San Ardo CA - 3/12 With Tom Willoughby Guide (Son Blake and partner guide Jim)

4 hunters, 6 rifles, two pistols, plenty of stories and even more lies....but still one GREAT day:

Its a 5 hour drive, but that just means more time for....yup, road beers.....we get into town and headed to dinner only to learn there is a live band so the restuarant is closed for a while as they get setup. Of course, we must attend the live band, but it doesn't start for another 2 hours. So of course, we go to the bar down the street. Playing video game hunting, we proceed to make bets on the video game of who shoots bigger deer, who's better with the muzzle loader, why the 6-shot pistol is better than the 4 shot rifle, etc. $100 bar tab later, its concert time so we make our way back to the location and wolf down some tri-tip sandwiches (at $10 each, it was highway robbery). Another couple hundred bucks worth of bar tabs, some lies and stories about specifics that can NEVER go in writing, somehow we all stumble our way back to the room about 0.5miles away.

The next morning, we barely get to the meeting spot in time. It takes three alarm clocks on cell phones to get us all out of bed. Headaches, stomach aches, stories from the night before trying to piece together how it ended...we set out. No forsight to get food from the gas station, or even drinks, much less talk about who wants to hunt which style, I get in the truck with Tom, followed by Zach (Hunter #2). Trevor gets on the quad with Jim and Jeff hops in a Teryx side by side with Blake. Shockingly, its 34 degrees outside! Its not supposed to get that cold in southern California.


As Jeff and Trevor head up the ridge to some country a truck can't go through, Zack and I head down a somewhat parallel canyon. its not 5 minutes and we see what looks like a solo cow meandering through the oak trees up the hill. Tom yells get out of the truck and get setup, its a big pig! Zack was smart enough to ride shotgun, so he's first on the shooting sticks. I'm fumbling looking for my camera (which of course I can't remember where it is in my hangover haze). The pig is walking briskly at about 200yds away, 50ft up the hill side behind one tree after another. Zack's new Model 70 classic in 300WSM gets setup on shooting sticks, and Tom says 'take him or he's going to go over the next ridgline'. Zach takes his first shot...didn't lead it enough and hits the pig at about its last rib. it was angling away so the bullet exited just shy of the other shoulder. The pig stumbles, then takes off in a dead sprint....we hop back into the truck and gun it up the canyon to get ahead of the pig. Its angling down hill towards us. Getting setup again, Tom tells Zach to lead it, its on the move pretty quickly...just as shot #2 rings out, the pig stopped running. Hits her just under the eye, lower jaw area. She goes down, Zach hops out and approaches carefully...at 20ft away, she stands up again! Wanting to use his new 8-shot 357 revolver, he draws and puts on between her eyes.

We move on as jeff and trevor had spotted some hogs moving away on another canyon (we won't mention Jeff missing the hog completely...TWICE). the hogs entered a really thick brush area, no way we can get in there with the vehicles nor want to go in on foot. We let go a few dogs to try and get the hog on the move and into the open...but this hog just wont move! As Zack and I come across a ridge to finally catch up with Trevor and jeff, we see a terribly funny event. Jim, Trevor and Jeff were all looking into the brush, standing just feet away from where the brush hits the path where the vehicles are. The hog charges, trevor and Jim scurry backwards, Jeff, who is closest to the brush patch tries to back up while raising his 7mm rem mag for a hip shot....but maybe some alcohol effects...he falls smack on his arse. Lucky for him, the hog stops just short of the road and retreats into the brush again.

It finally gets on the move and into the open, the hog stops to take a look around and one shot kill to the heart/lungs. Two in the bag, two to go.

We switch some vehicle assignments, I ride the quad for a while, Trevor in the side by side, Jeff and Zach in the truck. No luck for an hour or two glassing, driving, glassing, driving. We did come across two sows with babies but don't pursue...save them for later.

I get tired of the quad and switch to the side by side, Trevor joins jeff and Zach in the truck. Tom then sees a group of hogs under some oak trees about 1,000yds away (how he saw them I have no idea) He says he sees three hogs and some little ones, but not sure which are wet or if any are boars.

We drive a bit closer (500yds) and glass down to the pasture where they're feeding, babies frolicking. Tom says he thinks three are with babies or wet, but sees a fourth under the trees just a bit away from the group he thinks is a loaner sow. Blake and I make our way down the hill and use a ridgeline to conceal our stalk. the rest of the group goes to the other side of the hogs in case we get spotted.

Blake and i get to about 250yds away, just peering over a ridge down into the pasture. There's a large group of oak trees that can conceal a closer stalk, so we duck behind the ridge again and get closer, using the ridge and trees to our advantage. I see a small herd of cattle scared by our other vehicles making their way to the hogs, pushing them towards us. We tell Tom and group to hang back, we think we can get really close and get a great shot. Stalking over the ridge, now much closer to the pigs we glass through some of the oaks to see three sows, wet with babies and a fourth that is clearly a loaner, no babies and not wet (funny enough, as we're glassing it charges one of the cows that gets a little too close. The cow runs off, the pigs continue towards us)

They get to about 60 yards and blake says get ready, take the loaner. I stalk another 10yards down the hill to get a bit closer, lean on a tree and using my new 325 WSM Browning A-bolt, i put a 180gr barnes TSX through the right shoulder. DRT

Three down, now the fourth....trevor heads with the guides just before dawn to an area close to where Zach got his. its not 5 minutes of glassing and driving before they see a nice boar meandering around. One shot between the lungs and it makes for the bushes. Trevor fires a second shot to scare it out of the thick brush...its trotting, injured and dying away...trevor hurries with Blake to getinto position. Gets setup, and puts his 30-06 into the kill zone...DRT.


What a great day, four pigs (2 sows), all 180lbs or more. My new 325WSM performed amazing. After cleaning the pig, we see it entered the right shoulder shattering the bone. The bullet exited the left shoulder...what killed the pig was the bone fragments. there was so much, the exit wound side of the pig looked like someone hit it with a twelve gauge shotgun. There were so many bone fragments, the damaged area had easily 8inches of diameter if not 12. Some bone fragments broke the spine and others went into the brain stem area.

Great day, hoping for another soon....here's the photo of me, my gun and my pork chops.

http://www.sendspace.com/file/yau10m

PIG Fantasy Pool....Forgot to mention the results:

Largest pig pool - ($10 ea hunter) $40 pool
- Zach won

Miss penalty - $10 per shot - to be paid to each hunter for any shot >1 needed for a kill

- Zach owed $20/hunter
- Trev owed $10/hunter
- Jeff owed $20/hunter

Headshot bonus – any hunter with a 1 shot kill to the head/neck, each other hunter owes $10 bonus payment
- No winners for the headshot bonus

Trying to post the photo....unfortunately i didn't recover the bullet.

Sounds like you had fun.

Nice pic of the porker

What's better than a night of drunken debauchery followed by a day of hungover pig slaying? Not much.......

Nice job! Sounds like a good time. Where abouts in the San Ardo area?

Justin
Just above the Chevron oil fields, east/southeast of San Ardo proper.

Hog hunting really is a blast...all the blame is my uncle for getting me hooked.

.325 WSM going off on my shoulder with a hangover? No thanks--but on second thought, "kill 'em all" as my landowners say to me every time I show up.

You had some great guides. Jim is a hell of a fellow in every way!

dustoffer
I don't find the 325WSM kick any noticeably more or less than the many 30-06's ive shot. of course weight, load, etc are many other variables, it just isn't significant. Maybe too much 12guage shooting. It seemed about the same to me.