Florida is practically over run with wild hogs. Spanish explorers introduced them more than 200 years ago and they're thriving.
It was more than 200 years ago. DeSoto introduced them in Florida 479 years ago in 1539.
Texas has no rules on hog hunting other than having a license.
Not exactly true. There are numerous laws. For example, you don't need a license to hunt depredating hogs on your own property so long as you are not harvesting any part of the animal, just killing it. Landowner can do this as well as the agent for the landowner. Countless basic hunting laws apply to hunting hogs. You can't shoot hogs across property lines without written permission. You can't shoot them from a roadway or road hunt them. As noted, after hours public land hunting not legal (in most or all areas?).
If there is a feral hog population in New Mexico it is small and localized, I've been looking.
I don't know about being localized. They are documented in approximately half of the state as of 2016.
https://www.currentargus.com/story/...xico-removal-continues-rural-areas/906526001/
Blue, hogs have very poor eyesight (very near sighted).
This is something of a myth. Hogs have eyesight that isn't too far off from humans in the zone where their vision overlaps (~50 degrees of frontal field of view). Beyond that, they have reasonably good peripheral vision like other similar animals, which accounts for more of their vision, but is undoubtedly better than a human's peripheral vision. They are red-green colorblind like many other animals, but see farther into the UV spectrum than do humans. They also see at night better than humans.
If you are familiar with hog calling, Glenn Guess is a big name in that area. Glenn really turned me on to the notion that hogs see well. He raises hogs and experiments with them, harvest sounds from them, etc.
I have watched hogs run 20-30 mph through the woods at NIGHT after being shot at and NOT run into trees. Try that with a human. The hogs are not smelling the trees to avoid them. There is no indication that they use echolocation either.
I am convinced people believe this popular myth because of hog behavior. They feel that if they can approach hogs, that hogs must be blind, otherwise they would run away, right?. However, physical blindness is not the issue.
Part of the issue is their low FOV, low eyes and head position relative to higher grass.
Part of the issue is behavioral, hogs having little to fear in terms of predators anymore...other than humans and they have to learn that.
Another part of the issue is what is called inattentional blindness. Just because something is in the field of view of the animal does not mean it will be noticed so long as the animal's attention is on something specific. It has been studied in humans and there has been some related testing in animals.
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/scie...roblem-with-inattentional-blindness-17339778/ The point here is that if you have a hog focused on seeing kernels of corn on the ground, rooting tubers, etc., it is more apt to miss you walking up on it than if it is just walking through a field.
It is important to keep in mind that their peripheral vision is not nearly as good as their binocular vision, but that their binocular vision is very good. If you can approach a hog from the back side, its ability to see you will be greatly diminished. Approaching the hog laterally is less ideal, but that this the location from which most hunters like to shoot. Probably the least idea direction to approach from is the front.
They can distinguish movement pretty well but you could wear pretty much anything and get away with it if you stay still.
I could say that about deer and bobcats, both of which I have had walk within feet of me. Here again, I think people confuse capability with behavior. Just because the animal does not react to you does not necessarily mean that it does not see you or know you are there. It means that it does not perceive you as a threat. In the animal world, most stationary things are not a threat.
It is their noses you have to worry about.
They do have an excellent sense of smell. When you read the claims online, they can sense a person from 7 miles away and can smell a truffle 25 feet underground. I have never seen one shred of evidence that these claims have ever been tested, but they are made none the less. This iconic sense of smell seems to be what leads people to try all sorts of magic potions to draw in hogs (soured corn, kool-aid, jello, fermented beer corn, etc. etc. etc.). Claimed success from these concoctions seem to be more interpretive than reality.
Being "winded" is the most common claim for getting busted by hogs (and probably for deer) and it has some merit. However, without being able to interview the hog, it is hard to know what caused the hog to leave the area. There are many things in a hog's environment that may spook it other than humans. Numerous times I have hunted with folks, gotten busted, only to have them exclaim that "we must have been winded." Maybe we were, or maybe it was because my partner kept banging his shooting sticks against his rifle when he made his approach, kept talking too loudly, or we moved too fast, etc. Hunters often don't like to admit that their field craft is less than ideal. Better to blame something they can't control and can't comprehend as well as the prey.
I have been down wind (and up hill on a ridge top, looking down) of hogs numerous times at night (which is when I hunt) and seen them spook and knew it was not because they winded me and not because anybody else was with 800 yards of the hogs. Sometimes hogs will simply spook for reasons we cannot know and that is just the reality of hunting. Happens with deer as well.
I have been upwind of hogs and gotten to within 75-100 yards of them and had them not react to me. Does that mean that they don't have a very good sense of smell? Maybe I use that special clothing, spray, bathwash, laundry soap, ozone machine, and run my breath through a rebreather so no air from my lungs makes it to the atmosphere? Nope and Nope. It just means that they didn't act on the stimulus.
Hogs also have very good hearing, but often will not react to audible clues to their near-immediate demise. Other times, they will bolt when the safety is snicked off on the rifle (which I assume is a learned sound).
Whether or not hogs react negatively to visual, olfactory, or audible stimuli will often depend on their comfort levels with the area where they are and this can be very situational. I find it MUCH easy to stalk up on a sounder in an open field at night with a couple dozen noses, pairs of eyes, and pairs of ears than I find it is to stalk up on a lone boar usually. A sounder of 24 has much better capabilities than a single individual, but they apparently feel safe in their group and they are not as security conscious. They have a lot of sound going on around them as it is and so noise is less of a factor than it would be with a lone boar. It isn't because boars are better sentinels or have better senses. Boars in sounders are just as easy to approach as the rest of the sounder.
Do play the wind when you hunt. Noise discipline is also important. Camo isn't necessary, but the less you stand out visually, the better. That isn't to say that you can't approach hogs downwind of you, making noise, wearing a bright shirt and moving too quickly. I have walked into a clearing where there were hogs at a feeder and was carrying an idling weedeater and made it 25 yards or so before they took off. You can do it, but your chances are not nearly as good as when you control for those factors.