The day couldn’t finish quick enough, work was dragging out & I had big plans for a day’s hunting tomorrow and I was bloody excited to get going.
I’d been super busy at work of late so I’d let a mate of mine Roman run my old dog for the last month. He’s got a young pup that needs some pigs pumped into him and I don’t want my old dog Duke losing his fitness lounging around in the garden to long. I haven’t been for a hunt in a good 5 weeks I think that’s the longest I’ve ever been without going for a hunt so was fair to say I was itching to get out on the hill again.
Monday being a Monday dragged on and on, finally I was home and started gathering my gear for tomorrow’s mission. The plan was I was going to drive out to stay at my mate Ondrej’s place tonight, then Roman would meet us there in the morning & we would head off to the farm. Finally, my daughter was fed & tucked up in bed and me and the wife had our dinner and I was on my way! Hour & half drive later and I made it to Ondrej place. We had a quick chat then we hit the hay to try get a few hours shut eye before the big day.
Morning time soon rolled around. Me and Ondrej set off to meet up with Roman and his old man and younger brother at the local Cafe. From there they followed us out to the farm and we parked up the cars and let the dogs out. Today we only had two dogs. Duke my old boy who Roman was running & Roman’s young pup Tig. We soon collared up the dogs and gathered our gear and we were ready to go. We walked through the first few paddocks towards the hills it was still quite dark as it was just before sun rise. We hit the bottom of the hill just on day break, perfect! We started the long slog up the ridge. We had planned how we were going to try hunt this block as there had been a couple young pigs caught on the hill we were on our way up about three weeks prior. There was a lot of sign around then so we figured that’s a good place to start as the wind was correct for it and once it’s nice and light we will be close to the top for a glass with the binos. We pushed up the ridge finding lots of sign but nothing fresher than a week old. The dogs were sniffing about but never seemed very interested. We had plenty of breaks to give the dogs chance to work the area, we were sure there would have been a pig along the face below us as it was one of the main scrubby gullies of the block. But for whatever reason the dogs didn’t think they were there, so we carried on up to the saddle. We stopped for a wee break again and had a look around with the binos. Too our right was the head basin of the main gully with a large patch of gorse that was now in the 10am sun. I said to the boys if I was a big old boar that’s where I’d be parked up! They mentioned how three weeks prior when the dogs had caught the younger pigs they seen a big black boar come from that patch and head up over the top of the block. Be good if he was back home. They reckoned he was a good 150+. To the left of the saddle was the head basin of the homestead gully and the top ridge of the hill was covered in snow. The snow-covered ridge was only another 100m climb from the saddle then it would be an easy walk along the ridge around above a large patch of native so we decided to go check that out first as it was still early in the day and had plenty of time still.
We made it up to the snow covered ridge and wandered along that for half an hour. Again, no luck or any excitement from either dog so we made the plan to head back to the other head basin and come up with a new plan. We parked up above the saddle with a nice clear view of the sunny gorse face. I was sure I’d spot a pig soon enough, it was ideal country for one. Bingo! I was watching a very obvious large white rock when suddenly a Grey object moved in front. I told the boys to check that with their binos and they soon confirmed it was a pig. There was a whole mob there mooching around in the sun. We sat and watched the mob for a good 15min. There was one good sized sow around 80/100lb and there was a boar about the same size and then there was 5 or 6 weaner pigs around 50lb and a hand full of small piglets. We were on a bit of a seek and destroy mission under the farmer’s instructions so a plan was made for Ondrej to get to stick his first pig. Myself and Romans younger brother Finn stayed on the ridge. Secretly I had a feeling I knew how this would go down so staying on the ridge watching from a distance sounded better than thrashing around in a sea of gorse! We carried on watching the mob while Roman Shawn and Ondrej put the dogs on ropes and walked up and around the top of the basin to get above the pigs and drop down on them. Sure enough we seen the guys come around the face above the pigs. The boys released the dogs and old Duke was soon off with his nose on the ground along some game trails heading down towards the pigs. The pigs must of got wind of the boys or heard something as me and Finn watched them scatter and disappear into all the gorse. Duke soon hit the gorse and disappeared as well now it was just a matter of time. A minute later the silence was broken by a grunt then a continual squeal, bugger sounds like Duke has caught one of the smaller ones. Roman’s young dog Tig soon takes off at pace into the gorse to help Duke out. Feeling quite happy about my decision & being sat in the sun I watched Roman and Ondrej race off down into the sea of gorse. I wasn’t jealous at all of the mission they had. I reckon they had 300m of gorse to bash down though to get to Duke and his small pig.
Shawn stayed up on the face above the gorse. From where I was sat we watched the rest of the mob of pigs burst out of the gorse and run down the face Shawn was on about 100m to the left of him and take off into the lower gully systems. Eventually I heard the pig squeal its last squeal as Ondrej got to stick his first pig. A 50lb boar. Roman later told me he was keen as to stick it gut it and carry it out himself, top stuff!
The boys tied up the small boar and started to make their way out from the sea of gorse. Duke and tig were hanging around as they fought their way through the gorse and scrub. They were coming down the gully and aiming for the clear tussock ridge opposite where I was sat. The boys made it all of 150m from where they stuck that pig & All of a sudden Dukes was off again with tig following along behind. “WOOF”, Duke let’s out a deep bark, 50m away from where Roman and Ondrej were. Dukes bailing away and Tig gets there and lets out a few barks but thinks he can handle it. He gives it a go only to be chucked off and the pig to break. This pig did a couple hundred-meter loop in the gorse only to be pulled up again. Once again Dukes bailing away and Tig must be there holding it on his own as we can hear a good scrap going on. Now who’s closest? From me and Finn the dogs were 500m away across a steep gully. From Roman and Ondrej the dogs were a 300m bash up-hill though the gorse. That leaves Roman’s dad Shawn who’s sat peacefully in the sun 150m above the dogs in the clear tussock face. Shawn jumps to his feet and makes his way to the sound of a bail / scrap. He’s without any tracking gear so he’s going in old school & all he had was the 357mag across his shoulder. we watch him make his way down to the gorse and disappear.
The bail / scrap was still going then “Boom” we hear a gun-shot echo out from the gorse. Choice! He’s obviously made it and got the pig. I was a bit confused as I could hear a dog scrapping that boar. Usually if a dog’s holding a pig you jump in and stick it to, but hell I didn’t know what was going on or what the situation was in there! Me and Finn get our jog on and scramble round the gully to find Shawn and the mystery pig. What a monster! I find Shawn with a huge Grey boar in a tight patch of gorse, Shawn explained what happened.
As he snuck in he said it sounded rough. Duke was bailing away but he could hear Tig holding a good pig and getting a fair hiding too. As he closed in, Duke was stood back out of harms away bailing away and nipping a great big boar on the nuts that was tucked deep under an old gorse Bush. Tig on the other hand was in there with this boar, hanging off its ear like a small flea (Tig is a small whippet x who’s all of 15kg max). Shawn said he didn’t like his odds of trying to get into this gorse bush with a huge boar without any solid dogs there to help him and at the time he had no idea how far away any of us were. So he slid the 357 off his shoulder and loaded a round in. He parted the gorse bush just enough to see the big grey boar facing away from him with Tig tucked in beside it doing his best to hold it still. While the boar was occupied smashing Tig into the trunk of the gorse bush. Shawn seen an opportunity & lent in and put the barrel to the back of the boar’s head and squeezed off a round point blank to minimise risk. The boar dropped like a sack of spuds. Shawn then reached in and got hold of a back leg and dragged it out from under the gorse to get a true look of the size of this boar, and it was massive! Shawn was stoked. Was the first pig he’s ever beaten any of us to and what a monster to get to first!
Once we all turned up we couldn’t believe the size of this boar so we quickly checked the dogs out. Both dogs were fine no injuries at all! Bloody lucky! We checked the jaw out on the boar to find one side had a very nice long solid tusk but the other side was smashed off. It was either smashed off prior or in the battle but looked freshly snapped. Thankfully that was the side Tig was holding on and might be why we got off so luckily there! We soon gutted out this pig and rolled him over to get some photos as we realised this boar was easily the biggest boar any of us had caught to date. It’s all ways nice to have some high-quality photos for reminiscing in future story telling.
I put my hand up for first carry. So, we tied this boar up and I got myself in position to try get to my feet. Thankfully there was a few of us and between us all we managed to get me to my feet and that’s when it sunk in how bloody heavy this boar was, tell ya what the carry wasn’t going to be a long one! Felt like my spine was compressing by the second! I start on my way and it’s about 200m of thick native and gorse in a few steep wee gullies till we get out to the open so I start my merry way. I made it about 60m then a steep muddy slope was my down fall. I ended up on my ass at the bottom. It was time to swap out and let someone else give it a nudge. No point blowing ourselves out struggling so we just kept rotating every 50 odd meters between myself, Shawn and Ondrej. Once we got the boar out to the open Roman said he would give it a go, so we all give Roman a hand and get him up on his feet with this boar on board. He made it 15 steps before topping over, but hell not a bad nudge for a young fella and the pig would weigh two times as much as him. We battled away carrying and dragging the boar along an open face until we make it to the farm track. We got the boar to a small creek crossing the track and laid him in there to stay cool. There was no way we could carry him out of the block whole ourselves it just took us three hours to get him 1km to the track. And it’s a good few kms back to the cars so we left the big boar and our smaller boar there. We walked half way out to get some service to call the land owner to see if we could borrow a quad bike to retrieve our boars.
We got hold of the land owner and he was happy to bring his quad out to pick up our catches. So Ondrej went with the farmer to pick up the boars. Fair to say the farmer was shocked to see the size of the big boar but was happy to see it gone as lambing was just around the corner. He was going to be lambing in this block. We waited at the local cafe for the farmer and Ondrej to arrive back. While we waited, we found a tree out back and tied some scales up to a branch so once they got the boar to us we could lift it straight up and weigh it. It pulled the needle around to 95kg! We were all over the moon we had cracked that magic 200lb mark and with ease. We pulled the boar down and caped him off so Roman could get his first 200lb boar mounted. Then the rest was taken to the local butcher and turned into sausages and salami to share between us all. What a day to remember!
George Bright