I was once again invited up to the North Island to help with judging this competition. Landing in Wellington on Friday the 19th of October I had a number to call for Will and right on que he was waiting outside of the terminal in his Hilux with a dog box on the back ready to go hunting. Will had a side by side four wheeler which took us 11 km into the bush where we went for a walk but no luck on the pigs as they were not around. That afternoon I was dropped off at Charlotte and Keil Collins who were great hosts and next morning I was picked up by the president of their club Joel Peterson and taken out for another hunt into an area that Joel had lost two of his dogs thirteen days earlier. As soon as we got to the bush one of the dogs we had tracked off and just kept going so we kept following until the second dog tracked off after the first one. All the time we were expecting a bark as we kept on walking. Finally both dogs returned to us just proving how cunning these pigs are to catch. After we arrived back to Joel’s house he got a phone call from a tramper who had found one of his dogs in a step gully in Penn creek off the side of the Otaki River. When the tramper found this dog it was staying with the tracking collar and rip collar off the other dog so Joel got back one dog and both his tracking collars minus the other dog. Next morning of the competition Joel was back on the hill trying to find his other dog still with no luck.
With this competition last year I got to see how well these club members get on with each other and it was no different this year with a good turnout of club members helping out and once again they had so many prizes with all of the people entered taking home a prize with a big focus on the children section which I love seeing those big smiles on those kids faces..
The highlight of these comps are always seeing those boars rocking on up to the scales and this comp had a real ripper of a boar turn up weighing in at 239 pounds, caught by Gerry Veneberg and Ethan Oliver. Gerry has been hunting for many years and has a reputation as being a very good pig hunter and talking to a lot of the club members they talked very highly of him so it was well deserved getting such a good boar on the right weekend. Weighing this boar took a bit of lifting and when Epiha Johnson carried it across on his own to lower it on the hook the weight just straightened the hook out so we couldn’t even hang it up so the vice president of the club James Wineti went home and grabbed a 44 gallon drum to sit it on which made a good photo.
That night a lot of the club members went around to James’s place for a BBQ and a few beers to give me a good send off. Thanks to Riana du Plessis for being the sober driver and to Shane Demenech for dropping me off at the wellington airport on the Monday morning for the trip back home.
Thank you again Lower North Island Pig Hunting Club for arranging such a good trip away.
Results
1st 239 pounds Gerry Veneberg & Ethan Oliver
2nd 152.8 pounds Slade Hay-Horton
3rd 134 pounds Anton Williams
4th 133 pounds Ethan Reti
5th 129.2 pounds Cameron Hayes
6th 120.4 pounds Jamie Hinds
Best tusks
19 5/8 Gerry Veneberg & Ethan Oliver
Average weight
111.8 pounds Cameron Hayes