(FORTUNE Small Business) – It may seem odd that to hunt pigs I would travel from my home in Iowa, where pigs out-number people, to Southern California, where people outnumber almost everything. It certainly feels strange to walk through the lobby of a Burbank motel in full camouflage at 4:30 a.m. Yet California offers some of the nation's very finest feral-pig hunting, and pig country begins not far from where L.A. ends.

I've come on my first pig hunt at the urging of Jim Matthews, publisher of the California Hog Hunter newsletter. Matthews is the ranking authority on California pig hunting; friends call him "the Hogfather." He killed his first pig 20 years ago and has watched pig populations and pig-hunter numbers swell in recent years across much of California. His newsletter provides reader ratings of the 40 or so outfitters in the state--all independent proprietors--and has about 1,000 subscribers. "A lot of them are businesspeople who realized there's more to do when they travel to California than just play golf," he says.

Feral hogs are not European boars, as many believe--they're just Pigs Gone Wild, descended from escaped farm animals. Still, after a few generations, feral pigs no longer resemble their barnyard cousins. Their tails uncurl, they grow full, bristly coats, and their snouts lengthen. Males have razor-sharp tusks and a thick armor of fat, skin, and gristle. Hunters appreciate them as a challenging, plentiful, and delicious game animal, and the season runs year-round. Some 42,000 hog-hunting licenses were sold in California last year, up 20% since 1996, even as the number of deer-hunting licenses in the state has been steadily declining.

Pointing my rental car north on I-5, I aim for the largest and most scenic slice of hog heaven in Southern California--the Tejon Ranch. Straddling the Tejon Pass, the ranch dates back to the 1840s, and its sprawling 450 square miles encompass low-lying deserts, mile-high peaks, and an estimated 4,000 wild hogs. The property belongs to the Tejon Ranch Co., which has diversified beyond cattle and farming to include an industrial park, a vacation resort, and an eco-friendly housing development. Even if you haven't heard of the Tejon, you have probably seen it in the movies, most recently in the opening scenes of Seabiscuit. Hollywood film crews find that various parts of the property can look like African savanna, Australian outback, Swiss countryside, or the Wild West--all an hour from L.A.

Waiting for me at the ranch are Ron Gayer, the Tejon's hunt coordinator, and Lee Hoots, editor of L.A.-based Guns & Ammo magazine. Gayer says we have to get moving--pigs are most active early and late, bedding down out of sight through most of the day. The three of us pile into Gayer's F-150. Wary and clever, pigs aren't as predictable in their daily rounds as deer are, Gayer explains, so waiting for them to come to us isn't a good option. Instead, this will be a spot-and-stalk hunt, meaning we will cover ground in the truck, then get out when we see a pig and can sneak close enough for a shot. On the seat rest the tools of a pig guide's trade: $1,000 Swarovski binoculars; a very sharp hunting knife for gutting and skinning, which, with luck, we'll have occasion to use; and a .44 magnum Desert Eagle handgun, which I fervently hope will stay in its holster. When clients don't shoot straight, Gayer has to wade into the bushes with the Desert Eagle to find their wounded, angry pigs. A charging pig can lay open arms and legs with its sharp tusks. In the heavy brush there's neither time nor room to aim a rifle; a handgun that shoots big bullets is a guide's best insurance policy.

We climb high into the hills, bouncing along a dirt track amid stands of oak. In the patches where hogs have rooted and fed on grass, wild onions, and slugs (they're omnivores), the earth is turned as thoroughly as if it had been rototilled. Occasionally we'll crest a hill, giving us a condor's-eye view of undulating folds of land. Distracted by the scenery, I miss the lone pig that Hoots catches with a practiced eye. The boar is a stocky, trotting shape so solidly black that it looks almost two-dimensional.

Gayer pulls the truck far ahead, and we slip out, easing the doors shut. With the wind blowing our scent behind us, we should be able to sneak close. Pigs don't have the best eyesight, but if they inhale the slightest whiff of a human, they're gone.

We drop down the hillside and work our way slowly back, peering through binoculars to find the pig before he sees us. He's rooting behind an oak, about 130 yards away. Sitting in the wet grass, I lay the rifle in a pair of crossed shooting sticks to steady my aim. I can make out the pig's head clearly, but a screen of fallen branches that could deflect a bullet covers the vitals. It takes perhaps ten minutes for the pig to finish eating and take a step into the open. While I wait, my heart thumps in anticipation.

As the front half of the pig pokes out from the branches, I settle the cross hairs of the scope, aiming for the spine and lungs. The muzzle blast of a .30-06 is loud, but when you shoot at game, you're so focused that you scarcely hear the shot and never feel the recoil. The pig rolls down the steep ravine, coming to rest against the trunk of the tree. I'm thrilled, but Gayer is even happier: He won't have to chase this one with the Desert Eagle. "That's a dead one!" he exclaims.

Up close, the pig exudes the same strong, musky odor I've breathed a million times back home in Iowa. Hoots estimates it to be 2 or 3 years old and to weigh 250 pounds. Gayer arrives with a stout rope to drag it back to the truck and warns, "Watch the tusks. A dead pig can cut you just as easy as a live one."

We hit the roads again, looking for an older boar, which isn't as good to eat as a younger pig but has more impressive tusks. At dusk, single pigs and small groups pop out everywhere, but Hoots doesn't see the trophy he wants. The next morning I watch from a distance as Hoots and Gayer stalk to within 20 yards of a group of 30 or more pigs. Hoots waits on the big boar bringing up the rear, but before he can shoot it, another hog oinks in alarm, and the group bolts. Hoots passes on a chancy running shot that might wound a pig, and we call it a day.

I've brought home the bacon--figuratively: There is no bacon on wild pigs, which lack the fat bellies of domestic hogs. Michelle's Custom Cutting, a meat locker in nearby Bakersfield, will turn the pig into about 80 pounds of chops, roasts, stew meat, and sausage, and ship it to me, all for $350, and within weeks I'll be cutting into my first chop.

The Hogfather would be proud.