I'm just back from a night time run with local bloke Luke. Young family man, late twenties, with a couple of very handy dogs. And it's a case of one good boar in the chiller and a lesson from a better one.
We were hunting some of Luke's country in the hills on which the landholder has set up grain feeders for his cattle and sheep to put on a bit of extra weight for sale. The livestock love the feeders and so do the pigs. They have been travelling about 3kms to and from the their spot in the steep, thick scrub to the feeders on some of the cleared hills. Nothing on first pass but as we moved a bit further into the the property we thought we spotted a boar on another ridge. We had the spotlight on him a long way away but it moved like a boar so we started to negotiate the slopes in the Landcruiser to get ourselves closer. Luke's dogs Saus (as in sausage...I don't know why, that's just his name), and Animal jumped and ran straight at some calves in the dark. Straight to the calves, straight past the calves and up into the steep stuff. Now a tool like the Garmin Astro GPS dog tracking system is not authorised for use in Australia so we wouldn't have gear like that...but if we did it would have told us the dogs were 356 metres aaway to the NNE and stopped on a pig. We drove as close as possible to where the dogs had the boar and it was a top fight. Fat from the stolen grain and full of enthusiasm, the boar open Animal up in a couple of places. Luke climbed to him and grabbed the boar's backleg just as the boar put on a big downhill surge. Luke was pulled off balance and ended up under the boar. He didn't muck about and pushed himself out to the side with the dogs stepping on him to keep control of the pig. Back on his feet he called to me to help him roll the boar in the rough terrain. I came in from the side and grabbed a front leg and tipped the boar while Luke held the back legs. I had never worked with Luke's dogs before but Luke is no idiot so I knew the dogs were hard. They held well while I was within a couple of inches of the pig's teeth. Rolled, the boar looked a lot bigger than I'd first thought. Luke stuck him and it was done.
My dog Bob arrived late on the scene and we took all the dogs to a dam for a drink where we dressed the boar for export and watered the dogs.
While Luke's dogs drank, Bob drifted off up the slope. Again if we had the technology you aren't allowed to have, it would have shown Bob reaching out to about 200 metres out and still going. I started to climb. My dog, my job. The right equipment would have shown Bob hit a pig at 952 metres from the dam, up in some steep thick stuff. It was a horrible climb for an old bloke. Very thick in places (I just pulled two splinters out of my eyebrow). Bob was on the pig and was still (an estimated) 419 metres away. I pressed on climbing with Bob still on the boar, closing the gap and counting down the metres until I got within 73 metres. The boar broke and was stopped again a little further on. And again out 1.2kms now from the dam all uphill and most of it thick and ugly going. I got the gap down to 16 metres and saw the boar's back end. Bob was attached to the front end and this was a proper big boar. I mean a genuinely big pig. The weather was hot too and Bob was suffering. The boar broke from Bob again and it was over, the black dog was exhausted, had taken a belting and couldn't foot the big fella. I felt I'd failed the dog because he'd done everything he had to and I was too old and slow to get there fast enough. Very hard to take. Bob was very hot so I sat with him for about five minutes before turning back to climb down to the truck and Luke who was unclear on where I was...
About 40 minutes later I walked out to meet him with the news that I'd failed. He was philosophical and we got Bob down to water and a cool down. At the dam there was a super fresh wallow and some cracking big footprints. The boar had been on the dam when we hit his smaller mate.
That was the scent Bob picked up.
Sometimes that's the way it goes. Boars fight back and sometimes they escape, sometimes they kill a dog and sometimes they rip up a hunter so things could have been a lot worse.
We picked up two more pigs for the night after that, one was too small for export and the other dressed 33kgs. The first boar dressed 73kgs.
The big one I miss made him look like a pup.
Luke and the 73 caught by Saus and Animal.
Luke dressing the boar.
The boar at the chiller. Dressed 73 kgs...the heart lungs, liver and kidneys are left attached for vet inspection in the processing plant.
Saus and Animal. Good working pig dogs.
