quote:

Would you shoot a doe, and let two spotted babies starve to death?

If they had 2-3 litters per year with 5-8 fawns in each, you damn bet I would. Stupid question. Apples and oranges.

A sow can have up to 3 litters a year of up to 12 piglets. I can't remember when a female hog will come fresh for the first time.
And they will eat anything.

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Originally posted by Scota4570:
I think he owes me a discounted "do over".

Am I out of line?

If the guide estimated the pig at +-100lbs and it was actually +-15 pounds there is no way in hell he should have asked you to pay. He should have apologized and offered you another pig.

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Originally posted by Big Wonderful Wyoming:...A free range hunt in California for pigs is a good hunt. Pigs are treated as a game species by the state. California is 52% public land. Pigs kind of need to be a game animal. They are managed as wildlife. If feral pigs were managed like they are in Texas, California wouldn't have any. Feral pigs get killed off quickly on public BLM and Forest service land where they live...Why? Because California has the population density to make it work that way.

Do you mean this literally? That treating them like vermin would result in the elimination of wild hogs?

If so...wouldn't that be a good thing? The rest of the country, and even some parts of my beloved Canuckistan, treat hogs like the destructive/invasive introduced species that they are, and despite "shoot on sight" no-limits no-closed-season hunting they continue to spread and cause problems. If California really has the population density to allow human hunters to out-compete wild hogs...wouldn't doing so then pave the way for healthier deer/elk/bear/whatever populations?

Naïve, I know...the native species would require some time to repopulate and start generating income for The State, whereas the pigs are a money-maker right now, so...

I'm not trying to be argumentative, and apologize for the thread sidetrack.

To the OP: you asked for opinions, so I must say that the shooter (or in this case, his dad...) is ultimately responsible for squeezing off a shot or deciding not to. If the outfitter doesn't offer up another pig, or at least a discount on one, then I think he's making a bad business decision and exhibiting very poor ethics...but I don't think he is obligated to do anything in this case.

I'll bet your son wasn't worried about this. Don't ruin his (or your) memory of his first successful hunt; move on, find a better outfit with whom to hunt, and consider this a lesson learned. Just my $0.02 (that's Canadian, so really only about $0.013 once converted to US! )

Ive never seen a pig anywhere near El Paso,TX. must be stocking them there these days, if so I have not heard about it and its a bad deal to get them started out in that desert country..the outfitters I know of that work out of El Paso, sell hunts throughout Texas. All their pig hunts are mostly in South Texas. SW texas has Mule Deer, Pronghorn, coyotes, bobcats,LIons, some sheep and some Coues deer, but no pigs except Javalina if you consider them pigs which they aren't.

Most fair chase pig hunting is Del Rio East. BTW I ranched in El Paso for about 10 years when I was a Deputy Sheriff there. Had the old Threadgill place.

I can't speak for the desert areas around El Paso, but pigs are all over Val Verde County on the Pecos River drainage.

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Originally posted by Big Wonderful Wyoming:

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Of course we are not, to date, ate up with California's fine sense of hogology, and I would shoot a wet sow FIRST because she is damn sure going to have some more before long.

They are a game animal in California not vermin. You guys need to accept this concept to help understand why hunting for wild pigs is different in California.

Would you shoot a doe, and let two spotted babies starve to death?

Different, all right. We have them in the Santa Ana River bottom and they tear up the golf courses and peoples' yards. But they are inside the city limits...

I shot a pile of hogs this past weekend. Ten to be exact. The largest was over 200, the smallest was about 80.

I had a guy with me who is a professional guide. He is a natural born killer. One of the best naturally gifted outdoorsmen I have ever met. God knows how many hogs he is responsible for killing every year.

We had one cross an open pasture Sunday morning. It was just barely getting light. There was not a single thing around as a reference. He was probably 125 yards away. I called him at 135, my buddy called him at 175. I smoked the boar. Weight? 137.

I showed him this thread. He laughed his ass off. No way in hell he said. He pointed out the obvious. That is a 10 fold difference.

It might be possible , even for an ultra experienced person to judge incorrectly under the right set of circumstances on a grown hog. But this? No way.

Check the video I posted on the prior page if you want to get an idea of what kind of mistake this was.

This thread reminds me of how easy it is to misjudge a game animal due to excitement. A hunting buddy and I were bow hunting deer in northern Michigan. He shot a buck with his bow and called me on his cellphone to help track it. I asked him how big the buck was and he said "8 or 10 points", might make Pope & Young". Long story short, we found the buck after a half mile of tracking. It was a SPIKEHORN! Now this fellow has killed dozens of deer and the shot was standing broadside at 20 yards. At first, he said that can't be the same deer I hit, but the arrow was still in it, and it definitely was one of his arrows. Your mind can play tricks in the heat of the moment