1st Pig Hunt w/ Story

EPic1856 · Dec 29, 2010

A bit long, but you have a lot of time on your hand when you have no internet or cell phone service.

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Me
Dick (hunting buddy)
Roger (Owner/Guide)
Rowdy (Guide)

Location:
Parkfield, CA and surrounding ranch land

Rifle:
Tikka T3, 7 mm Rem. Mag

Guide:
Miller Brothers Expeditions
HOME

Hunting Days:
Monday, afternoon only
Tuesday, Morning & Afternoon
Wednesday, Morning Only

Monday:

Weather: Mid 50's partly cloudy.

The trip started with Dick picking me up from my place in the in the LA area at around 8:30 AM. Luckily with all of the holidays, there was no traffic. We were headed up the grapevine within an hour. It was smooth sailing along the 5 freeway and arrived at Parkfield, CA at about noon.

As we drove into Parkfield two things stood out. One the San Andreas Fault runs right through the town and it has a population of 18. We grabbed lunch at Parkfield Café. The café is also where we checked in for the inn across the street. We settled in our room and unloaded the truck. We give a call to Roger that we are in town and says to be ready at 3:00 PM. I glance at my watch; it read 2:00 PM.

At 3:00 PM Roger knocks on our door with his son. We signed the waiver form in the room. He asked for no money. We were out the door right afterwards. I’m new to this guided hunting service, but Dick has hunted with Roger for about 10 years. Roger has worked his family ranch all his life and has been a guide for 30 years. He’s a very amicable person, who made sure we all had a good time.

Off we go to his ranch. We are less than 5 minutes away from Parkfield and we are on his property driving around looking for pigs. Since this is my first time hunting for pigs, Dick gave me the first opportunity. Roger gets a phone call and its Rowdy a couple miles over telling him he spotted some pigs. We do a u-turn and head to his direction. We get to his location and park.

Excuse my crappy drawings.

Chase 1
Rowdy is waiting for us. He tells us that the pigs are on top of Hill #2. Rowdy and Roger made a quick game plan to head on over to Hill #1, observe, and see what direction the pigs are heading. The wind was blowing westerly, so it worked out. Off we go, we did somewhat of a loop around the Hill to get out of sight. In about 10-15 minutes we were on top of the Hill glassing over at Hill #2. I was able to spot about a 15-20 pigs. They were mostly in the 80 lbs range and all sows, but there was 1-2 of them in the 140-150 lbs range. This is when Roger asked me “What type of pig do I want?” I told him I wanted a meat pig. As we glassed for another 10-15 minutes, the pigs were slowly moving towards the South by the vehicles.

At this point, it was agreed upon that I would go with Rowdy and try to ambush them as they get off the Hill and into flat area. Roger, his son, and Dick would head North around the Hill and see if they could catch other pigs along that direction.

Rowdy and I make our way down to the bottom of the Hill and he positions me ahead of the pigs and sets me up for a 100 yard shot into a relatively clear area where the pigs would be eating acorns. I didn’t have a completely free line of sight on the pigs. There was a big oak with some big bushes in front. I had clear sights to the left and right of the tree. As I get my shooting sticks ready, the pigs start coming off the Hill. These were all the small 80 lb pigs coming down, but no sign of the bigger 150 pounders. As we keep waiting, a new set of pigs start appearing from the South towards this clearing. There were about 25 in this group. They weren’t any bigger than the ones from the Hill. Not a minute or two later we see movement from Northern end at the base of Hill #2. Another group of pigs! These were a lot bigger than the first two groups. They were in the 150-175 lb range. Rowdy said this is the group we’ll be picking from.

There was a nice 150 lb boar in the group. So as I start getting ready for the shot. The boar appears in the clearing on the left hand side of the oak tree. He was quartering away from me, I was about to take the shot when Rowdy told me to hold off and wait. The boar slowly gets behind the oak and the bushes. I nervously waited for the boar to appear to the right of the oak tree. It seemed like an eternity to me. It finally appears. He was broadside to me; I turn off the safety and take aim at the front shoulder…..BANG!

Wait…..I didn’t pull the TRIGGER!!!!! Dick on the other side of the Hill pulled the trigger. He took down his boar before my shot. I was about 5 second away from pulling the trigger. DAMN IT! The gun shot spooked the pigs. There was a pig stampede. All the 70+ pigs booked it in unison. They all took off towards Hill #1. They took a very similar approach on how we got up there. As they were running, by us about 40-50 yards to the South, I was going to try to take a shot of the boar, but it was too hectic. There were too many pigs running at the same time trying to spot the one boar in 70+ and shooting at a running target. It wasn’t going to happen.

After the stampede was out of sight I took a deep breath. Wow, 70+ pigs and me 5 seconds away from my first pig. Rowdy’s phone starts going off and its Roger telling us that the pigs they were tracking headed over to the other side of Hill #2 after Dick took down his boar. Rowdy and I walk at a quick pace to see if we can get to these pigs.

Chase 2
We get in the Jeep and drive to the other side of Hill #2. We park and start walking towards the Northwest. We got about 300 yards into the brush and trees and we waited. Unfortunately the wind was not in our favor. The wind was swirling in our area. We heard some noises, but they caught wind of us quickly. We never saw them. It wasn’t looking promising, but Rowdy said lets go to another location while there is some light left. We had about 45 minutes of legal shooting time left.

Chase 3
This time we head to a completely different part of the property. We start driving on top of a ridge with some steep looking embankments on either side. It is about 115-125 yard to the bottom of the ridge. The bottom has some pine and oak trees. As soon as we reach the apex of the ridge we stop and get out of the Jeep. Sure enough there were pigs about halfway down the embankment. Right away Rowdy gives me the shooting sticks to take a shot. As soon as I place my rifle on the sticks, the pigs run. The wind changed on us. Damn it again. It looked like it wasn’t going to be my day.

We went ahead and walked about half way down the embankment where an old tree lay on its side. We decided to stay there and see if a pig came out of the bottom. There were other pigs that were at the bottom of the ridge that were not scared off. At this point we had about 20 minutes left before legal shooting time was over. All we heard at the bottom of the ridge in the trees and brush were snorts and oinks. There were definitely a few pigs down there teasing us. We waited 10 minutes along the tree waiting for them to come out. With 10 minutes left of shooting time Rowdy decided to gamble a bit. We were going to take a chance and go down there. We might get spotted, but better than not trying before it gets too dark.

As we take start walking towards the bottom, we walk down the embankment no more than 10 yards we see 3 sows come out of the trees right at the base of the embankment. All of the sows were 200+ lbs. In an instant I set the shooting sticks, put the rifle on the sticks and took aim. Rowdy told me to take the 3rd sow coming out of the trees. At that very moment the three pigs froze looking directly at us. I took aim at the front shoulder of the 3rd pig and BANG! The first thing I saw was the flash of the muzzle. The pig took about two steps back and dropped.

The shot was a downhill shot at about 60 yards with the pig quartering towards me. The bullet penetrated the neck and went out through the rib cage on the other side. Rowdy took care of gutting the pig. As part of the guide service he needed to get the pick back in the Jeep too. No easy task getting a 200+ lb pig up a 125 yard embankment. Don’t worry I tipped him well. =)

I had a great time. I saw way more pigs than I expected. Dick and I both managed to get our pigs on the first afternoon (paid for 2 days) of hunting. It sucks that our pig hunting ended relatively quickly, but better than not getting anything at all. Roger and Rowdy were great folks and guides. They were helpful throughout the whole hunt and will definitely be going back.

Dick's Boar

My Pig:

EPic1856 · Dec 29, 2010

More Pics...

The 7 Mag hole of my pig. Right along the neck.
http://i62.photobucket.com/albums/h114/epic1856/hunting-12-27-2010/DSC03239.jpg

huntingbret · Dec 29, 2010

Congrats on the successful hunt. I heard a lot of bad things about the area but yours turned out great so that's all that matters. LOL

weimyowner · Dec 29, 2010

Sounds like you had a great hunt! I was looking at their website, they are somewhat reasonable in the pig hunting market (price), however it would make me nervous shooting at a hog if i couldn't see his teeth! That $400 trophy fee would have me studying the hogs mouth for a long time before pulling the trigger.
Did anyone in your group have to pay the trophy fee? Did you find yourself looking for teeth?
Since your hunt was over quickly, did they offer you the oppurtunity to shoot ground squirrels at no charge?

FRISCOHNTR · Dec 29, 2010

Great story and great job on your first pig. I appreciate the story and all the detail. Your guide did you right for sure. Now watch out it's an addictive hobby.

Take care,
Jason

jb229 · Dec 29, 2010

Great write up, Nice hogs as well. congrats!

EPic1856 · Dec 29, 2010

weimyowner said:
Sounds like you had a great hunt! I was looking at their website, they are somewhat reasonable in the pig hunting market (price), however it would make me nervous shooting at a hog if i couldn't see his teeth! That $400 trophy fee would have me studying the hogs mouth for a long time before pulling the trigger.
Did anyone in your group have to pay the trophy fee? Did you find yourself looking for teeth?
Since your hunt was over quickly, did they offer you the oppurtunity to shoot ground squirrels at no charge?

To answer your questions:
Did anyone in your group have to pay the trophy fee?
No Trophy fee was paid.

Did you find yourself looking for teeth?
No because I told Roger I was looking for a meat pig.

Since your hunt was over quickly, did they offer you the oppurtunity to shoot ground squirrels at no charge?
Actually, we signed up for the squirrel shooting before we got there. Dick has had a lot of success with Roger and his property in the past 10 years, so he planned ahead. Along with my 7 mag, we brought along a .223 and 22-250 for the squirrels.

weimyowner · Dec 30, 2010

Cool, thanks for answering my questions! I hope I didn't come accross as sounding negative?

Last question......because you told Roger you were looking for a meat pig, if you shot a pig with 2" or larger teeth (not on purpose) would you have to pay the extra $$$$?
Just trying to understand the whole trophy fee process?
Thanks!
How was the squirrel shooting?

THE ROMAN ARCHER · Dec 30, 2010

congrats on your first gunkill pig, nice hogs for sure! thanks for sharing your story and photos and details!....tra

cheta · Dec 30, 2010

Great story nice illustrations and congrats on a successful hunt!

BackCountryHNTR · Dec 30, 2010

Congratulations!
Thank you for sharing the story and the pictures.

Vermonster · Dec 30, 2010

I din't think the drawings were all that bad..... :thumbs up2:

Congrats! Nice pigs!!!

jls456 · Dec 30, 2010

Great Story. Looks like you had a great time.

EPic1856 · Dec 30, 2010

weimyowner said:
Cool, thanks for answering my questions! I hope I didn't come accross as sounding negative?

Last question......because you told Roger you were looking for a meat pig, if you shot a pig with 2" or larger teeth (not on purpose) would you have to pay the extra $$$$?
Just trying to understand the whole trophy fee process?
Thanks!
How was the squirrel shooting?

I just dont know the answer to your question whether we would have paid extra for shooting the wrong pig. I do know that they wanted you to shoot a specific pig. Its not just the boars with 2"+ teeth. They didnt want us shotting pigs that may be pregnant or have a litter.

SoJo · Jan 3, 2011

Great job! It definitely is a thrill killing your 1st hog! Your write-up was great - felt like I was there during the hunt!

Savage21 · Jan 7, 2011

Sounds like a really awesome hunt!! I remember my first and only time going to Parkfield with a friend. We hunted the public land at the dead end past the town though. There was sign everywhere up there! He got one too. Soon as we got back to the truck and started driving another pig (200+ boar) ran across the road. Private on each side there so I couldn't shoot it

.

I would also be very careful about shooting a trophy boar lol. Guide and trespess service plus trophy fee just isn't worth it to me.

1st Pig Hunt w/ Story

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