My son Bryce talked me into getting up early on Xmas morning and having a hunt. Being so early we may even get to see Santa clause. So the alarm woke me up at 3.30am. Bryce wanted to drive around with the three dogs Lightning, Fog and Dusky on the back of the truck until they got keen to look for a pig but we had arrived so early that it was still dark. I suggested to Bryce that we would be better letting the dogs out for a walk down one of the tracks for twenty minutes until it started to become light enough that we could be watching the dogs working off the back the truck. We had only just let the dogs out when they shot off the side of the track then back with a 79 pound boar right beside the truck. Our hunt was not even two minutes old and we already had us a pig.
Straight after this pig was dead the dogs took off again out to eight hundred meters but had not caught up with anything by then so I gave the dogs a buzz on their collars and they turned around and tracked straight back to us so we could carry on to where we wanted to go. As we where driving around the dogs were having a bit of a sniff on the breeze but there was nothing to get them excited about. The second place that we stopped at we were going to take the dogs for a short walk of only one hundred meters out to a vantage point so that they could have a sniff over the edge. We had not even grabbed a rifle as we were not going far. Sixty meters from the truck and there was a pig scoff and a bail only twenty meters in front of us. Bryce turned and bolted for the truck to get a gun while I walked up to the bail to film the three dogs bailing. The bail was in mature pines that were open underneath so it was hard to get to close without the boar seeing us. As Bryce was moving in for a shot he broke out and down into the shit country.
The dogs pulled him up again 120 meters down the hill in the honey suckle. Going down through this stuff can be tight but as long as you just keep on pushing you can break on though it. As we approached this bail I came in from one side while Bryce went around and above. I was just getting my camera out when Bryce shot the boar behind the ear. It was a good shot and broke its neck. With the pig gutted and his legs tied up I opted for the first carry as I had a jacket on that could soak up any excess blood that was bound to run down the carries back. While I mentioned the honey suckle was all right to push on down through it is all different going back up hill through it. The stalks are as thick as a broom stick and grow to about three meters tall and on the step faces like we were on a lot of the plant hangs down hill so as you try getting up through it the plant will be poking you so Bryce had to try and make as good a track as he could for me to climb up through.
Even though we were only 120 meters off the ridge we were about 100 meters below. In some places I was climbing rather than walking so it was sapping my energy fast. I knew that I would not be able to get it out in one carry so a gave Bryce a turn, he made it up to the ridge and I had the last carry back to the truck. This second pig weighed 117 ponds and our Xmas morning hunt was over by 9am. We did not get to see Santa but it was worth the early morning effort.