Home Forums Hunting & Shooting General Big Game AAR: Dash Ranch Feral Hog Hunt

Once I turned 55, I realized that my big-game hunting time was starting to get limited, and I decided to start making the classic North American hunts that I’ve wanted to do since I was a kid. I’ve always wanted to hunt species that don’t live near me, so these hunts are focused partly on species, but they’re focused on terrain, since I’ve spent most of the last 30 years hunting on tree farms as described here https://www.24hourcampfire.com/ubbthreads/ubbthreads.php/ubb/showflat/Number/11623852/Searchpage/2/Main/800021/Words/%2Broosevelt/Search/true/first-elk-first-roosevelt#Post11623852 and the novelty has pretty much worn off of that.

My son was home from college for the summer, and while he and I have hunted feral hogs and deer several times and in several places, he’s never scored. Feral hogs were on my list, so I booked a hunt with the Dash Ranch in Oak Run, CA (http://northerncaliforniahunting.com/) hoping that we’d break that streak.

The Outfitter
I have no financial interest in the Dash Ranch, but things went really well and I want to pass the word along. Dave owns the ranch and manages the deer hunts, while his son-in-law Tyler runs the hog hunts. The website pretty well explains how the hunts work, and everything it said turned out to be accurate. The one thing it doesn’t mention is how beautiful northern California is. I had only driven through that part of the world once before, but I didn’t get very far off of I-5 on that trip. This time we got away from the main road, and I was blown away by the beauty.

Pre-hunt communication was clear and timely. Tyler answered my questions quickly. He said that the hog numbers were such that we could only take one hog, so my son got the slot. Tyler said that we were all but guaranteed a shot, and that the rest was up to us. And that came true on the ground.

The Area & Conditions
The Dash Ranch is located outside of Oak Run, CA, about 25 miles from Redding, CA. We live in Seattle, and the map indicated a 9-hour drive. We spent the night in Grants Pass, OR, then drove to the ranch.

We passed Mt. Shasta along the way:



The stretch from Grants Pass to the ranch took a bit longer than expected due to road work, so next time I’ll allow an extra hour or two for that leg of the drive.

As for the ranch itself, pictures don’t really do it justice. Most of it is rolling hills with rocky ground, covered in oak scrub with plenty of air and light in between:



The Hunt
The ranch itself is 1,800 acres. Dave and Tyler have game cameras in key locations and they’re out on the ground several times a week, so they have a very good idea of how the deer and hogs are moving.

Tyler said that this was the shortest hunt in the history of the ranch. A few days before the hunt, he emailed and asked that we arrive at 2:00 PM because the hogs were moving earlier in the day than usual. After we arrived, we drove to the bunk house and rinsed off in the shower without using soap or shampoo. In my rush to get out the door, I left our shooting sticks in Seattle, so Tyler found us a pair. We sprayed our hunting clothes with a scent blocker, then headed out.

We drove out the back gate of the ranch headed for a watering hole.



Within half a mile, we jumped a herd of 6-8 large hogs. We didn’t want to spook them, so we watched them and drove another half-mile, parked the Jeep, and walked a few hundred yards to a little hilltop overlooking a watering hole/wallow.



We set up shop there and prepared to wait a couple of hours for the hogs to show up.



But the hogs arrived in less than 10 minutes. Tyler pointed out the one that my son should shoot. My son fired one shot at about 120 yards that destroyed the hog’s heart and broke the offside leg. The hog made a mad 75-yard dash and left a blood trail wide enough that Ray Charles could have tracked it.



We gutted the hog, then took him back to the ranch. Tyler got him skinned and hung in the cooler in time for dinner, which is unusual since most of the shooting happens at last light and the hunters usually don’t get back until 10:00 PM or later. Tyler’s wife, Heather, made us dinner, which we ate with Tyler and his family. It was really nice to come out of the field and have a hot meal waiting for us.

Rifles
My son used a Husqvarna 1640 in 30-06 with a fixed 4x Leupold. The load was a 165-grain Remington Power Point over 55 grains of IMR 4350 in mixed brass. We zeroed at 100 yards per Tyler’s request. I chronographed it later and found that it was doing 2,550 FPS from the Husky’s 20.5” barrel. That's somewhere between 300 Savage and 308 Winchester ballistics, which surprised me. On the other hand, it certainly worked.

Tyler’s backup was an 18” barreled 20-gauge Mossberg pump loaded with buckshot. He’s had to go into the brush after wounded hogs before, and he finds this to be the best tool for the job. He also showed us the head of a hog that he’d stopped with a face full of buckshot at 15 yards. The damage was impressive.

Preparation
My son has been shooting since he was small, but has been away at school for three years and hasn’t gotten much range time since he left. We hit the range twice in two weeks before we left and had a couple of extensive dry-fire sessions. Once we confirmed his zero, we focused the prep work on shooting from sitting with sticks and from sitting with a sling, plus plenty of fast bolt work. It paid off, even though the bolt practice wasn’t needed.

Conclusion
Looking back on this hunt, I realize that it was a classic West Coast hunting experience just like a driven quail hunt is a classic Southern hunting experience. Tyler, Dave, and Heather took care of use like we were family. They were all relaxed and focused on making sure that the hunt went well, which it absolutely did. I’ll definitely make the drive back to the Dash Ranch for another hog next spring, and will probably hunt deer with them if I can book a spot.

Let me know if you have questions.


Okie John