Brother to all, best mates with everyone, a boar slayer forever.
Every Friday I would get a text from Caleb, “bro book me a seat for Saturday… Saturdays are for the boooaars”.Most Saturdays we would go out for a hunt, and for some tin ass reason either because the dogs are on fire, the blocks we choose to hunt are cream or he was just a lucky fulla, we would almost always get a boar most Saturdays.
Every hunt was a laugh, he was always keen to walk the dogs that little bit further to get them on to pigs. Whether it was down a steep fire break or just bush bashing through thick gorse, he was keen.
Carrying came natural to Caleb, he could flip them onto his back while still standing and charge off back to the truck effortlessly. Every boar we got I would say, “oh you might as well carry it first since I beat you here”. He would give me a smile and the look that he knew he was going to be carrying it the whole way back (because he was).
Caleb and I started getting serious about pig hunting 4 years ago. We went halves in dogs, collars, everything else we needed to get into it on our own and learned what not to do pretty quickly.
One of the funniest memories I have with Caleb was one morning we went for a hunt up a spot where we had been catching a few pigs. Still learning the ropes, I must add. We had been bonnet hunting all morning and had only caught little ones, until the old dog we were running suddenly jumped off by himself and took off down a gully. 800m away the GPS reads out “Treed”. We couldn’t hear any barking from the road where we were standing so we started making our way down, the second dog made it down to where he was and once we got closer we could hear them both bailing! We got down there to the bail and they had a young boar on the edge of the pine block in a farmer’s paddock, the boar was backed up in a small patch of gorse with both dogs bailing up a storm.
Fortunately for him we were without a gun, so we tried to send the dogs in to grab a hold of Mr pig but they weren’t having a bar of it and were quite happy just to stand off and bail. 5 minutes or so went by when I get a tap on my shoulder, I turned around to see Caleb standing there with a big rock in his hands and the biggest grin I’ve seen on his face. We thought it would be a good idea to try to knock the pig out! I took the rock from Caleb and got closer to get into a position to get a better shot, but when I threw it I missed his head and hit him in the neck. This startled the boar which quickly backed up into the gorse a bit more and let out a deep growl, then all of a sudden, he came charging out and bee-lined it straight for me! I’ve never ran so fast in my life! I took off around the patch of gorse with the boar in tow chasing me round and round. Caleb was in hysterics laughing his head off in the background, the dogs decided to jump in and grab it finally.
We both jumped in and finished the job off nicely, with smiles from ear to ear we were stoked! Cheering and laughing about it all the whole way back up the hill to the truck. Hunts such as that taught me a lot and I will never forget them and the lessons I had learned.
Caleb Neho was from the Far North and came from a huge whanau of wicked pig hunters. He moved down here to Nelson when we were both still in school and we’ve been mates every day since. If you were ever looking for someone to go hunting with, whether it was pissing down with rain, a hot summer’s day, the middle of the night or a solid 18-hour full day hunt. He was your man, always keen to go bush.
Caleb recently passed away after a motorbike accident on the 3rd of November 2019, aged 25. Gone way too young and with so much life left to live. He will be sorely missed and never forgotten.
Brother to all, best mates with everyone, a boar slayer forever.
Tyler Beattie