3pm, I’m walking into my sons school to pick him up when I get a call from my skipper, “mate, land lords just seen a big pig in her paddocks, do you wanna come try catch it with ya dogs?” My walking turned into jogging once I had got Malakai (my son) from his classroom, explaining to him on the way to the truck that there’s a pig in a paddock that we are going to go catch! 20-30minutes later we’ve got our 2 light bailing dogs in the back and we’re at the property of where this pig has just been sighted.
A quick brief on where I’m aloud and not aloud to hunt and where she’s just seen the pig and where it went etc. Malakai, my skipper Greg and I along with the 2 rats, went in search of mr Boris not knowing he was still right where she had seen him in the Manuka beside paddocks.
5 minutes from leaving the land lords house the dogs quickly got on to his scent and began chasing him through the Manuka. CRASH CRASH CRASH! I thought it might have been a stag due to how big this crashing was. A couple of minutes of running through the dry Manuka and he begins dropped down the bank onto the track for the first bail. I only got a glimpse of his head before he broke but from what I saw, I knew he was a good pig!
400 odd meters later and the dogs had him stopped again right in the corner of farmers paddocks. We all arrive to witness an awesome wee bail up and we soon realise that the pig is bigger than me and I have no bail gun. (Classic. Time for some fun!)
A couple minutes of trying to get my 2 tiny dogs to attempt to hold the boar, I managed to grab him by his tail before he got me and I was able to stick the big bugger. My Skipper had never been pig hunting before so it was a pretty good first hunt for him and he had a smile from one ear to the other! As for my son, he reckons “that was the easiest hunt ever!” We did a quick look over the dogs to find one had a small rip under her throat and the other had quite a decent one right threw her belly area so it was ACC for them for a bit.
The Land lord / farmer drove her quad and trailer down right to the pig which made for an easy carry out! Cheers Donna. Me and malakai were back at home with our boar hanging by 4pm, too easy…
Good fun!
Tyler Beattie