Well, here ya go then.  Sorry again for the delay.

Tejon was, as always, an absolute blast.  For those who’ve never hunted there, you don’t know what you’re missing.  For those of you in CA who can hunt there as residents but haven’t, there’s very little excuse.  You can do a weekend-long, self-guided hunt there for a little better than half the cost of an economy guided hunt.  It’s even cheaper than most self-guided hunts on private land.  And the quality of the habitat and the game is absolutely priceless.  Where else can you hunt hogs with a very high chance of success while crossing paths with California Hybrid deer (muley/blacktail), Rocky Mountain elk (some in the neighborhood of 400 inches), quail, turkeys, black bear, condors, bald eagles, coyotes, bobcats, and lord knows what-all?  This past weekend, I think the only thing we didn’t see was black bears… but they’re there.  It’s 277,000 acres of western outdoor paradise.

Here’s the kicker… that wasn’t a sales pitch.  I don’t work at Tejon, and I sure don’t get any kickback for sending folks their way.  The place is just that awesome. 

Anyway, my weekend went sort of like this:

Day 1, Friday:  I hit the field, bow in hand, at around 15:30.  Less than 20 minutes in, I heard the unmistakeable “huff” and grunting, followed by the sound of many short legged beasts trampling away in the other direction.  I stopped and checked the wind.  It was dead in my face.  Two steps later, it was blowing up the back of my neck.  Damn canyons.  That was as close as I got, and the end of my bowhunt.

Day 2: Saturday morning:  I put the bow in the cab of the truck and grabbed the Browning.  This is a rifle that has shot lights-out since the first time I laid it across the sandbags at the Oakland range.  It’s killed a fair number of animals in the short time I’ve owned it, and done so handily and usually with a single shot.  In .325 Winchester Short Magnum, it’s more gun than any North American hunter ever needs. 

I was late getting on the ridgetop, and things were looking bleak.  Then, from at least 2000 yards away, I spotted movement. Crossing the wide-open ridge was a single, huge, hog.  He topped the hill and dropped into the draw out of sight.  Judging by his direction, I was pretty sure he’d follow the sidehill trails and keep coming right to me.  All I had to do was wait.

It was nearly ten minutes later that he topped the next ridge, having dawdled his way across the canyon and up the other side.  He was still moving steadily though, and he dropped into the next canyon out of sight.  This kept up for at least 20 minutes.  Every time I almost gave up, he’d appear again, topping the ridge and keeping the general path… right to me.

Finally he started closing to realistic range.  I held the crosshairs on him at 400 yards, broadside, but kept my finger off the trigger.  I centered it on him again at 340 yards, but restrained myself.  At this range, I could tell which trail he was using.  It would cross within spitting distance of my solid rest on the rocks.  All I had to do was wait.

As he came down the last hillside, he slowed to an ambling walk.  At 215 yards, I couldn’t help myself anymore.  It was a bad call, a total breakdown of critical patience, but I laid the crosshairs a shade ahead of his nose, took a breath, and touched the trigger.  The bullet splashed into the dirt a few inches over his ear and the boar kicked it into high gear.  Rookie mistake by an experienced hunter.  But I still couldn’t believe I missed him.

Jump ahead an hour and a half.  I’ve decided to pack it over to a bedding area that has held pigs every single time I’ve hunted it.  It’s an ugly spot, which is why it’s seldom hunted (and why I hunt it).  I’m hiking in, not even close to the good stuff, when a shadow comes between me and the morning sun.   I flinch involuntarily, and then look up to see a calico boar running full out on a parallel course to my own.  I snap shoot without a thought, stupidly, and of course I miss. 

Strike two.

The boar disappears without another good opportunity and I continue down to the bedding areas.  As I do, I catch movement across the canyon.  Eight to ten pigs are scrambling up the opposite ridge.  I range them at 400 yards and moving out.  No way I’ll get a shot on these unless they turn and come back down.  They don’t.

I sit down to take a breather, and glass the opposite ridge.  At first there’s nothing, but then I pick up a black spot.  After a moment, I realize I’m looking at a huge pig bedded on the hillside.  I get the scope on it and notice small animals a few feet away.  I think it’s weird to see squirrels so close to a bedded pig.  Then I realize the “squirrels” are piglets.  It’s a wet sow… no shot.

I keep glassing for a few seconds before I realize that the clay-colored shape just below her is actually a red and black calico boar.  I range him at 266.  It’s a long poke, but completely realistic with the solid rest I’ve set up in front of me.  I take the time to stuff my ears with toilet paper (forgot to get my SportEars out of the truck), settle in on top of my pack frame, and control my breathing.  My finger inches toward the trigger. 

The boar stands up, leaving my crosshairs hovering over empty dirt, and goes to sniff at the sow.  She doesn’t like that and jumps up to chase him into the thicket.  They both disappear.  Damn!

The don’t leave the thicket, so I hold my position and wait.  And wait.  And wait.  Finally, I see movement at the top of the brush.  The boar steps out, stretches like a dog, and sprawls out on the ground.  There is no possible way he could expose more of his vitals to me.  I tuck the rifle into my shoulder, get a solid sight picture, check the area around the boar in case the piglets came back out (they didn’t), and put the crosshairs high on his shoulder.  At this range, I should hit right where I’m aiming, but this will allow for a little drop or drift. 

At the shot, the boar jumps to his feet and dives into the brush.  I’m sure I’ve hit him.

Getting across the ravine to the spot where the hogs were is no mean feat, but after some time and sweat I’m there.  Unfortunately, the hog is not there.  Neither is there any sign of a hit.  No blood.  No hair.  Plenty of tracks, but nothing stumbling or dragging.  I scour the thicket and the surrounding area, but nothing.  I’ve missed again.

At this point, I’m not having a very good day.  I’m having thoughts of Catalina, and really worrying.  Have I just lost my ability to make the shot?  One miss is bad enough, but understandable.  Three in a row?  Come on!

At Catalina, the problem was 100% with the trigger nut.  You know what a trigger nut is, right?  It’s the nut that pulls the trigger and makes the gun go boom.  Yeah.  It was all me. 

I was pretty sure this was the case on this hunt too.  The Browning had never let me down before.  Nevertheless, I drove back to camp, made a target out of a paper plate, and took it to a safe place to shoot.  Someone else had apparently decided this was a good place to shoot, and had set up a serviceable bench.  I set the target at 100 yards, settled in, and touched off the first round.  I couldn’t see a hole in the plate.  I fired another round, and the hole appeared several inches to the right and a couple of inches high.  I’d zeroed the rifle for dead-on at 100 yards. 

After a couple of adjustments, I was center-punching the target.  Unfortunately, the excercise left me with six rounds.  I briefly considered switching the 30-06, but I’m too stubborn for that.  I rolled back to camp, had a snack, and headed for “my” ridge. 

Just before dark, I looked across the canyon and saw a hunter slipping across the face of the hill where I’d missed the hogs earlier.  Across the draw from him, I saw a big pig, feeding in the open.  I thought to myself that this would make some great video and settled down with the camera.  Several minutes went by but the hunter never showed.  I decided he’d had his chance, and now I’d take mine.

I ran as hard as I could up the hill, then dropped off onto a finger ridge.  I managed to close the distance to 158 yards on the boar, still unaware.  He was big, but I didn’t think too hard about that at the moment.  I settled onto the ground and found a steady rest.  I waited until my breathing had settled down, put the crosshairs on him, and waited for him to put his head down to feed. 

At the shot, the boar started tumbling.  The steep hillside dropped away about 500 feet into the creek bed below, and I could hear the boar crashing like an out of control 18-wheeler all the way down, breaking through the scrub oak all the way down until I heard the splat of the boar in the creekbed.  Then everything was quiet.

The recovery was no fun.

While our group of nine guys saw a lot of hogs over the weekend, we only brought out four by the time we drove out of the gates on Sunday.  It was a disappointing outcome, but that’s how hunting can be.  Tejon can be a really tough hunt, but it’s always rewarding, and often educational. 

Here’s a little video of the event.  Consider it your reward for reading all of this!

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