hogs, and it was just as good as folks that patterned hogs for 3 weeks or more. Sometimes, my hogs would not show up on day 2. You can find countless threads here where long term patterned hogs failed to show up for other hunters as well. The "patterning" only matters so long as both the hunter and the hogs show up at the same time. Failure to show on the part of either party results in the hunter not getting the hogs. So does it really matter if your hogs have a pattern if you aren't there to take advantage of it when they show up?

Do hogs pattern feeders? Sure. And then they don't. Why don't patterns continue? Well, the bigger question is why hunters seem to think that their feeder is the sole purpose of the hog's life. Hunters often seem to expect hogs to respond to a feeder like penned cattle respond to feeding time, only the hogs aren't penned. Usually what hunters understand about their "patterned" hogs is a few photos of a hog or hogs at a given location for a relatively short period of time each day. This sampling fails to take into account what the hog is doing and is influenced by for the rest of the 24 hours of a given day. Maybe your hogs stopped showing up because of acorns (noted above), hunting pressure on a property 2 miles away that was part of their route getting to your property, maybe your neighbor finally filled his feeders again, or the hogs go scared by road traffic before getting to your place, or maybe they found something along the way that was particularly yummy and simply got delayed by several hours. The bottom line is that hogs have a life elsewhere beyond the view of your game camera that just captures brief moments of the hog's life each day.

One of the hardest sounders I ever hunted used to hit my place about every 3 weeks (19-23 day cycles). I knew it was the same sounder because two of the hogs had very distinctive markings. It was a "pattern" and it was a pattern almost impossible to match as I could not hunt 4 or 5 nights straight. This went on for several months and I never got a shot before they stopped coming for a couple of months and then they restarted, only with a new pattern, coming a couple of times a week. I don't know what changed to cause their cycle to alter so much, but obviously they were being influenced by factors outside of my property because I had the same dusk and dawn feeding cycle that didn't change. Eventually, I was able to shoot a few of them, but it was mostly by sheer persistence.

Hogs that have been showing up regularly BUT then not on the same day/night the hunter is present...is often the result of that person having been 'busted'.

1. Hogs heard or saw the person entering the property/hunting site. Many folks do not pay attention to all the noise they make (vehicle, 4 wheeler, talking, opening gates, etc). Some hogs don't care....some do.

2. Hogs smelled the person before exposing themselves and slipped away unnoticed. Hogs came (on pattern) but left and the hunter never knew it.


I've had hogs on multiple occasions circle my bait sites 'scent checking' before moving in. Had I not heard or seen them...I would have surmised they simply didn't show up that day. Many things are possible when hunting hogs.

You do your best and hope for the best. Hogs that KNOW they are being hunted can be pretty stealthy.

Absolutely, a person getting busted can upset the pattern, just like all of the other influences. We have a "ghost hog" at my place right now that appears to be very security conscious. He has been heard more than once (hog sounds) and seen very briefly. The difference for him is that we know he is there, but he doesn't present a shot.

With that said, I have also had hogs that showed up regularly on camera many days in a row that stopped coming and no hunter present, only to restart a few days later. I have had hogs change their arrival time by several hours (evening to morning arrival), so changing the pattern, no hunter present on property. I used to keep track of a lot of this when I initially got involved in seeing if hogs responded to solunar patterns or not. Based on game camera data at feeders, I learned there was zero correlation.

In the past, if I had "patterned" hogs showing up, I always tried to be in the stand at least two hours ahead of them arriving and 3 or 4 would be better. On numerous occasions, the opposite has also happened where I showed up and the hogs were already there, hours early, or the hogs appeared immediately after my arrival. I have elevated blinds (on tripod, one box) where I will scan the feeders before making my ascent, only to find that once I reached the top, a hog has magically appeared under the feeder, often a boar or sounder I had on camera that I wasn't expecting for hours.

I've had all of the above happen as well. And ditto on the Solunar tables/patterns. Simply not applicable to feral hogs IMO.

I've had hogs do seemingly stupid things (come running in, come in with the wind at their backs, etc). And I've had hogs I never killed because they were simply too cautious. I would see them circling out in the brush, scent checking. Even had several lone boars move back and forth just out of sight, literally 'growling' their displeasure. Letting me know...they knew I was there.

I've heard sounders coming through the woods from many hundreds of yards away, grunting, squealing, infighting, making so much noise you'd think it was a herd of buffalo coming. I've also had an entire group slip in so quietly that I never knew they were around until I spotted them. Having somehow moved silently through dry pine forest and leaves. It can be humbling at times. I've often had the thought that I am glad THEY weren't hunting ME.

I had forgot about "Mutt & Jeff'". Last year I had 2 larger boars come in every night between 10:00-10:15. It was like clockwork for 6-7 days. I finally had time to see if I could get them and sat on the porch waiting.

About 10:10 I heard them squealing and grunting running from my right pasture to the first feeder. They were LOUD! It was about 105 yards to the first feeder. They ran right past the first feeder, over the pond levee to the far feeder by my my drive. I walked down to the tripod and thought I picked the largest one and dropped him at the feeder. The second started running at me and I finally dropped him about 15-20 yards away. He was the largest. Both were over 250.

It was funny to hear them squealing and grunting.

Feed pens are very effective. Went from shooting hogs multiple hunts in a row to only seeing a hog for a few seconds a time or two a season. May not be perfect everywhere, but has really made a difference for use. We dont even see them on road corn etc.

I’ve seen less lately

1. I think more people loaded corn feeders and they are covering more feeders

2. acorns And other natural groceries

3. Now more gun shots