A couple of months back I had a hunt that had me reflecting on how far the little bailing team had progressed. When I think back a couple of years ago when I pretty much started from scratch it’s hard not to appreciate how far they’ve come. The country I hunt has been through a very dry spell, probably up there with the driest I’ve seen. The little bush dams have dried up as well as the feed making the hunting a little bit harder than normal.
The pigs seem to mob up and travel bigger distances than normal from any food and water source to where they live, the hard dry ground holds very little scent for the dogs and any sign is very hard to decipher. Any available sign can look fresh even when it’s a week or two old, the dogs reactions to it being the only indication of the freshness or otherwise.
This particular hunt was on a property that was feeding cattle, grain and hay and had trough water. An obvious attraction to the local pig population. A beaten track onto a bush face showed their comings and goings giving me a pretty good idea of where they might be living, a short drive around the end of the face and I found what I was looking for, they’d come off the face and onto one of four spurs that run from the main ridge, dogs out and a walk on that spur had the dogs continually hunting but coming up with nothing, very frustrating for me and the dogs as there was plenty of sign.
Move on to the next spur, same result, heaps of sign, dogs non stop hunting, nothing. Same result on the next spur. Time was around midday by the time I sidled round the main ridge onto the last spur, the dogs were working above me and I watched as Fatty and Bro nosed around a long dried up little waterway and disappeared out onto the last spur, I wasn’t holding out too much hope but they did seem a bit keener than earlier. A quick look where they’d gone from showed a little bit of digging that to me didn’t look much different than anything else I’d travelled through.
Checking the tracker I found them out at 600 ms and at 740 they barked, finally, sporadic barking not a steady bail telling me they found the mob. By the time I’d got to 350 Zipper was with them the noise of the mob had stopped and all three had a steady bail going. I arrived to find they had two boars bailed one young one and a really good one in some thick whippy pine. It was a bit of a battle trying to get close enough for a clear shot in that stuff and the younger pig broke downhill while I was trying, it was a little bit disappointing to watch the the three dogs go after him and leave the big fella standing there, he took a couple of steps towards me decided better of it and bolted. Unless a pig actually has a go at me I don’t shoot them, only when bailed, he’ll keep and funnily enough I did run into him a week later.
Meanwhile the dogs had the young one bailed about 30ms away and the little 44 took care of him. So the big one got away, we did have a look for him but he was long gone, while missing him was disappointing I couldn’t help but admire the way they hunted non stop for close on 6 hrs and plucked a couple of good boars out of a mob.
I kept thinking about that bigger one and the following week I went back to have a look for him. This time at first light I started walking from where the cattle were being feed, 5 minutes from the truck the dogs noses went up and they headed uphill obviously on a mission. Sure enough they hit the same mob and there standing front and centre was the big fella from last week, his big mistake this time round was leaving the mob and walking towards me. He didn’t look like backing of this time round either but isolating himself from the mob gave Bro the chance to get in behind him and do what Bro does. He hit him hard on the back end and spun him round giving Zipper a chance to dish out a bit of the same treatment. The rest of the mob had moved on and the big fella settled into the bail leaving me to play my part. Job done and a closer inspection showed he was definitely the pig from last week, the very distinctive grey patches on his head gave him away.
John Witham
