Talking to Pedro, again!


I hadn’t been out hunting with my good neighbour Pedro (or Pete) for a while. Now Pedro is an old shearer and as far as I'm concerned a bit of a legend, he’s been collecting the pension for more years than it costs me in dollars for a haircut! and has been hunting pigs in years, for longer than it takes in minutes for a cocky to get his wallet out, open it, and pay you everything he owns you. 

One memorable hunt with Pedro you might remember here, he didn’t even turn up, (I have that pig mounted above the dinning room table) but hey like I can talk, Mr No show himself, enough about me, back to Pedro, he said to me when he got to the Pig (not that long after me) that he’d been thinking on the way up “I’m getting to old for this” and I said "hell there's no way I will be doing this when I’m your age mate, I'll be long dead", but hey I bet the next morning he was feeling like me, ten years younger, with that feeling that only a Pig hunter knows, and so he will be back out on the hill again, chasing the feeling few will ever experience after stopping a good Boar.

We had been watching Joseph Parker fight the night before and I’d asked Pedro if he was keen to go for a walk the next morning, around midnight when the boxing had finally finished I was thinking of calling the hunt off, but then said lets meet at 7.30 instead of 7 Ah! 7.30 Not cutting so much into my beauty sleep, and I need it believe me. 

Pedro took his bike and I arrived by boat, and we set off around the traps (or some likely pig spots for those not up with the slang), where we hoped to find a pig, or sign of one that had been poking around during the night. We walked and walked, not a nosing, mark, or even a half old pig shit to pick up, sniff and admire.

After a couple of hours checking the traps we decided or I decided that we should climb up and check out a couple of wallows, wallows that only me and Pedro know about, (or so we think) my back was killing me on the way up and Pedro like the furgie tractor he is said nothing, he just keep climbing, up we went through the regen, Manuka, Mahoe, Five finger, Karamu and Darwins Barberry! God knows how that got here or maybe he doesn’t. Me I'm thinking if I can just walk through this back pain, but failing that the pain killers will be out.
We arrived at the first Wallow, not a mark or any muddy water in sight, if it had have been high summer I might have thought about a dip, the place looked that unspoiled and pristine, we walked on towards the second wallow “last change saloon” as they say, I noticed some mud on some suppleJack along the way, and I thought, “maybe there is still one pig left in the valley?”. Not long after this Lu disappeared, she goes know-where unless there's something about these days.
I watched her on the tracker heading straight to the second wallow and start climbing out, and climbing, and climbing, 300m now and I sent Udit her niece away after her, we walked on, looking at the tracker I could see Lu had slowed up and Udit was almost there, then I said to Pedro "was that a bark?" Me and Pedro are as deaf as a couple of fence posts, but clearly that sounded like a bark, and we all know that bark, they had found a pig, thinking they might go over the ridge into somewhere I didn’t want to go today, I let the holder Puk go and Pedro let his new bitch Sue go, off we went, the dogs 450m straight up, and I’m not talking rolling hills, oh no I mean the type you roll the pigs down brothers.

We climbed the dogs coming down a little now but on a ridge, WTF no shittly gully, a ridge? They had now gone by me off to the left so I sidled around onto a rocky beach ridge and into the scrap and a scrap it was, the dogs weren’t having it all there own way, the Boar was tossing them off whenever they had him held, or just moving down hill, stumbling, sliding and brushing dogs off before finding his feet again, I loaded the gun, but no chance of a shot, the holder Puk keep going in and she was getting a hiding, I couldn’t get a clear shot and wasn’t keen on jumping the pig on this rocky steep ridge, but thought it might come to that if I didn’t get a shot soon, I had Kai my new pup with me and she decides to dash in and put her paws up on the side of the boar, lucky for her the pig showed little interest and moved forward enough for me to fire. Boom! the boar just stood, it wasn’t a great shot. Boom! heart lung shot this time and down he went. 
Now I spent some time checking the dogs over, nothing life threatening. Pedro showed up with an Irish smile, and we soon set about rolling the boar down to the wallow and dragging him out.  
Puk is still sleeping by the fire, but she's not to dinged up, Lu took a tusk in the chest which will drain and heal ok, the others were fine. Boar went 122lb 

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