Wow, what a competition. This was to be the first comp this year for our Ridgeline judging team and we were quick to discover the effects of the covid 19 lockdown last year giving the animals a chance to breed up. Also in the week leading up to this comp Canterbury had some major flooding which had limited access to a lot of the good hunting spots.
John Bruce had done the organizing of this comp and when I caught up with him the week prior he thought the entries were down a bit however as hunters are a bit slack as most of the entries must have come in the last week.
Apart from last year this comp has been running for many years so has a good following. On the day of the weigh in I had three Ridgeline judges Sophie Simmons doing the recording, Matt Simmons doing the weighing and myself doing the scrutineering also John had a couple of helpers to help with moving and lifting the animals as well as giving out the tags. The weigh in was between 12-2pm and it was good to see hunters turning up right from the start allowing these hunters to get a park a bit closer to the event. Also if two animals get weighed in at the same weight the first animal weighed gets the better prize and at this comp Johnny Mathers obviously arrived before Corey Henderson which was the difference between 2nd and 3rd place with their 162.4 lb boars.
As the vehicles started lining up we had too get a couple of extra lifters to keep the animals moving. At one stage when I looked up their were trucks linned right up the road and around the corner waiting to get their animals weighed up. In that two hour weigh in period we weighed 44 deer (14 hinds 30 stags) and 92 pigs ( 67 boars and 25 sows).
Two of the boars that came in were going to have their heads mounted so they were the only two that I did not cut the throats out of. For future reference for any hunter if you have caught that pig of life time and you want to get the head mounted let the judge know in advance before the throat gets cut out. The reason that we cut the throats and arses out is to allow the animals too cool down which avoids the meat going off to fast and when you do something like this to one animal you need to keep them all the same. If we know and it turns out there is two animals the same weight we will have written this down so the animal with the throat in would have been slightly lighter without the throat so goes below the other animal.
There was also one cracker of a stag that Tairi Mullen was going to get the head mounted.
John had done a great job of getting sponsorship for this comp as there was a lot of prizes to give out. For me I feel privilege to be able to stand up on stage at prize giving and speak to so many hunters at one time. Their are a lot of fit healthy hunters in our sport and I am seeing more and more woman hunters getting out there doing the hard yards, keeping fit and gaining a lot of wild game for food.
At the end of the weigh it would have been nice to stop and have a social drink with people but I had a three hour drive home to sort out my own animals ending my seventeen hour day.
Happy hunting Bill Westwood
Results
Heaviest boar
1st Logan Weisford 254 pounds
2nd Johnny Mathers 162.4 pounds
3rd Corey Henderson 162.4 pounds
4th David Neil 159.4 pounds
two women hunters dragging their deer out at the end of prize giving
Heaviest sow
1st Josh Hickey 163.8 pounds
2nd Logan Weisford 141.2 pounds
3rd Ryan Nisbit 125.6 pounds
Average weight boar Matai Karmo 111.4 pounds
One above Ryan Nisbit 114.4 pounds
One below Hamish Holland 109.2 pounds
Heaviest stag
1st Tairi Mullen 366.8 pounds
2nd Noel Wormsley 306.4 pounds
3rd Nick Thackwell 287.2 pounds
Heaviest hind
1st Jeff Gray 215.6 pounds
2nd Nick Thackwell 202.8 pounds
Average overall Dean Wiltshire
Best tusks Robbie Lambie 21 7/8