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WILD HOG HUNTING IN CALIFORNIA <x-tab> </x-tab>-- jim matthews-ONS -- 10sep09
Wild hog hunting is helping keep the ranching tradition alive in California
By JIM MATTHEWS, www.OutdoorNewsService.com
PARKFIELD -- Roger Miller stopped the truck, slightly squinting his blue eyes at a speck far in the distance. We all glassed the spot on the parched hillside. Ten power binoculars made it clear that it was a rider on horseback moving down to a small draw where some cattle were feeding. We watched a long time. Finally, Miller said -- as much to himself as the rest of us -- "There's a happy man."
He laughed a little and then spent the next 10 minutes explaining how he'd much rather be out there on his horse riding through this country, moving cattle across different pastures. But the ranching business has changed in California. Between bottomed out cattle and barley prices, drought, and skyrocketing fuel and water prices, the ranching/farming business on the Central California coast has all but dried up. Family farms have all been sold off to people and companies who've already made their money in other, richer fields that don't involve getting dirt under fingernails. Their purchases are retirement gigs or land investments. Miller still owns his family property, but keeping it hasn't been easy.
"I found my dad's diary from 1958 and he sold wheat and barley for more money than you can sell it today," said Miller, pausing, letting that settle in. He wasn't talking about dollars adjusted for inflation. "They were getting more per ton then than I can today. And that was when diesel was only eight or nine cents a gallon."
Miller grew up on the family ranch/farm right out of Parkfield, a small Central California town, and he went to school in the one-room school house that is still a one-room school house. Most of the nearby family ranches and farms have been sold off to hobby ranchers and corporate owners, but the area is still mostly open space, rich with wildlife and ranching tradition.
Miller and his brother Harry realized in the late 1970s and early 1980s they needed to do something else to make money if they were going to keep the family property. That realization just happened to coincide with a burgeoning wild hog population in the valley. So they started supplementing their income by guiding wild hog hunters. For the hobby and corporate ranchers in the area, the brothers also began farming and running cattle on lands other than their own. It was all part of the way to keep the banker away from the deed on their own land.
But watching the cowboy off in the distance, it was clear Miller missed the days when he was a kid out there on that horse without any worries in the world.
While there have probably been feral hogs living in isolated locations in California since the first Spanish explorers arrived in the 1500s, it wasn't until the 1920s and 30s when hogs with genetic stock from true wild hogs from Europe and Asia were first released on ranches on the Central Coast near Monterey. Once these wild pigs mixed up their genetics with the semi-domesticated hogs that were on farms and ranches in the region, did the population of wild hogs begin to explode in California. Continued relocations of these wild strains continued right into the 1960s, and there are probably more wild hogs in California today than at any time in history.
While numbers are a little down in California right now because of drought, and even more so on the Central Coast because so few of the ranches are growing barley, there are still a lot of wild hogs and they continue to expand their range each year. Hunters report taking about 5,000 annually and most of those are taken on private property on guided hunts like those run by Miller.
Miller was a just a kid "probably 10 years old" when the first wild hogs started being seen in the Parkfield area in the 1960s, and the numbers started to increase and by the late 1970s. When the Miller brothers first started guiding for hogs, they would only shoot from 25 to maybe 50 pigs a year. In recent years, the number has jumped to 125 to 150 as the pig population has grown. Miller recently was contracted to run the hunting program on the adjoining Jack Ranch, a 70,000-plus acre chunk of ground.. That means the Millers are now hunting on around 80,000 acres in the valley, nearly all the land from Highway 58 north to Parkfield. As the pig herds recover, Miller thinks they could be shooting 300 animals a year.
I'd missed a hog the first evening of the hunt. It was a whopper boar feeding in an irrigated field supposedly protected by a hot wire (electric) fence. It didn't keep the pigs out and one of Miller's guides, Rowdie Plaskell, and I stalked down a wash just outside the field to within 100 yards of so of the big hog. In trying to make sure I didn't hit the hot wire, I shot right over the back of the pig and the whole herd ran off.
At first light the next morning hogs were moving up out of that same irrigated pasture where they'd been feeding through the night. The hogs were moving along at that ground-eating trot wild hogs use they have a destination in mind. And that destination was a shady spot up in the oak brush and scrubby pines where they could nap away the hot day.
We were between them and that napping ground, and we had pigs literally all around us filing past. Most were out of range, but a group on young boars moving along the base of a hillside cut right toward us. This put them just along the opposite side of a draw where we were perched. I moved into position, resting the rifle over a fallen tree limb. The hogs saw us, or more likely winded us, when they were just across the draw about 40 yards away, but it was too late. I missed the first pig, made a lucky running shot on the next boar in the line-up, and just that quickly I had a major chunk of my fall and winter meat supply on the ground. But it seemed like a lot more. Maybe, just maybe, I was helping keep a piece of California in open ground for wildlife and helping maintain some traditional activities.
The Miller property and Jack Ranch have recently become home to herds of pronghorn antelope and tule elk, two California natives that had not been in this part of the state for a century, and the Millers and their staff were watching over them like mother hens. There are deer and coyotes. You can see stars at night. There are still cattle on the hillsides, irrigated pastures, and a few grain crops are growing in the valleys. It's a quiet place. If it takes a wild hogs and a hunting program to keep these tracts of land undeveloped and not broken up into home sites, I am more than happy to help.
I wonder if I could talk Roger into a horseback hunt the next time I visit Parkfield. I know he'd rather be in the saddle.
SIDEBAR -- Guided Hog Hunting Costs
Cost of Guided Private Land Hog Hunts
Guided hog hunts on private ranches cost from $600 to $1,000 or more on most properties in California. There really ends up being very little difference in the total cost for hunters. With the less expensive hunts, hunters must provide their own room and board.
Miller Brothers Expeditions is a good example of how this works because they offer a bargain $600 guided hunt for sportsmen who want to camp out or stay in nearby motels and provide for their own food. And they offer a $1,000 all-inclusive hunt that includes meals and lodging at the refurbished and plush Parkfield Inn. If you want a trophy boar, it will cost $400 more because of the extra effort involved in finding a boar with two-inch teeth or longer.
Contact information for Roger Miller: Miller Brothers Expeditions, 70502 Vineyard Canyon Rd., San Miguel, CA 93451, telephone 805-459-5883, web site www.MillerBrosExpeditions.com.
Wild hog hunting is helping keep the ranching tradition alive in California
By JIM MATTHEWS, www.OutdoorNewsService.com
PARKFIELD -- Roger Miller stopped the truck, slightly squinting his blue eyes at a speck far in the distance. We all glassed the spot on the parched hillside. Ten power binoculars made it clear that it was a rider on horseback moving down to a small draw where some cattle were feeding. We watched a long time. Finally, Miller said -- as much to himself as the rest of us -- "There's a happy man."
He laughed a little and then spent the next 10 minutes explaining how he'd much rather be out there on his horse riding through this country, moving cattle across different pastures. But the ranching business has changed in California. Between bottomed out cattle and barley prices, drought, and skyrocketing fuel and water prices, the ranching/farming business on the Central California coast has all but dried up. Family farms have all been sold off to people and companies who've already made their money in other, richer fields that don't involve getting dirt under fingernails. Their purchases are retirement gigs or land investments. Miller still owns his family property, but keeping it hasn't been easy.
"I found my dad's diary from 1958 and he sold wheat and barley for more money than you can sell it today," said Miller, pausing, letting that settle in. He wasn't talking about dollars adjusted for inflation. "They were getting more per ton then than I can today. And that was when diesel was only eight or nine cents a gallon."
Miller grew up on the family ranch/farm right out of Parkfield, a small Central California town, and he went to school in the one-room school house that is still a one-room school house. Most of the nearby family ranches and farms have been sold off to hobby ranchers and corporate owners, but the area is still mostly open space, rich with wildlife and ranching tradition.
Miller and his brother Harry realized in the late 1970s and early 1980s they needed to do something else to make money if they were going to keep the family property. That realization just happened to coincide with a burgeoning wild hog population in the valley. So they started supplementing their income by guiding wild hog hunters. For the hobby and corporate ranchers in the area, the brothers also began farming and running cattle on lands other than their own. It was all part of the way to keep the banker away from the deed on their own land.
But watching the cowboy off in the distance, it was clear Miller missed the days when he was a kid out there on that horse without any worries in the world.
While there have probably been feral hogs living in isolated locations in California since the first Spanish explorers arrived in the 1500s, it wasn't until the 1920s and 30s when hogs with genetic stock from true wild hogs from Europe and Asia were first released on ranches on the Central Coast near Monterey. Once these wild pigs mixed up their genetics with the semi-domesticated hogs that were on farms and ranches in the region, did the population of wild hogs begin to explode in California. Continued relocations of these wild strains continued right into the 1960s, and there are probably more wild hogs in California today than at any time in history.
While numbers are a little down in California right now because of drought, and even more so on the Central Coast because so few of the ranches are growing barley, there are still a lot of wild hogs and they continue to expand their range each year. Hunters report taking about 5,000 annually and most of those are taken on private property on guided hunts like those run by Miller.
Miller was a just a kid "probably 10 years old" when the first wild hogs started being seen in the Parkfield area in the 1960s, and the numbers started to increase and by the late 1970s. When the Miller brothers first started guiding for hogs, they would only shoot from 25 to maybe 50 pigs a year. In recent years, the number has jumped to 125 to 150 as the pig population has grown. Miller recently was contracted to run the hunting program on the adjoining Jack Ranch, a 70,000-plus acre chunk of ground.. That means the Millers are now hunting on around 80,000 acres in the valley, nearly all the land from Highway 58 north to Parkfield. As the pig herds recover, Miller thinks they could be shooting 300 animals a year.
I'd missed a hog the first evening of the hunt. It was a whopper boar feeding in an irrigated field supposedly protected by a hot wire (electric) fence. It didn't keep the pigs out and one of Miller's guides, Rowdie Plaskell, and I stalked down a wash just outside the field to within 100 yards of so of the big hog. In trying to make sure I didn't hit the hot wire, I shot right over the back of the pig and the whole herd ran off.
At first light the next morning hogs were moving up out of that same irrigated pasture where they'd been feeding through the night. The hogs were moving along at that ground-eating trot wild hogs use they have a destination in mind. And that destination was a shady spot up in the oak brush and scrubby pines where they could nap away the hot day.
We were between them and that napping ground, and we had pigs literally all around us filing past. Most were out of range, but a group on young boars moving along the base of a hillside cut right toward us. This put them just along the opposite side of a draw where we were perched. I moved into position, resting the rifle over a fallen tree limb. The hogs saw us, or more likely winded us, when they were just across the draw about 40 yards away, but it was too late. I missed the first pig, made a lucky running shot on the next boar in the line-up, and just that quickly I had a major chunk of my fall and winter meat supply on the ground. But it seemed like a lot more. Maybe, just maybe, I was helping keep a piece of California in open ground for wildlife and helping maintain some traditional activities.
The Miller property and Jack Ranch have recently become home to herds of pronghorn antelope and tule elk, two California natives that had not been in this part of the state for a century, and the Millers and their staff were watching over them like mother hens. There are deer and coyotes. You can see stars at night. There are still cattle on the hillsides, irrigated pastures, and a few grain crops are growing in the valleys. It's a quiet place. If it takes a wild hogs and a hunting program to keep these tracts of land undeveloped and not broken up into home sites, I am more than happy to help.
I wonder if I could talk Roger into a horseback hunt the next time I visit Parkfield. I know he'd rather be in the saddle.
SIDEBAR -- Guided Hog Hunting Costs
Cost of Guided Private Land Hog Hunts
Guided hog hunts on private ranches cost from $600 to $1,000 or more on most properties in California. There really ends up being very little difference in the total cost for hunters. With the less expensive hunts, hunters must provide their own room and board.
Miller Brothers Expeditions is a good example of how this works because they offer a bargain $600 guided hunt for sportsmen who want to camp out or stay in nearby motels and provide for their own food. And they offer a $1,000 all-inclusive hunt that includes meals and lodging at the refurbished and plush Parkfield Inn. If you want a trophy boar, it will cost $400 more because of the extra effort involved in finding a boar with two-inch teeth or longer.
Contact information for Roger Miller: Miller Brothers Expeditions, 70502 Vineyard Canyon Rd., San Miguel, CA 93451, telephone 805-459-5883, web site www.MillerBrosExpeditions.com.
