Dad in the motel room in Los Banos, CA. He looks chipper at 4:30 am!
This is the base camp where we got organized before the hunt started. And all those hippies here in CA who whine about SUVs can kiss my ass. If we hadn't had my 4Runner, we'd have had to ride in the back of one of the guides' trucks, and even then they'd have had to make two trips (it was a one hour drive from the motel to the camp).
That's Brad on the left, Chuck (a dentist friend of Roger's), Chip (the owner of the ranch) in yellow, and Roger's brother in-law Johnny in the tent keeping warm.
Our guide (well, sort of; he actually never left the base camp so no actual guiding took place), Brad and dad.
Much kibitzing before the hunt begins.
An arm-out-of-window shot while we waited to head out.
Cruise was the guy with the hunting dogs. He had an interesting hood ornament.
They look ready to go!
Dad is ready to get a pig.
The plan the first day was to put me and dadup on this hill overlooking the valley. The rest of the guys hiked around that ridge to the right. They had dogs, so the theory was that when they came on a pack of pigs, some would run away. They sleep up toward our hill, so the guides thought they'd run past us in the valley. I had my doubts, and dad early on relegated himself to just having a nice day in the mountains.
Dad talks with Jeff, the "real" guide (meaning he actually guided us instead of ang out in camp watching DVDs). Jeff rocked, and worked his butt off. He was really professional.
Dad up by the tree we sat under. We discovered that ticks jump down off the tree and onto warm-blooded things underneath it, so we soon moved.
Dad listens to Tom talk about something. He talked a lot. This was as far into the woods that Tom went.
Dad waits for a pack of angry pigs to rush by so he can plug them.
Me and Dad
I think he is telling a story about an imaginary motorcycle.
I went back to get my car. Dad napped in the back.
Tom skinning a pig. Roger not convinced.
More pig skinning. Roger and Brad got three little piggies that day.
Brad ready to go on the hunt the next day. It had rained.
Chuck in the woods. We started out at this clearing, it was two miles from the camp. We eventually worked our way over to the hill in the distance, and then went around it. It was fairly harsh climbing.
Roger gets a pig! This was a big one, about 300 pounds.
Dad and Lad posing with a hog.
One more action shot.
It was tough getting up that hill to get near the pig. The dogs had chased it for a couple miles, and finally cornered it up this muddy hill. Three steps forward, two steps back.
Chuck and Roger with his pig. This was down the hill from where it was shot. It sure is beautiful country up there...
We went back to our clearing after roger got his pig. I got bored waiting for the guides, so I played around with the camera. Behind me is Brian. He's 13 years old and routinely carries 200 pound pigs out of the woods. Amazing.
Brad takes a shot of me in the mud.
We wound up hiking around that hill behind me and then back down way past it to the right. I think we did 10-12 miles all told.
Brads hangs loose.
Just to give you an idea about how some of the hiking was. This is on the backside of that hill from the previous picture. I think I yelled for Brad to "hurry it up" or something right before I snapped the pic.
Actually, this wasn't the worst of the crawling. At one point later in the day, I had no option but to throw my pack in front of me and slide on my belly, practically doing the breaststroke.
Here's the "sliding on my belly" part of the woods. This was taken later in the day, about 2:30 (the pictures with Brad crawling were at around 11am and a couple miles from this location). See that stuff in the background? We went through around 250 yards of that stuff, and it took about 25 minutes. Forget trying to stand up. Even getting in close enough to take a shot at the extremely pissed off pig was tough. It was making noises like that alien from the movie The Predator and kept wheeling around snapping its jaws at me. It was a little tense; I'm not used to be in mortal danger. If Chip had let go or the pig had shrugged him off, I'd be the meal for the pig. As it happens, things are the other way around.
As we walked around this hug patch of manzanita, the one of the dogs tore off into the bushes. The owner of the ranch was also the owner of the dogs. That's Chip in the yellow. That guy is a monster. He ran (as much as you can run in that stuff) after the dogs when they got onto a pig. The four of us split up (me and the guide Jeff, and Chuck with Chip's son Brian) and converged on the dogs' location from two directions. We weren't sure where it was, so we felt that it was best to split up, as it might be easier going for one of us. It took 25 minutes for us to fight our way to the pig. Chip was first there, and had to wrestle that pig for about 10 minutes until we got there. Jeff and I were closer than Chuck was, and so got there first. I had to lean through those branches, fend off a dog with my knee, grab the pig by the ear to hold it steady (it was moving around quite a lot, and chip was basically sitting on its rear). One round in the back of the head Mafia-style and it was over pretty fast.
I was really afraid that I'd miss the thing's head, as it was moving so much, but I hit it pretty much where I needed to. It weighed almost 650 pounds. Chip had to hold onto it in those damn bushes.
This pic was taken in a little clearing that we made so that we could all stand up enough to pull the pig out of the bushes. It took us almost three hours of yanking branches and tugging on legs and such to get it out. I was a little tired after that.
Chuck and I with hogzilla. I felt bad that Chuck didn't get a pig, but I was closer and just so happened to get there.
Jeff, me and Chip.
Brian got in the pic. I think the kid took a shine to me. He followed me around a lot.
We could barely lift it.
I got a call from Jeff. He ran the meat down to the processor, and it weighed 250 pounds hanging (That's minus head and such). I think we should have like 200 poounds of edible stuff. I'm not a trophy hunter, but I'm going to get the head mounted, and I'll hang it in the cabin. Roger's doing the same with his pig. His was a really pretty Russian one.
Oink.
Getting it onto the ATV was a trick.
There's Chip's dad Don. He used to own the ranch. His great-grandfather originally bought it. Don's 80 years old, so it's been in the family a long time. Don is quite a character, and a super nice guy.
Don's getting salty and telling tall tales.
Don's suspender is a dog leash. Actually quite handy when you have to drop your drawers.
Man that thing stunk.
The worst part about getting the pig in those bushes was the rattlesnake factor. They were apparently quite prevalent there. And then there's the whole "wrestle with a pissed off, 650 pound pig in close quarters" thing. I mean, how would you run away? It took me like 15 seconds to twist around enough to draw my pistol.
Would you believe Don helped us load the pig into his truck? 80 years old and he's hopping right up in that truck!
Quite a character that Don. He told me later that night that I could come back any time I wanted to.
"Oh, that little piglet only weighs, oh, maybe 100 pound. More or less, mind ya. It's still got its mama's milk dribbling down its cheek!" I gave him an equal measure of crap right back at him. I told him next hunt I'm going to another ranch where they have big pigs.
