As every hunter knows you never know what you may get up to when you load your dog’s up and this day was like no other for me and my team of two dogs.
It was an overcast wet southland day and a plan was made so we set off about lunch time to a doc block that I don’t normally use due to so much deer about but this day was different. Once I was in the block and working the area I got through the largest mud hole on the trip to locate the dogs up the road in front of the truck about 100m, I parked up noticed what looked to be fresh digging.
I called my two boys Bear and Clyde back and got them on the sign to work it. It doesn’t take long for them to pick up a scent and off they go, tracking out further and I watch them zig zag round and round until they eventually stop 400m away. “Mmmhmm”. No noise, no bark and no sequel. I’m assuming it’s a little one and they are eating it or playing with it so I’m in no rush to get there. I take my time mucking around as I go until I get within 30 meters of my boys to
hear Clyde thrashing around and when he sees me he starts yodelling in joy that back up had arrived. The pig started blowing, “holy molly” they’re holding the big one, a 186-pound monster. I get in and sort him then start checking over my boys but they were sweet as, no holes and a nice clean healthy animal for the freezer.
It took me 2 and a half hours to drag this boar by myself 400m to the truck and I saw stuffed but what a wicked day. I am very blessed to have the knowledge and training to be able to provide off the land to have my dogs by my side to find and stop good pigs. I have had these boys since pups, Bear is coming up 16 and Clyde is coming up 6.
A few months later my team and I headed off on a club hunt in mountain tussock country and “NEC minit” we’ve got big pigs running everywhere. With me is my father (74), my partner (30) a good mate (65) and another good mate (30ish).
We managed to get onto a big pig this day which ended up being 200.5-pound monster. He was my first 200-pounder ever and when we weighed him, all I kept thinking was crap, crap, I gotta get a haircut now as I made a promise to them all that if it was a 200-pounder I’d get it cut. I love my hair lol but there you go another 2-dog hog hold. This time our girl Bella just over 2 years old and Rock, a male holder about 5, all by themselves until I got there and sorted the boar out. On inspection of the dogs, Bella only had 4 minor holes thankfully. Thankfully there was a river only 50 meters away which made life a bit easy as we had to drag the boar down the river 600 meters to get within 100 meters to our truck.
Blessed to be in Southland with all those people and our club that has made it possible for
Southland wild man to be out there doing it.
Shane Wilson