Parkfield Boar

[Tusker]

I just returned to work in Santa Maria from a morning hunt in Parkfield. It's 12:15PM and heres the short story. I called a guide I had hunted with before, Roger Miller out of Parkfield yesterday, Thursday morning and asked if I could come up and finish an earlier hunt. He said come on up. I love those spur of the moment kinda hunts. It's difficult for me to make plans so I just go usually when I can, and so far, Miller Bros have accomodated me with no problems. Anyways, I got to his place at 3:30 and we promptly got into his beat up old 68' Bronco and took off for the high country. He had spotted some signs earlier the day before and we drove around for quite a bit no expecting to really see anyting until closer to dark. Just around 5:30 we parked the Bronco and walked up a clearing, and old road that isnt used anymore. It had tons of brush and oak/manzanita trees. Kinda forested almost. We saw lots of sign. After about 20 minutes walking up hill...(whew) we smelled pig. We tip toed further making absolutley no noise at all with wind in our face and I noticed movement 20 feet to my left. Sure enough, a large pregnant sow was rooting and did not even see us! I froze and tapped Roger on the shoulder, he froze and we stared. Roger pointed out that there was another pig in the brush next to it, I strained my eyes and saw it too. It was a 150lb boar. It walked right close to us, 20 feet at the most and looked up and froze staring at us. With no exageration, at least 30 seconds went by him staring at us not knowing what the hell we were. I told Roger I wanted to hold out, he said no problem. So after a few more seconds, it snorted and bolted in the opposite direction. He mentioned to me that as far as he was concerned, what we just experienced did not happen that often and it was 90% of hunting. the other 10% being killing it. It was some experience I have never had the pleasure of having before, being so close and not being discovered. Anyways...we continued on a bit and then worked our way back to the 4x4. It was starting to get dark. We drove to a large pasture area and sure enough about 200 yards out was a lone boar. He had white on black on one side, black on the other. He looked farm pig on one side, wild boar on the other. What a trip. I tried to set up, it was now almost too dark, and I just didnt want to chance losing a wounded pig in the dark, and by the time I decided not to shoot, it smelled us at 200 yards! and bolted. That day ended like that. I checked into the Parkfield Inn, ate dinner and crashed. Got up early next day, and a different guide, Joe took me straight to a totally different area. It was a wide open area near Turkey flats that had acres of wide open grazing kind of area. Pig crossed it fairly regularly and Joe said if we didnt see anyting by 6:30am, we would leave to another area. After just 10 minutes of setting up (it was 6AM) I was glassing to my left and about 500 yards off saw 4-5 pigs start to decend down the hill into this open area. It is here that they leave the low land and head for the bedding grounds for the day after feeding all night or early morning. We watched them for about 2-3 minutes and saw there was a total of 12 hogs in the herd. He said we would have to drive to them and when he started the engine that they would run like hell and sure enough, they did. He closed the gap, and they had a long run to make before they got to brush and higher ground. We got to within 200 yards and he said that I had better get ready. He stopped and said, get out and take your shot, that they were about to disappear up this ridge into heavy brush. Two of the twelve started to make a turn away from the others and both of them were large boars. In fact, there were no piglets in this group, every pig was at least 150lbs. The boars were ass to me running at full trot up and away from us. I said all I had was Ass in my scope. He said if I wanted one of them I had better take the shot. I did and I hit him in the ass and the bullet (Winchester Fail-Safe) traveled thru him and out his throat. He stumbled, and stopped while the others ran away and he turned slightly broadside and was going to make a run to some small brushy area when I took another shot broadside and hit him right in the boiler room. He dropped and rolled down about 40 feet and was dead. We drove up to him as far as we could and he turned out to be a nice 240lb boar. He was nice size, but his tusks were not that big. Anyways...he was very clean and his gut was full of Barley. Hmmm...said my guide. Someone must be baiting fields. By the way, I killed it about 50 feet from someone elses ranch. Whew! Just in time. Had he of made it over the fence my guide said, I could not have taken the shot. Luck. Hey, I said I would give you the short version. Sorry, This is the long one. Pictures will follow as soon as my wife who knows how to download them will do so for me. Over the weekend. That's my story.

 

[waldo2382]

Right on! Good job. Those are the kinda stories I like to hear. Pretty lucky that the hog was on the right side of the fence (for you) and the wrong side of the fence (for the pig.) Sounds like he should be some good eatin'. Congratulations!

 

[Boar Tracks CA]

Hey tusker that was a great story,and congrats

Great job and save some bacon for us army boy's

 

[Tusker]

Hey Boartracks...you're Army? Are you at HL? You want some bacon? I left my hog with the guide. He is turning it over to a local butcher, somewhere in Paso. I will have to go get it in a month or so...darn. I may just have to take my rifle when I do. Anyhow...if you are active Army and you or your buddies want some, just say so. You can have some, no problem. My son is a Marine in Kuwait getting ready to head into Iraq (he works with special ops) and I have a soft spot for military personnell. I'd be happy to donate to you guys if you want a big portion. Just say so and I will make arrangements for you to pick some up.

 

[Hawghunter]

Congrats and great story.
Reading about you other guys hunts sure helps me make it through untill I can go again. (1st weekend in April)
Mark

ps-- Loking forewords to the pix!

 

[>Killzone>]

Nice to hear of such good success, good shooting, even sweeter, cause we are hunting Parkfield next week, gona bow hunt, but will have rifles along.


Good hunting,

Killzone

 

[Tusker]

Thanks...Hey Killzone, where you going hunting there? Club or guided service? For bow hunting I imagine you will be in the heavy brushy areas. You could easily have killed the first two pigs I saw last night with a bow. 20 feet away and they had no clue we were there for at least 2-3 minutes. Parkfield is either wide open space or heavy brush/trees. I have been three times to the area and like the brush for late afternoon hunts, and the open area for the early before sun up hunt. (rifle a must there) the particular place we set up in the morning gave us a field of vision of about a 1/4- 1/2 mile in any direction. I sure dig that place.

 

[Boar Tracks CA]

Hey Tusker I'm active duty at Camp Roberts and live in paso, Ijust might hold you to a little bite of hog. Come down for the april hunt and I will hook you up with some pigs on base, If i'm still here and we have a hunt.

 

[Bruz]

Tusker, great hunt!

I did and I hit him in the ass and the bullet

One shot one kill is good shooting, one shot one hole is great shooting! I'am in Nipomo, stop by and pick me up next time you go! A hole in one on a moving target at 200 yards, great shot...what were ya shooting?

 

[oljim]

Great story!,,,sure did enjoy readin',,,

Thanks for postin' up!,,

 

[DILPRXO]

Cool story... Congrats on the Oinker

lookin forward to seeing pictures.

 

[Tusker]

Hey Bruz, thanks...I wish I killed it on the first shot, and although it stopped him , my guide was worried he was going to bail into some thick brush and as he turned broadside, he said put another bullet in it as long as it was still moving and I did. He wasn't running at this point, but he was moving on the second shot, too. The first shot obviously was lethal but you know how pigs can be. I didnt want to chase him in thick brush. I lead him just a few inches and the bullet went where I hoped it would. The second bullet hit him right in the shoulder/armor went thru the vitals and out the other side and this bullet was recovered just outside the exit wound right in the armor of the exit side. It's shaped like a 4 leaf clover on the end as it expanded perfectly. The first shot went thru and was not recovered. I shoot a Ruger 7mag with Winchester fail-safe bullets. I can say this is the first time I actually heard bullet hit flesh both times. That is an amazing sound. Even though I have killed big game before and a couple of pigs much closer, this is the first time I can say I heard the thump even at that far away. By the way...I can't figure out how to post pics here. Can I email a couple to anyone and have you who have posted pics before do it? Call me technically challenged, but I'll be damed if I can figure out how to post 'em here.

 

[Speckmisser]

Tusker,

If you wanna send them to me, I'll be glad to post them up for you.

 

[>Killzone>]

Hey Tusker,

We will be hunting unguided at Golden Ram,...4 days if need be. Got my hopes up that we will be seeing em as you did, sent u a email. My bro in law is letting me use a iron sighted 3030 , shot it last Sun. so bow or rifle we will be ready, he has scoped rifle,...your post makes me want to run out and buy a 7mm..but your probably just a great shooter. 1st time out for me.

Good hunting,

Killzone

 

[1SoCalHunter]

Congratulations!

 

[Speckmisser]

Here's a couple of pix of Tusker's hog. Nice pig!

 

[>Killzone>]

Hey Tusker,

Nice big healthy hog, we will be looking for the rest of the herd! Enjoy it.


Killzone

 

[HKE]

Good job Tusker. Nice hog. Maybe you, me ,and Bruz outta get together and talk about a hunting trip. I'm in Nipomo too. We could at least have a cold one and talk hunting.