The Hog Blog

On the road through Sunday… no live updates, so figured this’ll set the proper tone.

I hear a lot of folks say that Texans and Californians don’t get along, and the good people of the Lone Star State hate to see Left Coasters moving into their fine piece of the country.  Good thing I’m not really a Californian…

My friend and fellow US Sportsmen’s Alliance Field Director, Adam McInerny, has been working on developing his home business, Bullets and Brass, LLC.  Here’s how he describes it:

Our focus to help provide hunters, skeet shooters, target shooters, and competition shooter discover the alternative to buying factory loaded ammo and start saving money by reloading. A considerable size focus is being placed towards hunters who are affected by the Condor Range restrictions which require the use of Non-lead projectiles when hunting big game.

So with this in mind, Adam is offering a free class to interested folks in the San Francisco Bay Area.  For those who are interested in getting started in reloading, this could be a great opportunity.  I’ll add that reloading has become something of a requirement for me these days, since I can’t find non-lead factory loads for my .325wsm.  I’m sure I’m not the only one in this boat. 

So here’s Adam’s press release.  Check it out, and take advantage of an excellent opportunity.

I just wanted to send out an invitation to all of those who live in the bay area to attend an upcoming class which I will be doing a presentation on the basics of reloading. The class is titled “Intro to reloading”.Bullets and Brass, LLC and the 10th street indoor range to help promote the shooting sports, hunting and keep the local range in business by finding alternatives to skyrocketing prices on factory ammo.www.getbulletsandbrass.com
E-mail: sales@getbulletsandbrass.com
Phone: 408-857-8902

I am teaching this course on behalf of my business

If you shoot pistol, rifle, or shotgun and want to save money on ammunition, this course will help you decide if reloading is for you.

We will cover the basics that will help you determine what type of equipment you need to get started. It will also give you a break down on whether or not you really can save by reloading the quantities you would like to reload.

This event is open to the public and most importantly FREE. If this class isn’t for you, share it with your friends and family members who do shoot or hunt.

The address is:

San Jose Municipal Firing Range
1580 South 10th Street
San Jose, CA 95112

When:

Monday, January 18th at 8pm. (arrive early for parking).

If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me.

Thank you for taking the time to read my e-mail.

-Adam McInerney
Owner – Bullets and Brass, LLC

The news is spreading fast through the CA outdoor community about today’s DFG chopper crash up in the Sierra. 

MADERA (AP) — The California Department of Fish and Game says three of its biologists were killed in a helicopter crash in the Sierra National Forest, and the pilot is believed to have died as well.

I just wanted to post this up and offer my own condolences to the family and friends of these dedicated folks.  The DFG gets a lot of flack from hunters and non-hunters alike in this state, but the work these people are doing is vital and too often under-appreciated. 

Please take a moment to spare a thought for these guys and those they leave behind.

Wow.  So here we stand, not only at the end of another year, but at the turning of the first decade of the 21st century.  It seems a little momentous, even if I can’t quite put my finger on why. 

Maybe it’s because the new year always brings the promise of change, of challenges and rewards.  For me, that’s particularly true as I look ahead into the coming months and the rising decade.  2009 brought some significant revisions to my personal life, and I think that was the impetus for what’s coming next.

The immediate future doesn’t look all that different.  In a couple of weeks, I’ll be heading out for the SHOT Show for my seventh (or eighth?) consecutive year, with hopes of putting my hands on some of the new products for the coming year.  As always, I’m really looking forward to it.   And, of course, I’ll be reporting back to all of you with the news and product reviews. 

February will see me heading back down to the Tejon Ranch for a couple of hog hunts.  Tejon is one of my favorite places in California, and it’s definitely my favorite hunting spot.  February weather can be a real challenge down there, with fog, mud, and occasional heavy snow…  but that only makes the hunt more exciting. 

March has a whole lot of potential this year.  I’ll be heading back down to the Texas Hill Country with my brother, Scott, to hunt exotics again in what has become an annual trip.  That, in itself, is going to be a blast.  I always enjoy hunting with my friend Shane Hearn, of Border Bandit Outfitting, and I always come home with a freezer full of tasty meat. 

But this year, exotics won’t be our only target in Texas.  After a lot of conversations, and some really deep soul-searching on my own part, my brother and I are seriously considering making the move to Texas.  Some of you regular readers may remember my little April Fool’s joke last year, where I pretended we’d bought a hunting ranch.  Well, if we can pull things together, this joke may become a reality… in one form or another.  We’re not rushing into it, but we’ll be using some of our time on this trip to look over some of the options.  More on this as it develops, I promise.

Moving along… April will bring turkey season.  Not sure if or where I’ll be guiding this year, but I’ve got to get some redemption on the feathered demons.  I didn’t put one in the freezer last spring, and I didn’t even get out and try during the fall season. 

In May, I’ll be running another big group hunt at the Tejon Ranch.  I’ll be posting up more details on this soon, but any Hog Blog readers who are interested in joining this hunt are more than welcome. 

Hard to imagine with the grey, cold, and rainy winter settled in so deep, but June is right around the bend.  The barley will be high, and the pig hunting should be hot and happening.  I’m hoping to be busy with Michael and the guys at Native Hunt, since this is high season for hog hunters in the Central Coast. 

The second half of 2010 is a little vague to me right now.  A lot depends on what happens with our Texas plans.  July brings the archery deer opener, and things seem to roll pretty fast from there.  We’ll be running our hunts at Coon Camp Springs again this year at the end of October and beginning of November, which is something I always look forward to with a lot of anticipation. 

Anticipation, actually, is the word that sums up 2010 for me.  There’s a lot on the horizon, and I’m steering dead into it with both hands on the wheel and a grin on my face.

Heading down to the Lone Star State for the weekend to visit with Kat’s mom and family in Dallas.  I know the deer season is in full swing down there right now, but I’ll just have to shine it on and pretend like I’m not jealous for a few days… even though I know her uncles and cousins will all be out on their leases, trying to whack those great, big whitetails!

In the meantime, word is in from Coon Camp.  Our last hunter tagged out the other morning with a really big, forked horn buck.  Word has it we’re talking a 23″ spread, which is certainly possible.  I’m still surprised they never got on the big 4×4, but oh well… such is hunting!  If I get pictures later, I’ll be sure and share them with you all.

So there ya have it!  Ya’ll have a great weekend, and I’ll be back Sunday night!

Nothing here about hunting, I’m afraid… I’m still out at Coon Camp Springs, wrapping up the first two clients of the season.  By now, I sure hope we’ve got two big mule deer sent off to the taxidermist, as there’s a full moon rising and the next hunter will arrive tomorrow.  Anyway, hope this tides you all over… one more week before I’m home.  Enjoy!

Halloween was such a blast when I was a kid.  Between trick-or-treating, hay rides, and haunted houses, it was a pretty magical time to be a youngster.  Even into my teens, while there were more tricks than treats, it was still a lot of fun.  We tried to keep it harmless, of course, but we did get wild from time to time.

One of the big events in my little hometown was the annual, Halloween egg war. 

I spent most of my teen years in a little fishing and farming village in southeastern, NC.  The local high school I attended served not only our little community, but also the nearby beach towns of Surf City and Topsail.  I don’t know when this all started, but somewhere along the line the tradition of an annual egg war between the communities was born. 

Again, I’m not sure how it all began, but what I remember is that the beach kids would come riding into town, loaded with eggs, and begin the bombardment.  Tradition held that we’d be waiting in ambush, hiding along the highway or even on the roofs of the local businesses.  I don’t remember the exact layout now, but there were only about eight or nine businesses  in our little town… most of them lining Highway 17.  On the southbound side, the first building coming into town was the fish packing house.  Next door was the auto parts place, a shop, and the IGA grocery.  Across the street were a couple of other buildings and private residences…  it formed the gauntlet.  As soon as the “enemy” rolled into town, the eggs went airborne in a messy, exciting barrage. 

The battles often left the main drag, as we’d load into the vehicles and go “Mad Max”, with running egg fights down the highway or into the side roads.  The combatants generally kept the melee between us, but I know that innocent bystanders were occasionally caught in the crossfire… collateral damage, as it were. 

And, of course, the whole thing was done with one eye out for the local deputies.  Anyone who was caught (and someone was always caught) spent the next several weekends cleaning up the neighborhood. 

Eventually, the whole thing got a little too out of hand.  There were a couple of injuries.  One that stands out was a crazy friend of ours who decided he could leap from the fish house to the auto parts store… across a two-lane street.  He didn’t make it.  After he got out of the hospital, he was often seen using his one, good arm to wipe dried egg yolks off of the windows and walls of the IGA. 

Beyond that, some folks decided they couldn’t wait for the “enemy” to show up from the beach, and just started egging every vehicle that drove through town.  That didn’t go over well, as you might imagine.  By the time I was a senior in high school, the IGA and local convenience stores stopped selling eggs to minors for a couple of days leading up to Halloween.  The Sherriff’s Department and Highway Patrol stepped up their presence as well, and made the penalties tougher.  The fun finally went out of it, and the tradition died in a couple of years. 

What sorts of things did you guys and gals get into on Halloween?

Here’s a little something that got caught up in my mind on the ride to work this morning.  I can’t even remember what started this train of thought, but it rolled down the tracks and I realized it’s been clanking away up there in my mind for a while.

The core of it all is that I think we, as hunters (or as humans) often lose track of the big picture.  We get so caught up in things that are important to us individually that I think we lose the global perspective and start to narrow things down.  Suddenly the shades of meaning fade until every issue seems black and white.

As hunters, we really should all be experts at the “big picture.”  We all know the pitfalls of looking for a whole hog in the chemise, right?  You’ll almost never see it.  Instead, we look for the pieces of a hog… the angled line of a leg, the sudden flick of an ear, or the gleam of an eye. 

As trackers, we know it’s not just about the footprint.  What’s in the trail ahead and what’s in the trail behind?  Where’s he been, where’s he going, what might cause him to change course, and why is he moving at all?  We can look at a piece of land and tell in a glance if it’s likely to produce game… and what kind of game we’d find there, where it will be, and why it will be there.  We take in the big picture and sift it out until we see the things we’re looking for.

We need to take the same approach when we’re looking at the issues and politics that impact our sport and our behaviors.  Read the rest of this entry »

I was just checking out this article in the SF Gate (online version of the SF Chronicle and other local news sources).  The gist of the article is that the crash in real estate values has provided a great opportunity for land preservation organizations to snap up deal after deal.  As the article reads: 

It seems like a rare opportunity, but all over California, tough economic times are forcing investors and developers to abandon housing projects and real estate deals that would have made them a fortune just a few years ago.   Conservation organizations and trusts are moving in to buy the land, often at bargain basement prices.

It makes sense, of course, and this isn’t the first I’ve heard about it.  The fact is, right now is a great time for anyone who was smart enough to put aside some liquid cash, to snap up some killer deals on real estate.   A lot of folks are selling out just to break even, or even at a loss, as the market struggles to right itself after the insane nosedive it’s been in.  (Of course, the real estate market folks seem to forget that part of the reason for the tail spin is the meteoric rise in prices over a handful of years prior to the crash… only a greedy fool couldn’t have seen this coming.)

Unfortunately for the private investor, it’s pretty tough to take advantage of these deals right now, since the lending industry took a beating as well.  It’s hard to borrow simply to buy a home right now… anything that looks like investment property will be an even bigger challenge.  I’ve been looking and daydreaming about taking the opportunity to get into a hunting ranch property, but I’m not sure I’m up to the task of arranging financing… or up the grind of making payments. 

All that aside, though, the main thing this article got me to thinking about is… well, here are all the land trusts and preservation organizations setting aside these tracts of property.  Where are the sportsmen’s organizations in all of this?  I read mention of the Sierra trust, Nature Conservancy, and others… but nowhere am I seeing mention of the Mule Deer Foundation, California Deer Association, California Waterfowl, or even Ducks Unlimited.  Am I just missing something altogether here, or are we missing out on the opportunity of a lifetime? 

I mean, really… I hate to be overly cynical, but these land trusts have a long record of blocking off sportsmen’s access from the lands they’ve “preserved”.  And in truth, I do think it’s a good thing to have a smattering of real wildlife sanctuaries interspersed around the countryside.  These places do offer something of value to the non-consumptive nature-lover, and there’s nothing wrong with that on its surface. 

But hunters in CA could sure use more places to hunt as well.  If these tiny organizations like Trust for Public Land and Peninsula Open Space can afford to snap up big chunks of land, why can’t our organizations do the same?  Either through collaborative efforts, working with the real conservation organizations and environmental groups… or simply combine the strength of various hunting organizations. 

I don’t have the answer to those last questions, and would love to hear some input from folks who do.

It’s been a day of almosts and not-quites.

I was gonna try to write something deep, profound, or at least helpful to all you hog hunters out there.  I had a couple of thoughts rambling around, inspired in part by discussions on other blogs or forums, and in part by the meanderings of my mind… but nothing came out. 

I thought real hard about doing a post about the NRA and Assemblyman Curt Hagman revising Hagman’s proposed bill, AB373 to repeal the bullshit AB962 that was recently signed into law by a lame-duck governor who obviously has other things on his mind and really has nothing to lose.  Neither party wants anything to do with him.  His political career is as dead as the corpses he’s stacked up in his movies.  So it really doesn’t matter how pissed off I am about this knife in the back of CA sportsmen and shooters… I could write a 20 page rant, but it’s pissing in the wind at this point. 

Bottom line, support AB373, folks.  It’s unlikely to get traction, but stranger things have happened.  Make your phone calls, send your letters and emails, and be heard. 

On another front, I was supposed to head out this afternoon to the eagerly awaited, archery pig-hunting opener at the Golden Ram’s Hedepeth Ranch this weekend.  I’ve been chomping at the bit for this hunt ever since my last deer hunt up there, and as soon as they scheduled the hunts, I made my reservation. 

Then I got a call early this week from T Michael Riddle to come help out with some hog hunting clients at Native Hunt.  It was a really tough choice, but I’d be a little foolish to turn down the opportunity to make a little cash in these tough times, so the archery hunt was aborted.  Maybe next time…

Next week at this time will find me out at Coon Camp Springs, getting set up for the first pair of mule deer hunters.  They’re hunting for a week, and another client will be coming in right behind them.  Hopefully the wierd weather will even out and the rut will come on time again this year. 

I’ll be there for the full two weeks, then off to Texas for some family visiting (no hunting on this trip) the following weekend.  It’ll be fun to see some of Kat’s family, as I haven’t been there for a while.  

When I come back, though… if my guns haven’t all rusted and my bowstring rotted… I’m going hunting somewhere and somehow!

So this is another one that’s kinda remote from hunting, but I thought it was relevant right now, and I wanted to share it in a public way, rather than a little disclaimer on the side of the page or something. 

I’ve made a policy here on this blog to only review products and services I’ve actually put my own hands on.   It’s just the way I want to do business.  I get press releases and product updates all the time, and I appreciate being in the know about what’s going on in the industry… but before I review something, whether I’m recommending it or not, I want to put it to work. 

(If there is an exception to this, it’s when it comes to gear at a trade show, such as the SHOT Show, when I’m spotlighting new or innovative products.)

Anyway, this came up again today when I read about the new ruling from the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) regarding “endorsements” and product reviews.  Under the new rules, bloggers and celebrities who receive free or discounted products or services in exchange for a review must disclose that relationship. 

In other words, if Mathews sends me a new bow to try out (I wish!), I must tell you that they sent it to me in exchange for the review.  I can’t just pretend like I’m doing this review out of the blue. 

The rationale, of course, is the same as with print and television endorsements.  Consumers have a right to know if someone is being compensated in exchange for their promotion of a product or service.  There’s always a risk of the quid-pro-quo arrangement between the reviewer and the company, and folks should read this kind of review with their eyes wide open. 

I don’t really have a problem with the law from a practical perspective.  I know, for a fact, that there are people out there using their blogs as paid advertisements for various companies, and I think that’s just wrong.  But then, I put a lot of value on honesty and integrity.  Not everyone does.

Theoretically, the law will extend the “truth in advertising” ideal to the blogosphere.  Theoretically, folks looking for product reviews will be able to distinguish between the “paid commentary” and the honest reviewer.  The blogsites set up as false fronts for advertisers will be unmasked.  It will force bloggers and product reviewers to accept accountability for what they write.  Consumers will be able to educate themselves if all the cards are on the table.

But that’s all theoretical. 

In reality, nothing is really going to change. 

One only needs to look at television ads these days to know that the marketing and advertising industry is way ahead of these puerile regulatory controls on truth and honesty.  For every rule, there’s a loophole, and these guys are masters at finding them.  If the FTC can’t even control television and print media, what the hell makes them think they’re going to be able to get a handle on the blogosphere? 

This is another toothless effort by the Feds to appease angry consumers without actually changing any process or procedure.  The FTC is not assigning new agents to monitor and prosecute violators of the new law.  They’re not even setting up any kind of cohesive program to enforce it.  In short, it’s a waste of energy and tax dollars. 

Look folks, Caveat emptor  does not mean “empty cerebral cavity”! 

As consumers, we are all responsible for our own protection.  There’s a wide variety of fact and fiction out there, much of it masquerading as “truth”.  It’s up to the individual to pick through that miasma and double-check the facts before buying… whether you’re buying a product, a service, or an ideology.  We shouldn’t be expecting the federal government to play nursemaid over our shoulders.

Anyway…

For my part, I’ll continue to do as I have.  I’m always open about who sent me a product to try out, and I’m also always honest in my reviews.  Sometimes the folks who sent me the product might be a little sorry they did, because I’ll not hesitate to pan it if it’s no good. 

So if you’re a reader here on the Hog Blog, that’s my commitment to you.  And if you’re a company with a hunting or outdoors product to promote, I’d be glad to talk to you about doing a review… but be prepared to send me a sample, or invite me out to try your service. In return, you’ll get an honest critique here on this blog.