California hunting luck...so far..."Tagged Out" turkeys too!

[oklahoma red]

Good day all, just had to share my good furtune lever-gun hunting this year... so far.
Took this nice 200+lb sow in the middle of the coast deer season.

Pierced both her ears with my 45-70 Marlin Cowboy!

Took this 280+boar the next weekend

Recovered the 300gr Nosler partation, after it crushed the shoulder and spine.


Finished the coast deer season with this forked horn buck on the last weekend.

Again the 45-70 did its job.

Then things got interesting...
Brimming with (over) confidence, and armed with my puma 357 lever gun, I went up with the family on a inland deer hunt.


The first drive, on the first morning, my brother in law jumped this bruiser.


He came charging down the hill to my left. At the first shot he did a forward roll, and came up running. So I laid into him!. The forth shot broke him down enough so I could put a fifth into his neck, and kill him. The first shot was about 60 yards, the last at about 20.
We recovered two of the 140 gr Win silver tips.

All were good hits, just could have been bigger I guess.

Heading back to the coast in November for turkey and pigs again!
Happy shooting to ya,
OkR

[Nath]

Most excellent, that partition has serious jacket thickness!

Thanks for the amazing photo's...

Nath.

[.45colt]

Soooooo, it looks like all these Guys talking about getting out of Kalifornia ..... have just been keeping all this to themselves..........what a Great Hunt and shooting.

[gamekeeper]

Most excellent, that partition has serious jacket thickness!

Thanks for the amazing photo's...

Nath.

+ 1...

[Borregos]

Wow, great stuff, well done

[Old Savage]

I am guessin' we are not just talking luck here. Nice work.

[jeepnik]

Looks like a great hunt. I imagine you were wishing you had the 45-70 when that fellow came down the hill.

[ollogger]

Looks like a grand time, Thanks!!!!



ollogger

[3leggedturtle]

Nice report. How bout a little info on your Geep. The winch sure looks like it gets used. 3leg

[Griff]

Hunting luck in CA is non-existant. At least for me it was. But, what I did find, is that the harder I worked, the luckier I got! Congrats on success...

[handirifle]

oklahoma red

I agree, looks like you've MADE your luck. Nice going, and nice report. What were the yardages on the 45-70 shots?

I got a forky that looks a lot like yours. As for pigs, I just applied for the CA DFW SHARE hunts on Tejone Ranch. Would love to take one with my GS.

What zone were you in?

[El Chivo]

taking on a bear with a .357 magnum? my hat's off to you...

[oklahoma red]

Thank you all for the kind words.

"Most excellent, that partition has serious jacket thickness!"
Yes, those noslers are pile-drivers. This is the first of these I have ever recovered from my 45-70. Usually all pass throughs. Must be why he dropped where he stood.

"I imagine you were wishing you had the 45-70 when that fellow came down the hill."
At that second, I was feeling a little under-gunned. The little 357 is quick, and pretty accurate inside of 100 yards, but I don't have the same confidence in it that I do the 45-70!
I figure the bear ended up with the same amount of lead in him as he would have if I was shooting my 45-70;
Five 140gr 357s = 700grs and Two 300gr 45-70s = 600grs. Pretty close huh??

"How bout a little info on your Geep. The winch sure looks like it gets used."
The Jeep is a '51 Willys Flat Fender. It's been hunting on the property longer than I have! Originally belonged to my father in law. I started hunting with him there, in that Jeep, when I was 19 (54 now). I swear it knows the roads better than I do! Yes the winch does get used. It had just been used when the picture was taken. I got lazy and drove over to get the pig, and couldn't get back up the oakleaf covered road bank. The drive-train is basically stock, so it's not exactly a rock-crawler.

"What were the yardages on the 45-70 shots?"
Longest shot was about 60 yards on the sow, and the boar was about 25 (We suprised each other... he took longer to react than I did!)

"I just applied for the CA DFW SHARE hunts on Tejone Ranch"
I hope you get the hunt, Tejone Ranch looks like an awesome place; thousands and thousands of acres!

"What zone were you in?"
The pigs and deer were taken in "A" zone and the bear was in "D-5"

Happy Shootin to ya all,
OkR

[El Chivo]

"What zone were you in?"
The pigs and deer were taken in "A" zone and the bear was in "D-5"

Happy Shootin to ya all,
OkR

FYI, A-zone is one of the condor zones, non-lead bullets required. Not much enforcement though.

[wvfarrier]

Nice pig and deer congrats

[handirifle]

OKR

Good shootin. I'd say the old saying of "you snooze you lose" applies to the boar you surprised! Fortunately he won't pass that learned bit of knowledge on to his descendants.

Yea I agree, Tejone looks awesome, never hunted there so will see how it goes. Think I will take my GS if I am drawn.

I hunt A zone also, but go down the road behind me. I have great neighbors that let me hunt their land, 320 acres total. I live east of Santa Margarita, in the hills.

[oklahoma red]

Good day to ya all again.

FYI, A-zone is one of the condor zones, non-lead bullets required. Not much enforcement though.

Only part of the coastal A-zone is Lead-free, part of the southern half. The condor zone starts around Santa Clara county and extends south. Where we hunt, Napa and Solano counties, have always been Lead-OK. It was just voted to make all of CA lead free by 2019, but it's being contested.

Happy Shootin to ya,
OkR

[Mike Armstrong]

Don't tell anyone but there's still plenty of hunting in CA. You just have to have real good landowner connections OR do one heck of a lot of homework, research, scouting, hiking, etc. on public land. LOTS of public land but it tends to be desert and/or mountains covered with some of the world's thickest and nastiest brush (actually I think central Mexico holds the record for stickers-per-square-meter). Tough on us old guys and dogs! Distances are LONG and your gas bill will make an Arab's day!

Doesn't hurt to have a Ph.D. in game management and a law degree to read the game laws and the various regulations on use of the various kinds of public lands, too! Fortunately there are darn' few LEOs out in the serious boonies and they tend to favor hunters as long as you aren't being a blatant fool. (Those guys need somebody to talk to, just like anyone else. So talk to 'em.).

The lead ban is particularly painful to those of us who shoot "traditional" calibers. If you shoot a standard bore like .308, .257, .357, .458 etc, it isn't much of an issue. The real crunch is whether manufacturers can make lead-free .22 RF that will shoot worth a darn, and lead-free shotshells that can be used in classic (I mean OLD) shotguns AND afforded by ordinary people. So far they haven't.

Interesting, enjoyable, encouraging post, for sure!

[Shasta]

Well, I'm all jealous now!

For the second year in a row I did not see a buck in the B zone public lands I hunt in Shasta and Trinity Counties. The area is extremely steep, and the brush has grown up so high that a deer could be eight feet high and I wouldn't see it unless it was standing in the road! Even the roads are fast becoming overgrown, and some I drove just ten years ago are now nearly impassible even on foot. No, I am not kidding! The US Forest Service has just about ceased any and all logging and road maintenance.
Every year I put in for the muzzle loading rifle hunt in Modoc County, but with only ten or twenty tags available I will not likely ever get to hunt it. I don't know any private land owners that allow hunting, so have to make do with government land and what little timber company land that is open.
Thank goodness for threads like this one, it's good to know there are still deer out there somewhere. I very much enjoyed the pictures. Thanks for posting.

SHASTA

[oklahoma red]

Good day all, I thought I would give you fine folks an update.
Took the week off this week, so I put some huntin time in last Saturday, and Thursday, before I was forced back to work.

Went looking for wild Pigs and turkeys. Found this guy, with about 8 of his buddies about 8am on Saturday:


11" beard, 1 1/2" spurs!
Spent the rest of the day looking for some more swine- no luck.

Got into another batch Thursday morning and managed to put this one in the pot:


Only a 6" beard and 3/4" spurs, but a keeper.

After the turkey hunt and a little pig searching, I took a downed oak tree out of the landowners creek; so I picked up a load of firewood too!

Although I was carring a levergun, these two were taken with a 12ga pump.

Happy shootin to ya all,
OkR
Likely head out again this weekend for some more hogs