2-12-11

Today I guided Max and Isaac on a pig hunt. We started the morning by working our way to the North end of the ranch stopping to glass down into the canyons along the way. We were not seeing much movement in the early morning hours, so we headed over to a water hole to do some glassing. We set up above the pond and within minutes I spotted a huge black and white boar making his way across the hill side and the race was on. We took off on foot and tried to get ahead of the big boar, but he beat us into the brush and was never to be seen again. I guess he did not get that big by being stupid!! We spent about 20 minutes watching for movement in the area, but the boar never showed up. We then headed towards the South end of the ranch on an old logging road, and as we crested the ridge I caught movement on the adjacent ridge line. I threw up the trusty bino's and could make out the shape of a couple pigs behind the brush. We exited the ranger, formulated a plan and made our move. Within minutes we were less than 100 yards from where we had last seen the pigs and could hear them squealing and rooting around in the brush. We moved down the hill another 20 yards towards the pigs so that we could get a better view of the draw and the guys got set up and ready to shoot. After what seemed like an eternity(5 minutes) the pigs fed out into the open and presented a shot. Each of the guys picked out a seperate pig and on the count of three fired. When the smoke cleared they had 2 nice sized meat pigs on the ground. After a easy drag to the top of the hill I was able to drive the ranger right to the pigs, where we gave them a photo shoot and a quick gut job before we headed to the barn to skin them. It was 12:00 as we left the ranch with a couple of nice pigs. It was a great day in the hills and I cannot wait to get back out there.

Jake