Sounds like some good and interesting information so far. I have been running feeders on my place since 2009, specifically for hunting hogs as I do not hunt deer or turkey. Between running the feeders and doing spot and stalk hunting on several properties, here is what I can contribute.
Hogs do not operate by solunar cycles. I tracked my hunts over a couple of years and basically either you are where the hogs are or you are not. While not statistically significant, both years found me on hogs slightly more often during non-peak hours, which is counter to solunar claims. I know people swear by solunar tables, but as near as I could tell, the greatest chance for hunting success was not by specific timing, but simply by hunting. If you aren't hunting, you definitely won't have a chance to be shooting hogs.
Next, comparing feeder timing to solunar tables, there is no correlation. Hogs don't just feed during solunar peaks.
Hogs do not operate more or less by how high the moon is.
As noted above, winds can affect hog behavior and we find that higher winds usually result in less hog encounters. While less often, high winds can also result in some of the best hunting when you do find hogs as when you are down wind of them, they can't hear you and they can't smell you as you approach. Now even though winds seem to limit their movement, they don't hunker down and not move. They are out feeding somewhere. They may not come to your feeder, but that doesn't mean they aren't out and about. You just gotta find them. If you have hogs in your immediate area and are running a feeder, they will still likely come to it. If they are traveling greater distances, your chances diminish.
How can you improve your feeder visits? People have been trying miracle attractants for years and so many people swear by this commercial attractant or that homemade concoction. What I have found in trying a couple dozen commercial products and special recipes at sterile locations (not where a feeder has already been set up or where feeding regularly occurs, not on a known game trail, not at the water source) is that nothing works particularly well. Eventually, hogs will find anything edible, but just because something smells sweet or yummy and hogs have a great sense of smell does not mean hogs will necessarily come to it. Moreover, introducing something new and strange to a feeder location may actually dissuade hogs from the location for 2 or 3 days until they realize the new smell (a change in the environment) isn't a threat. Will hogs eat your super duper soured corn/very berry jello mix. More than likely. Will they love it? Is there anything they won't eat? Well, yeah, there are a few things they won't eat, but pretty much they eat almost everything. Just because they are eating your commercial attractant or special recipe does not meant it was a super attractor of hogs. If there was truly a super attractor of hogs, we would all be using it and we would not have a hog problem. You could drive out to your property or lease, pour out some of your super attractor, and in no time, be shooting hogs. Just like with regular old corn, sometimes it takes days or weeks before hogs appear on a sterile location to try the special attractor bait.
The reason for testing at a sterile location is because that is what actually tests how well a bat "attracts" hogs versus hogs just finding under a feeder that has been in operation for a long period of time and hogs know to find, or a trail being used by hogs where a hog may just happen upon the miracle bait, or at a water hole where the hogs would be anyway. The attraction was already in place before the bait was deployed. That skews one's testing.
Schedules: As noted above, hogs don't keep them, or they do, but they are highly flexible. If you are running a feeder and have a hog that has come for 7 days in a row at 9 pm and you show up on day 8 and the hog doesn't show up, you may find this quite frustrating. A common statement I hear or read is "I had this big boar/sounder patterned and then they didn't show up when I went to hunt them." The reasons they didn't show up can be numerous. Maybe you screwed up and they knew you were there. It happens to all of us. Or maybe, just maybe, something happened in the other part of their lives that you don't get on game camera that kept them from coming. Maybe they got shot at by another hunter while on the way to your place? Maybe they got spooked by the neighbor plowing his field next door. Maybe they found a better source of food. Maybe they just got delayed. You never know. I have read several accounts of hunters getting upset a patterned hog didn't show up on time and then went home (or back to camp) only to have the hog show up a couple hours later or checked the game cameras and found the hog was there a couple of hours before the hunter. Hogs don't wear watches and hogs don't punch time cards. In my experience, a "pattern" of 1 event is just as likely to produce good results as a pattern of 12 events. If you are running a cellular game camera and a hog showed up at 10 pm last night, I would be in the stand by 7 pm and waiting. For now, 7 pm is 1 hour before dark. I try to never be approaching the stand later than that.
So why show up so early? Two hours early is usually my minimum window for arriving and 3 or 4 are better. This is because hogs often arrive in the area well before they show up on camera. They circle the area, forage, maybe wait for the feeder to go off. Being early allows whatever scent you left on the trail to fade some. Getting there early means hopefully beating the hog to the general area and the hog not hearing you. Getting there early means being able to be in the stand and set up and completely ready and comfortable with the setup long before a hog might arrive, or that is the plan. Hogs don't wear watches or punch time cards. On numerous occasions I have arrived early only to find hogs already at the feeder.
Pig pipes: Cool idea. Fun to watch. Can keep hogs busy for a while. Probably best used with a feeder alongside as pig pipes are not great for sounders as a dominate pig will tend to occupy the pipe if you have a group. They will keep a pig our a couple of pigs busy for a while, no doubt. The biggest problems with these that they must be refilled often. The second significant problem with these is that they break. When they break, it is usually a chain or post issue and then the pig rolls your pipe for sometimes great distances until it runs out of corn or the pig hits a barrier with it and can't go any farther. I know folks that run these that find them as far away as 400 yards, sometimes on the neighbor's property, and sometimes in creeks.
Pig barrels: A barrel set up like a pig pile will hold a lot more corn. Depending on the size of barrel and weight, it may be too much for smaller hogs to move. These don't have to be filled as often as pig pipes, but pigs will sometimes work them near continuously until they are empty...meaning you don't want to put 50 pounds in the pipe and just leave for a week because may all be gone long before you return. These also have breakage issues and get found away from the original location.
Post holes: Dig a hole and put corn or your magical miracle concoction in it and wait for the pigs to find it and going to work to try to get at the corn. Like pig pipes, they will end up with a dominate hogs occupying the hole at the exclusion of others. If the hole is unmonitored and the hog remains unmolested, they can take your small hole and make it a crater that you later have as a crater or you need to backfill.
Feeders: I know deer hunters who hunt hogs and have their feeders going off at dawn and dusk. That is fine if you are hunting dawn and dusk. If you aren't a morning hunter, don't set your feeder to go off in the morning. This should be a common sense statement, but apparently a lot of folks don't get it. Only set your feeder to go off at a time when you can be hunting. My feeder is set to go off just after dark. I do this because I have found that turkeys will eat all my corn if I have it going off before dark. I also have my feeder spit corn either 3 or 4 times for short durations at 30 minute intervals after dark. That spreads out the time for a while, but also keeps the deer and coons from getting too much of the corn all at once and I figures it is more like ringing the dinner bell multiple times than just ringing it once. It also spreads out the amount of time hogs may remain at the feeder or in the area.
