Ive just got back from 5 weeks holidays in new Zealand,
S***house luck, the gift of the gab and right place right time, meant away for a pig hunt, kiwi style, in the back blocks of Taranaki, with a farmer id just meet, he pulled up, while I was taking photos of a wild sow (pig) and her piglets.
Several days of rain, wind had blown out the rivers, stirred up the sea, so id decided to go for an explore, looking for a new pig or goat hunting spot, biffed the knife, day pack and cooper 6x45 in the SUV, and headed off in the hamming rain, Id been leaning over a fence, trying to get a photo of wild pigs, when two fellows pulled up, and the old one, asked me if I was poaching, "yea with binos and a I-phone" ,"you local" , 'Yep", "good" out with the 1-50000 grid map of the area, questions asked, answer given, land owner ship figgered out, access right-o-ways sorted, after bull****ting for 15min, a car finally came down the backcountry road, as we were blocking the road, a vehicle had to be moved,
The old farmer, said, follow us up to the farmhouse, come for a hunt, the dogs need a run, and id intending to go out this afternoon,
Hour latter, his mate had showed up, and before heading out the Farmer had decided to have a look at the cooper rifle, " nice rifle, but **** the action is noisy" why you buy something that noisy, " didn't know when I bought it"
got a suppressor? no, ok lock it in the wagon, to hard on the dogs ears, unless suppressed.
A 300 blackout, single shot was bought out, 4 dogs rounded up (hunterways, or hunterway cross dogs, breed of NZ stock dogs)
and the three of us were off, out the back of the Farm on quads, A few pigs were spotted in the distance,
and myself and Conrad, were to work our way up the creek, with three dogs with the Peter the farmer and his finder to stay on the ridge above, nothing for the first hour, and then the dogs disappeared, the sound of pig squealing and dogs barking, in the gut 300m below, the others took quads down the track to the creek, I elected to run (slipping and sliding)down the ridge, arriving at the dogs at the same time, this turned out to be a sow, in milk, so she had piglets, so after booting the dogs off, that were hanging on her ears, she was let go.
30 minutes later, we crossed over into another gully, and Peter was up ahead, I bailed of the quad, Conrad was negating a nasty little creek crossing, when the three dogs with us start spronging up in the air, trying to get a look, into the steep little creek, 15m away, then all in usion they off, wasn't 30 seconds latter the barking started,
Both myself and Conrad, raced in, trying to find the pig, and dogs in tight low scrub, 10m short we both stop and looked at each other, the boar, was chopping its jaws in anger, and the sound of tusks, being sharped, buy grinding against the top ivory, was unmistakable,
and made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up, I started to point to a old fence, a few meters above, as Conrad said, "we better go up by the post, and check it out",
Buy standing on an old post I was able to get a look over the scrub, to see the dogs onto a very big cream colour boar, think we better get the rifle,
Peters dog showed up just as we, were deciding who was to go find him with the quad, and 5 minutes later Peter was there, with the 300 Blackout,
So far no dogs had been ripped, but they weren't game, to go in and grab him, so he could be stuck with the knife, we crept down the gut, with Conrad with 300 Blackout in the front, a bit of a wait, while peter and I tried to get enough of the dogs, out of the fight to ensure a clear shot without dogs, likely to jump in to the firing line, a muffled pop, and it was over,
I let the dog I was holding go, we half rolled the pig over and Conrad vertical slit the throat and stabbed down into the heart, we dragged it out a bit and Conrad passed me the knife, and said stick it again I didn't get it propley, I pushed the knife back down into the chest and a river of blood pored out of the throat, we dragged pig to face head down and gave it 5 minutes to bleed out, give the dogs a pat and check them for cuts and slashes.
with much difficulty, the three of us dragged the pig up out of the creek to were it could be gutted, and loaded onto the quad.
Took all three of us to load onto the back of the quad, the liver was feed to the dogs on the spot, and kidneys taken to feed other farm dogs.
Back at the farm kill shed, the pig pulled the scales down to 225lbs gutted, or 105kg,
I was asked if I wanted the Jaw, and said yes, but only if you guys don't, your dogs, your jaw, Conrad decided to get the jaw mounted, it was a very good pig with a deceit jaw. hooks a bit over 2 1/4 "out of the gums.
We had a couple beers, yarned for a bit, and then I headed out, over muddy gravel roads for home.
I went back in, a few days later, and dropped of a couple dozen beer, and a few feed's of Snapper and smoked marlin, Gave Peter a hand to feed out, for a couple hours, and he offered me a smaller boar (better eating) that he had just seen, I declined, as was leaving for Canada in two days,
Ok, come see us when your back, we go get another, perfect.
I been on a pig hunt and got a very big boar, A fellow be lucky to get another as big, in a lifetime, with out dogs, and even more valuable, I made a quality contact, in rural, backblocks New Zealand.