This Hog Hunt really started before the 06�Bowfishing trip, back in February. I was joined by my cousin Bill & his son Darren over the Presidents Day weekend. The hunt took place on a friend of Bill�s farm, Bill went to school with Nick. But the hunt was snowed out and the only hogs we saw were about 450 yards away and on his neighbors property. We had to cut our stay short because we had reservations for the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation�s �Elk Camp� in Reno, NV and wanted to make it over Donnor�s Pass before the main part of the storm hit. And hit it did because the day after we arrived in Reno the Airport got snowed in and had to close down. So the hog hunt took place during the first week of July. Nick�s farm/ranch is about 50 miles SE of Fresno, CA. It�s a good sized farm/ranch with Olive, Avocado, Pomegranate and Orange groves, 2 big grain fields, 2 large pastures for horses plus a barn and a very large pasture with a small lake in the center which supports about 15 head of cattle. Near one of his wells, nestled between a Avocado grove to the West and a Orange grove to the East he set up a 24 ft. camp trailer with a pavillion. On the first day we showed up a few hours after noon and started to pitch camp. Later that evening we went out but all we saw were some rabbits. Dark fell and the story telling started it was mainly about the bowfishing trip and how it compared to the 05� Bowfishing charade. We also talked about the large Carp we saw in the Colorado River it was then when we decided to head down to the Colorado River for a New Years Bowfishing trip. But thats another story. After a short night�s sleep we were up and ready to go, I guess it was the next morning but it was to dark to tell. I stayed in shooting position watching a game trail well after 8am then heard a gun shot. Darren got a shot at a running pig, he graised it but the pig never slowed down we tracked it until 10am when we finally caught sight of that hog. When he was first spied it was nothing more than a moving black spot. By the time we got within a couple hundred yards he was well up a canyon on Nick�s neighbor�s property and disappeared over the Rim when the shooter arrived. Around noon we were back in camp for some lunch. After lunch Darren and Casey, Nick�s 13 year old son, grabbed their bows and went out to shoot varmits. I stayed in camp because I didn�t bring a bow. At 4pm we went back out but didn�t see any hogs just the oranges they were eating and some tracks. So by dark thirty we were back in camp sitting around the campfire with Nick and Casey, Nick�s lovely wife Diane and his daughter with her fiance. The next morning we were back out to in the pitch black to watch the game trails but just like the day before they remained unused. But today I called it quits a little earlier than yesterday at 7:30 I was out looking in the groves for a porker. At 7:45 I spotted me a big ugly boar moving from row to row in one of the orange groves. With my Dad, Ernie, driving the truck and seeing how fast that hog was walking we pulled several rows in front of him. After getting all set in position I had just a very short wait before he stepped into the row. I squeezed the trigger the gun went boom and the hog vanished. Ernie swore I missed but it felt like a good shot to me. We searched around for 2 hours and couldn�t find a track or a blood spot. By the time we made it back to camp Casey and Darren were already loaded up in the Polarsis Ranger to go looking for us. And Nick just arrived in his Avalanche. I told him where I was when I shot and Nick and the boys went to look for him. He was gone about a hour and a half and came flying back to camp he told me he had some pigs spotted in the other Olive grove so I climbed into the back seat and off we went. Those pigs were in the same row he spotted them in only about 100 yards further West giving me about a 200 yard shot. It was a little bit of a difficult shot with the Olive branchs hanging down and the Olive wood prunings still on the ground but I took the shot anyway. It was a small pig only about 75 or 80 pounds on the hoof but the meat was probibly the best pork I ever had. Besides being young and tender it also had a very mild Orange flavor from all the Oranges it ate plus being wild (feral) there was little fat.
