asaxon
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It all started on a foggy Thursday morning. Three experienced hunters all in camo met up with a. granola fed, fava bean eating, tofu greenhorn princess dressed in shorts, t-shirt and tennis shoes. But that is another story….
Now that I suckered you into opening this post, here is the Hog meat –one of LtDan’s famous smoked sausages and some of his fantastic kielbasa. That is the way I like to get my hog, all ready to cook. It is a good thing too as hogs on the hoof were real scarce on our St. Paddy’s weekend hunt at Vandyland.
For the St. Paddy’s day hunt with the “Camp P Boys”, I ran the Moby Kate out into SM bay to grab some lobsters for a promised dinner. Water was real dirty with 5’ vis; it was like a night dive as I stumbled around but I managed to bag the needed lobsters. I also managed to dislocate my clavicle from my sternum by yanking real hard in getting a good sized bug out of a hole. I didn’t know that joint ever “came adrift”. I popped back in but OUCH! I had to grab the remaining bugs left handed. And when I get home, what do I find? The brand new rifled barrel for my Browning Gold Hunter–a serious set up to hunt pigs in the no-rifle zones at Vandyland. Wahoo! But my shoulder is in no condition to sight it in. The barrel was manufactured in Belgium, no wonder it was so expensive. For the price, they could at least have thrown in a case of Trappist beer; but nooooooo….
So Thurs AM I’m off to Vandyland. Here is what the traffic looks like going into LA before rush hour gets bad – that to make you more rural folks all the more happy about NOT living in LA-LA land. I arrived at 10 am in time to sign in, get my sponsored guest pass (free) and hunting sticker ($50), and meet up with the forth fellow, CG who is retired Navy and learning the Vandyland ropes. LtDan was worried about a possible base closure but Vandyland was open in spite of the crazy North Korean’s rattling their missiles. Why worry, Denis Rodman says they are his friend. Unfortunately, the US Air Force wasn’t the only ones monitoring the N. Korean situation and this had a devastating impact on the hog hunting as you will see. We hustled off to the Rod/Gun Club to sight in my new rifled barrel where one freakin’ amazing shot took place. So with my right shoulder/clavicle mess, LtDan & Trkyhtr3 sighted in my new slug rig. They got it sighted in 2” high in no time at 50 yards using Dduplex Mono28’s. Moved the target to 100 yards and they each made one shot – both 2” to the right, a minor adjustment and Dan puts the next/last shot right in the bull’s eye. (Picture). I was very pleased. But the amazing shot was the very first round fired. I’d leveled and mounted the scope but I had no idea as to the POI as I’d not bore sighted it or anything. So I put the target, clipped onto a frame, out at 25 yards and Trkyhtr3 prophetically says – “Don’t shoot the clip off”. LtDan puts the cross hairs on the bull’s eye and Bam! The clip going flying as the round hits the wire handles on the clip at the very edge of the target stand. In the picture, I put the clip back on but it is minus the wire loop handles where the round struck. (picture) LtDan could not have made that shot in 100 years if he’d tried even with the rig all sighted. Then LtDan pulls out “old Betsy”, an 1903 Springfield in all original condition except the trigger (Picture) and proceeds to sight it in so that he was “in the bull’s eye” at 100 yards using the iron sights and 50 year old FMJ ammo (not for hunting in Condor Zone of course). Nice shooting.
Well the target shooting was more successful than the hog hunting. Hogs were real scare on this trip. The first PM hunt we saw none. The next morning we got fogged out of where we wanted to go and arrived “late” at our secondary location just in time to see a nice hog drop over the ridge to disappear across the valley.
That evening, no hogs and the next morning, again we get fogged in just at shooting time arrives. Finally, the last PM, Chris sees a group of piglets with no sow in evidence. They were too small be able to read (see below) and too small to shoot. 
We did scout about during the trip and there was very little fresh sign – there was some areas of major rooting ,rubbing and prints from a good sized hog but it was all a couple of weeks old or more. Some might think the problem was pressure as there appeared to be a fair amount of hunters about (of various skill levels, e.g. 21 inch smooth bore shotgun with open sights, no rifled choke and carrying copper sabots while sitting in the middle of the rooting – doh! – but that is another story).
But we know better. LtDan tells me that pigs write messages in the rooting and he can read it. And would I doubt LtDan? He assures me that there was a message written in the rooting. He says it warned all the hogs about Crazy Kim Jong Un in N. Korea, suggested they leave Vandyland as it’s a high priority target, and told them to meet up near Avila Beach to the south. So that is where all the hogs went. Well that’s our story and we are sticking to it. Indeed, on the way home I talked to the Alfred Luis of Central Coast Outfitters, which is headquartered S. of Vandyland. He said they’d been inundated with packs of wild hogs traveling down from the North this past week.
While hogs were scare, at least gourmet food was not. Vandyland camping with the P-boys has really gone upscale since K_Rad came on a trip. We now have fancy olives, gourmet appetizer snacks, and Zigat rated Michelin Guide 3 star meals no less. We had “monkey meat” plus orange chicken one night, tri-tip another and elk burgers plus a killer beef stew that was almost like Stroganoff on the last day. Indeed, we had so much good food we didn’t even cook the lobsters – they went home with the P-boys for the future. And there was an added benefit from the cooking on this trip as well . But that is another story (see the next post).
This time at least no one took a shot at us in the field http://www.jesseshunting.com/forums...oggus-interruptus-amp-who-is-shooting-at-me.* but we were attacked in camp. Saturday afternoon we hear this almighty buzzing sound and just 25 feet from cam
p, there is a massive swarm of bees. At first I thought it was flies announcing the arrival of some Australians but no, it was bees “on the move”. They quickly bivouacked on a branch of a tree while sending out scouts for a new camp. An hour later, the air again was filled with the little stingers so we got inside our vehicles/tents and watched as they bugged out to new quarters up in the brush behind camp and were gone in 5 minutes, I took a hint from the bees and bugged out for home Sat. evening after dinner as well. As ever, it was a fun trip with the “P-boys” – a much needed relaxation of the soul from the craziness of LA-LA land.*No animals were injured in the telling of this tale although the truth may have been bruised a bit.
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With the Timmeny, it's adjusted to an even 3 lbs. Much better. I killed alot of deer with that rifle until the lead free ban came. That rifle would NOT shoot lead free ammo of any kind and I finally retired it from hunting.
