Live Report from this weekend's Chopperpluza

[SacFireJT]

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Cal hunter @ Jun 4 2006, 08:33 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}></div>

Ps:Sacfire thanks for the ride in the Rhino that thing is a blast[/b]

Funny, AS did not think so?

 

[wtpops]

Ok here we go. Its Saterday were all sitting around after a morning hunt stuffing our faces with food.

That reminds me, if any of you out there go hunting with these guys you better lose about 10 pounds BEFOUR you go because I promiss you no matter how hard you hunt you will not lose a pound, you might gain 2 or 3, hell 5. The food was outrages. Thanks RichW and all that piched in with the eats.

I was the newbee on the block and want to say thanks to all, ( RichW, SacfireJT, Kentuck, Calhunter, Oneshothunter and fellow trad archer Orso, O Orso very nice bow there is somthing about a custom made Bambo backed long bow, you got to love the looks of bambo on a bow) And ofcourse Chopper who treated me like ive been hunting there for 10 years instead of my first time.

Where was I, O yes, food ,face, stuffing, we started talking about where we were going to go for the evening hunt, Kentuck asked me if i wanted to check out where he had been hunting, he had seen pigs 2 days in a row, he ended up seeing pigs 3 times there but I will let him tell the story on that. Any way I take him up on it and he gives me directions how to get there. Thank god Chopper lead me out there cause i would have gotten lost.

I get parked, packed up and start off. The wind is still blowing up the draws and canyons so my plan was to go around to the top and hunt down. Im walking the top hunting for sign and looking for a place to start down. I find a place that is clear enough so i wont sound like a bull dozer trying to drop off the ridge. I no sooner get ten yards off the top when i hear a buck snort or blow what ever you call it, could have been a doe i guess but any way i stop in my tracks sit down, about that time anouther snort, im thinking darn this deer is going to spook, barrel down the hill and scare every thing in its path. I dont know how it knew i was there, wind in my face, it cant see me im behind a big oak tree. The only thing I can think of is these darn potato chips someone keeps putting under my feet. Then one more loud snort and a big loud PIG grunt. The goose bumps stand up on the back of my neck and the adrenalin runs through my body.

I peek around the oak tree and there are 2 sows about 150lbs to 175lbs a peice. One is feeding on the grass and one rooting under an oak tree hence the snorts , she was clearing her nose. They are about 100 yards away as the crow flys, there was a big deep saddle between us which increased the yardage to about 150.

Everything looks good, the wind is in my face and steady. there is no cover to my right so i have to go left across a 30 yard open spot. I make it across the open to some brush and pine trees that will cover me for the rest of the stalk. By now i can feel the arteries in my neck going boom, boom, boom. The pigs are slowly feeding away from me. It takes me about 20 min. to cross the next 100 or so yards of potato chips to with in 20 yards of the sows. Now i can hear them feeding on the other side of a dead fall, out of sight. I take one more step and snort, they take off trotting to my right, around the top of the knob we are on, just before they get out of sight they slow to a walk and start to feeding again.

This is purfect, I can sneak around the left side of the dead fall, up on top of the knob. The wind will be in my face and they will be right below me at about 10 to 15 yards. I get there and am trying to peek over the edge, trying to see an ear or outline of a back or somthing. I am amped up almost shaking when all at once two LOUD grunts, one right after the other about 15 yards BEHIND me, I spin around so scared one knee gives out and i go down to one knee, they had gone all the way around the knob, It sounded like two 1 ton bolders rolling down the ridge.

Im sitting there on one knee heart pumping so hard i think, man im going to stroke out right here on the spot. I sit there, calm down and reflect on one of the most exciting stalks ive had in 10 to 15 years.

If you havent been you got to try Choppers.

Chopper I will be back.

 

[Kentuck]

It's almost ten now and I'm too pooped to post a real detailed report but wanted to say an awesome and loud THANK-YOU to Richw for getting the hunt together, waiting for me when I was running late Thursday and for the awesome food. We definately ate like kings this weekend. Orso, you're going to have to give me the name of that ancient chinese recipe you use on that chicken. It was great. An equally huge THANKS! to Chopper for all the hospitality and poison oak diving while looking for my hog this morning. I don't doubt had I done that I'd be in the hospital by Tuesday. Too bad poison oak isn't a cash crop. Stuff is thick this year.
I'll post reports on what I call my Got Greedy hunt Friday evening and my hunt from this morning.
Had a blast and once again met some more JHO'ers for the first time and as usual they were all a great bunch of guys. Thanks for putting up with me guys. SacfireJT thanks for the ride in Rhino. It was great. Nothing better than air in your face while running around on some great land. Hey Chopper, you need to warn people about the pine cones up around the cabin. One almost hit SacfireJT and I when we went hunting last evening!

Got some pics to share too. Saw a bobcat, turkeys, too many stinking quail to count, even more mosquitos and trying to sleep in a room with two bats flying around was a little unnerving! I'm not sure everyone else realized while they were laughing at me I had run them out my room and into the main room. Life's rough.

Will post pics and details tomorrow. I've only been home a couple of hours today and it's bed time.

Kentuck

 

[Orso]

Hey Bubba, I left your arrow up at the cabin.

 

[Orso]

To my fellow adventurers from this past weekend,

I want to thank each and every one of you. Chopper, I especially want to thank you for a great time... And thanks for the rollercoaster ride in the safari wagoon.

Kentuck, Cal Hunter, Oneshot, wtp-ops, RichW, Sacfire you guys are a lot of fun to hang out and hunt with. I'm sure we'll all get together again.

I definitely put some miles on the old boots this trip. I saw a couple of really good size bucks. I did have one brief encounter with a big ole' boar that apparently was bedded less than 25 yards from where I took a breakfast break and spent about 20 mins hydrating, taking pictures, making all kinds of noise and of course when I had my pack back on and my bow in hand, I hadn't knocked an arrow and just a few steps back into the hunt I spooked this 200 plus lb. boar and I was unable to act quickly enough to get a shot off. Just my luck...

The ground squirrel hunt on Saturday afternoon was a lot of fun. I think I'm gonna try and make that a regular routine for practicing. Hey, if any of you SoCal guys want to get together, lets go find some places to hunt.

Oh Chop, if you really are serious about keeping detailed records of the hunt, I went through all my notes from previous hunts and I believe I have a detailed account of all my rest stops(so to speak) for you.

 

[Kentuck]

Part one of my hunt. It's wordy so I will post it up in segments. Please be patient.

Well, my hunt at Chopper’s this past weekend started about usual for me. I was 45 minutes late getting to the gate Thursday night and mucho thanks to RichW for waiting for me. I completely forgot about how bad traffic is through San Jose. Anyway, we got to the cabin and I changed and went down to where I shot my pig last Oct. and still hunted the road down that canyon until dark. Found a nice wallow from when there was water on the road. The pigs had hit that area good back then. The area looked good and I decided to try there Friday morning. Went back to the cabin to get bbq the steaks, warm the pre-baked potatoes and get the salad out and was excited to hear Sacfire and Wtpops had gotten into hogs.
Friday started out with me hunting the canyon that is basically below the cabin. Still hunted the road down to the red trough without seeing anything but quail the whole way. Wasn’t feeling so energetic and decided to hunt the road back up. Made some little side trips around and didn’t see or hear anything by the time I had gotten back to the truck. Went back to the cabin and made eggs and cooked up some breakfast sausage from the pig I got back in Oct. Pretty much the same report from everyone else as me. No hogs spotted and was sorry to hear wtpops had not found his pig. Did find the arrow but no blood or pig. Bummer. After breakfast Chopper was suggesting areas to hunt to a couple of the guys and I knew that if I sat around much longer I’d be asleep so Cal Hunter and I took a drive around the ranch. Drove some areas I hadn’t been to yet and we still didn’t see any pigs. Saw deer, quail and turkey but no pig. By now I’m realizing with all the water and feed out there the pigs don’t have to move much to get what they need. We get back to the cabin and thanks to Chopper’s suggestion Richw had supper prepared and we ate some awesome fish. I’m sure the food that we were eating and were to eat later rivaled any high dollar guided hunt anyone else in CA puts on. After supper I decided to hunt a canyon that had a wallow right in the side of the road that looked to be used recently. I was just going to sit this wallow until dark. This is the beginning of what I am now calling the “Getting Greedy” hunt.

 

[Kentuck]

The Greedy hunt.

I made my way down to the wallow and saw a stump up the draw from the wallow and decided to sit there. I was just over 20 yards from the road. I’d sat there about an hour and was really starting to get peaved at the squirrels and quail that were chattering at me off and on the whole time I was there when I saw movement down on the road below me. I turned and looked and it was a Bobcat. Cool. It doesn’t know I’m here. I get my camera out and get ready to take pics as it comes out from behind the poison oak patch in the gully. It walked out and I was able to get three pics of it. It never even looked at me. I started trying to get it’s attention by making kissing sounds on the back of my hand and the cat never even looked back. It obviously had other places to be. It was interesting to hear all the animals chattering when the cat walked through. Not long after this I decided to walk up the hill to a knob that looked like it would give me a good view of the surrounding hill. I ease up the draw and get into this nice open grass and oak flat. I start finding lots of old rooting and old scat. A sure sign pigs had been spending a lot of time in the area previously and just may be nearby still. I end up walking up on a two-track trail going up the hill and decide to go ahead and go to the top. One thing that I failed to really think about then that would come back to haunt me later is that the wind was naturally blowing uphill at the time. More on that later. I continue up the two track and I’m about three-quarters up the hill when I decide that I probably won’t see much if I continue up as I had been thinking the pigs were down low in the creek bottoms because of all the water there. But, I’m almost to the top and I might as well continue. I walk up to a flat bench in the ridge and as is usual am looking down at the ground for tracks when I look up and see three pigs right in the open grass about 30 yards away. They have no idea I am there and I take time to nock an arrow, analyze the scene and determine there are to medium sized chocolate brown pigs, a bigger black pig and another pig over in the trees to my right that I couldn’t see too well but knew I had to watch as I hunted the first three. I get my rangefinder up and the black pig was 32 yards away. The two brown ones were about 10 feet closer to me. I first decided to take one of the brown ones but since the black one was the biggest I decided to try that one. At this point I got greedy. Realizing they had no idea I was there I figured I could get closer. I had no doubt I could hit the pig at 32 yards but as with any archer I know my odds and accuracy go greatly higher the closer I get. I take about three steps or so and by now the black pig is perfectly broadside. I re-range it and it is now 28 yards away. It’s then that I realized the slight breeze was blowing uphill and although the pigs were slightly to my left they were feeding to the right and directly into my scent line. I decide to shoot. I had just started to draw my bow when the black pig put it’s nose up and a second later grunted and took all the pigs away. It was then that I found out that there was another brown pig just uphill from the three that I hadn’t seen due to a brush patch. Curse it! Why did I get cocky and try and get closer when I had a good shot right off the bat. I’m totally kicking myself now. Couldn’t believe I’d blown it. The hunt was going slow and this may very well have been my only chance.

 

[Kentuck]

Saturdays events....

Saturday morning found me leaving the cabin and hiking out the ridge from there and dropping off into the saddle below the ridge toward upper Jamison. I went back up the ridge I’d ran into the hogs the evening before and hunted all the way to the end. Didn’t see anything and decided to sit in the area the hogs were in earlier. I sat there quite awhile and then decided to check the little finger ridge the pigs had ran down. I went about 40 yards from where I had been sitting and thought I saw something across the canyon. Like I could have gotten over there in time to get into any hogs there. I was reaching for my rangefinder, to use it as a monocular, when I hear a rushing noise below me. Not 25 yards away at the base of an oak with poison oak around it, I see dust and shaking poison oak. Dang, I had walked right up on a hog and was busted looking across the canyon. About then I saw the back of another hog turn and leave. I walked down to the spot and it turns out they were bedded there and I spooked them. I could hear them running around the draw below me but it was too thick with brush and poison oak to see into or to follow. I ended up going down this ridge and found a couple of spots that hogs were using real frequently. Or at least had been. Lots of trees rubbed on, old scat and beds. This was turning out to be a good spot. I went ahead and hunted the rest of Jamison and back to the cabin soaking wet from sweat and near exhaustion from hauling my sorry out-of-shape butt up and down them hills by foot. Ended up eating some great chicken tacos for breakfast that Orso had brought. Dang that was some best chicken I’d ever eaten. Some of the guys decided to go after squirrels but I needed some rest so I took a 4-5 hour siesta. I woke up just in time because there was scheming going on to do something not so nice to me.
After another great supper by Richw everyone was deciding where to go. I had wanted to hunt the area wtpops had shot his hog every since last Oct so although it had been hit hard that morning I decided to hunt there Sat. evening. I told wtpops where I had seen the hogs Friday and said he was welcome to hunt there. I think you all have read that report. It was cool to hear and I was glad he got into hogs.
As it turned out most decided to sleep in Sunday morning and get an early start home. I wanted to hit that spot I and wtpops had seen hogs. I was pretty sure two could hunt that area and asked wtpops to join me. I call this hunt the Red Dawn hunt due to the incredibly red dawn it was that morning.

 

[Kentuck]

The Red Dawn hunt....

After parking and making a quick pit-stop (both bathrooms were occupado when I left) wtpops and I agreed that I would hunt down the canyon and he go up the ridge. That way we might move something towards each other. I start down the canyon on the road and took some pics of the sunrise. It was awesome. I’d gone a couple hundred yards and was coming around a curve in the road that opened into a nice bowl on the hill. I’d just told myself to slow down when I peaked over a poison oak patch and saw a hog feeding on the wild oats in the open. I nocked an arrow and walked a few steps and ranged the pig at 42 yards. A doable shot but I definitely wanted closer because these are tough critters and I wanted the best shot I could. I continue to ease down the road and end up straight down from him. It was a nice boar, at least 150 or more (I haven’t been on a lot of hogs so I have a hard time judging weight). I range him at 31 yards. Since it was wide open I decided this would have to do yardage wise. I draw my bow and the hog looks at me. He quickly goes back to eating oats and I get the No-Peep lined up, put my thirty yard pin mid-way up his shoulder straight up the back of his leg, he’s broadside at this point, and release. I don’t see the arrow in flight so the hog starts to run uphill then turns right and almost runs a 360 before running down the hill for about 40 yards. He then slows to a trot for about another 40 yards and then slows to a slow walk. I watch him go into a draw then go up the hill and disappear in some poison oak. I had been dreading that all weekend. I knew if I got a hog it was going to be in poison oak. Oh, well. Tecnu and Calagel were in camp so I thought I’d have it covered. I look at my watch and it’s 5:30 am. I go to look for my arrow and can’t find it. Look about ten yards from where I shot the hog and find a quarter inch sized blob of blood. A little further I found some smeared blood on the tall grass. Looks good. I sit down and decide to wait an hour. About 6:10 I think the more help I have the better and decide to head back to the cabin and get help. I didn’t want to ruin wtpops hunt so I left for the cabin. I get there and ask if anyone wants to help track a hog. SacfireJT, Calhunter and oneshothunter join me. We get to the canyon and find a decent blood trail, not heavy but decent. Someone found my arrow after about twenty yards. The broadhead was broken off where is screws into the insert (Slick Trick 100 grains), it has blood all the way around the arrow for about 8-10 inches and then some spots on it the rest of the way up including some on the fletching. We track the hog to where I last saw it and loose the blood trail. SacfireJT goes to get Chopper and Trixie. While he’s gone the other three of us look for blood all around. Can’t find any. I go up and down the hill and don’t see any sign coming out of the poison oak. The backside of the hill the hog went on was covered in poison oak. Figures. Chopper and Sacfire show up and trixie gets on the trail but can’t seem to work it out. I’m sure there were other hogs in there as I found some really fresh scat in a couple of places. Chopper mans and goes into the poison oak. We scour the hillside and find nothing. Trixie later takes off down the hill and we follow down to a creek. Don’t find any sign there and Trixie doesn’t seem to find anything interesting after that. We go back up the hill and look a little farther and into another draw and find nothing. By now it’s been almost 4 hours since I shot the hog. We decide I’d possible hit the shoulder in bone somewhere and the hog will probably live. One thing that did bother me is that I never did hear that characteristic “Thump” you hear when you make a shot on an animal so I don’t know. So now I have a lost hog to my name. It’s only the fourth animal I’ve arrowed and the first lost. I feel bad but it happens. Back to cabin and shower, pack up and head home. It was a great weekend, met some great guys, ate some awesome food and will definitely be back to Choppers.

 

[oneshothunter]

great story kentuck made me feel like i was there ..oops I was .. and i found your arrow ..lol sorry we didnt find your hog .. next time you will score im sure .. great to meet you guys that made not getting a shot on a hog ok in my book .. the storys about orso and the cow will keep me coming back .. lol thanks again CHOPPER

 

[Kentuck]

I've heard some dirranged things in my life but Orso and the cow was over the top. I was really having a hard time eating at that point. It didn't help that I'd just walked by that maggot pile just about a half hour earlier. And Chopper, I'm not sure you want Orso's "Rest Stop" coordinates after the conversation we all had about that too!

 

[Speckmisser]

Sounds like another awesome hunt at Choppers! Yes, I'm jealous!

Guess that's about it for the summer... but put me on the list for the TeamJUDO vs ANYDANGBODY for fall! Time for some trad-bow retribution. I got blood, but I still need to get some pork!

 

[Lurediver]

Im in for some Team Judo action!

 

[Franklin3]

Didn't that team retire?
or
Move back to the Orient?
or
Broke up cuz they could never agree on a team theme song?
or
Broke up cuz they couldn't agree on a team uniform?
or..............................................................................
..WHAT?