The Hog Blog

This could be the story of almost any public-land, blacktail deer hunt in California’s B-zone.  The vast majority of public land hunts play out this way, albeit with minor variations in the details. 

But this isn’t just anybody hunting deer in CA… this is me and Holly, the NorCal Cazadora.  And as typical as the tale of our hunt may have seemed, hunting with Holly is never a typical event.  She’s driven to learn, and willing to put in the effort to make it happen.  And brother, we put in the effort this weekend!

The place we hunted is set in a big, box canyon (I call it Kokopelli Valley) that runs about a mile or so straight back from the trailhead to the back of the “box”.  The valley itself is relatively mild terrain, with some little ups and downs, the worst thing to deal with is the star thistle (that stuff can poke right through the padded knees of my MilSurp BDUs!).  However, my favorite way to hunt this place is to climb the western ridge which is about an 800 foot elevation gain over about an eighth of a mile… fairly steep and covered in new-growth scrub oak and jumbled, dead manzanita.   From up there I can sit and glass almost the entire valley, as well as the surrounding ridges and hillsides.  It’s a real catbird seat, although it’s getting a little tougher to hunt it nowadays.

Several years ago, a raging fire burned through the entire place, burning down acres of big pines and some really monstrous manzanita, along with the apples, figs, and grapes that marked an old homestead.  All of this past weekend, I couldn’t help remarking on how much things had changed as the habitat recovered.  Fire is good, in most of this western environment, and I am always impressed by the way the land recovers.  I’ve been able to observe these changes in Kokopelli Valley from the first day after the fire until now… and it’s pretty damned awesome.

It was a relaxed trip, for a change, once I decided to skip the midnight road trip and head out early on Friday.  After meeting for an early breakfast, we drove through the hills toward our spot.  As we passed through the low ground on the way in, we passed herd after herd of blacktail deer… and nary a buck in the bunch.  I’d been pretty excited earlier in the week, because the rut was going full bore near my home in the SF Bay Area, but what we were seeing here was a little disappointing.  Not only were the bucks not with the does… they weren’t even showing up on the fringes.  It’s pretty amazing how much difference a hundred miles or so can make in the deer behavior. 

So anyway, we’d rolled in along with Kat and set up camp down in the developed campground area (a pit toilet is better than taking care of business in the poison oak… especially with two women in camp).  Kat would serve “camp wench” duties, since she’s still recovering from some surgery, and Holly and I would ride out each morning to hunt.  Cyrus (the wonderlab) would hang out and provide entertainment. 

Besides the obvious goal of a deer hunt, there was another point to this particular trip.  Holly is generally new to hunting, particularly big game, and wants to learn more about it.  I’m not sure what qualifies me to take the role of mentor/instructor, but I figured the least I could do was to get her out there in the field and show her some prime habitat.  I’ve been pretty fortunate in this area over the years, and it’s consistently held deer.  Even so,it usually takes a few trips to find a legal buck. For many California hunters, it may take many seasons.  Hitting the field for one weekend out of an entire season certainly isn’t any way to up your odds of success, but it’s better odds than sitting in front of the television! 

I’d considered doing a recap of each day in the field, but there’s not a lot of point to it.  The bottom line, of course, is that we did not kill a deer.  In fact, despite seeing somewhere in the neighborhood of 15 to 20 deer over the course of the weekend, we didn’t even see a legal buck.  There was little indication of the impending rut, and the mature bucks were still hiding in the inaccessible cliffs in the Snow Mountain Wilderness, just over the western ridge.  I showed Holly where they probably were, but I don’t think she was any more excited than I was at the prospect of trying to get one out of that hellhole… if we could even find one in the first place. 

The thing is, during the early part of the season it’s not too unusual to find a buck or two out in the “valley”, but soon after the first guns come out, they disappear over the ridge during the daylight hours.  It takes some pretty serious hunting to find a buck at this time.  Then, as the rut approaches near the end of the season, they’ll start coming back out to stake out territory and check out the does.  We’d apparently hit Kokopelli Valley during that lull in between peak times.  The huge, bright, half-moon all night didn’t help either… althought it made for some might pretty scenery in the pre-dawn hours.

Despite my best efforts (and my anatomical anomaly), I think Holly probably picked up a few ideas about deer hunting techniques and tactics.  We certainly saw plenty of sign, old and new, and she had lots of opportunity to get a feel for the way deer move and feed… at least in Kokopelli Valley.  I know I had a great time, although being the only human male in camp with two women, I was constantly on the defensive.  They can be merciless… and the stuff they talk about!  I’ll never look at a tent bag the same way again, I can tel you that! 

Looks like my blacktail season is over for this year, but I’m looking forward to next season!  Maybe we can get Hank to join us next time… if for nothing else than to take a little of the heat off of me!

Oh… and there may be video when I get a chance to process it.

Here’s the second part of the video from my recent hunt at the Golden Ram Hunting Club’s Hedgepeth Ranch. 

Being as the pigs were off-limits last weekend (and throughout rifle deer season), they were everywhere… all day long!  Drove me a little nuts, but it was a lot of fun stalking and filming them. 

There were plenty of deer on the ranch too, but I couldn’t find one with legal antlers to save my life!  Overall, though, I spotted all kinds of game, including coyotes, foxes, rabbits, quail, doves, grouse, turkeys, deer, and of course, pigs.  The place was quiet all weekend, with hardly anyone out in the field.  I was a little surprised, but pleasantly so…

Anyway, here’s the rest of the video:

See, look… I really did get out and do some hunting.

Here’s Day One of last weekend’s Hedgepeth Ranch hunt (one of the Golden Ram properties). 

Day two will come pretty soon, if I can keep the focus going.

Now that Hank has told his side of the story, I can release my own without playing spoiler…  His is much better than I could ever tell it anyway, which is cool, because this hunt really was about Hank’s experience.  I was just there to help.

Besides, I’ve been trying to think of a re-telling of the tale I knew Hank would be writing without sounding like two sides of the same story.  So instead of rewriting the whole story, here’s a little video of the last few days, and with Hank telling us how it all went down.  Then I’ve got a few more things to throw in.

It was a rewarding hunt, but with some hard lessons mixed in.  Things didn’t go exactly as we’d like to see them, and we paid the price.  So did the deer. 

Read the rest of this entry »

Again?  Yeah, I know… but hey, it’s that time of year.  I can’t sit in here and type on this computer all the time.  I need that time afield… the experiences feed my mind, and that, in turn, feeds this blog. 

This trip is down to the central coast area again, this time hunting with Hank Shaw, the Hunter-Angler-Gardener-Cook.  Hopefully we’re gonna find a good blacktail buck for Hank, and then look out!  Once venison gets into his kitchen, he’s got a whole world of magic that he can work on it. 

So bear with us, and I’ll be back soon.

Some of you may have read my report on the past weekend at the Golden Ram’s Hedgepeth Ranch, and you’ll recall that I promised some video.  Well, here it is… for what it’s worth.  No great kill shots or stalks, but I kinda like the shots of the turkey poults and the pig orphans. 

Make up your own mind, I suppose…

Dang, this bowhunting is hard!

I think I’ve whined that before, but I was reminded again this weekend at the Golden Ram’s Hedgepeth Ranch. 

First of all, just finding a deer was a challenge over the weekend.  The small handful I saw were does and youngsters, nary a buck in the mix (not even a spike).  With all the youngsters in the mix, though, I knew there must be some bucks around.  They just wouldn’t show themselves for me.  That may be due, in part, to the huge moon that’s waxing right now. 

What the place was lacking in legal deer, though, it more than made up in hogs!  Hogs to the left of me, hogs to the right, rooted and plundered (apologies Lord Tennyson). 

I had the first close encounter early on Sunday morning, as a big old sow came trotting across the meadow right to me.  She stopped on the edge of a ravine, broadside, and I guesstimated the distance at 40 yards.  Unfortunately, she only stopped long enough for me to guesstimate the range before she dropped into the ravine and headed even closer.  I moved up, and waited with the bow up and ready for her to appear. 

She didn’t appear.  Then I heard rustling almost directly under my feet.  She’d turned in the brush, and was now less than 10 feet away.  I eased around to ready for a shot just as she came clear of the brambles… eye-to-eye.  Pigs have rocket assisted take-off.  You might have never known that, but this girl demonstrated a turn and burn that would’ve made a fighter pilot proud.

I was already at full draw, and instead of letting off, I touched the release to watch my arrow skip off the hard pan and disappear into a thicket.  Crap!  That’s sixteen dollars I’ll never see again!  The same can be said for the pig as well, as she dove over the ridge and into the thick woods.  I could still hear her running two or three hundred yards away.

That was exciting!

After a failed stalk, I made my way back to camp.  I’d taken my friend’s 15 year-old son, Payton, out for his first hunt (he was observing), and they had to head back early.  I got him and his mom on the road, took a little breather, and headed back to a new spot I’d just been shown.  Major thanks to “Mike”, for the generosity… sharing a great little honey-hole with me.  I never saw the big buck he’d been trying to arrow, but the hogs gave me quite a show.

About an hour after I settled down, I heard rustling coming from the manzanita below me.  Then I heard a droning kind of grunt… not loud like a feeding hog, but just kind of moaning.  Weird!  I peeked around the tree I was set up under, and spotted movement low to the ground.  A group of about eight tiny pigs were rooting around at the edge of the trail.  I readied my bow, hoping that they’d be accompanied by a larger generation of siblings or cousins, or something… but the little crew fed across in front of me (often at less than five yards), and moved away up the hill. 

After fifteen minutes of waiting for adults, I realized they’d apparently been orphaned.  They were still tiny, but seemed completely able to fend for themselves.  I briefly thought of the juvenile golden eagle I’d seen hunting earlier, and figured at least one of those guys wouldn’t make it through the evening.  Fortunately for them, the raptor had moved on to another area. 

I listened to the little hogs ravaging the underbrush for an hour or two, before things finally settled down again.  I spotted hogs across the canyon, and watched some deer, but things were quiet until about an hour before dark.  I was glassing the far ridges, and when I lowered the binos, I caught a black shape at the edge of the manzanita.  A 120-pound hog was standing there looking at me, about 18 yards away.  I froze.  He froze.  I waited.  He waited.

Finally, he lowered his head and I was able to raise the bow.  I leaned behind the tree and came to full draw, then leaned back out to settle the 20 yard pin just behind his shoulder.  A chip shot… this was one dead pig walking.

I eased the release, and the arrow sprung out toward the hog.  Straight as an arrow… or not!  Just about halfway to the target, I heard a barely audible “snap”, and the arrow dove hard to the left and passed just behind the hog’s butt!  He looked at me briefly as if to say, “well I gave you a chance,” and then he spun and bailed over the hill and back into the manzanita and poison oak. 

Disappointment and frustration tried to shake me down, but I fought it off.  I walked out to see where he’d been standing, and it was only when I looked back at my spot that I saw the manzanita bush sticking up a lone branch, like a desperate center-fielder reaching for a home run ball.  The top two inches of the branch were leaning, clipped nearly in half by a razor-sharp broadhead.  I went down to look for the arrow, but it had gone into a dense patch of poison oak.  Another $16 bucks gone! 

It looks like my archery jinx is still holding tight. 

That wrapped up the A-zone archery season.  I may try to get out for B zone archery, but August is looking kind of busy this year.  May have to find my deer with the rifle this year. 

I’m hoping to get back out after hogs with the bow as well.  I’ve got some redemption to get.

In the meantime, there’s no joy in Mudville tonight… the not-so-mighty Casey has struck out. 

(Hopefully I’ve got some good video of the weekend… I’ll try to get that online ASAP)

Hog hunting has been going on all year, but this weekend marks the beginning of the season many Californian hunters have been waiting for… the deer season! 

On July 11, bowhunters can take to the field in the A-zone (one of the largest zones in the state).  It’s one of the earliest seasons in the country, which is a mixed blessing.  As I’ve mentioned before, it’s not at all unusual to find the early season hunters sweltering in 100+ degree heat.  Yeah, but it’s a dry heat.

Seriously, I know I’m eagerly awaiting my first opportunity to get out there with the Mathews (my recurve is in semi-retirement) and see if I can put some blood on it.  I’ve locked in the weekend of July 24-26 at the Hedgepeth Ranch (a Golden Ram property), and look forward to getting a rematch with the smart-aleck buck that grinned at me multiple times while hog hunting in the post-season. 

I know where you live, Mr. Buck. 

The CA Seasons that I’ll be hunting this year are as follows:

• A-zone Archery – 07/11-08/02
• A-zone rifle – 08/08-09/20
• B-zone Archery – 08/15 – 09/16
• B-zone Rifle – 09/19 – 10/25

I may choose to get an “Archery Only” tag for my second tag this year.  If I do, I’ll technically be able to hunt from this coming Saturday through December (although, realistically I’d be hunting through November 1… the remainder of the zones are too far away for me to hunt). 

If you don’t have the CA Mammal Hunting Regulations booklet, you can find a downloadable version right here!

Well, while Holly was waxing rhapsodic about the rain this weekend, I was standing in a Mendocino County forest, drenched through in a set of rain gear that suddenly just quit shedding water.  With another whole day of rain in the forecast, and two more days of hunting, it wasn’t looking good. 

But dangit, this weather should get the deer moving, and my opportunities to hunt blacktail deer this year have been fleeting at best (two outings prior to the one I’m writing about now).  I was stoked… shivering and sodden… but stoked.

This is my buck from a couple of years back.

My Friday evening hunt, all two hours of it, was primarily planned just to regain the lay of the land there at the Bar-Z Ranch, a Golden Ram lease that I’d had great success on a couple years back (on a similarly rainy weekend, no less).  That’s him in the picture to the left.

I wasn’t sure I’d be able to remember how to get to “my” spot, but after only a couple of false starts, I suddenly recognized the features and landmarks.  I had time to slip into the trees and check some trails before dark, hastened by the thick cloud cover, forced me back to the truck.  On the trail I found some light deer sign, but a lot of bear scat. 

This is the first year I’ve ever picked up a bear tag in CA.  Many years ago, as a teen, I helped a few bear hunters manage their kills, and after skinning a couple of bruins, I came to the conclusion that it seemed an awful lot like skinning a big ol’ Labrador Retriever.  I know, it’s not rational, but it’s me.  I lost my heart for shooting bears, although I’ve always enjoyed eating them.

Lately, though, I’ve had a little change of heart.  For one thing, I really want a bear hide to make into a blanket.  I made my elk skins into blankets, putting one in my camper, and giving the other to my daughter, and it really tickles me to see her bundled up in it.  How cool would a big, snuggly, warm bear skin blanket be?  (I’ve been really taken by collecting hides lately, by the way… they seem a much more useful trophy than a set of horns or teeth.)  Besides, I really enjoy eating bear meat. 

So I decided to get a tag this year, and have a go at it.  There’s no rule that says I have to shoot a bear if I decide I really don’t want to… and the tag really isn’t all that expensive. 

Of course, the success ratio for CA bear hunters isn’t all that great.  It’s even worse for folks, like me, who aren’t hunting behind hounds.  The majority of successful bear hunters (not counting houndsmen) are simply deer hunters who stumbled onto an opportunity.  I figured for sure that this yellow tag in my pack would act as the finest bear repellent on the market today, so the decision to shoot or not was probably a moot point. 

Which brings us back to the bear scat in the woods.  Lots of it. 

Saturday morning at dawn found me slinking back down the trail.  As I geared up, I noticed the stars were twinkling overhead.  I was relieved to see that, because my rain gear was still saturated from Friday’s downpour.  I slipped on some BDUs, a light shirt, and my old Liberty hunting coat.  No, my camo patterns did NOT match, so sorry to the fashion police. 

A half-hour from the truck, a breeze blew a chilly drizzle under the brim of my Stetson.  I looked up, and saw that the stars had disappeared completely.  I thought it over, and decided to keep going.  The damp ground was dead silent… perfect for stalking through the huge pines, oaks, and spruce.  The wind would sigh through the tree tops periodically, creating a small cascade of water that plopped and smacked the leaves.  I was able to time my movements with these little symphonies, so that when I walked up on my first deer in the gloom, I’m not sure who was more surprised… her, shocked at my silent arrival… or me, shocked at how close I’d managed to get.  

Deep in the timber, I didn’t notice that the rain had started to increase until my trail led out into a big meadow, hedged by manzanita bushes and oak trees.  It was an ideal feeding ground for both deer and bears, and I slowed my snail’s pace even more as my eyes picked the landscape apart.  The insistent plop-plop on my hat brim sounded like gunshots in my straining ears, and I looked around for a big tree or overhanging rock.  Then, to my right, I saw the bear.

He was a healthy, young-ish black fellow… long-leggity and tall, with a coat that looked full and beautiful, despite being soaking wet.  He was much larger than the biggest pig I’ve ever taken, although I must admit that I’m a total novice at judging bears.  I know a true boss bruin would appear to have shorter legs and a fuller body, but I wasn’t trophy hunting anyway.  This was definitely not an 80-pound baby, but it wasn’t likely to top 300 pounds either.  A quick, but thorough scan of the area told me this bear was solo and not a sow with cubs.  In short, for me, it was a shooter.

The bear was moving parallel to my path, heading right into the open and less than 75 yards away.  My 30-06 was suddenly at my shoulder, braced against the trunk of a pine tree.  The crosshairs landed just at the point of his shoulder as he stopped in the open, broadside and oblivious.  A 180gr ETip waited in the chamber, needing only that slight squeeze on the trigger to send it on its deadly way.  This was one dead bear, and he didn’t even know it.

A second passed, followed as seconds are, by another and still another.  Grains and the hour glass and all that… but a good bit of time went by. 

The bear raised his head and sniffed.  The wind was solidly in my face, but he wasn’t looking in my direction anyway.  There was something in the meadow he didn’t like.  A group of cattle huddled under an oak tree just up the trail.  He took a few cautious steps, wagging that big head back and forth to test the wind.  The crosshairs danced, then steadied.  My fingertip could sense the ridges on the trigger-face as the muscles in my hand and forearm tensed.

Whatever he smelled was too much for him, and the bear spun back into the woods, then turned dead away from me and began to walk quickly away.  There’s something comical and cute about that rolling gait.  If you’ve ever seen it, you’ll know what I mean.  It’s fast and powerful, but it’s just so danged odd to see such a big animal move that way. 

He stopped again, about 100 yards away now, and turned broadside once more to look out into the meadow.  The crosshairs caught up to him, and leveled again. 

I lowered the rifle.

Now believe me… constantly, over the remainder of the weekend and most of the drive home, I puzzled over that decision.  Why didn’t I shoot that bear?  My first bear tag.  My first bear hunt.  And there he was practically in bow range.

Part of me, the practical and logical part, remembers thinking what a killer that recovery would be if I shot him.  He was standing at the edge of the meadow, but the only semblance of a road was impassable to my truck (Petunia is having an engine transplant right now).  If I had dropped him on the spot, he’d have been on a pretty good, open piece of flat ground.  Even from there, it would have been a heck of a hump to carry him back to the main road.  But if he didn’t go right down, there was a deep gorge just behind him, and a steep, densely wooded hillside just to the east.  He’d end up going down one of those, and since I was hunting solo, I had some real concerns about getting him all packed out.

But, the honest part of me questions that rationale.  There’s no doubt in my mind that, had that been a 300 pound boar hog, or a big-bodied buck, I’d have popped a cap in him without a second thought.  The recovery is never as bad as you think it’s going to be, and I’ve definitely had harder hauls.  He was big, but not monstrous.  I could have probably packed him out in two trips, skin, head, and all.  Hell, if I boned him out, I could probably have taken everything in one trip.

If I think back in detail to the first moments after I saw the bear, I remember a peculiar sensation just as the crosshairs found the sweet spot.  It was a tightening of my chest, and a kind of lump closing up my throat.  I’m not going to say my eyes teared up, but that’s sort of what the feeling was like.  I always get an odd kind of elated remorse right before I pull the trigger on a big game animal, but this was different.  There didn’t seem to be the elation… just the remorse. 

Whatever my reasons, I let him walk.  It wasn’t that bear’s day to die. 

I’d like to say I redeemed myself later by shooting a nice buck, but despite coming real close to several deer over the rainy course of the day, I couldn’t find a legal set of antlers on any of them.  The rain continued, ranging from downpour to mist, for the rest of Saturday.  I rolled back into the campground sodden and whipped.  A hot chocolate with tequila (it’s better than it sounds) and a hot shower restored my spirits somewhat, but even as I dropped off to sleep, I kept seeing that bear through the scope and wondering what happened.

The rain pretty much stopped on Sunday, but despite high expectations of deer coming out of the woodwork, it didn’t really happen.  I found a likely spot that I’d really like to get back to this season, but that’s all up in the air. 

I’m not sure that the next bear that steps out like that will walk away like this one did.  I sure found myself wishing I’d taken the shot… after the fact, of course.  I guess only time will tell.  But for now, the memories of this one will definitely last a long time.  And I guess that’s about as good a “trophy” as any I’ll ever take.

Well, first of all… I didn’t get sprayed by a skunk. I’m a little gun shy of those things. In the last video, when he raises his tail I think there was a coyote down in the draw with him. He had no idea I was there.

For those who haven’t been keeping up, I was bowhunting blacktails during the California A-zone archery season. This was my first outing with the new Mathews Drenalin compound, after many years shooting a recurve. The hunt took place on the Hedgepeth Ranch, which is leased by the Golden Ram Sportsmen’s Club. It’s a great place, and I had success there with a hog and a deer last year.

Anyway, once again as in so many of my hunting videos, there won’t be any kill shots or spectacular close-ups with trophy game (except that skunk). But I hope you enjoy it anyway…