Billingsley Tire Donates Pig Hunt for March 15 MDF Banquet in Livermore

How do like this? We needed a pig hunt to round out our auction for the Livermore-Pleasanton MDF banquet, so Tom Billingsley of Billingsley Tire in Lemoore and Coalinga, purchased a pig hunt from Hogs Wild Ranch and donated it MDF. This is a two-day pig hunt for one person with overnight lodging.

Maybe you can find one this big!

Check it out.

Here’s some info from the Hogs Wild website: www.hogswild.com

“We’ve got California wild pig hunting at its finest! Located 17 miles west of  Coalinga, CA, in the coastal mountains. We offer bow hunting and rifle hunting
for trophy wild boars. Our hunts are self guided hunts or semi guided drop camp  style. We have two comfortable hunting cabins with beds, bathrooms, and showers.”

There’s a lot more to read at the web site, so go and read it for yourself.

For a banquet flyer, click on this link: Livermore 2013 flyer

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Spring Pig Hunts Offered in Yolo County

Reblogged from CDFW News:

Contacts: Victoria Barr, CDFW Wildlife Branch, (916) 445-4034
Kyle Orr, CDFW Communications, (916) 322-8958

The Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW) will conduct eight permit-only wild pig hunts on Bobcat Ranch in Yolo County.

These opportunities are being offered between April 3 and May 22, 2013 through the Shared Habitat Alliance for Recreational Enhancement (SHARE) Program. A total of 24 SHARE Access Permits will be provided to wild pig hunters through a random drawing for eight general method hunts.

Read more… 222 more words

Here's a chance to get your pig. Just click on the title and the original CADFW post will appear.

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California Tag Drawing Deadline

The time is upon us for making decisions. June 2 is the deadline for entering the California tag lottery.

With three deer preference points I’m hoping that this with be an “X” Zone year. That’s pretty good standing in the deer category. We put in for an archery hunt as second choice, but hopefully that won’t come into play.

My last X zone hunt produced this buck. If drawn again, should I holder out for something bigger? Good question.

Bought a bear tag and bobcat tag this year. This may be a first for me in the bear and bobcat tagging category, but I think it’s time – dog or not.

Sheep, elk and antelope are all in, but I’ve got one less than the maximum preference points, so my chances could be better. You never know.

Bought a few extra “raffle” chances for deer and elk. You never know, luck could strike.

My personal choice for the elk lottery was the Cache Creek bull elk hunt. Somebody will get it.

I also bought my type “A” season pass for the refuges. Why not get it done early?

As holder of a lifetime hunting license and first deer tag, a couple boxes were automatic. I also get several pig tags as part of the lifetime license program.

Been seeing a few pigs around this year.

Everything arrived in the mail last week. Now it’s time to go through the ticker tape and make sure it’s all there.

Anticipation is part of the fun of hunting.

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Hogs Gone Wild

Some of you may have seen the Discovery Channel program titled “Hogs Gone Wild.” I might not have ever watched it except for a personal interest established when the show agreed to pay me $75 for the use of one of my photos.

The photo in question was taken after a friend of mine bagged a giant boar a few years ago. Some time thereafter, I made a post on this blog entitled, “Largest Boar Ever Killed in the Livermore Hills?”

The original post is still in place, but here’s the photo in case you’re interested.

Photo as pictured on "Hogs Gone Wild."

The pig in question was definitely a very large boar and the program about large pigs in the wild puts the photo into perspective. I taped the hour-long show and watched it last night. Yes, there was my photo. (Where’s my $75.)

The program pursued pigs across the continental US, starting in California and traveling though Oklahoma and into Alabama. Using archery equipment, horses, lassoes, net guns, snares, ATV’s, heliocopters and hounds, the stars of the show harassed, tormented, hog-tied and/or arrowed many pigs, but none were as large as the boar in the photo.

In the end, the promoters of the show concluded what I concluded some time ago. If a pig lives in the wild, it is unlikely that it will grow to a size of over 250 pounds. Occasionally a large boar, that it very smart and has plenty of natural food and good escape opportunity will grow to the very large size of 350 pounds or more. The boar in the photo was estimated (by me) to be 400 pounds, but it was so large that we couldn’t get it to a scale. The weight is only estimated. We did eat a lot of pork.

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Trophy Chasers Supports MDF

Trophy Chasers has donated a one-person, two-day wild pig hunt to the Livermore-Pleasanton Chapter of MDF banquet on March 10, 2011. Hunting will take place on a portion of Trophy Chaser’s 100,000 acres leased land near King City.

 

Trophy Chasers hunts year round for wild pigs in this area. The donation is for a meat pig, but can be upgraded to a trophy boar for a $200 trophy fee. A trophy boar is categorized by tusks greater than two inches from the jaw. The hunt does not include lodging or accomodations.

 

For more information about the hunt go to the Trophy Chasers web site: http://www.trophychasers.com/

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Where have the Pigs Gone?

About twenty-five years ago, I shot my first pig. It was a surprise pig as I ran into it while hunting turkeys. The sow weighed about 200 pounds and I spined it with an arrow from about 30 yards. At the time, pigs were present in Alameda County, but not prevalent.

Ten years later we were in the middle of a pig population explosion. Pigs became very available on the best huntng ranches, including ours. I took up part-time guiding for pigs as a way to get outdoors and take advantage of the situation. I set up a lease arrangement with a nearby rancher and paid him $100 for each pig my customers took, along with an access fee to cover the cost of my impact to his operation.

Over a few year period, we killed quite a few pigs on his ranch. We generally found the pigs at first light as the left their nighttime feeding areas or around ponds during the heat of the day.

This isn’t a great photo, but there are 13 different pigs in the picture. I believe I took this photo on a foggy June morning in about 1995.

The photo below was taken later in the summer. Once again there are about a dozen pigs in the photos and they are displaying typical pig behavior.

On a  hunt on our ranch, I followed my friend Joe DiDonato as he tried to catch up with one of the pigs pictured in the pond photo above.

I don’t believe Joe ever caught up with the above pig, but he did bag the one in this photo on a different trip.

On a guided hunt with Gus and Casey Kerry. Casey followed this pig into a large thistle patch and we walked through the thistles until Casey was able to get a shot. It was a little exciting walking around in a thistle patch with a bunch of pigs.

Casey and his dad, Jeff came back again the next summer and Casey shot this good-sized sow.Here’s a really big boar taken on a different hunt. This big boar was one of the largest taken and was also very impressive looking.

As is often the case, the pig hunting was too good to last. Although sport hunting could control pig populations on hunted land, the large unhunted public tracts created a significant problem. Pig management became necessary in the form of paid professional pig hunters who used every legal means to reduce pig numbers.

Trapping was the most effective method of rapid pig population control.  A trap like the one shown could trap an entire herd of pigs – sometimes as many as 25 at a time. The pigs are attracted to the trap using grain as bait. After a few nights of baiting, the pigs return to the trap regularly. A trap door is placed at the entrance to the trap and when it is triggered, the pigs cannot escape. On some occcasions pigs  return more than once in a single night.

The pigs are shot in the trap and removed. Sometimes the meat is utilized, but that is often not a requirement. I have personally witnessed 25 squealing pigs being shot in one of these traps. It’s not something I’d like to view again – what a racket.

 Hounds are another effective method of removing pigs in large numbers. These catahula hounds have very sensitive noses and live to hunt pigs. They are mellow and friendly to people, but watch out pigs. Between traps and hounds, pig numbers have been greatly reduced over the last ten years.

However, there are probably other factors contributing to the current absence of pigs. A few years ago the DFG changed the regulations regarding pig depredation and landowners are allowed to shoot pigs on sight, leaving their carcases to rot. In addition, a hunter used to be limited to one pig per day. Now a hunter can take as many pigs as he has tags for. Since pigs often travel in small family groups or larger herds at times, one can take more than one when they are located.

Disease and loss of habitat are other contributing factors, but in the case of this game animal, the decline has been mostly orchestrated (by DFG and large public landholder who treat pigs as a nusance). Pigs are a feral animal with few supporters. These non-native animals are blamed for many things, such as a reduction in amphibian, reptile and ground-nesting bird species.

Combine that with the fact that ranchers often consider pigs a pest that competes with cattle for food, while others fear pig-borne diseases can be transfered to people via public water supplies, it appears to me that pig hunters are looking at a losing battle if they want to try to turn things around.

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Getting Ready for Deer Season 2008

Saturday it starts, deer season 2008. I’ve got my ground blind set beside a pond that typically attacts bucks during hot weather. I’ve missed a couple from this spot, but never put my tag on one yet. But this may be the year.

My blind is commercially made and has several ports to shoot through. I must shoot from a stool, which is the biggest issue with shooting well. I’ve got the stool at home and I’ll be practicing this week. I set my block target up beside the pond and did some practicing first hand. My shooting was poor relative to how accurate I am while standing.

After the A zone archery will come a trip to Nevada to hunt mule deer during the Nevada archery season. I can’t imagine how hot it will be, but maybe I’ll know if I hunt the ground blind near home when it’s 105 degrees as predicted.

The Nevada hunt will be via the landowner tag program. I bought a tag that will allow me to hunt archery, muzzleloader and rifle seasons. I’m hoping that other than archery the rest will be irrelevant.

Then comes the California inland season. We were drawn for the X12 zone on the eastern slope (first timeI’ve ever hunted mule deer in California with a rifle). It will be a chance to bag a relatively nice California buck. We know there are bucks up to 26 inches and that would be fine.

As a bonus, we’ve got a few pigs on the local ranch and they’ve been using the same pond where my blind is set, so you never know, I might end up with some pork as well. It will be a fun season and anticipation is half of it, the fun that is. Kind of like opening day in baseball. Everybody’s in first place.

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When Wounded Hogs Charge

During the several years that I part timed as a pig guide, we killed about 25 to 30 wild boars. Several hunters came back for a second or even third time. One of those was Roger Fung. Roger was very excited about killing a big pig.

 

He was slight of stature, probably in the 150 pound range and he didn’t shoot a big rifle, but it was effective. He liked the 7 mm .08 because it didn’t knock him down and was pretty effective on pig-size game.

 

On his first trip we found a nice boar of about 200 pounds and he easily downed it. The boar appeared to be fairly old and had nice “choppers.”

 

About a year later Roger contacted me again and we arranged another hunt. This time we found a good pig about 8:00 AM. We spotted the large boar heading our way. We only had to move short distance down the ridge to intercept it at about 100 yards.

 

Roger dropped down into the prone position and the boar stopped broadside, presenting a perfect shot. At the sound of the shot, the pig dropped like a stone. As we congratulated each other, I was surprized to see the boar jump to its feet and run out of sight, down the ridge in front of us.

 

We immediately took off in hot pursuit. I angled off the ridge to my right and we dropped into the small canyon finding no sign of the pig. We did come face to face with another boar, but we were not interested. The first pig was much larger – plus it already had Roger’s bullet in it!

 

I was very surprised by the lack of sign and concluded that the boar must have turned after it went out of sight and dropped off the opposite side of the ridge. Sure enough, as we crossed over the top of the ridge, we spotted the boar lying on its side motionless, about 50 yards away.

 

As I didn’t carry a weapon of any type, I motioned to Roger to step in front of me as we approached the boar. I wasn’t convinced it was dead. Sure enough, at about 20 paces, the 350 pound barrel of pig jumped to its feet and ran directly towards us. Roger raised his rifle to his hip and let fly. The bullet pierced the pig’s left ear.

 

Fortunately the muzzle blast at 10 yards slowed the pig long enough for Roger to chamber a second round. This time he raised the rifle just as the pig moved forward for a final charge. The shot was pure and the big boar went down for good.

 

From that time on I carried either a 12-gauge shotgun or .44 magnum hand gun while guiding for wild pigs.

 

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Springtime is Turkey Time

The first few trips to the ranch after the close of duck season are an awakening. I make very few trips to the hills during duck season, mainly because I’m focused on ducks and once the hills on our ranch become saturated by winter rains, travel becomes difficult.

(Note: Click on photos to enlarge them.)

Once duck season is over, thoughts turn to the hills and we know it won’t be long until turkey season opens. Along with the turkeys comes an occasional opportunity to bag a wild pig, but the last few years have been slow for pigs, so we’ve spent more time looking for gobblers.

Sometimes we see tule elk along the easement road as we did this day, but the two bulls we spotted were too far away to make a useful photo. The bulls had already shed their antlers. They like the open hillsides where they can spot people coming from a long ways off. Although they are not hunted, they are very careful to avoid people.

(Caption: Brian Scott, in town to MC our Mule Deer Foundation banquet accompanied me on this trip and checked out the pig rooting.)

Although we found no pigs, we did find a large area that had been rooted up by pigs in search of tubers -  probably within the past week. I find it interesting that so many people complain about the destructive nature of pig rooting. I’m sure it does have a short term negative impact upon grass, but my gut instincts tell me that there are benefits derrived from the rooting. It probably has a positive impact upon soil compaction making it easier for some plants to grow. It sets the area back a bit succession wise and creates some diversity. If pig rooting is bad, what about farming?

We had a good crop of turkeys in 2006, but the dry spring of 2007 seems to have had a negative impact upon our local turkey prooduction. The short grass last summer was probably not conducive to good brood survival and that seems to be the case as this spring the flocks are smaller and spread out over larger territories.

We have two areas on our ranch that tend to attract spring turkeys, but one of those two is by far the most productive. It is a canyon that holds a lot of water and has heavy cover on its north-facing slope. Along with the cover, the area has plenty of large roost trees – a key to attracting and holding turkeys.

That’s where we found a small group of gobblers following a couple hens in typical spring fashion.

We stopped to check a few ponds in search of red-legged frogs, but only found a few tree frogs along the pond edges.

On the way home we found a small flock of hen turkeys with several gobblers displaying.

Brian leaned out the passenger window to take these turkey photos.

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California Boar Diving

(Caption: Tom Campbell with the wet boar. Click to enlarge.)

The water was cold and my bare feet were barely touching the slime mud on the pond bottom. Somewhere beneath or beside me was a 200-pound boar that had sunk beneath the chocolate-brown water of the stock pond.

I was surprised that the pond was so deep. I was only five feet from shore and the depth was already over my head. As I prepared to swim towards the middle of the pond, feeling my way with my toes hoping to bump into the hairy beast, something broke the surface of the pond out in the middle. It was our pig.

Was it coming back to life?

No, the gasses inside its body had finally caused it to float back to the surface. After a brief swim, we had our trophy.

Why does a hunter swim for boars? That’s the rest of the story.

Tom Campbell and I had started very early in the morning, but we hadn’t found any pigs at first light. After glassing without success, we took up driving while searching for our quarry. Finally we came upon a boar crossing the road ahead of us. He headed into a draw following a fence line. I knew about where the trail would lead, so we hopped out of the jeep and climbed up on a knob overlooking a pond about 300 yards down the hill from where we’d seen the boar.

We hit the jackpot as we ended up right on top of the boar and a bunch of other pigs all wallowing around at the edge of the pond. The range to the pigs was about 150 yards and Tom got prone and fired away at the boar.

It was a clean miss, but the boar had no idea where the shot had come from. Instead of running away from us, he ran straight up the steep hill towards us stopping about 50 yards below us to look back towards the pond.

That’s when my hunter friend unleashed a second shot the caught the boar perfectly. He dropped on the spot, but the hillside being quite steep, he began to slowly roll back down the hill picking up speed as he descended.

By the time he reached the pond he was moving like a locomotive. At the edge of the pond he caught a little rise that catapulted him into the air sending him nearly to the center of the 30-foot wide pond. The splash was impressive and then he sank.

It was a nice day in early spring, but not nice enough for swimming in muddy murky cold cattle ponds. At the time, it appeared that I had no other choice. If I’d had more experience along these lines I would have known that big animals float to the surface once they begin to bloat. Now I know.

So, if your next big game animal happens to sink into a deep pond. Don’t swim after it. Wait for it.

(Caption: Me and the waterlogged boar.)

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