The Hog Blog

Well, I’m afraid you’ll get short shrift today if you were looking for a report on yesterday’s dove hunt at the Native Hunt property.  I took no still photos, and first thing in the morning I left my new iKam Xtreme video glasses in the ranch truck.  I didn’t see them again until I was packing to come home last night. 

Speaking of packing to come home, I didn’t roll in until around midnight, after being up running around the ranch since 0400 (and I won’t even tell you what time I got to bed the night before).  Tired is to what I am now, as breezy is to Hurricane Earl. 

It was a great time, though.  It’s always good to see the regulars again, and really neat to meet our celebrity hunters for the event, Tim Abell and Steve Kanaly. 

The shooting started out pretty slow in the morning, but the evening hunt really got hot.  I stopped at eight birds (mostly Eurasian collared doves) because that’s all I wanted to eat right now, but as we recounted the day around dinner, it looks like plenty of folks filled out their limits, and those who didn’t had lots of opportunities.  Doves are deceptively tricky targets.  The air was filled with unrequited gunfire. 

Oh, and Holly, I don’t believe anyone collected any dove “bling”. 

In lieu of a lengthy write-up with pictures and video, I decided to enhance this post with a link to Dave Petzal’s most recent Gun Nuts blog.  In the post, Petzal remarks on the fact that at longer ranges, the “rules” of ballistics can get a little squishy.  Just because a ballistics chart says the bullet will do one thing, it will sometimes do something completely different.  The big take-away here is that, if you want to shoot at long ranges the only way to prepare is to practice at long ranges.  You cannot count on a chart in a book or on a computer.

It’s that time again!  September first will dawn tomorrow, and with it comes what, for many hunters, is the kick-off of the hunting season… the Dove Opener! 

I remember years ago, living in NC, and waiting eagerly for the annual opening day hunt.  Before I knew what a feral hog was, my hunting season generally wrapped up around the end of February, and that was it until Labor Day.  The dove opener was the like Christmas to me.   

The big opener was also a huge social occasion.  In NC, the dove opener always started after noon, which made for a great opportunity to get friends and family together at a “decent hour”. At the best dove openers I can remember, we’d gather on the edge of a recently cut corn or millet field to the aroma of hardwood coals and slow-cooking pork.  Guns and hunters of every vintage would mingle excitedly, eating, telling tales, and making memories before spreading out across the field to burn ammo on the grey rockets. 

Here in CA, we start at sunrise, but that doesn’t mean we don’t have fun!  Once again, I’ll be down at the Native Hunt properties with T. Michael Riddle and a handful of friends and guests.  We’ll greet the morning with gunfire, and then retire back to the comfortable lodge for a great lunch and a big party. 

I’ll be offline until I get home, but I’ll be carrying the camera and the video, so I hope to capture some of the fun to share with all of you when I get back.  I’ve got a new toy to try out, from Hunter Specialties.  At the SHOT Show in January, they introduced the I-Kam Xtreme video glasses.  I thought they were kind of neat, in a purely gadgety kind of way, and asked if they’d send me some to try out.  I thought they’d forgotten about me until about two weeks ago when an unmarked box showed up on my front porch.  I think I’ve got them figured out, so we’ll see how they work on tomorrow’s hunt.

So to all of you who’ll be out there tomorrow, slinging shot at the feathered furies, have fun and be safe!  Don’t forget to follow the rules, stick to the limits, and shoot where they’re going, not where they were.

Two upcoming events that some of ya’ll might want to know about…

First, CA DFG and CWA are working together to offer some dove hunts on private land. The second event is another opportunity to try out lead-free ammo, this time at Camp Roberts.  Here are the press releases.

California Waterfowl
2010-2011 Hunt Program News

Time is running out to register for Dove hunts available through California Waterfowl’s 2010-2011 Hunt Program. This program is providing Exclusive Private Land Hunting Opportunities to all California Hunters!

The final day to reserve your opportunity to take part in one of these fantastic opportunities is Friday, August 20, 2010.
 
Dont Miss Out…Click on the link below NOW!
 
https://www.SignUp4.net/ip.aspx?EID=20102171E&IID=h2S3xu%2bJWaU%3d

Whoops…I’ve been trying really hard to get out at least one post every weekday, but looks like I missed yesterday.  Oh well. 

I’ve got an idea floating around in my mind, but it’s been challenging to find the time to get it from my head, through my fingers, and into some cohesive form on this computer.  Damn a real job.  Damn it twice.

In the meantime, for those who may be looking for a dove hunt here in CA, the season opens on a Wednesday (Sep. 1)… which kind of sucks for folks with (damn it again) real jobs, but should keep the public fields a little less crowded for those who can make it out there.  If you do have the flexibility to take the day, and don’t want to deal with public land, you might check out Native Hunt’s annual dove hunt.  It’s a limited entry opportunity (about 30 slots open), but it can be a blast with good shooting, great food, and an awesome location.

I’ve swapped out the poll as well, for those of you who like to click checkboxes.  The last poll was a pretty good indicator that most of the responders are in CA, where we hunt all year long, since about 48% of you said that was the case.  The rest of the responses were pretty close, although it looks like October is the next big month for many of you.  That makes sense, as October was always the month I looked forward to when I lived back east… at least until I started bowhunting. 

Anyway, new poll is to find out who’s gonna hit the dove season opener.  Of course, I realize this excludes poor Arthur, since MI decided hunters shouldn’t be killing those poor little birds.

Well, I hadn’t thought about it lately, but the last Hog Blog poll stayed online for a lot longer than I’d intended.  The last question, in case you don’t recall, was what kind of rifle action do you use most often?  After 799 responses, the outstanding winner was Bolt Action.  That’s not such a surprise out here in the west, but I really expected the semi-auto to give the bolt guns a run for their money in other parts of the country. 

So based on the polls I’ve run to date, most of you rifle hunters out there tend to hunt with Remington bolt-actions, chambered in 30-06.  I think that puts you dead in the middle based on the results of similar polls in the outdoor media.  Cool, huh?  Or, maybe not…

Anyway, new poll is now online (to the right of the post and down a ways).  When do you start hunting?  Are year-round, like CA and Texas hog hunters?  Are you sitting on go for a September dove opener? Or do you wait eagerly for those crisp, fall days to start your season?

OK, not this year (necessarily).  Let’s just jump ahead here…

It occurred to me recently that while 50 is not just around the bend, it is looming on the near horizon, and maybe now’s a good time to think about what I’ll do to mark this milestone.  With four years to plan, I’ve got a lot of thoughts.  For example, for Kat’s 50th, we’ll be going to Ireland, Scotland, and Wales to see our ancestral homes.  It’s a big deal to her, and I’m pretty amped about the idea as well. 

But someone made a suggestion the other day that really got me thinking. 

At a party, my friends’s mom was talking about a trip they made to Africa.  Knowing my love of hunting and the outdoors, she thought it was something I should definitely experience at least once in my life as well.  I have to admit it wasn’t the first time I’ve considered this, and over the last week or so, it’s been on my mind a lot.  Of course, I’ve shared my general thoughts on hunting internationally in a post or two before.   I certainly have dreams of African hunting, but they’ve always been tempered with the fact that I can only bring home trophies.  The meat I can’t eat while I’m there goes to the locals or to the camp, which is fine, but that leaves a big, empty spot in my freezer. 

In the same vein, the possibilities sort of opened up.  If I could plan a once-in-a-lifetime trip to celebrate my first half century… what and where?  I’ve got a few ideas (in no particular order):

1. Africa: to spend a week on a photo safari in Kruger National Forest, and a week hunting.  Sure, I know I can’t bring home the meat, but this trip would be more about experiencing something I’ve read about my whole life.
2. New Zealand: Hunting red stag, Tahr, and wild hogs would be one big draw.  Not sure about bringing the meat home from NZ, but that would still be one heck of a shipping bill!  Besides hunting, New Zealand has offshore fishing, surfing, and a chance to walk the hills and dales of “Middle Earth” (as per Peter Jackson).   
3. The South Pacific (island TBD): Probably no hunting here, but who cares?  There’s the beaches and clear, blue water.  There’s diving, fishing, and checking out critters and plants I’ve never seen before.  Possibly combine this with #2.
4. Bob Marshall Wilderness (MT): A ten-day horsepack trip into the Wilderness with a deer and elk tag in my hand.  I know, I’ve killed plenty of deer and I can hunt elk a lot cheaper, but to me, a horse trip into the Bob Marshall is the very epitome of an elk hunt. 
5. Northwest Territories: A couple of weeks to hunt caribou, ptarmigan, and whatever else is in season, plus just to get out and see some REAL wilderness.  It would be fun to spend a few days on the drive up and back, too. 

I could list a dozen other ideas, but these are the five I probably think about the most.  They all have critical pluses and minuses.  Bonus “points” go to any trip that Kat would enjoy. 

What would you guys do, in a similar situation?

Well, happy Tuesday!

It’s June 1, and tomorrow, California big game hunters, your applications for limited draw hunts are due in Sacramento by 17:00. Miss this deadline, and not only do you not get into the draw for this year, you also miss your opportunity to acquire another preference point.

No big deal, right? The draw deadline is pretty much the same every year. We get our applications and big game booklets (listing season dates, locations, and availability) in the mail. We run out and get a license (or for those of us with lifetime licenses, they come in the mail), we do a little research to decide where and when we want to hunt, and we shoot those applications in to the Licensing Branch office. There’s always plenty of time.

Except this year.

Someone, somewhere at DFG, screwed the pooch this year and the application booklets, licenses, and the whole shebang didn’t start showing up for folks until about a week or two prior to the deadline. Still plenty of time, of course, unless you know, you had other things going on. For example, I was in NC on business for the past two weeks. I heard through the grapevine about the delay, but since I had yet to receive my booklet, license, or tag applications, I couldn’t do anything about it anyway. All I could do was hope everything would be waiting for me when I got home, so I could put it all together and get it in the mail. Of course, with the Memorial Day holiday and no mail service on Monday, that kinda put things up against a pretty solid wall.

Now I’ve found the big game booklet with the elk applications, and I’ve got my little pre-printed address stickers to go on it, but as far as I can tell I still haven’t recieved my 2010-2011 lifetime license, or the 1st deer tag application that is supposed to come with it. Should all of this turn up today, I can still overnight the whole works to DFG… and I will, as soon as I get home from work, despite the cost of overnighting mail.

I’m pretty pissed off. I suppose even if it were just me, I’d be mad. The thing is, though, I know I’m not the only one impacted by this. I’d even hazard a guess that a lot of folks will just now be figuring out that they’re about to miss the deadline… especially those who don’t visit the web forums, blogs, or DFG website.

OK, so pissing and moaning doesn’t serve much of a constructive purpose, and venting here is barely cathartic. But this whole thing illustrates a bigger issue… where the hell is California’s online licensing and application program? Heck, I can buy a license online to hunt Texas, Colorado, or even North Carolina! I can’t get one in the home state of Silicon Valley? It can’t possibly be THAT hard!

It’s been in the works since 2006, but the whole thing was something of a sour joke the last time I heard it come up at the Fish and Game Commission meeting. The system was supposed to have been piloted for fishing license last May, but it looks like they’re still piloting now. According to the DFG website, the program is due to rollout in mid-August of 2010 (although this update was from December of 2009 and I haven’t seen anything else since). I don’t know if I should get my hopes up or not, given the way the state bureaucracy moves things along.

It’s past time, Sacramento. Implement the damned thing, or fire the idiots who have spent the better part of five years diddling the database and wasting our money, and get someone in there who knows what the hell they’re doing!

Just got this in my email and thought it was worth sharing.  It’s a great opportunity for young hunters to get a much better Hunter Education experience than they’d get trying to sit through the regular course.  It also just sounds kinda like fun!

Check it out, contact information is included:

Quail Unlimited Host 16th Annual Hunter Education Camp

The Fresno and Stillbow chapters of Quail Unlimited will once again be hosting their annual Covey Camp, June 27 through July 1, 2010, at the Stillbow Ranch near Dos Palos, CA.

It is a Hunter Education summer camps where Safety, Sportsmanship and marksmanship are reinforced by daily Hands-on training.  Quail Unlimited’s Hunter Education COVEY Camp is open to youngsters from ten (10) to 15 years of age who are seeking their hunter education certificates.  The Stillbow Ranch Summer camp expands the traditional 10 hours of classroom instruction into a five day program of hands-on learning by doing and repetition.

 While completing their hunter education requirements the campers will be learning to safely handle shotguns, rifles and pistols. Once the basics of safe firearms handling are understood, the youngsters will visit the range everyday where they will learn shotgun and rimfire marksmanship skills.

The campers will take part in a dove nesting cone project to check usage and replacing nesting cones as determined by the survey.  Chukar from a local game bird farm is used to teach game care and basic cooking.  Local dog trainers stop by to demonstrate basic puppy work and retrieving.

The Stillbow Ranch is a unique site for a youth summer camp.  Located in the grasslands of central California the 500 acre duck club offers a variety of waterfowl and marsh wildlife, the Ranch is part of the Grassland area with several wetland and other wildlife reserves near by.  The ranch members have  contacts with USFS biologist, dog trainers and other experts to help make the camp a memorable experience.

A camp coordinator, two certified California Hunter Education instructors, junior counselors and volunteers from local Quail Unlimited Chapters who assist on a day-to-day basis staff the camp.  The Campers will take the Hunter Ed test on Thursday and successful participants will receive their hunter education certificate.

Stillbow Ranch is located 8 miles east of Los Banos, California (One and a half miles south of Highway 152). The club offers bunkhouse style lodging with three to four campers per room, a full kitchen and classroom.  There are duck ponds for wading in addition to the shotgun and 22 caliber shooting ranges.

Many Quail Unlimited Chapters offer scholarship programs.  For scholarship information and any questions regarding the camp contact your local Quail Unlimited Chapter or contact:

Dick Haldeman, QU Western Regional Director,
39455 Black Oak RD., Temecula, CA 92592
westernqu@aol.com, or 951-767-3435.

It’s been a while since I was in Texas, and I have to say that state really grows on me.  Fortunately, I’m about to head back down for a week and some change.  Kat and I are hitting the road tonight, and expect to be in camp by the Frio river with my brother (the bloodthirsty savage) and his wife, as well as my mom. 

Definitely gonna be doing some hunting for hogs and exotics while I’m there.  We’ll be hunting with Shane, from Borderbandit Outfitters.  I also hope to look around at some properties.  Yeah, I like it that much! 

I don’t know how much I’ll be able to post while I’m down there.  The campground has wireless, but last year I found the connection pretty danged sketchy.  Hopefully they’ve upgraded a little bit since then.  One way or another, I’ll try to get some pix and updates online.

Many of you who keep up on sportsmen’s issues have probably heard the uproar about United Airlines’ recent announcement that they’d stop allowing hunters to bring their harvested antlers aboard the aircraft.  I can say it created quite a flap in many quarters, and I certainly wasted no time in shooting my own email off to the airline, expressing my anger and dismay at the decision.

Well, it looks like those voices have made a difference.  Just got this from the US Sportsmen’s Alliance:

The voices of sportsmen were heard loud and clear by United Airlines as the company made the decision to change a new policy that would have banned antlers from being allowed onto any flight.

As previously reported, sportsmen from coast to coast were enraged as it became known United Airlines had quietly initiated a policy preventing passengers from carrying on or checking antlers or animal horns of any kind. 

After receiving thousands of complaints from sportsmen, who were informed by the U.S. Sportsmen’s Alliance (USSA), through Bowsite.com, and from many other concerned organizations, United Airlines has reconsidered this policy.  In a message sent to the USSA and other organizations, United stated:

“As you have recently contacted us, I wanted you to be the first to know that we have heard our customers’ feedback about our Antler and Animal Horn policy, and are responding.  Soon we will begin accepting Antlers and Animal Horns as checked baggage again.

As many of you may recall or have seen on our web site, in October 2008 we stopped accepting Antlers and Animal Horns because of the damage the tips caused to the cargo section of the aircraft and to the luggage belonging to our other guests.

We will soon publish new requirements – and ones we previously did not have – about packaging and cleaning Antlers and Animal Horns to ensure their safe, clean transport. These travel requirements will also provide information on the size of Antlers and Animal Horns we can accept based on the type of aircraft being flown (i.e., traditional jet vs. a regional jet) and the special handling fee, which we previously had in place and is similar to other items that require special care.

Stay tuned for further updates on the baggage section of united.com

“United proved that just because you make a mess doesn’t mean you have to stay in it,” said Pat Lefemine, the developer of the nation’s leading bow hunting website, www.bowsite.com and one of the first to sound the alarm over the anti-hunting policy. “It also proved again that when sportsmen unite behind an issue, their voices will be heard.”

The USSA echoed Lefemine’s sentiments.

 “We’re glad that United has considered the views of sportsmen and hope the new rules will reflect our concerns,” said Bud Pidgeon, USSA president and CEO.  “Regardless, the USSA plans to examine these new policies to be sure that they are fair to sportsmen.”

Now I’ve still got issues with all of the major airlines, regarding service and their treatment of baggage (and of treating passengers like baggage), but at least I’d be willing to call this one a real victory for the sportsmen!