Hi guys my name is Travis. I have been lurking around here for a little while and made my profile a little while back and this would be my first post.
I meant to post a while back in early November when I went on my first hunt (if you can call it that) at BHCR.
Since I don’t want to be the jerk whose first post is out right begging for info I will make this a little bit of a read.
I am an avid fishermen and I met a guy out on a tuna fishing boat with my fishing club. He started talking about hunting with another guy and my ears perked up. He said "I looked like a kid in line to talk to Santa" when I told him I wanted to go hunting. He said he would take me to get a pig. I first started looking into hunting about a year ago but from all the false info I had and lack of research I came to the conclusion that it just wasn’t going to happen there was no pig hunting worth trying in CA, but all that changed when I met this guy. So that fishing trip was in July I bought my first ever firearm in August a Remington 783 30-06 and shot a firearm for the first time in my like in September. Finally the day came November 11th 2015 and my truck was loaded up and I was on my way to BHCR to meet up with my buddy hang out do some shooting and do our hunt on the 12th.
The morning rolled around we got our briefing the opened the gate and about 30 minutes later the excitement died. My buddy killed a big 300lb Russian that was getting ready to charge (we came around a corner and it was right in front of us only about 50 feet out) and that was awesome but then something very strange and sad happened. Three pigs all about 80lbs walked over checked out their dead buddy then kind of looked at us as to say "wow what happened to this guy? Did you guys see what happened?"
I ended up with about a 150lb pig. again we came around a corner I seen the pig a little bit further off maybe 50 yards and I could tell it had a lot of meat on the bones and after walking past plenty of rams and other smaller pigs I knew that this was not real hunting but I also was not going home without shooting something so I took aim and put him down.
So now that I got my first kill out of the way I want to do a real hunt. I started looking into outfits in Texas but after taking travel into account that’s something I would have to plan for a much further out time frame, so naturally I turned my sights back on CA. From what I have figured out central CA provides some good pig hunting and it looks like any time in the spring is a good time.
My plan is to go up there and an hunt/ fish my butt off for no less than 4 day all the way up to 8 days, but being a complete newbie I have a ton of questions and having the patience of a 5 year old I cant wait for my CA pig hunting guide books to come in, so here come the questions.
1) Does a newbie with only guide books to reference and 8 days to burn do i have a good chance of getting a shot off on a pig?
2) I am thinking about going to the foot hills of San Luis Obispo. Is that a good starting place for a first timer? Can anyone recommend an area to try, or would you like to join me? (I will cover gas, driving and food in trade for your knowledge)
3) I have read that fort Ligget has good numbers on their land. Does anyone have any experience with hunting one of the fort?
4) Should I go with someone like GSGS to learn the ropes a bit before setting off on my own?
I meant to post a while back in early November when I went on my first hunt (if you can call it that) at BHCR.
Since I don’t want to be the jerk whose first post is out right begging for info I will make this a little bit of a read.
I am an avid fishermen and I met a guy out on a tuna fishing boat with my fishing club. He started talking about hunting with another guy and my ears perked up. He said "I looked like a kid in line to talk to Santa" when I told him I wanted to go hunting. He said he would take me to get a pig. I first started looking into hunting about a year ago but from all the false info I had and lack of research I came to the conclusion that it just wasn’t going to happen there was no pig hunting worth trying in CA, but all that changed when I met this guy. So that fishing trip was in July I bought my first ever firearm in August a Remington 783 30-06 and shot a firearm for the first time in my like in September. Finally the day came November 11th 2015 and my truck was loaded up and I was on my way to BHCR to meet up with my buddy hang out do some shooting and do our hunt on the 12th.
The morning rolled around we got our briefing the opened the gate and about 30 minutes later the excitement died. My buddy killed a big 300lb Russian that was getting ready to charge (we came around a corner and it was right in front of us only about 50 feet out) and that was awesome but then something very strange and sad happened. Three pigs all about 80lbs walked over checked out their dead buddy then kind of looked at us as to say "wow what happened to this guy? Did you guys see what happened?"
I ended up with about a 150lb pig. again we came around a corner I seen the pig a little bit further off maybe 50 yards and I could tell it had a lot of meat on the bones and after walking past plenty of rams and other smaller pigs I knew that this was not real hunting but I also was not going home without shooting something so I took aim and put him down.
So now that I got my first kill out of the way I want to do a real hunt. I started looking into outfits in Texas but after taking travel into account that’s something I would have to plan for a much further out time frame, so naturally I turned my sights back on CA. From what I have figured out central CA provides some good pig hunting and it looks like any time in the spring is a good time.
My plan is to go up there and an hunt/ fish my butt off for no less than 4 day all the way up to 8 days, but being a complete newbie I have a ton of questions and having the patience of a 5 year old I cant wait for my CA pig hunting guide books to come in, so here come the questions.
1) Does a newbie with only guide books to reference and 8 days to burn do i have a good chance of getting a shot off on a pig?
2) I am thinking about going to the foot hills of San Luis Obispo. Is that a good starting place for a first timer? Can anyone recommend an area to try, or would you like to join me? (I will cover gas, driving and food in trade for your knowledge)
3) I have read that fort Ligget has good numbers on their land. Does anyone have any experience with hunting one of the fort?
4) Should I go with someone like GSGS to learn the ropes a bit before setting off on my own?
