asaxon
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Last year I promised to take two young (young compared to me) men wild hog hunting to thank them for all the help they give me during my year of “the leg”. Neither had shot a wild hog before; one (DLR) had done lots of deer hunting/guiding while for the other (JJ), it was his first big game hunt; a big step up from a jack rabbit. Here we are - yes I’m the old short one. I’d hooked up it Erik Smith who was opening up some property in Medera Co., CA. (North of Fresno) for DIY hog hunting last year. I jumped at the chance to try it out but we’d had to wait until this Jan as the Admiral and I were in the “Southern Hemisphere” from mid-November till the end of December (http://www.jesseshunting.com/forums...nd-3-Wild-Turkeys-Down*?p=2426259#post2426259. January rolls around and I figure I’d better pre-scout the place on my topo maps etc. WTF is wrong with my Garmin Hunting Map GPS? It is showing no elevation isobars. Finally after much swearing I figure it out. NOTHING is wrong with the map, the area is flat, really flat so there are no elevation lines. There does seem to be a small watercourse that runs through the area, hummmm….
On the 4 hour run up to Madera, we stopped in Fresno at Big 5 to grab a pig tag each for the boys. I also found 6 boxes of Barnes 30-06 168 gr. TSSX ammo which I scarfed up. Seeing the cars in the parking lot there (photo right) made me think of what Dorothy said in the Wizard of Oz: “Toto, I don’t think we are in Santa Monica anymore.” We got to the ranch area and the effects of the drought were stunning; January when everything is supposed to be green but the landscape is bone dry brown and barren. Wow! But there were flocks of geese winging overhead. We meet up with Erik – yup, the plan will be to hunt what I called “The Ditch”, the river course which runs through the property. 3:15 pm finds DLR and me working either side of the ditch while JJ& Erik (who has kindly come along to show us the lay of the land) stay on the hills just ahead of us. The plan is that if we jump hogs in the drainage, DLR will shoot but just as likely, we’ll push them out to where JJ will get the shot. We see a couple of really large healthy looking
yotes but minimal hog sign as the usual water spots are almost dry. Moving “up the ditch” we come to some wet spots along with hog tracks and rooting just as the sun is about to set. Here on the right is a picture of DLR where the ditch is wider than usual and the vegetation pretty open. I’m pooped from busting brush so I drop down into the dry river bed itself as it may be easier walking. I go no more than 100 yards when I see some stretches of shallow water that are 20-30 feet long and almost completely overhung by tall vegetation. And there is something black on the sand bar up ahead, probably tree trunks or rocks. It’s dark “down here” so I sit and put up my binos - Holy Tartar Sauce Sponge Bob, its 4 or 5 hogs. They are standing all together so I can’t distinguish them individually. How am I’m going to get in touch with the boys to come and shoot? I have no radio and I certainly can’t callout. And now the pigs are looking toward me, moving about and acting “suspicious”. Hell, I’ll take a shot and maybe one of the hogs will run out toward the boys. I put the cross hairs on the biggest sow once it is clear of the others and BAM, 165 Federal with Barnes TSX slams into her. She staggers forward, then jer
ks back and I figure she is going to drop. Just then the other animals all take off at break neck speed into the brush and crap, so does the one I shot. It is as if she got a second life. And she only had to go 10 feet to be in the really thick cover. Double crap. One boar comes running right down river and passes about 20 feet from me but the Admiral told me not to shoot a hog much less two and/or a boar. I hear DLR take a shot behind me and then see him rush across the river bed. Almost simultaneously, I hear 5 or 6 shots off to my left where JJ is. Turns out, when I fired, 20+ hogs rushed out of the river bed and up the hill toward JJ while 10+ others went behind me past DLR. I’d stumbled into hog central and started an pig eruption! But I never saw them. I hear DRL 44 mag fire – good sign, DLR’s put down a pig. I rush up to try to follow where my pig had gone out of the river bed but the embankment is so thick with bramble etc that all I manage to do is scratch myself up good. Finally, I had to walk up river to find a way out. To make a long story short, JJ put down a lovely sow after filling the air with lead (Savage 99 lever action with 308 Federal 150 TSX) and DLR dropped a nice boar. The trip was a SUCCESS and it was still just the first evening. Sadly, we never found my hog. We looked all over but it was dark and the brush was really dense. We also went back the next morning to look but no luck. First hog I’ve lost since I returned to hunting - I guess it finally had to happen. I must admit it bothered me but I’ll just have to “get over it”. Or as the Admiral says; “man up”.Back at the ranch t
hat night, the boys hung, gutted and skinned the hogs on the great rack Erik had built. I watched and gave unnecessary and useless advice – my main job. We were amazed at how healthy/fat the hogs were given the drought. JJ’s sow was the fattest wild hog I’d ever seen. It had 3" of belly fat as you can see in the picture. When she was skinned, the carcass was completely white like a sheep being totally covered by fat. Remarkable. Going to be some great bacon there. 
We slept in the next morning as the boys had to go to town to get another pig tag then looked for my hog and did some scouting of new areas. Four pm found us out by “the ditch” where we’d scouted earlier. JJ and DLR pushed through, along and in the ditch while I hung off to the side where walking was easier. Here you can see me walking along but it looks more like Iraq than winter in Calif.
Again, just after the sun had set, BAM (165 gr Federal in a Tika-Lite 30-06) following in a few minutes by a 45 mag shot. Ah, DLR has dropped another one. Turns out he’d seen this nice boar stand up but it was butt end toward him and not being from Texas, he figured to hold fire. Then JJ had come along so the boar moved into the brush but made the mistake of climbing out of the ditch and stopping at the lip where DLR drilled him through the vitals. We called Erik who came and picked up the hog and us. Again there was hog hanging. This one was weighed, an honest 160lbs on the scale–an easy 190 dishonest lbs if we hadn’t put it on the scale. Advice to all novice hunters, Do not weight/measure your animal, your options as to lying about the size then become very limited. JJ whipped up a delicious dinner of wild boar sausage (made from a hog I shot in Sept) with a caramelized leak and mushroom reduction sauce using Bisquick mix, sow fat, milk and sausage juices. JJ is a gourmet cook and now a bloodied big game hunter
.Next morning we tried to get JJ his second hog – we staked out pig central before dawn having noted some new tracks on top of my footprints the day before but no hogs were moving. One persistent skunk kept hanging around where I was. Seems he thought he smelled a relative. So we then pushed along the drainage ultimately jumping 3 hogs and 1 coyote. The hogs were “no shot” hogs; burst out of the brush and disappearing into thick cover in seconds. At 9:30 am we were just about at the ranch so I decided to “call it”. The boys had 3 hogs down so the trip was more than a success, yeah a second for JJ would have been great but there is always next time. We all figured it will be really amazing to see to this property when it is green as it should have been.
If you are interested in hunting at Cottonwood, you should check out Erik’s web site (http://cottonwoodhunting.com/). As he is just opening up this property, I don’t think he’s settled on all the details/options/cost so rather than post potential misinformation, you should check directly with Erik.
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ig-laughing:Congrats! Sounds like a fun trip, this week there has been a lot of hogs taken out
