The Hog Blog

So the quest begins…

I thought this would be a little more fun than the usual 10 minutes of footage in which I don’t get anything.  Hope you enjoy.

In addition to the upcoming Hunt.Fish.Feed. event (AUG 4, mark your calendars!), I meant to include a couple of other things that are going on that should be of interest to some of you.

First, Albert Rasch, despite dodging rocket attacks in Afghanistan, is doing his annual part to promote the National Hunting and Fishing Day, on September 25.  You can read much more about it over on his blog, but I wanted to pass it along here as well.  Albert is planning to do a series of posts on things you can do to celebrate, and why it’s important. 

With National Hunting and Fishing Day on my mind, I am going to have several posts concentrating on tips and ideas that you can use to help celebrate our sporting heritage.

I urge everyone to do something along the way and especially on the 25th to further our mutual love for the outdoors. It can be something as simple as taking someone who has never fished out on a shoreline, lake, or pond, to perhaps giving a talk to school children on the conservation and preservation work that outdoor sportsmen do for the benefit of all.

Remember, it is all up to us to do what we can, because even the smallest thing you do, pays off in huge dividends!

On another, more commercial front, I got a notice from the folks at Discovery Channel regarding casting call for the new season of Out of the Wild.  I didn’t see the first season, which took place in Alaska, but apparently the idea is to take a group of people from various walks of life, dump them in the wilderness with some basic instructions and objectives, and then film the results.  I heard mixed reviews, but a lot of folks did seem to enjoy the last show. 

Anyway, the new show will be set in South America (pretty cool, huh?), and is casting now.  The reason they contacted me (and probably some other outdoors oriented blogs) was because they’d like to find a hunter or two for the group.  I believe that subsistence/survival hunting was part of the program last time, and I’m guessing it’ll have a place in this new season as well. 

You can find out more about the show and the opportunity at the production company website.  Read the information carefully, and if you think it’s something you want to try, then by all means!  And even better, if you do get involved, I’d love to hear about your experiences and follow them here on the Hog Blog. 

OK, time for me to go to work!

So this follows on last night’s rant, re: intentional bad shots on hunting television shows.  What I’ve got to say isn’t new here.  In fact, I’m probably repeating myself because I know I’ve covered this ground before.  But so what?  It’s my blog. 

I’ve talked to and heard from a lot of hunters who have a range of opinions about TV hunting programs.  Most seem to feel that the programs glorify the wrong aspects of the hunt, emphasize the kill over the hunting experience, and highlight questionable ethics.  In fact, if I tried to sum it up anecdotally, I’d think the overall feeling was pretty damning and there shouldn’t be many sportsmen watching this stuff. 

But the truth is that there are at least three networks wholly dedicated to this kind of programming, along with several other channels featuring at least some hunting/fishing programs.  Someone must be digging it, because the sponsors and advertisers are sure dumping in the cash to keep it alive.  I have to say that on many levels, I’m glad to see this.  With the decline of print media and the rise of the short attention-span culture, television and Internet sources are the go-to media outlets for hunting entertainment.  It’s one more way to perpetuate the sport, to introduce it to new audiences, and maybe even to recruit new hunters.  It’s also an excellent conduit to promote ethics and sportsmanship.  I know for a fact that many viewers are using these programs to learn more about hunting techniques, styles, tools, game species, etc. 

That level of influence comes with a responsibility, and this is where I think that some of the hunting programming, and the networks that host them, really fall short. 

Now I’m not suggesting that hunting programs become didactic, proselytizing ethics sermons.  In fact, I’d hate that, because it would kick off that ever narrowing spiral of, “this is the only right way to hunt.” 

However, I do think that hunting programs definitely should hold their content to a higher standard than, perhaps, the average hunter.  By this, I mean that the average hunter gets over-excited and takes a bad shot from time to time.  They’ll stretch one out past their limits, take a bad angle, or try a low-percentage shot out of desperation.  It’s human nature, exacerbated by the fact that big game hunting is a sport that may offer the average hunter only one shot opportunity in a year.  (And let’s not even go into the economic pressure when a hunter has paid a lot of money for a hunt.) 

Even a highly ethical hunter can fall to temptation or bad judgement from time to time.  I understand this.  These are the real life things that happen in the field.  Sometimes they end well.  Sometimes they don’t.  But that doesn’t mean it needs to show up on the television or computer screen.  Honesty is an important thing, but it’s a virtue that doesn’t translate well to mass media.  Public opinion isn’t usually formed by the subtext of an action…it comes from what they actually see.  Read the rest of this entry »

I got an email today from Patrick Kack-Brice, one of the guys behind Pig Hunt – The Movie.  It’s funny, because I was just thinking about the movie, as I’ve been hanging out a little with an old friend of mine who works in video post-poduction.  We used to watch some pretty cool stuff in the studio.  I’m pretty sure he’d get a kick out of Pig Hunt.

Anyway, here’s what Patrick sent out:

Hello everyone!

Apologies for the mass email, this will be the last for a long time and the long journey of PIG HUNT has come to a close.

The great news is PIG HUNT is going to be released through Blockbuster on DVD.

The EVEN BETTER news is that PIG HUNT has a chance at a Theatrical Release!, and with your help (and 30 seconds of your time), we can make it happen.

SO, please go to and sign up to give the trailer Pig Hunt 5 thumbs up!

THANK YOU!

OK, so it’s up to you if you go vote for the movie.  I did, because I felt like it was one of the better flicks in that genre, but hey… I also believe in being honest. If you haven’t seen it, or didn’t think it was all that, then vote your conscience.  Or don’t even bother…   

But at the very least, if you’re even a little bit interested, make sure and rent or order the movie as soon as it becomes officially available (any time now).  I can promise that I think it’ll be worth your time.

Well, if I can’t be hunting, I’ll do the next best thing… watch someone else hunt. I’ve gone on and on about hunting videos and TV, and much of what I’ve had to say hasn’t been particularly complimentary. But I have to admit, sometimes it’s just fun to watch. Since this hotel here in Raleigh doesn’t have any hunting channels on their very limited television selection, I’ve been checking out online sources. One of my favorites is My Outdoor TV.

Of course summer isn’t exactly hunting prime time, and most of the current big game episodes (elk, deer, antelope) have been aired through the summer.  The hunting magazines and tv shows are pretty much focused on fishing (which bores me to tears) or turkey hunting (which gets really repetitive).  MyOutdoor TV reflects this programming as well, if you start at the main page.  But this morning when I clicked over to the Hunting category, I was tickled to see that the spotlight is on hog hunting!  Oh yeah! 

Not sure how often they change up the spotlight categories, but if, like me, you’ve been doing some serious jonesing to hunt, it’s worth popping over there now to see some serious hog hunting action! 

Now, I’ve gotta get back to work…

So, I’m doing some work from home this afternoon, and put the idiot box on to let the hunting shows play while I put PowerPoint slides together.  It’s pretty much the usual stuff on The Sportsman’s Channel, and I’m not paying much attention… it’s more like white noise (to me, quacking ducks, gobbling turkeys, and gunfire are white noise), and I only look up from time to time to see where and what they’re hunting now… or whenever an elk bugles.  (Can’t ignore that sound.)

I’m not sure what I was doing at the precise moment I heard the word “pig”, but of course that got my attention.  I looked up in time to see, of all things, a tattoo in process… and it was COOL!  (OK, if you don’t like tattoos just hold your water.  I don’t think he’s asking for your approval.)  It was kind of a tribal design of a hog, and if I’d thought of it first, I may well have claimed it for my own.  From the tat, the opening sequence jumped to hog hunting footage… charges, bow kills, handgun shots, and all kinds of stuff.   But best of all, there wasn’t a whitetail, a turkey, or a goose in the whole melange…  just hogs. 

Then the show title pops up… PIGMAN – THE SERIES!

I had to pop over to the website to see what this was all about.  Here’s the program description from the site:

Known throughout the outdoor world for his relentless pursuit of wild hogs, Brian “PigMan” Quaca will burst onto the Outdoor Television scene January of 2010 as host of “PigMan, The Series”, which will focus on his quest of the wild boar hog and other dangerous big game animals throughout the world. “PigMan, The Series” will also take you into the lifestyle of the Texan, giving viewers an inside look at the outrageous personality of this wild card outdoor TV host. Viewers will be taken throughout the Midwest for whitetail, the mountains of Utah for Monster Elk and across the border to Mexico chasing whitetail and wild pigs. “Pigman” will also take viewers hunting dangerous game to the Middle East and Australia and other places rarely captured on video. You’ll watch as the PigMan puts his life on the line, carrying his bow and rifle into the untamed Dark Continent where he pursues the most deadly animals in the world eye to eye. “PigMan” will be like no other show on outdoor television today…we just hope the Outdoor World is ready.

OK, so it sounds like hogs aren’t all he’s gonna hunt, but man, look at that itinerary!  The Middle East, Australia, and who knows where else?  It’s the tv show I’d have made if I could make a tv show… maybe without quite the level of histrionics I saw on this episode of the show, but then again, that over-acting seems to be the name of the game out there. 

So I’ve only seen this one episode, and to be honest, I wasn’t crazy about the whole thing.  I won’t sit and critique it here, but overall, and as a series, I think it’s one I’ll be tuning into again!

OK, so I won’t be winning any Golden Moose awards for this one, but who really cares? I managed to bring the video camera along on my short-lived hog hunt at the Golden Ram’s Hedgepeth Ranch on New Year’s weekend. As you’ll see, the weekend didn’t pan out quite like I’d hoped it would.

Oh well, lots more hunts on the horizon this year. I expect we’ll come up with something a little more “action packed” than this one!

And once again, many thanks to T. Michael Riddle for the Hog Blog Theme Song!

So, I got this email yesterday afternoon.  I’m not crazy about the whole reality show thing on television, in general, but this one is something I’d probably watch.  Actually, it’s something I’d participate in… but it wouldn’t take long to eliminate me, once the handguns come out (not to mention, I’m not exactly a “big personality”). 

Anyway, this seems like an appropriate place to socialize the casting call, so here goes:

Are you an amazing marksman? You could win $100,000 in prizes on the History Channel

If you are skilled with a pistol, rifle or any other firearm, you could win $100,000 in prizes on TV’s first marksmanship competition show. The History Channel and the producers of The Ultimate Fighter are looking for anyone with mind-blowing shooting skills and a big personality to take on exciting physical challenges with multiple guns and mystery projectile weapons.

It doesn’t matter if you’re a professionally trained shooter or a self-taught, average Joe (or Jane!). As long as you’re in good physical shape, have mastered a firearm and can adapt to new weapons and demanding physical situations, you could be America’s first “Top Shot.”

APPLY TODAY!

To apply, email TopShotCasting@gmail.com with your name, city/state, phone number, a recent photo of yourself and a brief explanation of why you should be on the show. Deadline to apply is January 18, 2010. For more information, visit www.pilgrimfilms.tv and click on “CASTING” or call 818-728-3729 TODAY!

* Applicants must be at least 21 years of age, a resident or citizen of the United States and reasonably proficient with shooting and marksmanship

Oh, and if you do decide to enter, let us know here on the blog!

So Kat just changed our cable service again. 

The last time she did this, I lost all my hunting channels (along with most anything else worth watching), but since I refuse to pay for television, I had to go with her decision.  It was with some trepidation when she told me the other day that she’d be cancelling DISH and switching to DirectTV… but really, it couldn’t be much worse than it already was.  Heck, the best thing to watch on a lazy Saturday since then has been hilariously bad movies on the Science Fiction channel.  I do occasionally get to watch Versus, but in between “Paid Programming”, shows about gold panning, and the endless loop of the same four or five episodes of “Winchester Legends”, “Beretta’s Under Wild Skies”, and “The Bucks of Tecomate,” it wasn’t much to get excited about. 

Anyway, she made the change, they installed the service on the Friday after Thanksgiving, and I started scanning the guide.  Sure enough, we were now getting the Pursuit Channel and The Sportsmen’s Channel.  (The Outdoor Channel, one of my favorites, is not available with the package she selected). 

At first, I thought I’d be like an addict falling off the wagon, but honestly, outdoor programming hasn’t really improved all that much.  While there are occasional gems in the mix, there’s still a lot of the same old thing… glorification of the kill over the experience of the hunt, bad shots disguised by quick camera and editing work, and a total emphasis on “trophy” hunting. 

Even so, it’s hunting!  So I still watch… even as I grumble and mumble and armchair quarterback.

And what goes better while sitting on the couch, watching the idiot box, than a tasty meat snack! 

Yeah, I got that segue right off of the hunting shows… sorry about that.

But seriously, I do want to mention a product I had the opportunity to sample recently.  The good folks at Pop’s Authentic Artisan Meat Snacks recently contacted a handful of bloggers with a pretty nice offer.  They’d send us a sample of their meat sticks to try and review, and also offer our readers a discount for online purchases. 

If you’re interested in what I thought… well, I’ll be honest.  I’m not a huge fan of meat sticks or commercially made jerky.  I like to make my own, largely because I know exactly what’s in it and what’s NOT in it.  Most of those factory products contain ingredients I can’t even pronounce.  I sure as heck don’t want to put that in my system.

But Pop’s are not Slim Jims.  According to their literature, they’re made from locally sourced beef and pork and spiced with real, select spices.  So I tried them. 

And they really weren’t bad at all! 

In fact, I stuck the rest of the sample supply in my food box in Petunia, and ate off of them during my recent pig hunt at the Hedgepeth Ranch.  They sent me two sticks of each flavor: Original, Peppered, and Habanero (they advertise a Bacon snack stick too, but I didn’t get any of those).  As a lover of spicy food, I jumped on the habanero flavor.  It wasn’t nearly hot enough for me, but the flavor was good.  The peppered were also good, but honestly, I think I liked the original flavor best. 

I can see munching on these things in front of the TV, or out in the field.  I think it would be awesome to see them produce some meat snacks using some wild game meats, but hey… one step at a time, right?  If you’re interested in trying them for yourself, just type the discount code OSCAR into the appropriate field when you place your order on the website.  You can get a free box of 12 meat sticks with the purchase of two boxes. 

If you do order some, let me know what you thought of them.

I’m not a huge fan of “reality TV” shows, but I have to admit that I occasionally enjoy watching Deadliest Catch… if only to wonder if I’d ever have had the gumption to take that job in my younger, wilder days.  It’s the same reason I watch the Professional Bull Riders tour, I think.

Anyway, according to this article in the Sacramento Bee, the folks who produced the Deadliest Catch series are now planning a series called California Game Wardens. 

I don’t know if any of you are familiar with the Game Warden books by Terry Hodges, but it sounds like the new show may take its inspiration from these great tales.  Hodges is a reasonably good writer, but the content of his stories stands pretty much on its own.  Some pretty cool stuff.

Of course, we all know the average day of a game warden isn’t anything to build a reality show on, but these men and women are in an inherently dangerous job and they’re doing it for relatively little pay.  Things can get sketchy in a hurry, and unlike CHP or city cops, things often happen far away from any kind of help.  It’s a heck of a job, and most of these folks do it well. 

I’ve got the highest respect for anyone who’s willing to wake up every morning, pin a target (badge) on their chest and go out to face the scum of the earth, but game wardens hold a special place… if only because they’re out there trying to shut down the poachers and scofflaws who are trashing our natural resources (not to mention the reputations of law-abiding hunters and fishermen). 

I expect the program will focus on the more sensational events, of course, but maybe it’ll help folks get a better perspective on the job of a game warden, especially in a state like CA, where the DFG is sadly understaffed and underfunded, even as the wardens are faced with policing one of the largest states in the US.  At latest count, there are under 200 wardens enforcing fish and game laws across the entire state! 

It looks like Chad Love, over at the Field and Stream blogs has posted about the show as well, and it’s spurred some interesting discussion.  A handful of folks there are concerned that this show will give off a negative impression of hunters, since it’ll be focused on poachers and lawbreakers.  They think people are going to see that activity, and get the idea that all hunters are involved in that kind of thing. 

I can see how this may be a concern, but personally, I’d like to give the general public a little more credit than that.  Anti-hunters are going to cast us in stereotypes anyway, but most non-hunters recognize the difference between the guys who slaughter a dozen deer and bears for the international market and those of us who hunt according to the laws and some general ethical standards.  My guess is that the cases demonstrated in the program are not going to walk any tightlines between legal and illegal, or ethical and unethical.  It’s gonna be pretty cut and dried.   

If you’ve got a notion, head over and check out what the folks are saying. 

Anyway, the show looks like interesting stuff… maybe even good stuff.  I guess we’ll have to wait and see.