Hunting Southern California

I am fairly new to hunting although I have broken a lot of clay and killed a lot of paper. I live in San Diego, CA and need some help! The hardest part of my experience thus far (or lack thereof) is finding out where I can hunt.

The DFG while being very polite and giving me lots of brochures really won't tell me where it is legal to hunt other than, 'public land and private land with written permission' Thanks, can you tell me what public land I can hunt on? (I think shooting ducks in Balboa Park would be frowned upon even though it's public land... ) 'You need to talk to the US forest service or BLM office.' So I called the BLM Office to be told, 'You have to talk to DFG, they have jurisdiction, we really can't say.' I try talking to like-minded folks and they say 'Well, you really ought to go out of state or hunt private ranches. You know, XYZ ranch will let you shoot a pig for $300-$500. That's really not bad. You'll never find a pig on public land.' Great thanks. Other people say...'Oh sure, you can hunt Palomar Mountain.' Great where? 'Oh about half way up.' Hmmm...can you be more specific? 'Nope.' I got all set to hunt on Camp Pendleton last August...but then Sept. 11 happened and it suddenly seemed like not a good idea to let civilians run around the base with firearms...Okay, you get the picture.

Okay, so this is California and I really don't want to end up somewhere I'm not supposed to be. (Kind of makes me miss Pennsylvania) WHERE CAN I GET GOOD INFORMATION? Anybody have GPS coordinates of all of the huntable public lands so I can plot the areas on a TOPO or GPS? Thinking about San Diego, Riverside, Imperial counties...where are: (1) Doves (2) Quail (3) Ducks (4) TURKEY (5) Deer on public land that is huntable? Where is the closest public land that I have a reasonable chance of finding pigs? All the way up to San Luis Obispo or anything closer?

Sorry for the rant. Any help is greatly appreciated.

I'm interested in what you think makes a 'successful' hunt. If you just want to kill something, go to a game farm and shoot a captive animal. Heck, I bet lots of farmers would turn a pig loose for $400, and you could keep the meat.

If you actually want to go hunting, you can buy BLM maps that show the location of all BLM lands in the state. Then start scouting. The first time you hunt an area, don't even bother to take a gun. In fact, it's best if your first hunt is not even during hunting season. All you do is look for game, game sign, game habitat, hunter sign, access signs, neighbor signs, fields of fire and general conditions. It is an excellent opportunity to take a camera and a telephoto lens and get a few game photos. Scouting an area for the first time can take an entire weekend. Would you call that a successful hunt?

Once you have a location and know what game it supports, you are in good shape for hunting season.

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The rub in Socal is that many of the game farms are bigger than the areas of public land that you can hunt...the other big difference is the number of game that you will find. Because the parcels of public land are SO small, the game very quickly figures out that it doesn't get shot at on Joe's ranch and there is very little left to find in public areas. Also, the ranches are usually where the water is. The ranches that let people hunt them lease their land to private hunting clubs, often with dues of a couple thousand dollars per year. I don't particularly want to go on a pig shoot...I prefer a pig hunt. (I know there is nothing down south except ranches)

Been looking for those maps. None of the gun shops around carry maps of the area...what's that about? I'm going to have to mail order them. Went scouting last Sunday for the entire day. I took my gun; but only because I have one simple rule. If it's hunting season, don't go outside without your gun. It never fails that the one time you don't have your gun what ever it is you are looking for will walk right up and say hello.

I didn't see any signs of Turkey last week but, I found a quail guzzler and some deer sign near Hemet. I found a ton of Human sign...trash, spend shells, etc. pathetic actually. It was a successful hunting day. Those days are hard to come by because they do take the WHOLE day and I have two small children and a wife. Both kids are too small to come with me. Basically I get about 1 weekend a month to do my thing. Unlike a lot of other places, my closest hunting is several hours away. God I envy my

They have duck hunting at Lake Perris certain times of year.

Do a google search on [BLM maps california] and you will find all the resources you need. Your local library probably has them, or you can pick them up at your local BLM office.

The really interesting site is http://www.maptrails.com, that sells seamless State Explorer BLM maps for entire states for $49.95. With one of those and a GPS you could spend a lifetime just scouting.