Editor’s Note: Forty-seven-year-old David Welch of Woodland, California, is a wilderness hunter, who has worn Mossy Oak exclusively for the last 5 years and is one of the first original Mossy Oak Pro Staff members. Although Welch hunts public lands, he sees and takes more game than the average public-land hunter.
I really like the Mossy Oak Brush camo pattern, because it blends into the terrain we hunt here in California and other parts of the West. I like the lighter color, since I often hunt above the tree line or out in the desert. A couple years ago I was hunting in southern California where we have rolling grass hills during the summer, so all the grass was dead. I snuck-up on a big sounder of at least 50 wild hogs in that open terrain. I was able to take one of those hogs with my bow. Mossy Oak Brush camo blended-in so well that I just looked like a big clump in the grass to the pigs. The hog I took was a 200-pound boar. The 65-pound bow I was shooting drove the arrow about 10 inches into the hog through the protective gristly platelet of the shoulder.
I prefer to take this size hog or a smaller one, because the meat is much better on younger hogs. The best meat hogs are sows weighing less than 150 pounds, but you can’t always get a shot at that size of hog, so this boar was fine for the table. Many people back East don’t know how severe the hog problem is in California. We can hunt hogs all year long here. Hog tags are inexpensive, and you can buy as many tags as you want. Most of the hogs are on private lands, so you’ll need a guide who has permission to hunt there, unless you know a landowner with feral pig problems.
Day 1: Secrets to Hunting Deer on Public Lands with Mossy Oak Pro David Welch
Tomorrow: Mossy Oak’s David Welch Is Face to Face with a Blacktail Deer
