March 13, 2017 by Shawn Chittim
Sergio returned to hunt with us on March 11th & 12th, searching for a trophy hog which would qualify as his entry for the Mendo-Lake Partner Hog Contest. Sergio brought his son as his team member, even though he wouldn't hunt, he was all in for the adventure. This was serious stuff with two custom belt buckles on the line. One for each category largest tusks and heaviest hog, we were tasked with finding a contender.
California Sunshine
When most think of hog hunting, they think of cold, rainy, damp weather something to get those hogs out moving about all day. We are lucky enough to be able to book hunts year-round. We schedule our hunts so not to put a lot of pressure on the ranches we hunt. When we get weather like we had this past weekend, we'll take that anytime over being damp and dreary.
The sunsets and sunrises were incredible, the hogs didn't mind the full moon and the 80-degree weather. They were soaking up the California sunshine. When we located this boar, he was sunbathing next to one of the stock ponds. It was about 10:00 in the morning, and he was laying with two other boars out like a light. Just down the ridge were 3 sows still up grazing and rooting.
A perfect wind allowed us to close the distance from 300 to 107 yards without any of the hogs knowing any different. As hard as they were sleeping I honestly think we could have gotten to less than 20 yards, but 107 was close enough for our rifle hunter. After 5-7 minutes of deliberation on which beast to shoot, we sounded the alarm clock on these snoozing hogs. Our big boar lagged back from the initial shot and we quickly covered ground to seal the deal. It was great to see Sergio and Angelino enjoy the hunt together. We took some great pictures and got him loaded up so they could make the 4-hour trek back to the contest check in.
Tale of the Tape
This great boar came in at 2 15/16" tusks and 219.7 lbs. field dressed, although we put Sergio on a Contender, it wasn't the winner, we were ousted by a 3 2/16" tusker. No buckle this year but he's already on the books for 2018 and we'll be back at it, hunting hogs in the foothills of eastern and western Shasta County, California.
Posted in: Wild Hog Hunting - California, Wild Hog Hunting - California
