I had high expectations for this competition right from the beginning, for first prize was a walk in chiller valued at about $10000 if this does not get every pig hunter within travelling distance coming to the comp nothing will. To win the chiller you did not even have to be at the weigh in. The four main organizes Craig Gibb, Sian Waters and Steve Clark and Sally Ann Donnelly had worked very hard to get good prizes and also letting everyone know about the comp beforehand.
The venue that they had arranged was in the old historical part of Oamaru on the waterfront called the Loan and Merc. Our Ridgeline judging team arrived by 11.30am to give ourselves plenty of time to set up before the weigh in started at 1pm. This comp had 400 adult entries and 70 junior entries.
We had two Ridgeling Gazebos set up early so we decided to weigh the couple of boars that had arrived before what I expected to be the mad rush. Each of us judges had our own jobs and knew what to do to keep things flowing. As the first truck pulled up Andy Moriarty and myself (Bill Westwood) were ready to give the hunters a tag to put their name on and put the tag on the front leg of the animal While Andy and I would scrutineer the animal.
This involves making sure that all of the animals have nuts in all offal removed including arse, throat and pisal. For the next two hours things went hectic, the only times I looked up I could see six hunting wagons lined up and around the corner. I don’t know how long the cue was around the corner but they kept coming. One ute that came in had five nice looking boars facing out the back and made a good photo.
Once we had scrutineered them they went onto a four wheeler that was being ridden by Sloan Westwood some loads had four large animals on the bike at once trying to keep up. Sloan had to ride the bike about forty meters with each load this was to keep the hunters wagons out of the way and keep traffic congestion down. Sloan had to deliver the animals to the next stage to get weighed by Phil Simonson and Bryce Westwood while being weighed Sian Waters was working flat out recording all of these weights on her computer this is one of the most important jobs at a competition as you don’t want to get this wrong.
Once the animals had been weighed Richard Hand and Tony Hogg had the job of hanging/lining the animals up making their job very physical. Craig Gibb was kept busy helping out where he could as him and Sian were also running this comp. We managed to acquire four extra helpers on the day as well, Wade Waller, Lance Clark, Craig Cox and Steve Davidson.
The last truck pulled in just before 3pm and I was so relieved to finally have a break. I was hoping that we may have got over 100 boars but not quite maybe next year. We did end up with 92 boars 22 Fallow bucks and 21 red stags. This means that our team scrutineered weighed and recorded 135 animals in 120 minutes so less than one minute per animal, that’s busy. Even though the weigh in had finished we still had work to do, Sian had to work out all of the placings and prizes with her team. The rest of the team had to work out who had the best tusks and there were three similar boars so all three had to be measured. While this was going on I had a chance to grab my camera and get some photos. There was a great line up of animals well laid out for all to look at of course there was the chiller that everyone had come to try and win and there was even a Speights bar on a trailer. Inside the Loan and Merc was packed with pig hunters the bar was being run by Fat Sally’s and had a roaring trade going. Also inside was a Bushbuck stand run by Toby Nicol’s with some nice new hunting clothing and gear as well as a stand run by Summer and Jason Weir. Summer has some great products from amazing pictures to stylish children’s clothing. At this comp Summer had donated a brazier made out of a forty-four gallon drum which is cut out in a picture of dogs bailing boars. Allan Young won this brazier in a lucky draw. One day I will buy one of these braziers but I would put a light in it so I don’t burn it out. Jason is also very talented in making top of the line dog boxes for his business Roaring Oaks Engineering. At this comp Jason was donating a dog box that would fit straight onto a flat deck truck. The winner of this box Nicolas Bennett was actually looking for a box at the time for his flat deck so the prize was well received. Things worked out well for Jason not only giving away a dog box to someone who really wanted one but he also won one of the main spot prizes himself of a 4 basket Multi Kai cooker. While the comp was going on one of these Multi Kai cookers had cooked beef, lamb and corned venison, you could get a sandwich and the meat was soo tender. Another lucky winner was Hamish Taylor winning a 2 Basket Multi Kai cooker.
The luckiest one of all was Micayla Brenssell winning the walk in Chiller.
Results
Heaviest boar
1st Andy Oaks 172 pounds
2nd Nathan Huddleston 160 pounds
3rd Warren Dixon 153 pounds
4th Clayton Peters 151 pounds
5th Zac Gilmore 148 pounds
6th Jamie McLellan 145 pounds
7th Stuart Eason 144 pounds
8th Wayne Brenssell 141 pounds
9th Tony Biemond 140 pounds
10 Mike Kapua 138 pounds
Average weight
1st Aaron Tait 113 pounds
2nd Marty Parsons 112 pounds
Best tusks
Corey Henderson 21 2/8
Ladies heaviest boar
1st Rachelle Schofield 138 pounds
2nd Kay Kemp 133 pounds
3rd Georgia Oaks 124 pounds
Heaviest Red stag
1st Stuart Moore 278 pounds
2nd Jamie McLellan 270 pounds
3rd Morgan Peters 256 pounds
4th Brad Thomas 246 pounds
5th Stuart Eason 229 pounds
Heaviest Fallow buck
1st Kevin Mcloud 147 pounds
Heaviest combined weight
Jamie McLellan 416 pounds
Boar 145.2 pounds
Stag 270.8 pounds
Kids heaviest boar
1st Zac Schofield 122 pounds
2nd Lucas Bell/Dylan Bell 99 pounds
3rd Sam Chilton 87 pounds
Kids heaviest mixed bag
1st Ella McNoe 22 pounds
2nd Nixon Turner 21.98 pounds
3rd Bailey Borst 21.67 pounds