The making of this hunt goes back 5 weeks, it was at this time that Tig got 3 pokes in him from a 125 pound boar.
I need to explain a wee bit about Tig, he is a dog that loves to make a pig run which was losing me a few Pigs. Without him on the hill Rastus and Bro have been catching a pig almost every time I take them out for a hunt. The other thing with Tig is I have been training him up to catch possums, now I know most pig hunters would be devastated if one of their dogs was catching possums. It was one of my old dogs Jeff that taught me the importance of having a good possum dog when you live in the country. One of Tigs best days on the possums was about 30 and as a bonus he caught a 75 pound boar. One of the other big advantages of having one specialist possum dog the other dogs can be trained that they are not allowed to participate in the catching of the possum.
Another big factor in the hunt that I’m about to write about happened one week prior when I had a couple of guys out for a hunt. On this hunt I shot a nice eating pig at the bail that we got to see the dogs pull up on the opposite face to us. While Shane was carrying this pig out Michael spotted 2 wallabies about 80 meters away and asked if he could have a shoot with 44. When I shot the pig I was looking at the red dot but when Michael was looking at the wallabies the red dot was not working. Two days later I took the red dot scope back to the gun shop that I recently bought it from, so they have sent it back to get fixed. Which means until I get the red dot scope back the gun has no sights.
Rastus and Bro bailing the pig the day the red dot stopped working.
Now 4 days before this hunt I was coming home and I spotted some pig rooting on the side of the road. I wanted to go out the next morning but Janice convinced me that I would be mad to go out for a hunt as I had 3 night shifts in a milk tanker ahead of me. First night shift I drove over 500 km and was away from home for about 13 hours, second night I drove over 600 km and on my way home at 6am I spotted a wee bit more pig rooting not far away from the original rooting I had seen. Last night shift saw me getting home at 5.30am and what I thought was a perfect time for a hunt.
Luckily my new GPS collars had arrived from Dog master as I only had 2 collars for a couple of weeks. I always go to Dog master for my tracking gear. Their service is always good and they have a few extra things on the collars like a stainless steel flexiband that has fixed a problem that the collars used to get and they shrink Wrap the collars which helps them last better. So with Tig, Rastus and Bro all collared up I parked up about 300 meters from where I had seen the pig rooting. Less than a 100 meters from the truck and Tig grabs me a possum. While I was plucking this a noticed Rastus and Bro tracking up along the road. Tig was quick to take off after the other dogs. A couple of minutes after the dogs had left me I heard what I thought was Tig coming back so I was caught a bit unawares as a nice black boar ran right past me. Looking at the GPS I could see Tig coming down fast with Rastus and Bro tracking away after something else. Tig was about 20 seconds behind the boar when he came past me flat out. He tracked around through the next gully and then up the hill 500 meters before starting to come back down. This time I was ready as the boar was trying to chase Tig but Tig had played this game before and kept running around the boar. I managed to keep the camera on him as he closed in to about 15 meters from me still trying to chase Tig when I looked down the side of the 44 that had no sights on it and I took a shot. I saw my shot go just over this boar as he quickly changed his focus onto me. Luckily for me there was a gate between us which gave me time to open the gun remove the spent cartridge and reload a new bullet while the boar was trying to work out how he was going to get around the gate to get me. For the second shot I only had to lean over the fence with the barrel almost touching the boar and pull the trigger. Once I had bleed the boar and giving Tig a pat for his good effort I checked the Alpha 200 to see that both Rastus and Bro where bailing 1.2km away up and around the hill. I quickly gutted this boar to leave where it was because the gate I had leaned over was beside the road so no carrying for this boar. By the time I was heading around the road towards the other two dogs they came off their pig and came back so I was happy to pick the boar up and head home for a well deserved drink. He weighed 117 pounds.
117 pound boar at home