jagdman
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- Jun 4, 2009
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I just got back from my hunt with Bitterwater Outfitters in Paso Robles. They had called me Wednesday to let me know the Aoudad Sheep were back on the ranch and my long awaited hunt, to hunt free range Aoudad sheep in California, was a go. I could not get away from work until the next day after 12 so I asked my daughter, who had just graduated from college on Tuesday, if she wanted to go up with me.
We left Huntington Beach around 1:00 p.m. on Thursday. By the time we got thru the LA traffic we arrived at Bitterwater Headquarters around 4:30 p.m. They had the targets set up at the range with nice benches and Led Sled rifle rests, we shot a few rounds to make sure the gun was still on. It was a good thing we did because it was shooting a half inch low and to the right at fifty yards, a little adjustment and two shots later we were ready to go.
The ranch we were going to hunt was an hour and fifteen minutes away, the drive over went by fast, and we were soon at the ranch gearing up for the hunt. We loaded up in the ATV with my two guides, my daughter sat up front and I sat in the middle. We headed out to where the guides had seen the sheep earlier in the day and sure enough we spotted four sheep. Three of them being shooter trophies about 4000 yards away. We went around the mountain to try and get closer to the animals. We parked the ATV, loaded up the rifle and headed up the mountain trying to get above the area where we had last seen the sheep. Unfortunately, they were nowhere to be seen. We keep going up the mountain and over to the next valley were the sheep normally head to escape the area. Sure enough the sheep had already gone over the mountain and were heading off the ranch, around twelve hundred yards away, close but not close enough. Six and a half hours of driving for an hour and a half of hunting and the hunt for sheep was over for now.
Our guides felt bad, so they asked us if we wanted to stay the night and hunt a pig in the morning. My daughter and I said “that would be great and we would hunt the Aoudad another day”. They said they would meet us at the Bitterwater Outfitters headquarters in the morning at 4:30 am. and that we could used the bunk house there so we stopped in Paso Robles had some dinner and headed off to bed around 11:00 p.m. The bunk house was great! They had two rooms, nice bunk beds in each room, heaters, toilet, shower and a little refrigerator.
We awoke at four and got ready for the wild pig hunt, the guides showed up, we loaded our gear in the truck and headed out to the barley fields looking for a pig to shoot. We had traveled to a ranch about twenty minutes away and headed to a high ridge to be able to glass the fields. Nothing was seen so off to the next field, we did the same thing with the same results. We checked three more fields and finally found a pig sleeping across a canyon. We headed off on foot for a stalk, that put us just above the bedded, unsuspecting pig. I got in position for the shot and my guide said it was laying down with its head going to the left. I picked out the left shoulder and held low, just behind the leg. At the shot, the pig, that turned out to be a huge boar, jumped out of its bed and turned and gave me a look like “I am going to come over there and kill you”. I chambered another 130 grain Triple Shock bullet into my 270 just as the guide said to hit him again. The shot went where I aimed and he took off up the hill. My guide said to hit him again and at that shot he went down for good.
We headed over to the huge boar and could not believe how big he was and the size of teeth he had. He later weighed out at 293 lbs and had 3 1/8 inch teeth on him. The bullets did a good job and the third shot was not needed as he was dead on his feet because there was no blood shot meat around the third bullet hole. We filled out the tag and my daughter took pictures. The guides retrieved the truck and were able to get it almost to the pig. We loaded it and headed off to the headquarters to skin it and put it into the walk-in cooler to cool down for the trip home.
The guys at Bitterwater Outfitters did a great job on the hunt and had top notch equipment and facilities. The barley is just starting to ripen and the Wild boar will really start hitting it hard soon. If you are thinking of doing a pig hunt I would highly recommend them. We will be going back up for the Aoudad as soon as possible!
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