Dangerous Age
Summer is long gone and the fires been going for a few weeks now. Every winter it gets harder to drag my sad ass out of the nice warm bed to hunt the Pigs, although the beds not as warm as it was, the girlfriend took off a while ago “curiosity killed the cat” it seems, if you look hard enough you can find fault in anything, but then I’d suggest one of the bonuses of getting old is you short sight begins to fade, everything close up becomes a little blurry and looks great. Years ago my mother said, "if you keep doing that you'll go blind" and I said "mum can I just keep doing it till I need glasses" One draw back of the eye sight going is looking down open sights, but then it never worried Daniel Boone did it, (or me because I knocked my sights off some time ago). Most of you young whipper snappers wouldn’t have heard of Daniel Boone, born 1734 died 1820, about as old as I felt this morning.
Thinking back to last winter there had been a boar that had given me the slip a couple of times late last winter, I’d thought he might be a good place to start today, I assumed he was a boar, like us unfortunates the boar never learns his lessons and just keep returning to the same old place! Kai had found him on our first attempt a few weeks before, he blew her off across the beach at the head of the bay, Kai can find but hasn’t the teeth or cunning to stop a boar over 100lb, we had been walking up to him from below till now, maybe we needed a cunning plan.
So this morning we took the long way around, no short cuts today, we would be dropping in on him from the big native above his favourite wallow. Jet was at Kai’s shoulder 150m away as they headed into some regenerating farm land around and below us, I watched them on the tracker hoping he was home, Jet is my new 2 years old hard dog, my old mate Pork Chop always said if they (pig dogs) live past two years they tend to live on, she’s beat up laying by the fire as I write this, more about that later. A bark! Reg who had been close by took off, they were heading down and around the face towards the near by wallow this pig seemed to frequent , I took off as well into the regenerating bush, Manuka, Punga, Mahoe, kamahi, mainly, clear underneath, the deer had kindly cleaned it out, I’m still pretty quick on the down hill these days, especially in my Lastrite Boots. (a quick plug there for Neville at Lastrite footwear, made in NZ) The bitches were heading for the beach again, but the Black Dog was with Kai this time, I could see on the tracker they all had stopped right on the track, I’m thinking, easy carry, as I stumbled, slipped and then tumbled down around the face, have to stop looking at that screen, soon I burst out onto the track hoping there wasn’t a group of vegan tourists looking on taking photos, the dogs were 10 m below the walking track holding something, no squealing tho, I could see the girls walking a boar slowing down a wet gutter, he was blowing hard as I slipped the knife into him, he almost sighed in relief. This was no monster but the tusks were something else.
I’d been out for a hunt a couple of days ago, the dogs had grabbed a small boar which I got to quickly for the freezer, they then had a run on a bigger pig which finished up in the next valley, the pigs still running evidently, I was buggered by the time I got back to the boat.
Two days later feeling better I found myself up at 6am, the moon was still up as I looked out the window across the bay, calm cool morning by the look of it, to good to pass up, after collaring up the bitches Lu, Kai, Jet and Reg Carr we set off, them following me on the four wheeler, I hoped to run a little shit out of them early on in the hope they wouldn’t give me any latter on, after a km or so I called them onto the bike, this morning I’d planned to hunt deep into the virgin native, for the exercise more than anything, Kai had an early run on what looked like a deer, should have made her run all the way there I was thinking, I’ll catch her red handed one of these days I thought.
We keep climbing through the Red & Black beach (Crusaders country) passing the odd giant Rimu, Lu my main dog had been walking along behind me as she does, but was gone now, something was up, Reg had stayed with me looking ahead as I checked the tracker, I watched the three dogs climbing out up a big beach ridge, they then split up, Kai went Left, typical! Lu & Jet turned right, soft dog to the left, two hard dogs to the right, go figure, easy choice, right, not to mention Lu who is 9 shortly hardly ever gets it wrong, on I climbed, steep country and I was struggling a bit, I watched Lu & Jet on the tracker go through a spot I’d stumbled on years ago, a stand of around 8 huge Rimu’s on a relatively flat area about size of a rugby field on the side of a steep hill, the map makers had missed, I’d been starting to think I’d dreamed this spot up till about a year ago when I’d stumbled on it again, I’d marked it on the tracker this time, massive trees almost in a circle, on a bench, when standing here you almost expected a group of horseman or line of dwarfs to appear any moment, classic boar hangout as well.
I watched Lu & Jet drop off the bench now down towards a horrible creek that feed a waterfall, and there they stopped 400m away, the shortest root was to sidle and climb around below the bench to get to them, I scrambled around the face, Reg was with me still, 200m out her ears pricked up and she left me, she hearing her mates calling know-doubt, I was starting to think Goat, well the county was bringing me to this conclusion as I felt like one clambering around the rocks and wind-fallen beach trees, 70m out now as Kai shot past me, I heard bailed now from Kai & Reg just over the next rocky ridge, I clambered around and onto a dark scene, the dogs were fighting a large boar at the mouth of a cave/overhang, a Boars nest if ever i’ve seen one, about 4 metres wide 3 metres deep and he looked at home here, Lu, Kai and Reg were trying to hold him as Jet looked on, she looked beat or beat-up, but ready to lend a hand if needed, Lu the old battler was still giving it hell on one ear Kai & Reg on the other, I was about to slip on his back, when he quickly shook the dogs off, Lu going back fearlessly to grab an ear, the boar then throwing her over his snout trying to get his tusks home, Lu was bending and twisting away from the boars tusks, she let go, using one side of his cave for protection he stood facing the dogs again, Lu went in again for a hold, I was yelling now, “get out of it Lu!”, finally I had a clear shot, the dogs closer than I would’ve like, but I was getting worried for my dogs, Jet & Reg hadn’t meet a angry boar like this one and he was on his own ground, boom! He staggered and folded, his tusks chattering and grinding as the dogs hoed in knowing he was beat.
Jet was laying down by the entrance of the cave, I’m quickly on my knees checking her over, hoping she was just exhausted, she lifted her head, hard to see, so I dragged the boar out and kicked him over a bluff into the creek, I then gave Jet & Lu some pain killer, Lu had a deep rip in her side, Jet had got the worst of it, the dogs didn’t seem to mind as I had a good poke around in their rips nothing had entered their chest cavity, Jet was bleeding a bit from the rips under her front legs, but it looked like no major arteries had been hit, I had a quick look around the cave now, a nice dry spot on a rainy night by the look of it. Down in the creek I quickly took a couple of quick pics, cut the jaw out and boned out all the meat I could carry, Jet got up when I called her and followed us gingerly at a distance as we made for the bike a couple of Km’s away. Soon enough we were on the bike heading to the beach to wash their wounds, when we got home there was a pool of blood under Jet when i picked her up, but after getting some advise I decided to keep her and Lu by the fire overnight after starting them on antibiotics, on closer inspection it turned out Jet had six holes in her, the ones under her front legs the worst, Lu had a good rip under her chin on top of the one in her side, I checked on them a couple of times during the night, Jet’s bleeding had stopped and they both looked happy enough laying in front of the fire in the morning. I’d been dreading this day, but sometimes respect has to be earned, l hope Jet’s now past that Dangerous Age.
Cave boar laying at the bottom the bluff.
Jet by the fire.
