New Year's Eve JHO hunt at Fort Hunter Liggett

This was our annual New Year's Eve JHO hunt at Fort Hunt Liggett near Jolon CA. The hunt was for hogs, quail and predators. Whatever we could find or track down. The weather was perfect for strolls on the oak covered hills, overcast with temps in the low 30s in the mornings going up to the mid 50s in the afternoons.

You hear a bugle sound retreat in the beginning of this video. Of all the time I've spent hunting FHL and training there in the military I've never heard retreat before. We were miles from the cantonment area and the wind was blowing the other way with a huge ridge between us and I could hear that bugle perfectly. Wild!

That's Eric (XDHunter) and REM3006 skinning the second hog, their "bald headed" boar. Rem3006 hit another big boar the night before and Eric tracked it late that night and the next morning but he said the hog wasn't hit that bad judging by the distance and the hills the big black boar covered.

My hunting partner Westy is seen at the end of the video creeping in on a bobcat we shot. There are several things I learned from trapping as a kid, you keep an exit picked out when wading in on a wounded bobcat. This one turned out to be dead but the hissing and spitting before it died puckered up both us a wee bit. Westy lost the flip of my two headed quarter so I got offer my encouragement from afar.



More info on hog hunting and FHL:

JHO FHL info page

JHO Hog Hunting Forum

CA Hog Hunting Info

Unleash The Hounds? "Spider" The New WR Elk

Well, that didn't take long. Boone & Crockett just announced the new word record bull elk, taken by Denny Austad of Ammon Idaho on Monroe Mt. in Utah last fall. The jackals were not far behind with jealous and character coloring posts dripping from their sharp fangs.



The shameless lynch mob mentality is one reason I don't think I'd want to shoot or even tell anyone about killing a large buck or elk, or anything. All the clueless fools who come out afterward to take their potshots really annoy me. It reminds me of a neighbor in MO (Randy Simonitch), who snuck up on a large whitetail buck (190+ P&Y) in a beanfield with his bow and whacked it. Suddenly every wannabe on the hunting forums was claiming it was a sick deer, or it had been hit by a car. No one could sneak up on a buck like that in a bean field they ranted. Total BS since not ONE of them was there or even had a clue. One azzhat claimed beans never grow that high to pull off the sneak. Obviously, he hadn't walked in the beans in Lincoln county MO that fall because I had to lift my bow as I walked through the beans, they were so high.



"Buzzkillers" it what I call them. If you don't know the facts of the hunt how can you besmirch someone's name with baseless allegations and innuendo? Word is B&C curry combed everything about the hunt so they wouldn't end up with egg on their face. So the guy has some money and can buy some help on the hunt, I'd do it in a heartbeat if that is what I wanted and had the money. And let's not BS each other, so would many hunters. If they cheated and blocked roads or interfered with other hunters on this elk then the proof needs to brought forward and the bull DQed. Until then, some folks need to hold their venom and hate.

And finally, being a forum moderator we've had to pull some of the trash posts over this elk on our forum. Yeah, you're sposed to be welcome to post your opinions on hunting forums, but when you go over the line and trash someone with your nasty rumors and allegations it's not going to fly. Why would it? Would you like it if the shoe were on the other foot?

Rant off

P.S. Doyle Moss was the guide and videoed the hunt. Check Doyle's site MossBack Fever for the video release.

Too Switched On?

The other night I was heading north to a duck hunt at Kern NWR. It was dark, having just left a fine supper of Carnitas at the Los Pinos restaurant at the top of the Vine (Grapevine) as some know it on I-5, north of Los Angeles. As each vehicle passed me I began to notice the blinking displays from laptops, GPS units, cellphones, Gameboys etc. I've always been a gadget freak and nerd but I began to wonder just how far we've become addicted to electronics. Many of the cars whizzing past had several people using electronic devices in them.


RING!!! RING!!! RING!!!! Hold on a sec, gotta answer this call.

I can remember a time when you loaded up the truck for a vacation to get away from the ringing phones and never ending questions from work. When you arrived at the rustic cabin or campsite there was no phone to answer, no mail, nothing. It was you and the beautiful woods with no annoying distractions.

On the other hand, a cellphone is good insurance to have if you become stranded or have an emergency of some sort. Most of these folks were traveling for the Christmas holiday. The I-5 can be a boring haul with the Tule Fog causing California's deadliest pileups.

Where is the line for too much electronic gadgetry?

I know some families who can't go anywhere unless little Johnny has his Gameboy, it keeps junior occupied and quiet many parents tell me. The world Johnny has never seen is screaming by and his head is buried in the toy. Part of traveling to me as a kid was seeing the sights, the wonder and awe of seeing new places and new things. Is the next generation missing out in their enlightenment or is this the new world order? Do I need to assimilate or can we bend the folks who are constantly wired and tuned in, off?

BEEP!!! BEEP!!! BEEP!!! Be right with you, gotta answer this page.

I see folks everyday walking around with I-Pods in their ears or yapping on a cellphone as they blindly negotiate busy intersections or walkways. Hearing is one sense I want turned on when big buses and machinery are buzzing by me just feet away. I wonder how many have been squished when they didn't hear the yell from someone to "Look out!!". Some states like CA here are passing laws prohibiting the use of cellphones while driving to try and prevent accidents from inattentive drivers. Some of the cellphone ring tones are flat out annoying, especially in a movie or restaurant. One goof had a screaming elephant in his cellphone the had everyone in the local cafe jumping up and looking for cover, me included. It was that loud.

That begs the question. Is all this electronic bombardment ruining our situational awareness as outdoorsmen? If we don't hear that Towhee singing how would we ever know what one sounds like? If all we hear is music and phone conversations as we walk around outside we will never enjoy the funny chatter of a red-headed woodpecker scolding a squirrel for daring to invade his tree.


RING!!!! RING!!! RING!!! Excuse me, gotta answer this call, BRB.

Goin' To Hell For Sure?

I first started varmint shooting as a kid. We would skip school, grab our varmint rifles (usually a .22) and head down to the local dump along the Missouri River bottom to shoot the plentiful rats that lived amongst the trash. The dump was a perfect shooting gallery, just like at the carnival. There were different levels and ranges that the furry critters would run back and forth on.



The first time I was slapped on the back for splattering a varmint I felt a tinge of guilt. The giggles and snickers when a rat's head went sailing off or the red mist flying out from a groundhog made me feel kind of bad too. Afterward I wondered if this was what got you into hell? The trigger time made us better riflemen but what was the price we would pay? When you get to the Pearly Gates is this one adventure that is recorded on the "Bad Side" in the ledger of your life?

Fast forward to today and I'm still zinging the varmints that need shooting. Depredation many call it, which means plundering; to pillage [Latin depraedare to pillage]. The ground squirrels here in California do tremendous damage to cattle and horses when they fall into the ground squirrel burrows. Heck, I've almost snapped a leg bone or two due to them dern "squeaks" and their tunnels they have everywhere.

I catch a lot of flack over the varmint shooting videos I post. Many are antihunters or antigunners who rant on with all kinds of name calling and foul language. I'm not so sure about some of the other comments, some may be just folks who drop in on the link not sure what the link is about and they are neither a hunter/shooter or an anti. Shooting animals and giggling about it must appear to be pretty callous to the uninformed. Would a caution or advisory about the varmints being pests before the video rolls help?

Am I going to hell?

One old friend offered another opinion on this catch 22 situation. While at the range during a media event where the outdoor writers were shooting ground squirrels he overheard one old scribe from the south offer that varmint shooting may not get you straight into hell, but you were darn sure to be getting a warm room for doing it.

Lord forgive me, I wonder if they make asbestos in 3XL?

Well, Hello Kitty.

I was deer hunting down San Diego way recently and spied this bobcat sneaking along the far open hillside. I squeaked out a couple "kisses of death" and the bobcat came up so close I finally had to put the camcorder down and shoo it away before it pounced on me.

I lost the creeping cat in the small camera viewfinder and had to pull my head off the camera to make sure where it went, I didn't want any surprises that included fangs and claws. The bobcat was actually stalking some California Valley quail in front of me in the chaparral. At one point he snuck right up to the bush the quail were in and flushed 2 of them. His leap and paw swipe are not on the video dad gummit, that shot must have come when I was wobbling the camera around trying to find the cat. That's probably why the cat isn't real interested in my squeaking, he wants a quail cheeseburger and I'm almost annoying him.

I didn't take a shot because the .300 winmag in my lap would have made a mess of the pelt. Time to get a combo gun maybe. A good western cat hide is bringing near $400 last time I checked.

Camcorder was a Canon GL-2.

15th annual San Jacinto Junior Pheasant Hunt

This was the 15th annual San Jacinto Junior Pheasant Hunt. This junior hunter event is put on by the California Department of Fish & Game (DFG) along with the Riverside Quail Unlimited (QU) Chapter.

Lots of smiles and high fives for the junior hunters again this year. There were 39 juniors, we were hoping for 50 but the rain may have kept some home. It turned out to be a nice day after an early morning rain, just a bit windy at times which made for some challenging shooting for the young hunters.

Huge thanks to the staff at San Jacinto WA, the volunteers who brought their dogs to point and retrieve the birds and everyone else who helped out to make it a great day for the next generation of hunters..

Sponsors included Bass Pro, Valley-Wide Recreation & Park District, Inkredible Prints ((951) 654-1111) and Jesse's Hunting & Outdoors. Mike Brown also donated a $100 NRA Shooting Class certificate.

Part 1.



Part 2



Part 3

GET OUT AND VOTE!!!

I voted today. Line wasn't bad, maybe 5 minutes. The hard part was smelling the beans they had cooking for the poll workers in the back room at the church where I vote here in Redlands CA. Man they smelled good.

We have electronic voting here now which replaced the old punch out hanging chad type ballots. The new ballots are huge, big 2 foot by 1 foot cardboard like sheets. To vote you connect two bars with a line from you pen. The ballot choices looked like this:

Joe Blow ==== ====

with the dashed lines above being solid bars on the ballot.

When you turn in your ballot you get an "I Voted" sticker for your shirt. This was my 8th presidential election to vote in. Sometimes I'm so disgusted with the politics and the sorry arse folks that hold office that I don't want to vote. I do vote since many have sacrificed their lives in defense of this country so that we have the ability to choose our goobermint offcials.

I wanted to film some folks at the church where I voted, not ask them who they voted for but what they thought of the election. The signs said no one within 100 feet could ask voters about their choices. After awhile I thought it might be best not to pull out a camera, even if I was 100 feet from the door. I don't know if I would want someone filming me while voting.

Here's to 4 more years, of what I haven't the faintest.

Politicians are always interested in people. Not that this is always a virtue. Fleas are interested in dogs. - P.J. O’Rourke