The Hog Blog

Well, the turkey hunt was tough, but my hunter went home with his bird.  Without going into too much detail, it was a learning experience for the both of us, I think… at least I’m certain I learned a lot as a guide, and I sure hope he learned a bit as a hunter and a client. 

As a guide, I learned that you have to take control of the hunt from the beginning, because if you let the client take over you’ll be run ragged and frustrated.  I made that mistake this weekend and it made me look pretty bad.  It’s important to give the customer what he wants, but you have to decide where the line is drawn between letting him learn the hard way and doing what it takes to ensure that the hunt ends with success. 

As a guided client, there’s a golden rule that you should always observe.  Don’t try to guide the guide!  The guide is the expert.  He (or she) knows the animals in the specific area… their behavior and their eccentricities.  The guide knows how to hunt those animals.  When the guide suggests a tactic or a location, it’s best to go with the suggestions. 

Sure, ask questions.  You can even challenge the guide’s recommendation.  But do so knowing that, when all is said and done, you are the customer.  Most guides will give you what you want, because you’re paying the bill.  Very seldom will your request be flat-out denied, so you’d do well to consider carefully before going contrary to the guide’s advice. 

If you want to do things your own way, why would you pay so much for a guided hunt in the first place?  Hunt public land, or pay a tresspass fee for an unguided hunt on private property.  To do otherwise is a waste of your money, and of the guide’s energy. 

Anyway, that’s all I have to say about that.  As much as I may enjoy it, I have to remember that guiding is a job.  It’s not about me. 

Meanwhile, during the weekend I got an email from my little brother, Scott, back in NC.  He got drawn this year for the limited entry turkey hunt on the Roanoke River, and couldn’t wait to share his success.  Two turkeys in two days… one of which was this really nice tom, sporting an 11-inch beard and 1 1/2″ spurs! 

He said that the area was a madhouse of gobbling and fighting birds, including two toms who were gobbling their heads off at each other across the river!  Sure sounds like fun to me!

So, I guess I’m officially a professional turkey hunter now, so I am qualified to offer the following turkey hunting tips.  Read carefully, because I’m about to give you some guaranteed ways to get your turkey!

1. Call aggressively!  Sometimes you really need to lay on the calls.  Don’t hold back, because the birds are coming and they’re coming strong!
2. Keep the calling to a minimum.  Don’t call too much, and keep it soft and quiet. 
3. Don’t call!  Turkeys get called to much.  Get their attention then shut up! 
4. Sit tight!  Be patient and the turkeys will come to you.
5. Be mobile.  If the turkeys don’t come to you, you have to go to them. 
6. Use a blind.  It keeps you well hidden wherever you are, and may be the only way to get close to pressured birds.
7. Use only natural cover.  Blinds stick out, and may spook pressured birds.
8. Use a super-tight choke.  It concentrates your kill zone.
9. Avoid the extremely tight chokes.   They concentrate the shot too much.
10. The final tip to guarantee a turkey?  Go to the grocery store.  This is hunting dangit!  There ARE NO GUARANTEES!

Hope that helped!

See all you Hog Blog friends and readers on Monday!

Well, it’s another weekend in the woods for me, as I’m back down to the beautiful Bryson Resort to try to make another turkey hunter happy… and maybe find some hogs too! 

It promises to be a busy weekend, with six hog hunters and one turkey hunter on the resort.  The critters are here, and we’ll have three Bryson guides, plus the likely assistance of Tom Willoughby (well-known, long-time, Central Coast hog guide) to make it happen, and I hope to be bringing some tales of success, along with photos and maybe even some video if I have time.

Deedy has put wireless internet in down at the Resort, one more luxurious amenity in these beautifully appointed cabins.  This is NOT roughing it, I can tell you!  So anyway, if things go well, I will update you, good readers, as things turn out.  The hunts officially start tomorrow afternoon, and will run through the weekend. 

Until then, it’s time to do some scouting and see what’s out there! 

I certainly don’t consider myself an “expert” turkey hunter.  There are people who’ve been chasing and studying these birds for a lifetime, and I’d love to have half the knowledge they’ve amassed.  Heck, I’d be happy with a quarter of their experience. 

But I have managed to learn a little bit when it comes to turkey hunting… which is a good thing because nowadays I guide other hunters.  I guess they expect some level of expertise, and I try hard not to disappoint.  My hunter down at Bryson Resort this weekend certainly wasn’t disappointed… unless he was expecting a textbook, TV hunt experience.  Fortunately, he understood that those TV hunts are just that… television.  Real hunting demands adaptability. 

Things started out promising enough.  On Friday evening we did a little scouting, and set a pop-up blind downhill from a good roost.  As we were putting everything in place, the birds were gobbling up on the ridgetop, a couple hundred yards away.  Come sunrise, I fully expected the birds to follow their normal ritual and fly down to work along the open hillside just past the blind.  Given the consistency these birds had shown, I honestly expected to be done with a bird in the bag by 0830.  It was going to be almost too easy.

I’m not the first to say it, and this isn’t the first time I’ve repeated it… but if you wanna make God laugh, just tell him your plans!

Sunrise came and I started out by flapping an old turkey wing against the ground of the blind.  Larry, my hunter, yelped a few times on his box call.  Within seconds, I heard an angry cluck from the hill behind the blind.  The cluck became a series of fighting purrs, yelps, and cackles as the hen was obviously quite agitated with our decoy.  “Cutting in on my men,” she seemed to scold.  “I’ll whup your feathered butt!”

This was promising, as I was sure the gobblers would be right there with her.  But there was no gobbling.  We sat still, hoping she’d lead an unsuspecting tom right by the blind, but it never happened.  In fact, even the hen never showed herself.  At one point, we could tell she was less than 10 yards behind us, but she stayed in our blind spot until she finally tired of her tirade and putted away into the canyon.

A few minutes later we heard a gobble across the hillside.  Larry responded with a couple of yelps from his box call, and the tom immediately gobbled back.  We spotted the bird on the edge of the distant ridge, pacing back and forth like he wanted to come in.  Another tom joined him, but while they wandered up and down and gobbled their heads off, they wouldn’t come any closer. 

I pulled out a slate and my mouthcall, and between the two of us we sang a love song that would’ve made Barry Manilow proud… if he had been a turkey.  (Actually, I’ll take turkey music over Mandy any old day.)  A hen popped up beside the toms, starting jealously toward our decoy, but nothing moved those birds in our direction.  Another hen popped up, and we realized that we were fighting a tough battle against fairly overwhelming odds.  A moment later, the little group turned and disappeared down into the canyon.

That was as close to a “classic” turkey hunt as we’d get.  The rest of the morning brought us distant gobbles, but the birds simply didn’t want to work with us.  Instead they held to cover, moving in the chemise and oaks, acting more like deer or pigs than like turkeys.  It was a beautiful day, not too hot or cold and a beautiful sun-drenched morning… but there was almost no sign of strutting or courtship. 

What to do?  Well, maybe it wasn’t the traditional idea, but if the turkeys wanted to act like deer, we’d hunt them like deer.  Get up high, glass, and move on the birds when we’d find them.  We could stalk the edges of the brush, moving slow and scanning constantly with the binoculars. 

Unlike deer, though, turkeys gobble, and that proved to be the undoing of one big tom. 

Larry and I had just parked the truck, and we were easing back up the hill to look back toward our blind.  We were, honestly, still formulating a plan for the rest of the day and didn’t even bother to bring Larry’s gun or any calls from the truck.  We’d glass the valley, and figure out where to set the blind for the afternoon hunt. 

Well, that was the idea, anyway.

As we were easing up the hill, a group of toms suddenly began to gobble from the canyon a few hundred yards away.  Then, less than fifty yards behind us, on the other side of the truck, a single tom gobbled back.  The echoes had scarcely died off before I had Larry running back to the truck.  I grabbed his gun case and tossed it back to him.  He loaded up and slid under the low branches of a scrub oak.  I popped my mouth call in and gave a few gentle clucks.  The tom didn’t answer.  “Let’s move on him,” I suggested.  “We’ll ease up the hill.  You go first, and if he steps out, smack him!”

We crept to the hill, and as we topped it I heard the telltale, “putt”.  Larry blocked part of my view, but I caught the red head craning over the grass to see who was interloping on his territory.  I caught a quick glimpse of some beard, but it looked like a jake.  I started to say something when the bird turned a bit more and I saw the entire beard.  “Take him,” I said, unnecessarily as Larry’s shotgun roared and the bird went down hard. 

The bird sported a nine-inch beard, and spurs in the area of 3/4″.  We figured him to be a two-year-old, nothing that would make the record books, but Larry was pretty happy with him.  Even more impressive was what we found when we picked the bird up.  I estimated him at15 pounds, but when Larry handed him to me, my estimate jumped up by five.  Back at the resort, we put the bird on the scale.  21 1/2 pounds of Merriam’s turkey!  That’s a hefty bird!

 Plenty of time left in the CA turkey season.  If you haven’t got your bird yet, this is a good time to start.  If you’re looking for a guided hunt, give Deedy a call at Bryson Hesperia Resort. 

While I was down in the Central Coast this past weekend, I took a few hours to go scout out the turkey situation at Bryson Hesperia Resort.  As I’ve mentioned, I’ll be guiding there for turkeys this year, and figured it wouldn’t hurt to get some time in the field a bit early, just to see how things were going. 

Well, here’s how things are going…

Turkey season is right around the corner, and if you’re like me and somewhat hooked on chasing these “feathered elk”, it can’t get here soon enough.

I’ll be doing it a little differently this year, though.  Instead of hunting myself, I’ll be guiding turkey hunters down in the Central Coast region, for Bryson Hesperia Resort.  I may take an opportunity or two to shoot myself a bird, but I’ve found that I get just as much of a kick out of helping other folks get their game as I do out of shooting my own. 

Are there birds at Bryson? 

Oh, I expect there are a few.  In fact, last time I spoke to Deedy Loftus, proprietress of Bryson Hesperia Resort, she estimated about 300 birds across the 130,000 acres she has available to hunt.  Of course, they’ll be scattered as soon as the toms start fighting it out over the hens… which means that things will probably get REAL exciting sometime in early April! 

We’re booking now for the 2008 turkey season.  A two-day hunt with lodging is $750.    Lodging at Bryson is very comfortable in two-bedroom cabins complete with heat and A.C., kitchenette (stovetop, sink, dishwasher), and full bathrooms. 

I’ll also be helping Deedy’s great staff on hog hunts this spring.  The barley is coming on strong, and the hogs will be pouring in to chow down on it.  On all rifle hog hunts, we guarantee to put you within rifle range (125 yards or so).  You can learn a lot more about the hunt options at Deedy’s on her website.

For more information, or to book, you can contact Deedy Loftus by email at  deedy@brysonresort.com, or you can just contact me here at the Hog Blog.

I know, it’s not hogs… but I said when I started that I would ramble around.  Besides, I thought this was pretty funny. 

At the range this weekend, while sighting in my new rifle, our shooting sessions kept being interrupted as a group of wild turkeys would run out onto the firing line.  Kinda challenges that whole perception (myth?) that they’re really smart birds, doesn’t it?

It’s kinda early for me to be writing stuff, but it’s a beautiful Saturday morning, and I’m not in the field for a change.  The coffee is good, there’s a blue jay screeching outside my window, and the ground is wet from a recent rain… this would be a good morning to be out chasing hogs.  But I’m not, and that makes me a little introspective… so maybe that’s what got my keyboard fired up.

Whatever it is, I was reading a travel article and it struck me how much detail the writer captures along the way.  It’s like she’s seeing so much more than the big things…noting such minutiae as a playground, Christmas yard decorations, and an indian casino along the way.  At the end of the article I found that I really felt like I’d just taken the trip with her, instead of just reading another tourist highlights brochure. 

OK, where am I going here, right?  Let me get another cup of coffee, and I’ll tell you.

Details.  Noticing the little things.  I think this can make all the difference in any experience, whether it’s a vacation trip or a hunting trip.  I know it makes a difference to me.

I think that a lot of times we get too caught up in the destination and forget to get the most out of the journey.  (I know, that’s just about as cliche as anything I’ll ever write, but it suits the moment so bear with me.)  I’ve seen so many hunters come out to a spot, spend two or three days in earnest pursuit of whatever game they’re after, and totally miss out on the wonder of the place they’re in. 

For example, at Tejon Ranch, one of the most beautiful pieces of ground in California (and there are plenty), I know of hog hunters who arrive, pitch camp, and head out to shoot a hog.  Later, when I talk to them about the expansive wildflowers due to a late rain, or the way the wind moves the tall grass in waves like a green ocean, I generally get blank looks.  “There were flowers?”

These same folks get their hog early, then pack up and drive away.

There’s not necessarily anything wrong or wicked about this type of hunter.  It doesn’t automatically make them lesser or make me better.  It’s just different, and it’s a difference I can’t completely comprehend.

It’s the little things that make the hunt for me… things that you notice, if you try, like a juvenile woodpecker hiding in the grass…

Or an antler shed from a trophy buck or bull…

I think about my last trip to Colorado, elk hunting with my brother.  It was his first elk hunt, and only my second, and we were both keen to get on the animals.  But even so, I recall walking in on the trail in the pre-dawn darkness and both of us commented together on the beauty of the moonlight in the aspens (in manly, masculine terms, of course).  I also remember the smells; woodsmoke on a snowy evening, the duff of the forest floor under the dark timber, the Christmas-scent of spruces, the musky scent of an elk bed. 

All of these sensations and images combined to make that experience what it was.  Sure, we both killed our bulls, but without all of those other things that we saw, felt, smelled and heard, it would have been a fairly empty memory. 

I think that’s why I’m always amused by the folks who can’t understand what I get out of hunting when I come home so often empty-handed.  “Why do you keep going if you never get anything,” they ask?

It’s because the meat fufills my body, and I can get that at the store.  But the experience fulfills my heart and soul, and there’s only one place I can get that kind of sustenance… in the wild.

Not a lot going on this week since I’ve been pretty focused on my “real job”.  As a result, I’ve been kind of struggling to come up with titillating tales of tall trees, tough targets, and other alliterative miscellania. 

Anyway, I did find a cool new blog to visit the other day.  Jon Bryan sent me a note to mention how he enjoyed reading some of my stuff, along with an invite to come see his blog, Outdoor Odyssey.  I did, and I really found some great writing.  Check it out if you get a chance. 

Also got a kick out of Rex’s latest tall-tales over at the Deer Camp Blog.  I love his writing and his sense of humor, but I really would’ve thought he’d have killed one of those Mississippi long-beards by now.  Heck, his pops can do it!  All of his readers can do it!  But why can’t Rex kill a turkey?  And don’t buy his excuse of having to go help Othmar move right at the peak of the season! 

Hope I can offer a little more substance with my next post, but in the meantime…  hey, you got what you paid for. 

When I was a kid, growing up in the semi-rural south, I was seldom in the woods without my BB gun, and later my .22 rifle.  I shot a lot, at all kinds of crazy targets, and almost always from offhand positions.  My buddies and I would often gather at some of the many trash dumps in the local woods, and compete against one another.  One of the contests I remember most vividly was to hang something from a piece of kite string, and try to cut it down.  You might be surprised at how often we could clip that string on the first shot. 

As a result of shooting like that, my friends and I became a pretty danged good marksmen.  We honed those skills picking off bushytails from the tops of the oaks and hickories in the swamps and bottoms, and found it easy to transfer that ability when it came time to pick up the deer rifle.  The deer rifle kicked harder, and cost more to shoot, but barring the occasional flinch from trying to use too much gun, we were just as deadly with the centerfires as we were with the .22s. 

Where’s this all going?

So I haven’t been keeping up with Dave Petzal’s blog lately, but since I have a down day today (raining and slow at work), I had a chance to catch up.  He had this great post about improving your marksmanship a couple days back, and it’s worth a read.  I couldn’t agree with anyone more…not that someone of Dave Petzal’s stature really needs validation from someone like me. 

My standing advice to anyone who wants to become a better marksman with their big game rifle is exactly the same as Petzal’s … Get a  little gun.  A .22 LR is easy on the budget, and easy to find.  Just use one that offers some pretty reliable accuracy.  Most of the .22 bolt actions are good, and it may be worth it to spend a bit more to get something like the CZ American or something of that class.  I recently bought one of the .17 HMR rifles from Savage (I’m a big fan of Savage rifles), and I’ve never had so much fun with a rimfire.  A benefit of the .17 is that you can practice accurately out to 100 yards, as opposed to the more limited accurate range of the .22 LR. 

Whichever way you choose to go, get the rifle and scope it.  Use a quality hunting scope if you can afford it.  If it’s the same scope as your hunting rifle, that’s a bonus.  Otherwise, get the best you can afford.  This is serious practice for big game hunting, not simple plinking.  You’ll benefit from better glass.

So anyway, once you’ve got a good rimfire and have it shooting well, then start shooting the heck out of it.  Practice field shooting, from all the positions you would expect to use.  Plan to burn up a brick or two of ammo every month.  It’s not that hard to do, since most shooters can’t seem to stop blasting away with the little guns.  It’s cheap, it’s fun, and it’s painless.   And when the time comes to place your crosshairs on that trophy deer, elk, or whatever you’re shooting… taking the shot will be like second nature.