Wild hogs aren’t having any trouble getting water in his neck of the woods, and the acorn crop was good. Roth said, “We expect to take around 200 of the critters this season, which is about normal for us.”

TEJON RANCH, KERN COUNTY
Surprisingly, Kern County in Southern California has the second-highest wild pig harvest.

And that’s mainly due to a variety of hog hunting programs on the sprawling Tejon Ranch, which covers an astounding 270,000 acres. The Tejon produces between 700 and 1,000 hogs annually.

Don Geivet, wildlife manager for the Tejon, had these observations about pig hunting on the ranch, which generally starts in December and goes through June:

“Our take during the 2006-07 time period was down slightly from the year before, but we expect to take more this coming season.

“There were plenty of hogs around when we stopped hunting in June, and we expect carryover to be very good. Unlike some areas, we had timely rainfall last spring, and the acorn crop -- a little spotty perhaps -- was sufficient.”

Outdoor writer Jim Matthews, publisher of the California Hog Hunter newsletter, has heard a variety of reports, some of which indicate significant population loss.

“Pigs don’t really care how hot it is,” he said. “As long as they’ve got water, enough feed and sufficient cover, they’ll thrive and have huge litters.”

In places where something is lacking, however, their numbers can fall as quickly as they can grow.

“It’s my gut feeling that things are going to be tougher for a while,” Matthews said, “especially in some places on the Central Coast that are away from the coastal influence and where there isn’t much forage left.”

TEHAMA COUNTY
Farther north, mixed reports came out of Tehama County. Clint Arrowsmith of Arrowhead Outfitters, with whom I hunted a couple years ago, noted a definite decrease on one of the properties he has access to.

“There was practically no rainfall,” he said. “A lot of the sows I saw with decent litters on one ranch last spring seem to have lost most of their babies. However, I’ve got another place where hog numbers have held up very well, so it all depends on what’s available to them in a particular area.”

The pigs that made it through will have plenty of acorns this year, he said. And healthy sows can have two litters a year, so the population can increase rapidly,

A year ago last August, I hunted hogs on the Red Bank Ranch in western Tehama County with guide Bobby Hassel. To me, it was an unusual hunt because we waited in a blind for the hogs to come to us, rather than chase them down some other way. The attraction was water -- specifically, a wallow where the hogs came for a mud bath nearly every evening.

Seeing 30 to 40 hogs at once is never a dull experience, and picking out the right one to shoot takes a cool head. Somehow, I stayed calm long enough to collect a fine meat animal.

Hassel does not expect conditions to hurt the population there. “On this place, we’ve got nine never-go-dry ponds, and it’s shaping up to be a pretty good year for acorns and manzanita berries. That’s nothing but good news for the pigs.”

Hassel said that when he was hunting last spring, he was astounded at the number of little pigs with the sows.

Red Bank Ranch hunts from January through April, and they expect to take 40 or so hogs again this season.

Another glimmer of hope came from Multiple Use Managers’ Gordy Long who oversees hog hunting on the Dye Creek Preserve in eastern Tehama County. Once known as the premier wild pig destination in northern California, Dye Creek hog hunts were suspended for a time due to a decline in the population. According to Long, pig numbers are rebounding enough to allow limited hunting.

“We had the worst acorn crop ever last year. But this year, there are plenty,” he said of the 2007 season. “So the sows should be in good shape, and their litters should be large. It could be that things are finally looking up.” To sum it all up, there may be fewer hogs in some areas, especially where there’s marginal habitat on public land. But the condition is only temporary. Thanks to the available mast in 2007, and given a little more rainfall, pig numbers should increase in a hurry.

I don’t know about you, but I’ve always liked cool-weather hog hunting. And one of the best times for that is right about now.