If you hunt or ever hunted in California post up some pictures of your success or where you hunted. Include the zone area and what rifle, shotgun, bow, or muzzle loader. Thank You

A Zone, Los Padres National Forest. Target rich environment for the .280.


How about you?

That photo doesn't appear to be California A Zone... unless it has magically sprouted populations of whitetails and armadillos.

What?! You don't believe me?
Those are blacktails and small feral pigs, and it was unusually cold that August.

Right... and pigs can fly... and Obama's really your friend.

I know you're BS'ing now.
Aint no way a .280 will penetrate an armadillo. Ya need at least a .270 for that.

Ok, Ok, you got me. Those are world record Coues in D12. That dang mesquite must've given me away!

You mean armadillos AREN'T bulletproof?

Alright... put DOWN the crack pipe.

I think that particular armadillo might've been accidental take courtesy of a truck tire, but I can't remember now. Shooting it with a .280 would've endangered us all, leading to a scary tracking situation with an upset potential maneater on our hands.

By the way, got a kick out of your "practice shooting deer on TV" advice. I immediately had visions of a few folks in here blowing up their TVs. I actually wrote about this a couple of years back in a magazine piece, thusly...

"For those who suffer from an imagination deficit, here�s one final trick that can put you in the proper frame of mind to make the shot on a trophy buck. Go out and buy a DVD or video that has lots of footage of monster bucks. Grab your hunting rifle, make sure it�s UNLOADED, and have a seat on the living room floor.
That�s right: I want you to practice shooting deer on your television.
You might not want do this when family members are around, lest they consider putting you on some serious medication, but this simple act, repeated over and over, can condition your brain to accept the shooting of monster bucks as routine."

Does it also work on armadillos?

Would you believe Inyo Deer in X12 then?

Maybe... hard to make out the antlers for that smartazz in the background.

Anyway, he looks bigger than my best 3X3 coastal blacktail -- but I bet I can beat your best Calif. hog!

Ok, we'll start off with this little boar with the .22 Mag that I took in X9B off of Mt. Whitney:

Here's a couple blacktails from near Blocksburg, just SE of Eureka. The rifle is a Rem M7 7mm-08.

Since I have limited time tonight, I'll cut to the chase with one of the better ones... with a muzzleloader, no less.

Good stuff there, here's my good centerfire one:

Had to put down the beer while spotlighting for this one the night before. Took us almost two years to kill the particular pig out of our research area.

But these are perhaps my favorite Calif. trophies:

very nice, but can you beat my mighty jackelope:

Nice hog there. Here's another little one... and I'll thank you not to make fun of the hat.

Of course, if you want quantity over quality...

Very nice bucks, Dawaba.

exbiologist - I don't know if I can beat your jackalope, but I can probably match it. Don't have time to locate/upload the photo right now, though... Gotta run shortly.

I'm trying to hunt up a picture of a grand evening on the ranch of spotlighting, beer drinking and road baiting where among the 7 or 8 pigs in that picture, one of them was little piglet that a buddy shot with a 12 gauge slug. But hey, if you can't find it, it didn't happen, I guess. And since I can't, how about a little fishy instead. Let's call this from Lake Tahoe:


Hey where's the OP?

I might not be able to beat your sweet hat, but you'll have a hard time beating my farmer's tan!

Tahoe my butt...! Nice bass, though. You must have blinded it into submission with that glow-in-the-dark skin.

But don't get me started on fish photos because:

1. There isn't enough time in a day
2. I haven't uploaded any for posting. Will have to remedy that.

Spotlighting... beer drinking... road baiting... some people have all the illegal fun.

Not illegal where I was. Hint, it wasn't California. I left the state at 18, without much hunting success to my credit.
Ummm...let's call this one the Sacremento Delta:

Good. For a minute there I was afraid you were going to assert that those were valley quail...

Gotta run!

Here is last years opening weekend 4 of the 6 bucks taken. could have and probably should have been 2 more in this group it sounded like a war in that canyon I lost count at 22 shots fired!

Mine was taken with my model 700 classic 25.06 110 AB

D5 private property