The Hog Blog

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.

Well, here it is at last… or at least most of it.  The Hog Blog Theme song is three and a half minutes long, and I couldn’t stretch that video clip quite that far.  But believe me, we’ll be hearing more of this one in future vids!

Hope you enjoy…

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…

I’ve never tried to stream a real TV show before, so I hope this works!

QUEST on KQED Public Media.

You can watch it bigger and better directly on the QUEST site.

I’ll hold onto my commentary for now, because I’d love to hear what ya’ll think.

Just a note for those who asked me to remind them… tonight is the night that KQED will be airing the Quest episode, Hog Wild, including none other than your’s truly and the NorCal Cazadora. 

The episode airs at 1930 (7:30pm) tonight.  It’s channel 9 on our Dish Network here in the East Bay.  Not sure what channel other folks might find it on, but if you look it up now, you’ll be ready by 7:30!

It is to laugh.

At least that’s the feeling I got after watching the History Channel’s Monster Quest episode in search of “mega-hogs”.  Kat’s teenage son likes to watch the show, and I’ve sat here on the computer while the intrepid monster hunters pursued such creatures as the australian box jelly, giant squid, and of course, sasquatch.  I find the show generally ridiculous, as the dramatic narration lays out the scenarios.  And, of course, they never find the monster… or if they do, it turns out not to be quite so monstrous after all. 

Jumping ahead to this morning, we flipped on the TV to find the Monster Quest cameras in search of the elusive and mythical chupacabra (the goat sucker).  After I stopped laughing… or at least when the belly laughs died to a low rumble… I realized the episode was almost done.  Despite the inconclusive data, the search apparently will go on. 

Then the next episode came on before I could find the remote.  It got my attention right away, as I spotted the familiar sight of bristled legs passing through brush.  Wild hogs!  Cool!  But monsters?

Turns out the show was all about the attempt to find a “mega-hog” similar to Hogzilla, Monster Pig, or some of the other huge pigs we’ve seen on the Internet and news rags over the last few years.  Now most of us know pretty well that a hog in the 400 pound range is pretty unusual.  Most hunters take a 200-pounder as a trophy and are tickled with it.  The idea of going out over a couple of trips and finding a 1000 pound pig seems kinda ludicrous… but I guess that’s what TV shows like this are made of.  It’s not the reality of the thing… it’s the idea of it. 

So anyway, I’m not gonna pick the show apart.  It was actually not a terrible show, once you get past the narration and the objective.  I didn’t find a lot of really useful information, but hey, that’s not what these programs are really about is it?

If you want information, though, and you’re in the San Francisco Bay area where you can receive KQED (public television), you’ll want to tune into KQED’s Quest program on Tuesday night, (07/14) at 7:30pm.  Look for the Hog Wild episode, and pay close attention.  You might recognize a face or two… like, maybe our own Holly, the NorCal Cazadora, or maybe even my goofy mug. 

I haven’t seen the finished product, and probably won’t until it airs, but as some of you will remember, Holly and I took the QUEST team down to the Central Coast for a hog hunt.  We had some huge, last-minute help from T. Michael Riddle and Sam McGuire of Native Hunt in accessing some private property for the show when my initial plan fell apart. 

Anyway, it was an interesting (and very real) hunt.  It didn’t all play out quite like we’d planned, but we had a good time and I think the show got some good footage.  We’ll see just how much good footage on Tuesday night.