The Hog Blog

I hate when I come back from being gone, and find that the world has spun right on down the road in my absence…leaving me in a drifting cloud of dust and wonderment.

That’s a fancy way of saying, when I got back from my weekend I had a million things to do and not enough time to get them done.  To top it all off, my motorcycle broke down on my Monday morning commute, and I ended up losing a full day of work getting it taken care of.  Since I was off anyway, I went and got Petunia the Miracle Truck smogged and registered (two hours at DMV).  She’s now street legal, but when I got home I found a leak by the right rear tire… brake fluid?  It never stops!  So now I have to find time to get her into the shop too. 

Anyway, that’s how my week started… especially harsh after a great weekend up at Coon Camp Springs.  How’s that for a long-winded excuse for only now getting around to writing a blog entry?

So, down to brass tacks, so to speak.  I’ve got a few topics I’d like to get to this week, but here’s one that just came across my desk from one of my friends over at Jesse’s Hunting and Outdoors about the Hunting Down Cancer fundraiser. 

What is Hunting Down Cancer?  Here’s a snip from their website:

Hunting Down Cancer is a fundraising event for the fight against cancer. We will be auctioning off an elk, waterfowl hunts and other related items and again this season all of the proceeds will be benefiting the Lance Armstrong Foundation.

Hunts to be auctioned include several really nice waterfowl hunting opportunities, some one-on-one dog training instruction with some of the top trainers in the country, and predator hunting with callmakers and professional predator hunters.  In short, it looks like something for everybody! 

Anyway, get on over and check out the site.  The auctions start later this week, and run through the month of August. 

Well, I’m heading back up to Coon Camp Springs for another weekend of sweat and fun.  Hopefully I’ll have an opportunity to talk to Dave Allen, President of the Coon Camp Springs organization about the project, and maybe give you folks a bit more of the story.  It’s a good one.

In the meantime, get out and enjoy the summer.  I just realized that August is peeking around the corner and fall is in the wings.  Summer’s almost over already, and I just got started! 

The rest of the country will be gearing up to hit the woods pretty soon, whether it’s upland birds, deer, or wild hogs.  And somewhere in Colorado, there’s a bull elk with my name on him…waiting for my September arrow.  The next month used to always be kinda like the day before Christmas to me. 

Anybody up near Susanville, CA this weekend is welcome to come on out and lend a hand.  Plenty to do and never enough of us to get it all done. 

You know, I spend a lot of time surfing around blogs, web forums, and various other sites.  A lot of cool stuff is rolling around out there, just waiting to be discovered and rediscovered.

However, as I link to all these new sites and blogs, I often seem to forget to look even closer to home.  I’m part of the Skinny Moose network, and I just realized today that I hardly ever mention my own “family” blogs on here. 

Now there are a bunch of blogs in our network, and to pretend like I’ve seen or read them all would be a pretty blatant mistruth.  Fact is, I’ve only viewed a handful that are specific to my own interests…namely hunting, paintball, and some outdoors news.  There are others that are no less worthy, but I just simply don’t have time to visit them.  As Bilbo said as he turned eleventy-one, “I know less than half of you half as well as I should like, and I like less than half of you half as much as you deserve.” 

Anyway, in no particular order, here are a few of the Skinny Moose blogs I visit on a regular basis.  The whole list is in my blogroll, so check it out… you may have other interests than I do, and they’re probably represented here.

First of all, I have a fellow western hunter and Californian in the Western Wanderer/Rack Tracker.  John gets out there even more than I do when it comes to chasing wild things in the western states.  I’m looking forward to reading more of his tales as life moves along.

Moose Droppings is another one I check out almost daily.  Moose is from North Carolina, the state I call home, as my family has been there in one form or another since the 1600s.  I can almost feel the humidity, and smell the pines when I read his posts. 

Rick over at Tails and Trails keeps us all updated with outdoors news, as well as local happenings in his neck of the woods.  He’s also great with comments and feedback, both inside and out of the Skinny Moose family.

I’ll take a chance and call him the grand-sire of the Skinny Moose family, Tom Remington’s Black Bear Blog is pretty well known without my help, but I do enjoy going over and reading what Tom’s got to say.  I usually hit his site at least once a day, and sometimes more.  Always thought provoking, it’s a daily fix like coffee.

One more, Sid’s Paintball…  I haven’t played this game in ages, and it’s changed an awful lot since then.  Part of the reason I drop in there is to see how much it’s changed, and the other reason is to relive my “glory days”.   It’s a hoot of a game, and I keep threatening to start playing again.  Maybe one day… 

There are so many other great sites and excellent folks on the network, I feel I’ve given someone short shrift.  Hope no one’s offended, but I couldn’t include everyone. 

For lack of anything better to write today, it’s time to dredge something up from the Porcine Press.  Unfortunately, there’s not a heck of a lot happening when it comes to wild hogs in the news lately. 

There’s this story, from way over in the Netherlands.  Folks in Wisconsin, Kansas, and other states that are now dealing with the onslaught of wild hogs can certainly relate to the good people of Epe.  Heck, the hogs wander the streets of town at night!  Hmm… maybe a trip to help out with the problem, followed by a short layover in Amsterdam? 

Like many other states, Canada is trying hard to head off the spread of wild boar by regulating and often denying permits to farmers who want to raise them.  This case has been going for a while, but it looks like it’s come to a head now.  The farmer was told he wouldn’t be able to get a permit for the wild boar on his farm, but he bought them anyway.  “What are they going to do, take them away from me?” 

Here’s one from stateside, and it may even be good news for some Texans.  The Big Thicket National Preserve in Kountze, TX has decided to once again offer hunting permits for the preserve.  The permit process was apparently a little inconvenient last year, so there are improvements that will make it easier for people to get one of the free hunting permits.  The preserve Superintendant, Todd Brindle, stated that because the extended hog season last year was so successful, that program will be repeated this winter as well.  Sounds like a great opportunity.

There are a few other goodies out there, including a site I’d failed to mention previously.  The Hunting Wire will be added to my blogroll along with the Outdoors Pressroom, News Hound, and Outdoor News Service websites. 

Oh, and while you’re over there in my blogroll, take a look at a couple of new entries.  First, there’s the belated addition of Bright Idea Outdoors.  Matt’s been around for a while, and I can’t believe I didn’t have him on my list.  Also, please welcome Hunting with Mike.  I saw a link to this guy’s site over at the Hunt Smart Think Safety blog, and after reading through a few of the posts I knew I’d want to check back on a regular basis. 

OK, I’ve posted a fairly long, detailed, and rambling account of last weekend’s hunt over at Jesse’s Hunting and Outdoors (JHO).  You can go read it there if you’d like.  But if not, here’s the condensed, video version.

Enjoy the show, but please bear with the technical issues.  I’m still getting the hang of this video stuff, and just downloaded the trial version of the editing software.  Quality will improve as I learn… honest.

Well, just pulled into town a little while ago from my first deer hunt of the CA season.  Spent some time on the Hedgepeth Ranch, which is one of the properties leased by the Golden Ram club. 

I have to say it was pretty slim pickin’s for the deer, but the hogs are having a boomer year out there.  My friend, John Landon joined me on the hunt, and we were pretty much in and around hogs the whole time.  John managed to seal the deal with this nice little boar Saturday night.

I had a few close calls, but nothing quite gave me the opportunity to get an arrow in the air. 

I have some video from the hunt that I’ll put online as soon as I get it all cleaned up.  For now, I’m exhausted.  Summer hunting makes for very long days in the field and not much time in the sack. 

Hasta manana.

Well, I guess I am since I was recently nominated by Darrell over at Alpha-Trilogy for the Power of Schmooze award. 

Not sure why that is, as I’m really not all that active… but I do enjoy moving and chatting through the community.  However, as part of the award you’re supposed to nominate five more bloggers who you think embodies the “Power of Schmooze” by posting comments and staying active on all the other blogs.  As I look through the previous posts on that topic, I realize that the folks I’d nominate are already represented. 

There are very obvious choices like Rex, over at the Deer Camp Blog.  Rex is a regular ambassador of the blogosphere, welcoming and making friends with folks from all over the place… heck, who’d have thought there would be a blog for crossbow hunters from Peru?  Or Rex’s friend, KeesKennis from Africa (he’s actually got a very cool site)… how does he meet these people?  He schmoozes!

And there’s Jon Bryan, who has a wonderful site at Outdoor Odyssey… even if, for the life of me, I can’t seem to post a comment on his site.  Maybe it’s my security settings or something, I dunno. 

Others include Kristine from Gunslinger.  Kristine is a marketing person, so getting out and getting know everyone is her job… but she does it well and seems to really enjoy it.  I can hardly go to a blog’s comments section and not see a post or two with her name by it.  In some circles, it may not be polite to say, “she gets around,” but I think it’s OK in the blogosphere, since the implication is totally different. 

There are more, but again, they’ve all been nominated already.  It seems somehow incestuous of me to continue to recirculate the same list of blogs.

Anyway, when I first saw this I took it as another meme… which is something I don’t generally participate in.  I mean, it’s really not much different than a chain letter…

Read this and pass it on to five of your friends or you will die/have bad luck/lose all your hair/lose all your money/be eaten by aliens within five days. 

But it makes me think about the community here… the outdoors bloggers that is… and how we seem to be growing and organizing.  Whether it’s with the Outdoor Bloggers’ Summit, or simply by adding one another to our blogrolls, we’re linking up people and ideas and that’s a pretty cool thing.

I don’t know if this is gonna become a regular thing or not.  Once the rest of the state starts opening up, the reports will be too widespread for me to keep up with.  But for now, it’s just Zone A (the largest single zone in the state) and it’s just archery… so I can get a pretty good feel for the season by keeping up with my friends at Jesse’s Hunting and Outdoors.  They make a pretty good representative slice, anyway.

Anyway, the point is that I’m hearing a few more success reports coming in.  Despite the heat and the drought, it seems like the deer populations are in pretty good shape.

Here’s a nice one from this week.  Taken by Matt T.

If all goes well, I’ll add up my own picture after this coming weekend.  The Hogblog will have to fend for itself Saturday and Sunday while I get out and get some fresh air and see if I can scare the critters in Sonoma County. 

Wow, this last poll has been great!  50 responses, and a pretty wide gamut of favorite calibers for hog hunting.

There were some interesting choices (and a couple of jokers) in the mix, which is part of the reason I asked the question.  Even discounting the .22short and the .416 Rigby (and probably the .17hmr, although I know there must be somebody out there…), the choices were fairly illuminating.  By the way, if the person who voted for the 22-250 is reading this, can you just let me know (by comment or email) if you’re in Texas?  That seems to be a real popular round there. 

As I mentioned before, I was a little surprised to see how close the .270 came to the 30-06, while the .300win mag seemed to trail more than I’d expect. 

Anyway, the responses seem to be slowing down a bit, so I figure maybe it’s time for a new one.  Check it out on the right, and let’s see where this one goes.

I’ve been horribly remiss. 

Back in January, during the 2007 SHOT (Shooting, Hunting, and Outdoor Trades) Show, I had the priviledge of meeting Glen and Kathy Lubeznik at the Kids and Clays booth.  I took a bit of their time for an interview, and as we chatted there in that pressroom, I was totally impressed…both by the people and their program.

Glen is a long time shooter, and is also a McDonalds owner/operator up in Indiana.  Through his involvement with McDonalds, he soon got involved with Ronald McDonald House Children’s Charities as well. 

Now, an aside…  shortly after my daughter was born, the Ronald McDonald house was there for us when things got tricky and we suddenly found ourselves spending a lot of time at Duke University Hospital and needing a place to stay close by.  Money was tight at the time, and without this place a difficult time would have been even tougher. 

Anyway, the Ronald McDonald House has a place very dear in my heart, so when I saw that name connected with the shooting sports, I had to know what this was all about.  Hence, my conversation with Glen and now we’re back on track…

During a meeting about fundraising for the charity, Glen got the idea of holding a sporting clays tournament.   In 1999 he brought that plan together, and the event generated more than $15,000.  That success spurred interest among major sponsors such as Browning, Winchester, and Charles Daly, and the following year brought in over $90k at the Indiana event, and spawned a second event in St. Louis.  As of this year, there are now shoots across the country.

I tried to find my notepad and interview notes from that January visit, but I didn’t have much luck locating them.  What I’ll do then, is try to get in touch with Glen and re-stage the interview, and get some current information to share.

In the meantime, check out their website at http://www.kidsandclays.com and see what they’re all about.  While you’re there, give it some thought.  Is this something you’d be interested in being a part of?  The site offers many ways you can get involved… from a simple donation of money to volunteering to host or sponsor a shoot.