I had first meet Gary through the New Zealand pig hunting Association and just recently he contacted me asking if I could take him and his nephew, Lyndon out for a pig hunt. It was going to be Lyndon’s 21st in a weeks time and he wanted a pig for on a spit roster so Gary had arranged for him to come and catch his own pig. Lyndon had never been pig hunting before so this was a first for him. They arrived at home at 4.45 am all keen to get out there and catch a pig. We had a block sorted out that was not far from home so we
where on the hill nice and early. I took two dogs on this hunt Lightning and Fog. The first place that the dogs got keen was at the top of the hill and the two dogs tracked off over the top of the hill back into the forestry, They headed out to 700 meters but did not catch up to anything. With the dogs back we carried on, me on the 4 wheeler with the two dogs and Gary and Lyndon following behind in there truck. As we got further along to a gully that I thought would be a likely place to hold a pig I suggested that we leave the vehicles and walk around the top of the gully
as the wind was blowing up to us. We had not walked far when the dogs got keen again and tracked away. As we where looking around we spotted a couple of pigs on the opposite face about 500 meters away. At this point I explained to Lyndon how my rifle worked and that if the dogs caught a pig out in the open he could go in and shoot it. Lightning turned up over when where watching the pigs and really let me down, instead of going and bailing a good pig he picked on a wee on. We could see as a bigger pig that we thought would be the sow circling around the bit of scrub that Lightning was in with the small one and decided better than to go in and take on the dog. Once she saw Lightning she headed off into the scrub back towards us. Garry had left his rifle back in the truck so he said that he would go back and grab it just in case a pig came back our way, while Lyndon and I headed down the hill towards where Lightning was and where Fog was heading. As we got down so far we came across a very well worn game trail so we stopped for a minute as I explained to Lyndon that if the pig was coming this way then this would be the likely track that she would take. We could not hear or see anything so we decided to carry on over to the dogs and wee pig. We had only gone a short distance when Lyndon looked behind us and said there goes that pig there. So I handed him my rifle and said to he could take a shot at it if he wanted. As he loaded a bullet into it the pig stopped for a very short time as Lyndon clicked the safety off and lined up and fired.
At this point I should mention my rifle is an old SKS 7.62 with open sites and is a good gun on bailed pigs but when you try and shot at anything further than ten meters you have got to line it up right. As Lyndon fired I noticed a bit of dirt fly in the air behind the pig and thought that he had missed then the pig jumped into the air and disappeared down the hill out of sight. The way the pig moved had me wondering if he had hit it. As we went looking I noticed the pig under a bush and called Lyndon over. I was not sure if the pig was dead or just playing dead as it was lying on its stomach and not moving, so I said to Lyndon to get ready with the gun as I would grab the pig by the tail and if it went to run, for him to shot it again. Once I got a hold of the tail it did not move so I put my hand up onto its stomach. That was when we discovered that it was dead. When we gutted the pig we found that the bullet had gone through just behind the ribs and exited out through the opposite shoulder blowing the heart to smithereens on the way through. That pig would have been dead the instant the bullet hit it. Once the pig was gutted and legs tied up there was no arguments over who was going to carry it out as Lyndon wanted to carry it all the way out on his own. Lindon is a keen rugby player and spends a bit of time at the gym so he saw this as a good challenge. The truck was a couple of hundred meters up the hill above us and it did not take long before Lyndon was starting to leak a bit of sweat but he did get it out on his own.