Cabin Fever

I spent most of yesterday in the hut as it rained all day. I suppose we needed the rain and by this morning the rain gauge had 43 mils in it. At 9 am the rain had eased so I got the dogs ready and headed out for a hunt. I decided to take the three pig dogs and leave Jeff in the kennel. Three km from home there was a tree across the track so I stopped the bike to tie a rope around. while doing this I heard a dog puffing up the track towards me and around the corner appeared Jeff the rabbit possum dog as he must have broken out of his kennel.

I don’t normally like hunting with this many dogs as they can get in each others way and get hurt, but now I had no choice. At the top of a large gully Lightning and Fog went for a look. While I was waiting on them I spotted a black pig on the far side of the gully that did not know that we were there. Or at least until Lightning gave a bark. The pig that he was on broke straight away with him following around the gully and into the next one where he started bailing. Fog at this stage was following the action but Breeze and Jeff where back up with me so we headed for the four wheeler with the intention of riding a bit closer. As I was riding down the hill the pig must have broken again around the face above the road. I managed to ride around the road so that I was only fifty meters below were the dogs where bailing. I left the bike and climbed the steep face above the road and went around the bail so that I was approaching from above. This boar was facing straight down hill and not giving me a very good opportunity for a shot. I had to wait for about thirty seconds before he started to turn side on, so as soon as I saw my chance I shot him in the side of the face. The shot was a wee bit forward from were I would have preferred to hit him but he was now heading in the right direction, to the road.

The boar was backed right up to the drop off down to the road facing up hill towards the dogs but they were putting to much pressure on him and he fell backwards down onto the road landing hard and braking one of his back legs. the dogs managed to get down safe and make sure that he was not going to go any further. I love those easy pigs as I did not have to carry this boar at all,considering that if the dogs had got him where they put him up I would have had to carry him at least one km out of that gully.