WMA Hogs – Best Areas For January Action

When the New Year rings in, deer season is winding down on most WMAs, which means many of them are wide open to small-game hunting. In conjunction with small-game season, many WMAs across the state offer the opportunity to hunt hogs. These hunters are allowed to use .22 caliber rimfire rifles, archery equipment and muzzleloaders in pursuit of hogs during these WMA small-game seasons. 

Before you head out, always check the regulations for each individual WMA before hunting. The hunt regs link is at https://georgiawildlife.com/hunting/hunter-resources.

We communicated with WRD biologists across the state recently, and below is what they had to say about WMA hog opportunities in their regions.

Region 1: For a WMA near the metro Atlanta area with the best chance for a hog, Paulding Forest gets the nod.

“The hog population on Paulding Forest WMA is fair, but may be increasing slightly,” said Allison Melcher, WRD Senior Wildlife Biologist. “There were nine reported hogs harvested during our managed firearms bonus deer hunt in November, and last year there were 18 harvested during that hunt.” 

Hunters are encouraged, but not required, to report any pigs harvested during the bonus hunt to the WMA check station, and so additional pigs may have been harvested and not reported.

“Hogs at Paulding Forest seem to primarily frequent creek bottoms and drainages, particularly those adjacent to open fields or food plots,” said Allison. “The left prong of Pegamore Creek has had high hog activity and can be accessed via Bird Dog Road past the dog training area, or Pegamore Road, which is just off Blue Car Body Road to the right. Additionally, hogs have been harvested in the food-plot field at the end of Boy Scout Loop Road and in the bottoms along the middle prong of Pegamore Creek, accessible by Corley Ridge Road. All of these locations may require significant walking outside of managed firearms deer hunts or the late May hog/coyote season. Hogs have also been harvested and reported in the drains off the handicap road at the end of Blue Car Body Road, which may provide better access for mobility-impaired hunters.”

Hogs are primarily feeding on any left-over acorns found during the winter months, as well as invertebrates or root systems that they scrape out from under the surface of the soil. 

“During winter, hogs tend to be more active during the day due to colder temperatures, but hunting during the morning or afternoon may still be most effective,” said Allison. “Hog hunters can likely stay out later in the morning or start earlier in the afternoon in the winter months than they typically can during the summer.

“Because food sources tend to be more limited in the winter, finding a hardwood drain with plentiful acorns and/or soft mast trees that drop fruit late in the year will allow for a greater opportunity of finding hogs. They are more likely to stick close to that food source during this time when food availability is generally low. They will begin to be more mobile again later in the spring following green-up when food availability increases.”

For the hunter who wants a remote experience, Cohutta WMA is the place.

“Overall, the population in the Cohuttas is good,” said Rollins Jolly with the USFS. “Hog harvest this past year was average compared to previous years. Pigs are common throughout Cohutta WMA.” 

Rollins said that even though hogs can show up anywhere, he recommended two areas with higher pig densities and reduced hunting pressure.

“Flat Top Mountain and surrounding areas have a good pig population and receive less hunting pressure than other areas of the WMA,” said Rollins. “Access is by a 4WD vehicle and approximately 1.5 hours from Chatsworth or one hour from Ellijay.

“A true wilderness hog hunt can be experienced in the 40,000-plus-acre Cohutta Wilderness Area. Wild pig densities are moderate to high, and the remote area limits hunting pressure. Numerous trail heads access the Wilderness, but plan adequately before you go—it’s a Wilderness Area for a reason.”

Food is scarce for wildlife in late winter, and wild pigs face the same challenges. 

“Common food sources this time of year include any remaining hard or soft mast on the landscape, tubers and soil invertebrates/insect larvae,” said Rollins. “Pigs will become more mobile and range farther if food is scarce. Pig movement patterns can be highly variable, but they are also incredibly sensitive to pressure. High hunting pressure will force pigs to become nocturnal, but in the absence of pressure, they will move throughout the day. One commonly observed habit in the wintertime is bedding down on piney, south-facing ridges around midday to make the most of the sun’s warmth.”

Rich Mountain WMA hog success is sporadic because most hunters do not want to deal with the trouble of bringing them out when they harvest one.

“Hogs can be found on most all of Rich Mountain WMA where there might be some leftover mast crop, such as hickory nuts or acorns,” said Ken Ellington, WRD wildlife technician II. “Hogs usually stay in the thick mountain laurel around springs and creeks. There are several access points on Owltown Road, as well as Rock Creek Road where Forest Service roads 295 and 338 are located. However, due to the gates being closed Jan. 1 through mid March, access will be by foot only, so be prepared to walk.”

Ken said the best times for locating a hog will be early morning or late afternoon, but that’s not to say you might get lucky and stumble across one moving from one food source to another in midday, as well.

“Just plan on putting in a lot of time walking and stalking the mountains when hunting hogs on Rich Mountain WMA,” said Ken. “The biggest thing to keep in mind is you may be able to fool a hog’s ears and eyes, but you will never beat their sense of smell. Always keep the wind to your advantage when hunting hogs. This is major.”

Region 2: Region 2 is probably the area where you’ll find the fewest hogs. 

“We’ve had very, very few hogs killed (four), during our fall hunts this year,” said Ryan Watts, WRD wildlife biologist. “This is great news for native wildlife, hunters and conservation as a whole. We’ve taken hog control very seriously for many years in Region 2 and appear to now be reaping the benefits. A lot of people have invested many hours to this effort, as well as sweat equity.”

There’s only two WMAs in the region that have had hog harvest and damage issues over the last 12 months.

“Over the last year, we have experienced intermittent damage to the dove field on Redlands WMA,” said Ryan. “Most of the hogs will be found in close proximity to the Oconee River, particularly within the floodplain. During daylight hours, the hogs will bed up in areas that have the thickest cover within the floodplain, usually privet thickets or canebreaks.”

Blue Ridge WMA had the most hogs harvested during hunts this fall, with only two hogs killed. 

“That’s not many hogs at all, and given that by January you’d be pushing three months since those individuals were killed, they could likely have roamed off the WMA by now. It is a mountain WMA, so red oaks close to mountain laurel thickets is a tried and true plan, along with walking (many)miles,” said Ryan.”

 

Region 3: According to WRD Wildlife Biologist Bobby Bond, Oaky Woods WMA would probably be the top pick for hogs in his area. He says for wild hogs the middle Georgia WMA is “good to excellent with consistent harvest during the hunting seasons.” 

“At Oaky Woods,  they can be anywhere. Oaky Woods gets so much pressure, the hogs keep moving. There’s the land along the (Ocmulgee) river and along Big Grocery Creek that’s normally the most used.”

Finding less-accessible places on Oaky Woods should up the odds of success.

“With hogs on Oaky, if it’s easy to get to, I doubt there’s a bunch of hogs, if any, using it,” said Bobby. “They’ve had pressure since Aug. 15. You’re going to have to walk. They use all of the Big Grocery Creek drain.

“Some people have used the Bleckley County Boat Ramp to come across and access Oaky Woods along the Ocmulgee River.”

Second to Oaky Woods, with “good with consistent harvest during the hunting seasons” are B.F. Grant and Clybel WMAs.

At B.F. Grant, Bobby said to focus efforts along the Little River and around any of the WMA’s dove fields. 

“At Clybel, there are several ponds and lakes, and the hogs seem to move around these areas using the drains that lead away from the ponds and lakes,” said Bobby. “They also seem to be near dove fields, with the one on Highway 11 and the smaller one near the S-curve on Shepard Pond Road getting the most damage.”

“If you can still find acorns available on these three areas, you should find hog sign. On B.F. Grant and Clybel, they will also damage the dove fields,” said Bobby.

WRD Regional Supervisor of the Game Management Section I.B. Parnell added a few more Region 3 picks, although none of them are slam dunks to produce a pig picking.

“Clarks Hill West, Fishing Creek, Oconee and Yuchi I’d rate as fair with some harvest during the hunting seasons,” said I.B.

“On Clarks Hill West, hunt along the Little River, Big Creek and Hart Creek tributaries. Fishing Creek can have hogs along the Fishing and Morris creek drainages. At Oconee WMA, look along the tributaries near 1.2-Mile Road and at the end of River Run near the Oconee River. At Yuchi, check out the drainage east of the check station, as well as the drainage that crosses the powerline south of River Road; also check the parts of the WMA that border the Savannah River.”

I.B. echoed Bobby’s thoughts on finding hogs in the winter. 

“If you can still find acorns available on these areas, you should find hog sign. Also, check out creek drainages and moist-soil areas on the WMAs mentioned above. On most of these WMAs, they will also damage the dove fields, especially if they are located near creek or river drainages.”

Region 4: WRD Biologist Greg Nelms had some great information on hunting Ocmulgee, Beaverdam and Horse Creek WMAs.

“In terms of hog abundance, I would probably rank these from lowest to highest: Ocmulgee, Horse Creek and Beaverdam,” said Greg. “The big breakdown between these areas is Ocmulgee and Beaverdam are much farther north with more overall topography. Horse Creek is flat in comparison. What that means for finding hogs on areas like Ocmulgee and Beaverdam is hogs generally favor the bottomlands and venture into the uplands following drainages, whereas Horse Creek is flat terrain covered with wetlands of different types, and you may find hogs about anywhere.

“This points to another big breakdown related to soils. I think you can break down hog foraging into two major types, and those are gleaning and rooting. In the fall when soft or hard mast is abundant, they might meet most of their needs by gleaning acorns right off the surface. When times get tough and they have to root, that is far less efficient in heavier clay soils, and that’s why they favor wetter areas where the soil is more loose and food more abundant. Once mast is off the table, I still scratch my head trying to figure out any kind of resource or feeding behavior to target outside of sticking to moist areas where they can root or wallow. This gets magnified even more during drought times. You then tend to find the most sign around the deeper sloughs that still hold water and the large, tipped-over hardwoods with a wet hole under the root ball.”

Beaverdam and Horse Creek WMAs both saw habitat changes due to Hurricane Helene. 

“In the late 2000s, a large swath of Beaverdam’s bottomland was hit by a tornado and now a young dense forest has developed,” said Greg. “After Helene (2024), we are at the beginning of that process at Horse Creek. These dense thickets serve as a reservoir for hogs and practically ensure their continued foothold on these areas.”

Ocmulgee WMA came into Region 4 in 2020, and Greg is still learning it. 

“For Ocmulgee, I don’t know specifics about where to focus outside of the general comments above. Hog damage to anything planted there is so constant we have phased out planted plots and maintain those as grass openings.

“At Beaverdam, we have a lot of strip-disk fields and some limited planting ‘up front’ near the check station, and hogs take full advantage of all these openings for a lot of the year. I expect there is a lot of traffic between these areas and any nearby drains as mentioned above. The ‘tornado area’ in the bottomland mentioned above holds a lot of hogs but is difficult to hunt.

“At Horse Creek, probably the southern half of the WMA on the river side holds more hogs. Elevation-wise the SW and SE corners of the area along the WMA would probably be more productive overall because those are lower-lying areas with a higher concentration of lakes and sloughs. Despite constant work on Horse Creek since September, hunters can expect a lot of small side roads and firebreaks to be blocked by trees.” 

Greg added that before hog hunting a WMA along the river, he’d check the water level. 

“I use https://waterdata.usgs.gov/ga/nwis/rt where you can see river levels and graphs with just a few clicks. My rule of thumb for the Altamaha system is the river will start overflowing the banks at around 7.5 feet and start to fill up sloughs nearest the river.  By 9 to 9.5 feet, a lot of foot access will be cut off, and we even begin to close some roads. If it stabilizes here, there will be a lot of islands accessible by boat that hold hogs, and that can make for an interesting hunt. If the rise continues to 12 to 14 feet, some WMAs will be completely flooded (e.g., Big Hammock) and hogs will move to adjacent uplands.    

“That points to one of my best pieces of advice, and that’s to give us a call for up-to-date information, particularly in light of the tremendous impact of Hurricane Helene on our region WMAs and what that means for access.”

As far as killing wild hogs, Greg says a quiet stalk on the higher ground along sloughs where you can use any cover or bends in the slough to look ahead for activity is a fun way to hunt.

“I try to concentrate as much on listening as covering ground. They tend to make more noise than other species due to interaction among a moving group,” said Greg.

Also in Region 4, WRD Biologist Theron Menken said Bullard Creek, Big Hammock and Tuckahoe WMAs offer some opportunity. 

“At Bullard Creek WMA, there’s not many hogs across the WMA in general, but the Montgomery Tract (archery-only for deer) located on the north side of the Altamaha River and east of Highway 221 has a fair population. Getting to the hogs might be an issue with all the damage from Helene this year, but targeting patches of switch cane/palmetto and river oats on high spots within the flood plain where they are bedded can be a successful strategy. We often bump hogs bedded in this cover when in the area. 

“At Big Hammock WMA, there’s a good population, but there’s the same issues with storm damage. Access will be tough in many areas with downed trees to navigate. Hogs will likely be rooting in areas of leaf litter where any remaining acorns were washed up into leaf litter, along with other food items, such as worms and other invertebrates, as they are opportunistic omnivores. Similar cover with switch cane and river oats along with palmetto thickets will be good locations to stalk and look for bedded hogs.”

Tuckahoe WMA has a fair to good population of hogs right now.

“Hunters harvested a few on the managed hunts, and most of the pigs have been in the pine uplands,” said Theron. “This may shift as deer hunting season winds down and neighboring landowners reduce the amount of corn being put out for deer. More pigs will likely move back on the WMA and target other food sources. I expect to see more activity in the hardwood bottoms than we have had so far. Hardwood bottoms interspersed with cane/palmetto thickets should hold pigs and be a good place to target later in the season. We got lucky at Tuckahoe with regards to Helene and had minimal damage to the area, so getting in areas to hunt has not been negatively impacted like other WMAs farther to the west.”

Region 5: WRD’s Game Management Region Supervisor Brian Vickery said the WMAs with the highest densities of hogs currently are Hannahatchee Creek, Chickasawhatchee, Elmodel and Mayhaw.

“Populations are stable,” said Brian. “As to the access, we haven’t had any major changes other than Hurricane Michael in 2018 and the downed timber that makes it difficult in some places to even walk.

“Most of the food sources are scarce by this time of the year, this coupled with pressure on all WMAs in SWGA makes things a bit difficult for a daytime encounter.

“Our upland habitat has improved over the past five years. With our prescribed fire program, we have seen most sign and activity in the transition areas between wetlands/hardwoods. Any managed openings seem to take the brunt of the damage, but hogs cover some serious ground this time of year. Most of our dove fields will have sign, but again the food isn’t there, so they are just checking for grubs or plants with tuber-type roots, like nutgrass.” 

On these WMA, it’s pretty easy to find firebreaks that allow for easy and quiet access into areas. However, if it’s an easy route, you’re likely not the first to find it. Since hogs are present but move so much this time of year, Brian pointed to DNR’s online interactive map.

“Pick a creek drain out, keep the wind in your face and enjoy the time outdoors,” said Brain.

Region 6: WRD’s Coastal Region Supervisor Game Management David Mixon said he would focus on the region’s WMAs along the Altamaha River. 

“We don’t really have anything new on properties to point out,” said David. “Our areas of focus continue to be along the Altamaha River. Hogs do well in this habitat and the river moves them around. The WMAs I consider to be part of this corridor in this region are Griffin Ridge, Townsend, Morgan Lake, Penholoway Swamp, Sansavilla, Altamaha, Clayhole Swamp, Paulks Pasture and Altama Plantation. 

“Of note this year, we have a tremendous crop of acorns. Deer hunting has been a challenge because they aren’t having to move much to access food. I would expect the same for hogs. 

“Much of this crop will be exhausted by late winter, though I would expect hogs to utilize these acorns long beyond what a deer would.”

Don’t overlook the fact that hogs will move into those openings this time of year. However, water near those openings can be a bonus. 

“I always recommend going to the edge of the water and find the sign from there,” said David. “I don’t normally still hunt hogs unless I have to. I walk until I find them. Certainly if you find a location of high activity, it would make sense to sit and wait. 

“There are young clearcuts in flatwoods on Sansavilla, Clayhole and Paulks. Water on the edges makes rooting easy. New plantings are easy pickings if other foods are scarce. On these areas, most of these clearcuts border open roads, so they can be easily accessed, as long as the roads aren’t too wet,” David said.

“I would recommend that hunters use the river level to assist their hunting. If it is above 8 feet at the Doctortown gauge, much of swamps are flooded.  Look for high spots in the swamp or the uplands immediately adjacent. Using boat/kayak or chest waders to access islands in the swamp often yields great success.” 

January will be our best chance at cold weather, and it can make for a great day to get out and walk a few miles looking at some public-land dirt. And maybe you’ll bump into some wild hogs along the way.