Heat

Praying for your comfort and joy today. Merry Christmas!

Nice! Merry Christmas!

Going to do everything I can to be there Roy! I bet you can't wait to get your hands on this rack!

Awesome hunt guys! Thanks for sharing all the awesome photos and breaking down the hunt for us. Pretty incredible ram too! Way to go!

Will be in the western units. Probably 42 or 40.

Merry Christmas to you too Ernesto. You have a great family photo!

We've got lots of time to check it out. The more ideas the merrier!

Here's the list so far: Big Browns, SEAZCoues, Desert Bull, My Right as an American, Lancetkenyon, AZPredator, briant_az, PRDATR, muledeerarea33, rcdinaz, MULEPACKHUNTER, & Heat. If I missed anyone please let me know! Is anyone on this list totally opposed to a California hunt? We can go as a group to Tejon Ranch, Minimum of 8 guys ($625 each), up to 12 with lodging and basic food included for $583.33 each for a 2 day hunt. CA NR License is $161.49 and the NR Wild Pig Tag is $74.26. Another place called Cottonwood Hunting can put us on their waiting list with no guarantees we'll even go this year. They are the cheapest CA option I can find. $250 each pays for the guide for two days and lodging, no food. $200 kill fee if you get a hog. Minimum of 4 guys, maximum of 6. Another place called Giant Sequoia Guide Service does similar thing for $300 hunt fee and $300 harvest fee no food or lodging. These are only some of the California options I know of. Most cost much, much more than these. I see 3 major advantages to a California hunt. The drive will be much closer. I can be at the Tejon Ranch in about 5.5 hours from Yuma. Most of the better Texas options are 15 hours plus. The hogs in California on average are bigger than the Texas hogs I believe. The best thing about the California hunts is that it these are all fair chase, free range wild hogs. No pens, trapped animals, hunting at night, spotlights, etc. Big drawbacks to CA is well, its' California! Also the price is kinda high for one pig. Not sure how much the shorter drive offsets the high cost for some of you guys. Sounds like most guys here would prefer a low fence, free range hunt in Texas if we go there. I'd rather not drive much further than the Dallas or San Antonio area. Also I'm making one big assumption here that this is going to be a any weapon hunt not an archery only hunt. I need to take a look at some of these TX options to see what size groups they can hold.

Great job man! First lion with a bow is really cool!

PRDATR, briant_az are in! Right on! What say you mattys281...is that an affirmative? If I missed anyone else who is interested, let me know.

I can already tell this is going to be Epic! LOL! hey Adam, I found you a masseuse...

Prayers headed up for TJ and Peg. Hope you are back to "Pig Shape" soon buddy! Hang in there!

Here's another pretty good one: "Adults $175 a weekend kids hunt free with parent. or $75 a day during the week. My private ranch, no lodging on site but have access to a hunters lodge nearby. Or I have electricity and camp site. Pigs out my ears, I offer guided deer hunts as well and offer these hunts to thin out the hogs. Blinds and feeders gun or bow stands, feeders all have green kill lights. No kill fees." "It's in Fisher county NW of Hamlin about 12 miles. 640 acres. bow or gun, no limits." And another: "I have 9,000 acres in Victoria, all low fence. 38 blinds and feeders. Very high success rate. Lodging and food included for a full 48 hours. $500 per person. Shot opportunity guaranteed. Nice lodge and awesome meals. Guided, and care of game."

On the California note, I talked to the Wildlife Manager at the Tejon Ranch in California this morning. They are still running the Wild Pig Management Hunts there. They will take groups of 8-12 anytime during the year pretty much. I won't rule this option out, but seems really expensive compared to Texas, especially if we can get a group to split fuel costs, which still continues to drop as we speak. I've been putting feelers out on a couple of the Texas sites. One guy PM'd me with this offer. Probably one of the best offers I have so far: "Hey, I haven't started booking hunts yet, but thought I would give you a heads up on our operation. Me and my brothers do hog hunts, usually starting the first weekend in Feb and run thru around June. We hunt on 750+ acres, all Sabine River bottom in Panola Co., just outside of Carthage. We run 10 feeders with stands. Gun or bow. We don't have lights over the feeders, since being the hogs will come in during daylight hours. In the 5 years of doing these hunts, only 2 hogs have been killed after dark. The rest are shot in the early morning or that afternoon. We don't provide lodging or meals but welcome to camp on site which is all primitive. This is what 90% of our hunters do. Hunts start on Fri afternoon/evening till noon that Sun. The price is $125 for the entire hunt and no limits on hogs and all varmints included. Kids 16 and under are free with paying adult. Limit one per adult. Other words, you bring 2 kids, only one is free unless there is another paying adult. A group of 4 can have the whole place to themselves, but like to keep it no more than 6. That way we can rotate stands out. We pretty much show you all the stands, let you know which ones may be the best for that weekend and turn you loose. Welcome to bring a 4 wheeler since some stands require it. If not, we will get you to and from those stands. Most of the stands are very easy to access by vehicle. We did not conduct any hunts last year due to the low numbers on hogs, being that we went 2 years in a row of no acorn crop. This year we had a bumper crop and the hogs are moving back in. This is all free range and as wild as a hog can get. Just let me know if interested or have any other questions."

Here's a thread from a little while back of a guy looking for a cape... http://www.coueswhitetail.com/forums/topic/54160-i-screwed-up/

Pretty sure most of us are leaning very heavily towards a free range hunt. Late spring or early summer was what I was thinking, that works for Desert Bull also. I won't be able to break away until April at the earliest.

Can't wait to see the results! Mike is an awesome guy and helped me a ton when I had my tag as well.

Probably a ranch unless someone knows of a great public land place to hunt. Unfortunately Texas has nowhere near the amount of public land as a percentage as Arizona does.

I'm going to start a new thread to see who else is interested. I apologize SEAZCoues for putting your thread on a bit of a tangent. Hopefully these posts got some ideas moving around for you!

Heck of a deal for someone looking for a wall tent! Good luck with your sale!

Nice work!

1st one looks like jackrabbit. I've also seen cattle munch on pear pads like that. 2nd looks like a deer with his antlers.

Welcome Home Brother!

Tejon ranch is over a grand for the guided hunt. Not my flavor at this time. Is that Nate Treadwell? Nice hog by the way! I would like to try the management hunt at Tejon if that is still in the works and it's available to get on. Seeing that you have been before maybe we could do OK without a guide? From Hunter's Creek: Free Range Hog Hunts $200.00 per day No minimum days required, without food & lodging. $250.00 per day, No minimum days required, with food & lodging. Guide fee: $50.00 per sitting (fully guided hunt) Hog Hunts- One day hog hunt includes one night lodging, with meals, limit 2 hog per day. $275.00 Two day hog hunt includes two nights lodging, with meals, limit 2 hogs per day. $550.00 Three day hog hunt includes 3 nights, with meals, limit 2 hogs per day. $825.00 Daily bag limits do not carry over. Youth Hog Hunts, 16 years and younger......with paid adult One day hunt $200.00 Two day hunt $400.00 Three day hunt $600.00 Lodging and meals included with youth hunts **No expandable broad heads** Fees include (per day) One hog over 100lb's & one under 100lb's On your smaller hog anything over 100lb is $1.00 per pound.

Hunter's Creek Ranch in NE Texas has high and low fence. Maybe that would work for everyone. They charge $200 -$275 a day depending if you want meals included as well and whether you're hunting the low or high fence part. I think they have dogs that can help you stick one with a knife if that's your thing. There's a guy in Cali that puts on private land hog hunts that charges $250 per person for guiding and $200 if you get your hog. That's a two day hunt. They have lodging and kitchen just need to bring food. That's about the cheapest I've found over there which would be half the driving than anywhere in Texas. He fills up really quick though so we might not be able to get on for a while with him. A California hunting license ($160ish) and pig tag ($72 or so) would be required in addition to the guide and kill fee (if you score). Cottonwood Hunting LLC is the name of the outfit.