March 7 through 9 JHO/Tejon Hunt

[XDHUNTER]

Congrats chiro two for two at Tejon..

 

[Speckmisser]

Yeah, ya'll know what you can kiss.

So I rolled in a couple hours ago, caught up on some work and visited with my family.... or the strangers who are currently living in my house.

One thing Chirohunter didn't mention was that this weekend was his first real "solo" effort. Some of you remember that last year's Tejon hunt was his first big game outing. He made a trip with me during deer season as well... and that was it. for him.

So the fact that he rolled out of camp, found his OWN SPOT (where no one else was hunting), whacked a nice meat pig, dressed it, recovered it, and brought it back to camp... this is a pretty big deal, folks. Mega congrats, Steve! Nice work!

I've got some tales and some decent video, but for now I'm gonna go watch a movie with my daughter.

And yeah, Speckmisser ridge pays off again...

For me on Friday night..
[attachment=50052:me_n_pig_030708.jpg]

And for Kat's brother, Bob, on Saturday night...
[attachment=500533080001.JPG]

 

[hatchet1]

STRONG WORK GENTS!! SPECK, APPARENTLY, THE .325 WSM. WORKED!! HOW BOUT SOME PARTICULARS
ON THAT MAN CALIBER

 

[Hunt Crazy In Ca]

SWEET brothers!!!! good to hear you all did good, right on speck revenge is ow so sweet!!! congrats to all:toast-yellow:

 

[Speckmisser]

Hatchet,

All I can say for right now is the .325 was definitely more medicine than that little hog required, but at 220 yards it definitely did the bang-flop boogie.

I held a touch high because I'm on dead-zero at 100 yards, but the entry was exactly where the crosshairs were when the gun went off... top of the shoulder. The 200gr Barnes TSX went in clean, broke up the onside shoulder, demolished the top of the heart and part of the lungs, then exited with a nice, 3/4" hole. The pig rolled about 100 yards downhill, stone dead, but even so there was a blood trail a blind man could follow.

Because I pinned his shoulders, there was more meat loss than I'd usually like, but I played it cautious on the shot. I've never used the Barnes before, so I wasn't sure about a neck shot at that range, and habit tells me to break down the shoulders and knock 'em down if you can... next time, though, it's going in the neck bone. That Barnes is a heck of a bullet.

 

[chirohunter]

Oh, something I failed to mention.....when I returned back to camp I learned that when a sow is "really" wet I would have seen a mess of teets...since she only had two (and I am certain on that) she was more than likely dry...making her a shooter pig!! (just what I wanted to hear!!)

When that big sow ran to a safe distance after the shot, she stopped and turned around to see what made all that noise. She then began to wave good-bye to me, at which point I politely returned the gesture while muttering "I'll see you in May!". Man!...it's only been just over 24 hours since I have been home and I'm already thinking of the May JHO Tejon Hunt...this stuff is ADDICTING!

Speck: Thanks! You got me hooked, man! And for that, I am indebted to you!! Also, (without spoiling their story) did those guys ever get out of Tejon...or are they still there?

 

[kelly106]

Nice work fellas, glad ya had a fun trip!

 

[Speckmisser]

I won't spoil their story either... but someone needs to come on out with it! As of midnight last night, when I locked the gate behind us, the entire tale had not been told... should be done by now, though.

I hope it ended well, because I have my own bit to add to it. So Kenny, Mark, Carl...? Spill it!

 

[Rancho Loco]

This should be good..

 

[superduty]

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div>

So the fact that he rolled out of camp, found his OWN SPOT (where no one else was hunting), whacked a nice meat pig, dressed it, recovered it, and brought it back to camp... this is a pretty big deal, folks. Mega congrats, Steve! Nice work![/b]

Congrats to Steve and all who got a chance to hunt Tejon. I hope everyone got out in one piece.

 

[hatchet1]

phil, just orderd the tsx from conely for old thumper,cant wait to pull down on el puerco,
lead has been what they've been ordering off the menu lately,come july1st,they'll be changing their
order

again,strong work to you and the crew at tejon for puttin down the meat

 

[Huntr Pat]

Good Job guys,
I was spreading concrete rock base and building a form for a drive way saturday while you were slaying pigs. Sound like you had a ball.
Congrats to all you!!!

 

[XDHUNTER]

ADDICTING!! Welcome to the club chirohunter.

Cant wait to join you guys again come May.

 

[MJB]

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Speckmisser @ Mar 10 2008, 08:57 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}></div>

I hope it ended well, because I have my own bit to add to it. So Kenny, Mark, Carl...? Spill it![/b]

Yea, I also want to hear about that pig shot in camp?

 

[Suzmar1997]

Plan A: Check in on Friday morning and have at least 2 hogs hung for our group of 4.
Plan B: At least have one hog up and a good idea of where we want to be Sat morning.

Our plan: Take a wrong turn on the top of Tunnis and F'up our mojo for the rest of the trip.

We set up camp and headed out Friday afternoon in hopes of whacking an early pig. In my group was my buddy Kenny (Huntsndives), my Dad (Carl-Gnn961) and my buddy Jeff (Who was on his 1st big game hunt). We set up on a ridge where we've done well in the past and started glassing. Kenny and Jeff disappear while we look around. Kenny and Jeff resurface from a few ridges over and tell us that they put a stalk on a nice size boar (All black w/ a white face-250+). Kenny said he had a broadside shot at 250 but called Jeff over to try and set him up for a shot. They stalked and lost him in the thick stuff, but later found him face to face at forty yards. Jeff couldn't get a shot through the trees, branches, etc. and the pig boogied.

We headed back towards the truck and contemplated whether we should set up high on the East or move around toward the other ridge and get a better look into the bottoms. We unfortunately decided to head a little lower and a couple ridges to the West. Kenny and I set up while my Dad and Jeff headed more towards the truck. After glassing for a few minutes a huge boar materialized right on the trail we had walked not five minutes prior (And of course just below where we would have been set). We figured with the wind and the daylight we wouldn't have made the stalk in time so stayed put. Five minutes later we see a good sized sow walking on the ridge across from us and and down by the bottom. We have a 120 yard shot but the boar seems to be working his way in the same direction. We give it a few minutes to see if we can get both beasts within range.

A few minutes later the boar catches wind of the sow and starts barreling straight through the brush and trees towards her. Both meet in the thick stuff and we preceed to listen to the both of them "makin bacon". There were grunts, moans and branches breaking while we stood buy with the pop corn. After the pig porno the sow comes out of the trees to our right and two ridges over. We never saw the boar again so I set up for a 230-250 yards shot. The pig started moving up the ridge which left me with a top of the back type of shot. I fired, the pig jumped (Looked good, but didn't hear the twack) did a 180 and ran into the bottoms. Once it hit the thick stuff I didn't hear a whole lot of leaves, trees makin noise so I thought I may have had her down. We looked in the dark for a good 45 minutes with no signs of anything. We hiked back up and got to the truck.

We decided to take Tunnis back to Ghegis and halfway between the two we got to a fork in the road. Option 1 take the main graded road we always take that loops around the backside of the peak. Option 2 take a two track up the hill and then have to go back down. Kenny follows the main road and we go around the bend. Theres a decent snow bank that comes down the hill and covers 1/3 of the road. Theres plenty of room for the driver's side tires to stay on the road while the passenger side would hit the snow. Theres some tire tracks going over the snow so Kenny presses on. While driving through it the snow keeps getting pushed in front of the right front tire making a nice wall of snow while the front left falls into a nice gumbo mud hole. With the snow working as a chalk for the right front tire the ass end started drifting towards the edge of the road. When it was all said and done the left tire was in space the left front was in a deep mud hole on the edge of the road (Which looked to be giving way) and the right front was burried deep in the snow. It would have been an easy recovery from the front end, but the road up ahead ended up being blocked by a good 5-7 BIG trees and an additional snow bank beyond that.

We were pretty much f&*%ed. My Dad and I hiked to the top and started calling for help. After a while Phil heard us and then headed back up. Phil tried w/ Petunia and even had the ass end of her 8 feet in the air (He strapped the back end to a tree and had her levatating in mid air. The truck was too heavy. Phil and Dave (Bigdog) left and Dave came back with his truck and tried to winch us out but snapped a cable. We decided to get the hell out of that cold windy ridge and worry about it the next day (Thanks for the ride Dave). Of course we got more mud in our eye when all the pigs taunted us by crossing in front of the truck on the way back.

We got up the next morning a little late and tried the Squirrel Canyon area. We saw lots of sign but no pigs for the long trek and areas that we covered. We decided to head up early on Sat evening to try and dig out and use wood etc to get under the tires. We even had two come-alongs (Thanks Phil and Mark (MJB)) and were once again unsuccesful and only made the truck move further towards the edge of the road. While monkey f'ing with the truck we pretty much lost our evening hunt and could only hope for the best on Sunday.

We tried walking Ghegis to bear trap Sunday morning and although we had fresh steaming scat in front of us the pigs were no where to be seen. We glassed multiple areas and hiked our asses off to no avail. Got back to camp and Kenny went to use the cell phone to see if Tony had any word on the progress of getting some heavy machinery to get the truck out. While Kenny and Jeff were gone Phil saw a few pigs across the road and up the hill from camp. He was gracious enough to lend Petunia to my Dad and I while Steve and Chris made a run for it in his shiny new FJ. Once we got to the top Jeff and Kenny showed and we made our way towards the pigs. While hiking along we noticed that everyone else on the ranch had spotted the pigs too or were just working off our actions. The other group of guys (Who were stupid enough to hike right into our crossfire) scared the pigs back into our direction and Kenny and my Dad both got running shots. My dad scored, but I'll let him tell the tale seeing I was down the ridge a ways from where they were.

Sunday evening we were determined to get a pig at all costs. Kenny and I decided to hunt Speckmisser Ridge and do the long haul out. We glassed and glassed but didn't see anything. It was dark now and we started heading for the creek to get back to the main road (Same hike Phil and Bob did the night before). After crawling through a few tunnels and scaling a 15' waterfall we made it down to the creek and followed her to the road. Once we got to the road we were hoping to see someone waiting for us but no dice. We waited for about 10 minutes when we decided to start hoofing it back to camp. We hoofed it back to camp (That frigging road was almost all up hill and the "just around the next bend" phrase applied about 7 times) and finally made it to camp with only Phil and Dave waiting to get the hell out of dodge. There was some miss communication in my group and Jeff and my Dad were still waiting at the Jeep. Dave unhooked and he and Kenny headed up the road when no later than two minutes after they came down Ghegis. We finally made contact via radio and we all headed out with the truck to sit another lonely night up top. It was still a fun trip and I had a great time but it kinda went South once the truck got stuck.

Many thanks go out to everyone for all of the help with the truck, the rides, the equipment, etc. etc. Can't tell you how nice it is to have such a good group of hunters to help out & hunt with. etc. I'm gonna let Kenny tell the story of Monday morning as we headed straight back up to Tejon a few hours after getting home. I'll just tell you it has a happy ending ($$). It was an expensive pig hunt to say the least but it was fun and one hell of an adventure. Kenny and Carl have the pics, sorry for the long winded tale.

I think Kenny has borrowed the crown from Speckmisser and a road needs to be renamed in his honor.

 

[One Track]

Wow! Great story. Glad you guys are all alive. You know. It must be a numbers game. 9 out of 10 times you'll make it through that sketchy section. Looks like the numbers caught up with you. Glad Carl killed and just happy that you made it out safely, minus a few duckets.

Speck and Bob: Big thumbs up on your success.

 

[gnn961]

OK sorry I'm so late with my tale but got home at 12:45 am monday up at 3:00 am to get to work by 4:00 am my old ass was tired. Anyhow had a great trip as usual even with all the misfortune that we experienced thst was alluded to in my son's previous post. So it's Sunday afternoon, standing around camp talking to MR PHILLIP and he's looking over my shoulder at the hill above the campsite, and says something like 'Look at the damn pigs on the hill up there'. At first look there was 2 good size pigs and a few little ones walking across the open hillside from left to right. Then a few seconds later about 8 more came into view. It turned into a chinese fire drill with myself, Mark, Chris and Steve getting the guns and vehicles loaded up. The only problem Kenny and Jeff took the jeep to find cell service along with my rifle. Speck was letting Jeff use his 325wsm since Jeff was having a problem with the scope on his rifle, so he was gracious enough to let me grab it since mine was gone. He also let us take Petunia on the assault up the hill ( Thanks again Phillip). So seeing as Steve and Chris had a headstart and quite a lead going what with his new FJ (very nice I might add) we started chugging up the hill trying to catch up. Just then the FJ came roaring back down and passed us again going the opposite direction as we both thought the road was a little farther up the hill. So we turned around and finally take the dirt road heading up where we last saw the pork. By the time we got about half way up the hill Steve and Chris had pretty much made it almost 3/4 of the way up and turned around and came back down to where we parked. We all got out and tried to figore out how far the pigs were from our location. In the meantime Kenny and Jeff had returned from making the phone call and Speck informed them what was going on so they hauled butt up to our location to join us on the stalk. I was able to swap Jeff my rifle for Specks so we were all set. We are all sidehilling at a pretty good pace as the pigs were on the move away from us. We had traversed a few small ridges when we noticed 2 hunters in front and a little above us and a few others below at the bottom. The 2 in front of us must have run up the hill to get ahead of us but that worked to our advantage because the pigs must have winded them because they were now running back in our direction although at least a 100 yards higher than we were. Jeff and I sorta sprinted back and up a little ways as some trees were going to block our view up at the piggies as they were trying to get out of Dodge. By the time we were in a good position the bigger group had already passed by but I could see 3 more coming so I went prone about 15 feet to the side and just a tad lower than Jeff to avoid the brake blast from the 325. Looking through my scope and the pigs nose appears and I touch one off. I didn't hear the squeal but others told me they did. The pig ended up going maybe 20 yards into a couple trees and I could see it doing the dance. We hiked up to it and Steve (Chirohunter) took a little footage with the video camera.Then Kenny and I drug it down to the bottom where Jeff picked us up and it was back to camp where Kenny and I (mostly Kenny ) skinned than gutted it which makes it alot easier and neater to accomplish.
Even if I hadn't of gotten a pig I still would of had agreat time at THE RANCH with all the crew from Jesses. Everybody pitches in and helps everybody else. A special thanks to Speck and Bigdog for that rescue from atop Tunis as it was pretty damn cold up there Friday night. MJB for the saw, Steve for the video and radio co-ordination, Mark(suzmar) for driving Petunia to the pigs , Kenny (huntsndives) for your surgical expertise and Jeff for the motorhome and jeep. IT WAS AWESOME
Hopefully I can attend in May

 

[One Track]

Carl: You always get it done! Good job. Congrats.

 

[kcravnit]

Hello all, I am new to this site and actually spoke to Jesse yesterday... I am heading out to tejon on friday morning for hopefully a great weekend and a big ol piggy.. Anyone with some advice would be greatly appreciated as I havent hunted there before. Thankyou guys.
and FYI try finding a non toxic 7mm WSM....what a bitch that was...
kelly

 

[MJB]

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (kcravnit @ Mar 11 2008, 04:39 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}></div>

Hello all, I am new to this site and actually spoke to Jesse yesterday... I am heading out to tejon on friday morning for hopefully a great weekend and a big ol piggy.. Anyone with some advice would be greatly appreciated as I havent hunted there before. Thankyou guys.
and FYI try finding a non toxic 7mm WSM....what a bitch that was...
kelly[/b]

Find the deep canyons with cover and glass at first/last light. During the day look for these canyons and walk around looking for fresh sign and bedded pigs good luck!

Oh and watch the wind all the time!