Blue Boar

The Shortest Day Pig Hunt.

It started Friday morning and the build-up hadn't been great, dog trouble? Oh no! They have been on a roll, three Boars in a row since Ming passing on. No, I'd slipped up big time, managing to sink the Material Girl (my yacht) Wednesday night, she was on the bottom still hooked on the mooring out front, but below the water.

My attitude to her sinking has surprised a few friends, I haven't been upset really, to be honest I was more upset about Ming dying, I've been a risk taker all my life and if your gonna take risks you're gonna lose from time to time, and she was only a boat for Christ's sake and I sunk her with my own stupidity, whats done is done, crying about it won't change a thing, time to move on now, she will be on Trademe with a $1 reserve in a week. She has been a lot of fun all the same. Hey and when some-one tells you your boat will cost you 15% of her value every year, don't laugh! But still cheaper than a breeding female Brothers, plus now I'm done with her I can sell her, your still stuck with yours, or at-least the devils spawn you've produced!

“Thing about boats is, you can always sell them if you don't like them. Can't sell kids.”

The weather was no good to re-float the Boat ('B'ring 'O'ut 'A'nother 'T'housand) Thursday, and Friday looked worse weather wise, plus it coincided with the first day of the Starborough Tavren Shortest day Pig hunt, I explained to Gary Kenny (who was all prepared to bring his barge out to re-float her) about Friday, so I said, lets try re-floating her Monday, priorities, he said.

I'd laid awake half the night as the rain lashed the house, it was like someone was outside throwing buckets of water on the window. I peeked out the window at day break to 40 knots NW with driving rain, but know-one with a bucket, the cook forecast said increasing to 50 knots in the afternoon, "yay" I thought, I went back to bed with coffee and toast to read for a while, crawling out about 8.30, deciding to get out after Mr Boar.

The Dogs, Bitches, Girls seemed half surprised when I left their collars attached to their chains, it being so late in all, but they soon got very excited because they'd worked out we were going hunting. 

Soon we were in the boat banging along to our spot for today, tying the boat up wasn't easy due to the wind and rain, but we soon were off up the hill, the wet ground was sopping, I fell on all fours at one stage wondering why I hadn't just stayed in bed, up we went into an area that sometimes holds a boar, today all it was holding was deer.

Quite high up now, we started to sidle around the hill under the Manuka, Fivefinger and Mahoe, Pig sign was non-existent, being washed out due to the heavy rain last night, we plugged on, the weather not as dirty as I'd expected, the rain horizontal sure, with plenty of wind, from all directions but it wasn't to bad, after scrambling around onto the next ridge the dogs had started to look half interested, with Lu soon vanishing, I had her on the tracker 150m out, I let Jude go, I watched her soon catch up with Lu, they had now stopped in a creek 200m out, so me and Puk set sail after them, I heard the odd bark on the wind, 100m out and the barking was clearer now, so I let puk go before she pulled my arm off, I arrived to see the dogs getting washed down a raging creek with a feisty boar fighting for his life, I reached in putting the .357 on his spine and pulled the trigger, without even getting my feet wet.

Soon I had the boar gutted, he looked about 90/100lb so a good average-weight pig to weigh-in (normally the top prize at a Pig hunting comp is for the pig thats the average weight, of all the pigs weighed in), but not the winner, I'd tied the dogs up to some supple-jack, because they were looking keen to take off after the rest of the inevitable mob that is often close by.
Keeping the dogs close, I dragged him out of the creek and down to an old fence for pickup later. We soon started climbing back up and around the face, to check out another spot I'd thought might be worth a look, going home had crossed my mind, but the dogs weren't to dinged up, Puk had a poke in her shoulder and would stiffen up tomorrow, but apart from that nothing serious, I was out here now so why not carry on, I thought. Half an hour later we were standing in some short Manuka on a face I'd always loved hunting, this spot just felt like boar country, I'd even found a few here over the years, stopping a couple of them, the wind was vicious now, trashing the trees about at times, other times dead still, the rain had eased, you could hear the roar of the next gust coming across the treetops, we walked about amongst the short Manuka, the Girls not showing a lot of interest, I decided to sit down and have a drink and snack, after changing into some dry cloths.

Feeling revived we walked up through the Manuka a little more, I'm almost ready to head home when Jude, then Lu took off up the hill with their noses in the air, then a deep Bark, just one Bark, down in the creek. Me and Puk set off after them, around and down into the creek, scrambling up the slippery slope on the other side, into the big native, over and through the supple-jack and Ongaogna, then around the face we went past the spot Ming had got ripped up by the nasty boar in the story called Ming, I had now lost them off the tracker 200 m away, on we stormed, looking at the pigs mark it was a fair sized animal, soon I had Lu and Jude back on the tracker about 250m away, it looked like they'd stopped in the next creek, we were flying now, easy country now on a sweet animal trail, soon we could hear Lu&Jude bailing hard, 70 m out I let Puk go and was soon looking for a place to get down into the steep sided creek, this creek was quite swollen for it's size as you can see by the pic below, I could now see Puk&Lu holding a good Boar in the middle of it, Jude barking from the rocks, I scrambled down into the fight, Lu on the boars ear laid back against the pig and Puk on the front hock , the boar not moving that well as he was half submerged, they let him go for a second giving me a clean shot down through his back into the heart lung area, the creek soon turning red, You beauties I yelled to the dogs, praising the Girls while checking them for rips, nothing serious, Lu had a couple of pokes in the shoulder, Puk one more skin rip under the chin to add to the one in the shoulder, they would live, dragging the Boar out of the water I noticed his color, it was almost Blue, our first Blue Boar.

The Blue Boar with Lu looking on.

Now what, as you can see dragging him down the creek wasn't an option, but I'd been in this area before, so new my way around. After gutting the boar, I had a hell of a time dragging him out of the steep sided creek, but once on the ridge it wasn't bad going, at-least till we hit the flat, it was around 3pm by this stage and I was had it, I marked the spot for pickup tomorrow and we headed for home and a good feed for the dogs and a few reds for me.

The next day my good hunting mate and neighbour Pedro and I retrieved the two boars.

 Pedro with the two boars after we dragged them out of the bush.

Starborough tavern weigh-in Sunday. 

A Female hunter with the winning Boar at 145 lb, my Boar 5th at 121 lb, but no prize for 5th.

Thanks to Richard Todd the publican and everyone else involved in organising this fine event, see you next year.