OK, I’m not going to post everytime I read a story of tragedy and stupidity in the field this season… not that there would be that many posts anyway.  I mean, really, statistics being what they are, hunting is one of the safest sports in which to participate.  Shining a spotlight on the event doesn’t really do hunters justice… or does it?

But this, the first report to come out of the nascent spring turkey season, kinda set me off.

So here’s the deal.  Saturday morning, a group of guys was turkey hunting up in Tehama County (northern CA).  One of them, for whatever reason, was crawling through some thick brush.  According to the reports so far, his buddy saw the man’s beard, mistaking him for a tom turkey, and took the shot… hitting his “friend” in the head with a magnum load of 12ga #4 shot. 

The article, which you can read here in the Redding Record Searchlight,   goes to some depth to explain that the “accident” was at least partially due to the camouflage and long beard of the victim. 

A man’s camouflage clothing and beard apparently contributed to his shooting death in a weekend hunting accident, Tehama County Sheriff Clay Parker said Monday.

Let’s get something abso-frickin-lutely straight here. 

The camo and beard did NOT contribute to that man’s death.  A load of #4 shot took care of that all by itself… a load of shot delivered by one pull of the trigger by one man who did not take the time to distinguish a human face and beard from a bird.    It was NOT the dead man’s fault! 

Common sense might tell most of us that a beard as big as a grown-man’s couldn’t possibly belong to any turkey alive!  Honestly… even setting basic hunter safety tenets of target identification aside, the mere size of the beard should have been enough to discourage a shot. 

Unfortunately, common sense apparently had no place in the blind on this trip.  Neither did basic hunter safety. 

I generally hate the dogpile of self-righteous condemnation that follows one of these stories… the second-guessing and finger-pointing don’t seem to serve much purpose except to make the rabble feel better about themselves.  But for this case, it’s pretty much justified.   Based on the reports, and the shooter’s own testimony, there are simply NO mitigating circumstances.   

Folks, please… don’t let me be writing this about you.  No trophy or meat is worth the price that this turkey hunter will be paying for the rest of his life… and it’s definitely not worth the price paid by the dead man and his family.

Got a call yesterday from my friend Shane, owner/operator/chief bottle washer at Border Bandit Hunting Services.  After rehashing our recent hunt, he mentioned he had a new hog hunting property coming available and wondered if I’d pass it along on the Hog Blog.  Well, I’m always happy to help out a friend, especially one who takes such great care of me when I’m down in Texas, so here goes.

The new place is a 10,ooo acre ranch, about 30 miles or so, southwest of Uvalde, Texas (less than two hours from the San Antonio International Airport).  This is the Texas Brush Country, not the Hill Country, but it’s loaded with hogs and deer, as well as the occasional javelina.  There are 28 blinds on the place, with feeders set up strategically around the area. 

The hunt would be for three full days of hunting (e.g. arrive Thursday evening, hunt all day Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, and depart on Monday morning).  There’s a large, and very comfortable lodge on the ranch that can accomodate up to around 20 hunters, although Shane is looking for groups of 8 to 12 hunters.  This should allow folks to pick and change blinds as needed without getting too crowded. 

Cost for the hunt is $850/hunter, and that includes everything except food.  However, there is a big kitchen area, as well as outdoor cooking facilities, so with a little planning, a group could pick up groceries in Uvalde, and do it up in grand style. 

The hunt also includes one hog per day, per hunter.  If three hogs aren’t enough, you can add more at $100/ea. 

Remember that Texas has no tag requirement and no limit for wild hogs.  Non-residents simply have to buy a short-term hunting license to shoot as many hogs and exotics as they want.  A five-day non-resident license will run you $48.  (As I understand it, TX residents don’t even need a license to shoot hogs on private land. )

It’s a pretty good deal for a lot of great hunting.  Give Shane a call at:  830-275-2199 if you’re interested in setting something up.

I’ve been sitting on this one for a while, until it was all said and done.  Now it is…

I am a big fan of the rangefinding binoculars.  I have to admit I’m always intrigued by (if somewhat skeptical of) new gadgets, but combining a rangefinder and binoculars was one of the best ideas I’d heard in a while.   It just makes too much sense. 

A few years back I decided to take the plunge and buy the Bushnell rangefinding binos.  The unit did what I wanted, but it was heavy, clunky, and the glass wasn’t really that great.  I was never really happy with them.  This year, Bushnell has totally redesigned their rangefinding binoculars, and while I did have a chance to look them over at SHOT, I haven’t really put them through the paces.  They are a definite improvement over the ones I bought, and I hope to have a chance to field test them in the near future.

A year or so later, due to my positive financial situation at the time, I decided to spend the money on the Leica Geovid 42EF.  They weren’t cheap, but I was immediately impressed with the quality.  The glass was superb (of course, we’re talking Leica here), and the rangefinder would lock on a 1000 yard target in the blink of an eye.  It was everything I’d hoped for.

Well, it was everything I’d hoped for until last season.  On a hunt at the Hedgepeth Ranch, the rangefinder wouldn’t lock on a target.  Later the same trip, it worked again.  I replaced the battery, and it seemed to work fine again until the hunts up at Coon Camp Springs.  While trying to range a deer for the client, I couldn’t get a reading.  After several failures, I finally got the distance.  The problem continued to be erratic until my last trip to Tejon Ranch.  Finally, the rangefinder refused to return a measurement at any distance. 

At first I got angry, because I hate when an expensive piece of equipment fails.  But then, since I killed the pig anyway, I decided this would be a good opportunity to see just how good Leica’s customer service is.  I had a pretty high expectation, of course, and I can say now that they did not let me down!

First, I emailed a service representative to ask about the return procedures.  He replied almost immediately, and let me know how to send them in.  He also set my expectations reasonably, telling me that it could take up to six weeks to get my glasses back.  I was a little afraid of that, and bummed that I wouldn’t have them for the Texas trip… but I accepted it and sent the binos in to Leica’s service center in New Jersey.

In the package, I included a note explaining what was going on.  In the note, I mentioned that I am a guide and I rely on my equipment.  With hog hunting season coming on full-bore, I told them I needed these fixed ASAP. 

Well, they didn’t get them back to me in time for Texas (I sent them the day before I left), but they had the unit cleaned, purged with nitrogen, and checked out before I returned from the 10-day trip.  They were waiting for me when I got home. 

I haven’t had them out in the field yet, but playing around the neighborhood, everything looks great!  They even replaced the eyecups where I’d worn them out with use. 

If there’s anything lacking, you’ll be hearing about it (as will the folks at Leica), but right now, I couldn’t be more satisfied!

Michael, over at Native Hunt is offering up a pretty sweet deal for hog hunters this spring. 

For the regular price of $975.00 (a standard Feral Hog Hunt) we will allow you to take a second Feral Hog for FREE!  You read that right.  At no extra charge you will be able to take home DOUBLE the amount of MEAT!  This deal was originally available only to the first 10 people that contacted us. We are going to open it up to ten more people, so stop what you are doing and call 1.888.HUNT.321  now!

This is fully guided, one-on-one hunting, complete with all the trimmings of a real, first-class operation.  Pop on over to the Native Hunt blog to read more about this opportunity.

If I have to process one more piece of meat, I may become a vegetarian. 

Texas was a hoot, as it always is.  The incredible country, the people, and the fun of spending quality time with family all combined to make for one heck of a great trip.  Even the road trip there and back was a blast (if you enjoy long, long drives, crossing the desert southwest is truly a treat). 

Hunting exotics with Shane (Borderbandit Outfitters) is also a pleasure, and as I mentioned in an earlier post, we did pretty well.  The weather conspired again to make the hunt a little more challenging than it sometimes is, but that’s never a bad thing.  My brother and I still came out with a total of four axis does (two each), two oryx, and a little pig for the roaster.  We both shot well, and spent a lot of time on some beautiful properties.  Unfortunately, I didn’t really get many pictures.  My brother has some video, and if he’s able to get it on disk for me, I’ll edit it and get it online.  Besides that, you can go back to previous years’ hunt stories and use your imaginations. 

But with every pleasure comes pain.  At some point, the inevitable truth is that I had to get back to work.  I also had to unpack the truck, clean and stow gear, and grind about 40 pounds of meat.  Now I generally enjoy processing the meat that I harvest.  I get a sense of completion, and a feeling of self-sufficiency when I convert a once-living animal into nice packets of steaks, roasts, and ground meat or sausage.  But it is work, and when that work comes at the tail end of a 1600 mile drive… well, it kinda wears on you.

So there’s that.  There’s also my real job, which took a sort of ugly turn while I was gone.  Looks like this consultant is going to be back on the market at the end of next week.  Not a prospect I savor, considering the current job market.  I have some possibilities, and hope to make something happen quickly.  I can’t really afford another extended vacation like last year. 

While I was gone, it looks like I missed a lot of cool stuff too.  Another Hog Blog reader, Will Sitch sent me an email about his first successful hog hunt.  He has his own blog, so instead of reprinting his story here, I’ll just send you over there to check it out if you’re so inclined.  Congrats Will!

I’ve got a ton of press releases, but I haven’t had a chance to sort through them all.  This one stood out to me, though, and it’s worth a visit if you’re a gadget head or just looking for a creatively written website.  HuntGeek.com offers iPhone apps for hunters, including one that calculates the legal shoot time for your area, and another that allows you to store hunting data (sign, trails, etc.) for GPS access.  Just the place for the high-tech rednecks out there. 

As I sort through stuff and get back on track after the trip, I’ve got a lot more to tell ya!

I’ve been emailing back and forth with an occasional Hog Blog reader, Ian, as he’s begun the journey, fraught with peril, into the depths of the hog hunting addiction.  After a few frustrating attempts, he finally made it all come together.  He’s agreed to share his tale with us here.

I’ve been wanting to hunt pigs for like 10 years, and it all finally came together last week. Shot a nice sized boar right between the eyes and have more meat than I’ve ever seen in one place.

I’m not from a long line of hunters. In fact, no one in my family has EVER hunted. When I was a kid I had a Crossman 766 bb gun and was pretty obsessed with shooting robins and chickadees in my suburban Philly backyard, but after a few years of bloodshed I either lost interest (or the birds got smart). Not exactly Davey Crockett lineage. But I love being outdoors (was a former Outward Bound Instructor), camping, surfing and was an Environmental Studies major in college. After seeing some wild pigs in Henry Coe State Park 10 years ago, and learning about their natural history in the state, I decided I wanted to shoot one. I also love pork.

After buying a 30-06, enduring the most insultingly uninformative hunter safety class (10 hours on a metal chair, being read a dmv-style booklet), a few trips to Wal Mart and the shooting range I was ready. That whole phase took like a year! The most fortuitous turn of events, however, was my friend’s purchase of 170 acres west of Lake Sonoma in 2007. It’s an amazing piece of land. Full of deer, pigs and turkey. He grew up hunting birds, and being a fellow fan of swine meat was more than happy to host hunting trips (which we’ve been doing each month for the last 5 months). The 3rd member of our team is a guy hunting experience (deer, turkeys) and his presence reassures my wife because he knows what he’s doing, unlike me.

We’ve been up 5 times on strictly hunting trips (no kids, etc) and have seen pigs 4/5 times. Shots (misses) fired 3/5 times. A month ago I took a 175 yard shot that missed. I learned a couple things: 1. I should (and could) get a lot closer, and 2. don’t aim so high.

This 5th trip last week was the charm! It was 6AM after a mostly moonless night, I walked right up on this boar. He was 75 yards away and looking right at me. I thought he’d bolt, but he didn’t. He nodded his head a few times as if he were trying to figure out what we were, then started rooting around again. I lay down on my stomach, waited like 20 seconds to stop breathing so hard, and he faced me again. Just staring right at me. I didn’t wait too long — put the crosshairs on his head and fired. He dropped right down to his side, kicked for 30 seconds or so and died. I got him right under the left eye. Having the pig face me seemed to simplify it — just shoot it in the head. The combination of shooting from my belly and being somewhat rushed resulted in a nice gash on my forehead from my scope.
Didn’t have the rifle against my shoulder — duh. But being a newbie, I figured it was kinda fitting. It’ll keep me humble, and serve to remind me to slow down a little on future hunts.

We gutted him in the field and I have to say I was really surprised at how healthy, clean and interesting the whole process was. I was worried I was going to emerge from the experience a vegetarian, but it was totally the opposite. This animal was so amazingly…healthy.
His guts and blood just smelled a little like iron. Natural — that’s how I’d characterize it. Makes me wish all the meat I ate came this way. I was surprised at how tough some areas of his skin was, but after a little bit I felt like I got the hang of the gutting.

We put the pig in the Mule and took him back to the cabin where we hung him and skinned him. That took a while as none of us had skinned a pig, which is definitely harder than a deer (so I’m told). After a nice breakfast of eggs and his tenderloins, we dropped him in the cooler and headed for town/butcher.

Got about 60-70 lbs of chops/roasts/ribs, plus 2 big bags of meat for sausage. My buddy has a nice meat grinder and tons of spices so we made the sausages ourselves. They came out great!

Great job, Ian!

OK, so it’s late and it’s been a long week with very little Internet access…

But all has not been in vain! 

We started the hunt a few days early with a call from our guide, Shane, to tell us he’d found a special deal on a couple of oryx “culls”.   Both had broken off horns, which didn’t really matter to us as much as the opportunity to put a couple-hundred pounds of prime meat in the freezer.

Much, much more to come when I get home and get a chance to sit down and put it all together.

For now, we’ve put three axis, two oryx, and a pig on ice, with at least one more day of hunting ahead of us.  Just hoping the weather holds out for us now…

On the road through Sunday… no live updates, so figured this’ll set the proper tone.

I hear a lot of folks say that Texans and Californians don’t get along, and the good people of the Lone Star State hate to see Left Coasters moving into their fine piece of the country.  Good thing I’m not really a Californian…

It’s been a while since I was in Texas, and I have to say that state really grows on me.  Fortunately, I’m about to head back down for a week and some change.  Kat and I are hitting the road tonight, and expect to be in camp by the Frio river with my brother (the bloodthirsty savage) and his wife, as well as my mom. 

Definitely gonna be doing some hunting for hogs and exotics while I’m there.  We’ll be hunting with Shane, from Borderbandit Outfitters.  I also hope to look around at some properties.  Yeah, I like it that much! 

I don’t know how much I’ll be able to post while I’m down there.  The campground has wireless, but last year I found the connection pretty danged sketchy.  Hopefully they’ve upgraded a little bit since then.  One way or another, I’ll try to get some pix and updates online.

Well, the little adventure this weekend didn’t really pan out… which is just as well, I suppose.  I’ve got a freezer full of meat, and a Texas trip coming up at the end of this week.  But it looks like I’m not the only one who’s been out in the field lately.

First of all, there’s my friend Bruce (a friend I’ve yet to meet in person) over in Hawaii.  Bruce has been living the life over there on the Big Island… hunting hogs, goats, and all sorts of birds at one moment, and then out pulling in big fish from the clear, Pacific waters.  Here’s a recent report…

Went up on Mauna Kea yesterday and took a nice pig and a sheep.  I shot the pig with a .270 Nosler Ballistic Tip, the third time I’ve used that particular bullet in the past several weeks to take a hog.  I think it is possibly the worst bullet in the world to use on big hogs and I can back up my claim.  Is there a section on your blog to post such commentary and if so, what is the protocol?

Going back up tomorrow [Friday] to try for a big ram.  We’re experiencing a terrible drought and many animals have moved down into the jungles on the east side of the island.  You need dogs to hunt there and that ain’t my bag.  It’s also turkey season, so I’ll bring along a shotgun.  I saw 50+ turkeys but was way too pooped after a tough hike at 8000 feet to stalk them.  I’ll take some photos or video this time if you’re interested in them.  That pig yesterday was my 46th since I started hunting here 3 1/2 years ago. 

Hope all is well.  I’m really enjoying your hunting site, slowly working my way through it.

There are a couple of interesting points here, beginning with Bruce’s comments regarding the Ballistic Tips… 

My own experience with these bullets hasn’t been great either.  On the one hand, everything I’ve shot with them died quickly, and they were extremely accurate out of my 30-06.  But they were also extremely destructive bullets, and I hate meat loss.  So Bruce, here’s your opportunity to tell us about your experience… 

But you should know we’re going to temper our empathy for your misfortunes with a hot stroke of jealousy… 46 pigs in 3 1/2 years! 

Of course, you should know that Bruce has been enlisted by several neighbors to help with porcine raiders hitting their gardens and yards.  That’s the mixed blessing of being a hog hunter in a place like Hawaii, I guess.  One of these days, I swear I’m going to take him up on the offer to show me around over there. 

Several thousand miles away from Bruce, regular Hog Blog reader and commenter, Brian (Carolina Rig) made a trip into the South Carolina swamps for sus scrofa, and it sounds like he did great too!

Got back last night from the annual public land trip down to SC.  This is the third year in a row I’ve made it down for the SC March hog season.  Its relatively inexpensive for a non-resident ($40 for 3 day license, $76 for WMA permit) since you don’t have to get a ‘big game’ license.  For a DIY’er its great.  26,000 acres of sandy pine ridges, oak flats, and cypress swamp bottoms offer plenty of room to get away from crowds.  The crew I convinced to come down with me managed numerous sightings, and have 10 on the board right now (two guys are still down there!)  Sizes ranged from 15lbs shoats to 150lbs boars. 

Yummy.  As always camping with friends, and wildlife sightings made the trip….including a scat trifecta.  You ever seen a deer, pig, and turkey shit so close to eachother?!  Got another trip planned with family for mid March with an outfitter.  Taking a couple first time hog hunters….I remember my first time…I haven’t been the same since.

Oh, and one last note from the East Coast.  Every week day, I try to keep up on the newspaper from back home, the Wilmington Star News.  The sports pages offer a small section of outdoor reporting, and it’s how I get a regular dose of homesickness remedy (you’d think after almost 16 years, I’d be over that, right?).  Right now is that slow time of year, with hunting seasons ended and still too cold for most offshore fishing… but I still check in.

One Star News feature I often enjoy is a column and blog by reporter Amy Hotz, called It’s Hotz Outside.  Amy isn’t a hunter yet, but it looks like she’s getting ready to change that on Wednesday, with a feral hog hunt in Brunswick County.  When I left NC, feral hogs really hadn’t come back into the area in huntable numbers, so I have to admit I’ve been reading her recent posts about the planned hunt with a touch of envy.

All this talk of jealousy… seriously, I’m glad to see folks out there doing it up, and really looking forward to hearing from more of you.