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The story is long so let me start with the money shots:
My hog. A 12 to 18 month old, 150 pound boar with 2 1/2 inch tusks.
Here is Jay's hog. A 250 pound sow, red with black spots:
And now the rest of the story...
My boss, Jay, is from Alabama where he hunts white tail deer and ducks. He also travels to the Dakotas for pheasant and hunts elk in Colorado and Montana. The one thing he has never hunted are wild hogs. He promised to take me hog hunting as a bonus for work. He flew out here Friday and we went hunting in Middletown, CA with Ernie Sanders of D and E Guide Service.
I have hunted regularly with D and E over the past couple of years. Ernie generally contacts me several times in advance of the hunt and works out logistics with me based on the patterns of the hogs he is scouting. Often times, we hunt on a Friday afternoon/evening. If we are not successful, then we hunt on Saturday as well. I normally have a lot of flexibility since I live within a 90 minute drive of the hunting grounds so if I have to adjust my hunting time based on the hog patterns I can. With this trip, I had less flexibility since my boss flew in Thursday night and out again on Sunday. Ernie called me and told me that the freezing weather had the hogs in a very strange behavior and he was having a very hard time getting a good pattern on them. He let me know that no matter how tough it was, he would keep scouting until we got there.
After a business meeting in the south bay, we were on the road to Ernie’s. I called him to let him know we were on the way there. He and two of his guides were all out in the field looking for the hogs. He said it was tough and they were not seeing anything but they would all stay out looking until we got there. We arrived around 3pm and he met us at his house which serves as home base for the hunts. While my boss and I got changed out of our business suits and into the proper attire, Ernie let me know that they hadn’t seen much sign at all. We laughed a little that this was the first time that Ernie couldn’t tell me where the hogs were and what time they would be showing up. He promised me though, that we would split up and all work hard to get into them. He also said that the hogs were in very large groups right now and when we did find them, there would be lots of targets to choose from.
After gearing up, we headed out. My boss went with Ernie’s two guides and I went with Ernie. We all headed out to the same general area of the ranch but from different directions. We road hunted and glassed all along the way. We found a little fresh sign but not the amount we were used to. Ernie explained that the hogs had been holding real tight to the brush eating the acorns off the oak brush and not coming out to the fields or oak forests where the ground had generally been frozen every day for the past couple of weeks. After not seeing much, we ended up at the location we had planned to hunt, an area around two large lakes on the property. It was sunny and cool and the sun was beginning to set. We glassed but didn’t see much. We noticed some fresh rooting across one of the lakes near some trees that were just outside the thick brushy hillside. We drove around the lake to check it out. Ernie made a joke that the pig tracks leading away from the rooting was “so fresh that a pig should still be standing in them.” As he said this, we looked up through a small clearing in the brush. There was a landing with some trees and grassy hillside. Standing on the landing was a group of 50 to 60 hogs. All of them were 100 pounds or more with some nice boars in it and one very large sow that went 250 to 300 pounds. We exited the jeep and started our stalk. We got to within 75 yards. Ernie deployed my shooting sticks for me and I rested my Browning .300 Win Mag on them. I got my cross hairs on that big sow when they busted us. Most of the hogs ran into the thick brush not providing a shot. Several remained behind however but just out of our view. We slowly worked our way up the hillside and got to where we could see the remaining pigs. All nice meat boars in the 100 to 150 pound class. I picked the largest one. Just as I got him in my cross hairs, he began to trot off from my left to right. I kept the cross hairs on his shoulder/neck area and tracked him until I had a good line on him. As soon as I was confident, I squeezed the trigger. When the smoke cleared, he was down. A 12 to 18 month old boar with 2 ½ inch tusks. One hog down, now we needed to get one for Jay. It was too dark now, but on the way back to home base, we jumped another large group of hogs just like Ernie predicted. We knew where we would be hunting in the morning.
The next day, Ernie had some other clients from an adjoining ranch. The ranch owner and some guests came to hunt. Ernie and one of his guides went out with them while Jay and I went out with Ernie’s other guide, his son, Mike. Mike took us back to where we jumped that group of hogs in the dark. Our plan was to set up and glass the area until we found them, then we would stalk them until we were within shooting distance. We set up on one side of the valley and watched the mountain where we felt they would go when the sun came up. After the sun rose, nothing appeared to be moving. Did they already make it up to the brush? We stayed for a while but Mike felt we should change our vantage point by driving around the valley and up into the hills where we could see multiple mountain sides plus the entire valley. Plus taking a different angle might reveal any pigs that were down in the hay fields. As we moved along the road, we stopped to glass every new angle that presented itself. Seeing nothing, we moved along slowly, en route to our new vantage point. As we crawled along, we looked up to our right. On another hillside (not where we thought they would be), there they were. A group of 20 or more hogs working their way into the brush. There was a stream that feeds one of the lakes between us and the hogs meaning that we would have a ways to go to recover the hog but the shot was only 125 yards or so. Mike and Jay got out and slowly walked to a vantage point where they could get a shot. As they walked, the hogs were quickly getting into the brush. Jay deployed my shooting sticks and got his rifle set up. Most of the hogs had gotten in the thick stuff by the time he was ready. You could hear the hogs and see the brush moving but there was no shot available. After a minute or so, a couple of pigs came back out of the brush and walked broadside, angling slightly down a very steep hill. Jay settled the cross hairs on the largest one and shot it. The hog didn’t go down however. It took the shot and slowly walked off into the brush. We could see it walk through the brush for about 50 yards. It took about a minute for it to walk that far but it was too thick to shoot again. We made a call internally to hold off a bit to give the pig a chance to pile up and die. We worked our way around the stream and to the base of the hill. Like mountain goats, we made our way up the extremely steep hillside until we reached the brush. My disabled legs were pretty well shot so I hung at the base of the brush near a large oak tree. Jay and Mike continued on until they found a blood trail. The blood trail was deep in the thick nasty brush about 50 yards from where the pig was shot. We were making a terrible amount of noise crashing through the brush and trying to communicate. Mike and Jay were having to yell to each other in order to communicate. They couldn’t see each other even though they were only 10 to 20 feet away. It was that thick and nasty.
Mike decided it was fruitless to continue on without the dogs to track the blood trail. It was just too thick and nasty. He called Ernie to come up with his Jack Russell Terriers. Ernie arrived about 20 minutes later with his dogs. Both dogs are relentless, fearless hunters. When Ernie arrived, one of his dogs was visibly injured. Ernie said that on his other hunt, they wounded a boar. When he sent the dogs to bay it up, the boar got a hold of the dog. The boar picked it up, thrashed it about while running off with it. The dog kept fighting the boar the whole time until the hunter could put the boar down with another shot. The dog ended up with a good puncture wound in its gut. Visibly injured, the dog jumped out and was ready to hunt as if nothing ever happened. Both dogs headed up the hill and quickly got on the blood trail. After 10 or 15 minutes, I heard Mike yell. I heard a couple of shots and a pig howl and then silence followed by bunches of hogs busting from the brush and around the mountain. When Mike and Jay emerged with the pig, they had quite a story. Apparently, even after the initial shot, all of our noise, yelling and brush busting, the herd of pigs only went about 50 yards and holed up in the brush. Apparently what happened was that when the dogs bayed up the wounded pig, others decided to protect it. When Mike came crawling through the brush one pig was chasing one of the dogs another pig was growling and snarling and then the big pig charged them. As the final shots rang out, the rest of the pigs finally bolted. It was an amazing site and very exhilarating. We might be on top of the food chain but not by much. There were enough beasts in that brush to do a lot of damage to one or more of us had they decided to attack instead of bolt.
It was particularly amazing to me how the pigs did not go far after the initial shot and even after we were up there making all that noise, they held tight and silent. They waited until we got right on top of them before they made any noise and only then, they waited till the dogs came in before they reacted. Scary really. I mean, when the dogs started signaling, it was bone silent (except for the dogs). We thought for sure they just found a dead carcass. We had no idea that Jay and Mike were walking/crawling in on a group of hogs that wanted to fight. I hope this story makes you more wary the next time you head into the thick stuff looking for a downed or wounded hog. Learn from our lesson that it may not be the only hog you encounter. I can tell you that Jay had a rifle which was hard to maneuver in the thick brush and Mike had a pistol. I didn’t even bring a gun. I figured after that initial shot we were looking for a dead or mortally wounded pig and even then, with the dogs, two guides and my hunting partner, if it was still alive, we would have it under control. Boy did that idea go to hell in a hand bag. Don’t be complacent people. I know the next time I won’t.
My hog. A 12 to 18 month old, 150 pound boar with 2 1/2 inch tusks.
Here is Jay's hog. A 250 pound sow, red with black spots:
And now the rest of the story...
My boss, Jay, is from Alabama where he hunts white tail deer and ducks. He also travels to the Dakotas for pheasant and hunts elk in Colorado and Montana. The one thing he has never hunted are wild hogs. He promised to take me hog hunting as a bonus for work. He flew out here Friday and we went hunting in Middletown, CA with Ernie Sanders of D and E Guide Service.
I have hunted regularly with D and E over the past couple of years. Ernie generally contacts me several times in advance of the hunt and works out logistics with me based on the patterns of the hogs he is scouting. Often times, we hunt on a Friday afternoon/evening. If we are not successful, then we hunt on Saturday as well. I normally have a lot of flexibility since I live within a 90 minute drive of the hunting grounds so if I have to adjust my hunting time based on the hog patterns I can. With this trip, I had less flexibility since my boss flew in Thursday night and out again on Sunday. Ernie called me and told me that the freezing weather had the hogs in a very strange behavior and he was having a very hard time getting a good pattern on them. He let me know that no matter how tough it was, he would keep scouting until we got there.
After a business meeting in the south bay, we were on the road to Ernie’s. I called him to let him know we were on the way there. He and two of his guides were all out in the field looking for the hogs. He said it was tough and they were not seeing anything but they would all stay out looking until we got there. We arrived around 3pm and he met us at his house which serves as home base for the hunts. While my boss and I got changed out of our business suits and into the proper attire, Ernie let me know that they hadn’t seen much sign at all. We laughed a little that this was the first time that Ernie couldn’t tell me where the hogs were and what time they would be showing up. He promised me though, that we would split up and all work hard to get into them. He also said that the hogs were in very large groups right now and when we did find them, there would be lots of targets to choose from.
After gearing up, we headed out. My boss went with Ernie’s two guides and I went with Ernie. We all headed out to the same general area of the ranch but from different directions. We road hunted and glassed all along the way. We found a little fresh sign but not the amount we were used to. Ernie explained that the hogs had been holding real tight to the brush eating the acorns off the oak brush and not coming out to the fields or oak forests where the ground had generally been frozen every day for the past couple of weeks. After not seeing much, we ended up at the location we had planned to hunt, an area around two large lakes on the property. It was sunny and cool and the sun was beginning to set. We glassed but didn’t see much. We noticed some fresh rooting across one of the lakes near some trees that were just outside the thick brushy hillside. We drove around the lake to check it out. Ernie made a joke that the pig tracks leading away from the rooting was “so fresh that a pig should still be standing in them.” As he said this, we looked up through a small clearing in the brush. There was a landing with some trees and grassy hillside. Standing on the landing was a group of 50 to 60 hogs. All of them were 100 pounds or more with some nice boars in it and one very large sow that went 250 to 300 pounds. We exited the jeep and started our stalk. We got to within 75 yards. Ernie deployed my shooting sticks for me and I rested my Browning .300 Win Mag on them. I got my cross hairs on that big sow when they busted us. Most of the hogs ran into the thick brush not providing a shot. Several remained behind however but just out of our view. We slowly worked our way up the hillside and got to where we could see the remaining pigs. All nice meat boars in the 100 to 150 pound class. I picked the largest one. Just as I got him in my cross hairs, he began to trot off from my left to right. I kept the cross hairs on his shoulder/neck area and tracked him until I had a good line on him. As soon as I was confident, I squeezed the trigger. When the smoke cleared, he was down. A 12 to 18 month old boar with 2 ½ inch tusks. One hog down, now we needed to get one for Jay. It was too dark now, but on the way back to home base, we jumped another large group of hogs just like Ernie predicted. We knew where we would be hunting in the morning.
The next day, Ernie had some other clients from an adjoining ranch. The ranch owner and some guests came to hunt. Ernie and one of his guides went out with them while Jay and I went out with Ernie’s other guide, his son, Mike. Mike took us back to where we jumped that group of hogs in the dark. Our plan was to set up and glass the area until we found them, then we would stalk them until we were within shooting distance. We set up on one side of the valley and watched the mountain where we felt they would go when the sun came up. After the sun rose, nothing appeared to be moving. Did they already make it up to the brush? We stayed for a while but Mike felt we should change our vantage point by driving around the valley and up into the hills where we could see multiple mountain sides plus the entire valley. Plus taking a different angle might reveal any pigs that were down in the hay fields. As we moved along the road, we stopped to glass every new angle that presented itself. Seeing nothing, we moved along slowly, en route to our new vantage point. As we crawled along, we looked up to our right. On another hillside (not where we thought they would be), there they were. A group of 20 or more hogs working their way into the brush. There was a stream that feeds one of the lakes between us and the hogs meaning that we would have a ways to go to recover the hog but the shot was only 125 yards or so. Mike and Jay got out and slowly walked to a vantage point where they could get a shot. As they walked, the hogs were quickly getting into the brush. Jay deployed my shooting sticks and got his rifle set up. Most of the hogs had gotten in the thick stuff by the time he was ready. You could hear the hogs and see the brush moving but there was no shot available. After a minute or so, a couple of pigs came back out of the brush and walked broadside, angling slightly down a very steep hill. Jay settled the cross hairs on the largest one and shot it. The hog didn’t go down however. It took the shot and slowly walked off into the brush. We could see it walk through the brush for about 50 yards. It took about a minute for it to walk that far but it was too thick to shoot again. We made a call internally to hold off a bit to give the pig a chance to pile up and die. We worked our way around the stream and to the base of the hill. Like mountain goats, we made our way up the extremely steep hillside until we reached the brush. My disabled legs were pretty well shot so I hung at the base of the brush near a large oak tree. Jay and Mike continued on until they found a blood trail. The blood trail was deep in the thick nasty brush about 50 yards from where the pig was shot. We were making a terrible amount of noise crashing through the brush and trying to communicate. Mike and Jay were having to yell to each other in order to communicate. They couldn’t see each other even though they were only 10 to 20 feet away. It was that thick and nasty.
Mike decided it was fruitless to continue on without the dogs to track the blood trail. It was just too thick and nasty. He called Ernie to come up with his Jack Russell Terriers. Ernie arrived about 20 minutes later with his dogs. Both dogs are relentless, fearless hunters. When Ernie arrived, one of his dogs was visibly injured. Ernie said that on his other hunt, they wounded a boar. When he sent the dogs to bay it up, the boar got a hold of the dog. The boar picked it up, thrashed it about while running off with it. The dog kept fighting the boar the whole time until the hunter could put the boar down with another shot. The dog ended up with a good puncture wound in its gut. Visibly injured, the dog jumped out and was ready to hunt as if nothing ever happened. Both dogs headed up the hill and quickly got on the blood trail. After 10 or 15 minutes, I heard Mike yell. I heard a couple of shots and a pig howl and then silence followed by bunches of hogs busting from the brush and around the mountain. When Mike and Jay emerged with the pig, they had quite a story. Apparently, even after the initial shot, all of our noise, yelling and brush busting, the herd of pigs only went about 50 yards and holed up in the brush. Apparently what happened was that when the dogs bayed up the wounded pig, others decided to protect it. When Mike came crawling through the brush one pig was chasing one of the dogs another pig was growling and snarling and then the big pig charged them. As the final shots rang out, the rest of the pigs finally bolted. It was an amazing site and very exhilarating. We might be on top of the food chain but not by much. There were enough beasts in that brush to do a lot of damage to one or more of us had they decided to attack instead of bolt.
It was particularly amazing to me how the pigs did not go far after the initial shot and even after we were up there making all that noise, they held tight and silent. They waited until we got right on top of them before they made any noise and only then, they waited till the dogs came in before they reacted. Scary really. I mean, when the dogs started signaling, it was bone silent (except for the dogs). We thought for sure they just found a dead carcass. We had no idea that Jay and Mike were walking/crawling in on a group of hogs that wanted to fight. I hope this story makes you more wary the next time you head into the thick stuff looking for a downed or wounded hog. Learn from our lesson that it may not be the only hog you encounter. I can tell you that Jay had a rifle which was hard to maneuver in the thick brush and Mike had a pistol. I didn’t even bring a gun. I figured after that initial shot we were looking for a dead or mortally wounded pig and even then, with the dogs, two guides and my hunting partner, if it was still alive, we would have it under control. Boy did that idea go to hell in a hand bag. Don’t be complacent people. I know the next time I won’t.
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