Wanted to share this as alot of hunters are likely unaware of the opportunities an hour and a half drive from Houston. Sam Houston National Forest has a feral pig/ hog season that runs Feb. 1 thru Mar. 30. The public lands hunting permit is required at $48-. Whacked about a 90 pounder yesterday eve and saw aproximately 8 or 9 in the group. Would post a picture but only have it on cell phone and don't know how to transfer from phone to computer. This was my third time out for this season and other two showed tremendous activity and daily fresh signs. Baiting is not allowed but there are still plenty acorns on the ground as the pigs/hogs that I saw were very healthy and chunky. The forest has less traffic this time of year and makes for a very easy hunt. Will be going out most every day this week and will post reports for anyone interested. Good hunting, Rodney.

Is the season only for archery or is rifle included?

I wish that there was some good public land on my side of the state!

Any legal means are the rules so I thought this would be a good time to make some reloadable brass out of the .375 H&H remington green box I have laying around. East Texas most likely has a greater population of pigs/hogs than whitetail deer, seems I read somewhere Harris county has an estimated population of over 40,000 of these tasty but destructive critters. I'm hunting an area of the forest in Walker county that also has a very dense population. Rodney.

Had another wonderful afternoon/ evening of hunting. Went to the same area where I whacked the little 90 pounder and did another 1/2 mile further of walk-spot-stalk, lots of exercise but no pork tonight. The forestry service has been doing alot of controlled burns lately which I believe has made for better conditions of the hunt. Alot of the fires seem more like a flash burn leaving acorns on the ground from last fall. With the burned areas it has made it alot easier to sneak around for walk and stalk style of hunting. Upon scouting there are also many areas undisturbed by the fires that have fresh greenery and I believe I even saw some honeysuckle starting to grow which pigs/ hogs love. One of the things you do have to deal with is when you get one- as you have to carry or drag it out. No 4- wheelers or motorized equipment in the national forest. So I dragged mine out... about two miles. If I bag one much bigger I'll just quarter it up and back pack it out, multiple trips if needed. More to come. Rodney.

Excellent, Rodney! Keep it up! Start taking some pictures!

Took this afternoon off to relieve a little pressure off of the area. My nephew and a friend of his have expressed great interest in going with me this weekend, so we will turn up the heat on the porkers. Since there will be three of us on this hunt I'm thinking of a drive, I'll do this different in that I will position the kids in a fixed position stratigically apart and i'll do a one man drive to push the hogs to them. Hopefully with success! Since there will be more than just me I'll try to include a camera. Good hunting everyone! Rodney.

Good luck this weekend, Rodney! Looking forward to the hunt report!

Here is a picture of the little sow I took out of the forest last Tuesday. About 90 lbs and sure felt every bit of it getting it out of the creek bottom and to the jeep! A hunting report from the weekend will follow soon, Rodney.

Excellent!! Should be good eatin'!

Very tasty for sure! No pork from the weekend hunt, but not without good scouting results. The best results on public land hunting in Texas means getting as far out as possible- meaning great effort. Most or all of the sign I see for hogs and deer are some distance from any motorized vehicles or at least more than most people are willing to apply for any success. So that leaves me and very few others dedicated {hungry} hunters willing to do the scouting and packing out as needed. Friday afternoon was a short hunt as we didn't get out there untill 4 pm and is dark about 6:40pm. That evening we double-timed it the first mile and walked- very carefully and searched for about another mile before it was too dark to hunt. That night it was decided we wouldn't head out till mid morning Saturday {as everyone was very tired}. About 11:30 am we make it to the hunting area and decide to work another creek bottom parallel to Fridays hunt. This drainage area i'm very impressed with as there is alot of sign such as wallers in and along the creek and fresh mud on the trees. At this point Trey wants to take a vantage point in this area and stay untill dark. Jimmy {my nephew} and I work are way down stream about 400 yards where I take a stand overlooking an active trail and creek bottom. Jimmy decides to move down further hoping to increase his chances as everyone is excited from the signs. By this time it's close to 3pm and this is premium time in the woods. At 4:58pm I here in the distance mutiple shots fired maybe 3 or 4. So I sit and wait another 30 minutes or so and decide I should work my way to where I think Jimmy is at in case he has his hands full with pork as we didn't have any radios or other communications. After a few hundred yards I see him {hunter/blaze orange} and we work toward each other. Upon meeting we question each other about the shots we heard and Jimmy tells me he was much closer in that he could hear someone yell "i got one". Very quickly after that he tells me about a half dozen or so hogs race by him without noticing him. So I ask him wheres his? I've got to respect him for his answer in that he didn't want to take a running shot being a split second event and he was unsure of everyones where-abouts in the woods-. We decide to take a stand while he works a pig/hog call of some sort that is to resemble a young pig in distress calling for mama hog- with no success. Darkness falls upon us and we work are way up the bottom to Treys location and then head back to the jeep. I considered the hunt very successful although no pork I found a very nice whitetail shed and the guys {can't really call them kids} were so impressed with the area they asked me when I could get them back out the next. Sunday morning everyone was too tired to go out so Jimmy and Trey fished in the lake on the homestead and caught 10 largemouth bass up to about 2 1/2 pounds. It was a great weekend. Took monday off from hunting as I believe the hogs are into a cycle of activity on the weekends and none during the week so my plan is to go out Tuesday and wednesday afternoon on my own and try to put some in the freezer! What fun. Better go before I talk or type your ear off. Rodney.