According To Plan – John Witham
Well, the planned retirement didn’t last too long. My oldest son manages an almond orchard...
04
May
May
Well, the planned retirement didn’t last too long. My oldest son manages an almond orchard in a fairly remote area not too far from where I live and he has a real battle getting labour, consequently apart from a couple of permanent mainstays the workforce is mainly backpackers with very limited experience, requiring fairly constant training and supervision. So, not a bad job for an old fella, challenging, especially with the language barrier but very rewarding watching young people from all over the world that actually want to work starting from scratch and turning into competent operators. Being part of their interactions, the sharing of cultures, foods and languages as they all live on farm was a very enjoyable part of the harvest just finished.
The upside of this job being more weekends off even through harvest due to rain events meaning plenty of hunting and plenty of time to put into the young bailers. After starting pretty much from scratch, countless hours and many miles on the hill, the normal challenges and frustrations that go with starting young dogs have eventually paid off. Young Fatty has turned into a good little finder with a heap of hunt,never at my feet. Young Bro that I got as a pup is also pretty good at finding a pig now, he doesn’t cover as much ground as Fatty but if there’s a bit of sign around he usually goes all the way.
The oldest of the three Zipper while not much of a finder is a handy back up, experience and a savage backend bite. Both Zipper and Fatty are softer no pressure bailers while young Bro is a little bit harder. So I now have young team that are fully capable of finding, stopping and holding a bail and as an older fella I can fully appreciate being able to wander along to the bail in my own time and let the little 44 do the hard work.
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One really good hunt a few months ago resulted in a good boar that had been doing a regular circuit between three little bush dams but had proved to be very hard to find. This day was very ordinary, overcast with a bitterly cold east wind blowing and I’d spent a couple of hours on a big face between two of the little dams to no avail. Try another face still nothing no sign and no real interest from the dogs. Fatty was still poking about as he does but he wasn’t going far. By this stage it was around midday and still freezing so I headed up over the ridge, down the next face about 50 yards until I got some relief from the wind, then sidling round the face just low enough to keep out of the wind I started to wonder if this pig had the same idea. Fatty must have been thinking the same thing as he was out 300 ms and as I watched him on the tracker he stopped and barked, just one finding bark and then seconds later straight into a bail. It doesn’t take long for a greyhound cross and a whippet cross to cover 320 ms in reasonably open country and it wasn’t long before all three had a good steady bail going. The rest was easy, the old fella wanders up, the dogs stand back expectantly when they see the gun come up, bang, and they’re chewing on a very good boar right in his nest. By this time there was some sun shine and it was full on his bed and he was low enough below the ridge top to be out of the wind. I’d been looking in all the wrong places. He was a big bodied boar, not huge tusks but he wasn’t a real old fella either.
A couple of weeks back in the same area different farm but totally different day around 9 am and already 30 degrees, predicted maximum 42 degrees. I was at that point about to turn back and head out to the truck. Fatty and Bro were poking around about 50 ms below me while I sat in the shade contemplating a long walk back in the heat. They seemed to be very interested in something around the edge of a fallen tree, noses to the ground and darting in different directions obviously trying to pick up a scent. As I walked down to them they picked up the scent and took off. Bro being a little bit quicker than Fatty out in front. At the fallen tree there was a little bit of snuffling and the mark of a good boar. I checked the tracker and once again just as I looked,a bark, Bro first, seconds later Fatty. This fella wasn’t in his nest and was obviously wide awake because after the initial few barks, silence. Quick check on the tracker but there was no need, loud grunting followed by a steady bail by all three. His bit of a run was short lived. So once again the old fella wandered down the hill onto an open flat, this time to find about 50 Ms out, three dogs barking at the ground. I moved up slowly wondering what the hell was going on when both Zipper and Bro jumped down into a hole in the ground still barking, as I got a little bit closer the top of a pigs head appeared. A good boar too. Once again the little 44 did the job. A big heavy boar but very young,very little shield or tusks. Spent his life living on crops as many of them do in this area.
John Witham