Snow’s first poke

 

Snow is now almost eleven months old so is getting out on the hill to do a bit of hunting. I had a couple of spare days to get out on the hill for a hunt and on the first day my son Sloan came out for a hunt with me. There was also another reason for this hunt is the local pig hunting club that I am a member of has only got until the end of this year to run for our competition and at present I was in third for the total weight of my six biggest boars so I wanted to give this my best shot. First place was Glen Ralston with 813.7 pounds and in second place was Caleb Mathews with 747.1 pounds then myself in third place with 738.9 pounds.

Sloan’s dog Mack and Fog worked a gully for about thirty minutes at one point when they were down in the gully we heard some panting coming though the scrub towards us that was not one of our dogs when Jeff came trotting out of the scrub, this little bugger had obviously chewed his way out of his kennel and tracked over 7km to find us so we were stuck with another dog for the day. Fog and Mack finally came back to us.

At this point Lightning tracked away down through the bottom of the gully then headed around into the main gully at the bottom. I sent Sloan after Lightning while I tracked 1km back up the gully to the bike then rode 4km around to pick Sloan up. Lightning was still 2 km further away around in another gully. We rode around to the gully that Lightning was in and started walking up the track as we watched Lightning track back down to the bike. I got the other dogs up to where I thought the pig might have gone but they did not track away so we walked back to the bike.

No sooner had we started riding the bike that Fog started tracking off and was running parallel to the track that we were on. About 1km along he had stopped and when we turned the bike off we could hear him bailing away. At this point we had Jeff and Snow in the dog box on the back of the bike but did not let them out as we had enough dogs on this boar. With Fog, Lightning, Mack and Thunder on this 118 pound boar he was never going to get away so once he was stuck we only had to drag him 50 meters to the track. I was stoked it looked like I was going to be in second place until I looked on the computer and Caleb had caught a 125 pond boar so was still in front of me so it was back out hunting again tomorrow.

Next day I was out on my own and it was again Fog that put up a nice bail on the opposite face, next to arrive was Thunder then both Lightning and Snow together. All four dogs bailed for about a minute before they put too much pressure on and the boar broke. I was standing in the perfect place with the camera and got to film the boar as he broke down into the gully where the four dogs bailed again. I could see Snow getting too keen as the boar was trying to throw him back.

This is where he got two small pokes under his chin. I walked in to the creek and stuck this young 109 pound boar. The carry was about 800 meters down to the bike and I thought this boar was a bit lighter as I walked all the way out without having to put him down once. Back on the computer and I see that Caleb had again tipped me at the post with a 133 pound boar. A couple of days left before the end of the year so I will have to try and get out again but if I don’t get another decent boar then Glen and Caleb deserve the prize for the combined weight of their top six boars. Caleb is only 6.7 pounds below Glen now so the pressure is on.

When I got the dogs home after this hunt they were absolutely shattered and I tried to get them to go off for another look but they did not want to go. However a couple of hours later the dogs were sitting at their kennels when my outside pigs came walking on in. There were two sows’ two boars and six piglets and because the dogs were so buggered they all bailed well and did not harm any pigs. I managed to get some good footage on my camera from being between the pigs and dogs so you get to see both angels from the pigs and the dog’s perspective.