10am on the third of June saw the Ridgeline team, consisting of Barry Fraser, Hemi Taurima, Richard Hands, Bryce Westwood and myself, arriving at the Beaumont hotel for their annual hunting competition. This comp was for red deer, fellow deer and pigs. Our host was the owner of the hotel, Alison Mills.
This was the third year that this comp has been running and the first year that the Ridgeline team have helped out. The previous year saw Four 200 pounders weighed in so we where expecting some big pigs. The two days leading up to the weigh in had been nice clear, cool days, ideal for hunting. However the night before the weigh in it poured down with rain but cleared up by the morning. As the day went on some good animals came in but no two toners. Alison had arranged to have a small digger to lift our animals up to weigh and hang on the rails. This worked very well and saved a lot of back breaking work for the lifters. One observation that I did notice was that the deer where better prepared than the pigs. However saying that most of the pigs did have most of the offal removed with just the odd hunter slipping up. One hunter was very surprised to find that he had left both the heart and lungs inside his pig. Alison had put on a free BBQ which was well received by all who attended. The pig carrying comp had a twist to it as you first had to put a dry weetbix in your mouth before carrying the pig around the course and then at the end you had to drink a large glass of beer.
Something that most people may not know is that the Toyota add with the wild boar that was
wearing the rocket packs was filmed in this area. Not far down the road is Etrick and it was here at the local store where the driver goes in to by a hockey pokey ice cream for the monkey in the back seat. The rocket propelled boar must have eluded the hunters for this competition as no one weighed him in on the day.
The results for the comp are as follows.
Heaviest boar
1st Ben Harrex, Clint Robertson, Josh Hurring 84.9 kg
2nd Paul Eason 71.4 kg
3rd Troy Taylor and Glen Duncan 58.9 kg
Average weight
Andrew Moore, Shanna Moore and Shane Garter 48.5 kg
either side of average weight,
Above Average Brendon Hayward, Matt White and Mitchell Smith
Below Average Jermery Borthwick, Gavin Richardson and Scott Hutsel
Best tusks 16 6/8 inches
Tusks Troy Taylor and Glen Duncan
Heaviest fellow stag
Rex Lowery 61 kg
Team 8 60 kg
Troy and Glen 57.1 kg
Heaviest red stag
Team 8 100 kg
Team 1 98.8 kg
Paul Eason 97.6 kg
Combined Boar, Red and Fellow
Paul Eason 224.5 kg
Children section
Heaviest possum
1st Josh Garter 4.2 kg
2nd Keiren Wheeler
3rd Madiline Moore
Heaviest hare
1st Annabel Peters
2nd Madiline Moore
3rd Issac Garter
Heaviest rabbit
Aisha Bain 1.7 kg
Heaviest boar
Riley McPherson 33.2 kg
Josh Eason 18.1 kg