Richard Hand has been working in Christchurch so it was not to far to come and catch up with me for the weekend. On the Friday evening we went for a drive and every time we stopped Fog would go and have a good look around. At one point he tracked out 500 meters and was stationary on the GPS. We drove around until we were 150 meters below him. We only heard two barks from him and nothing else. When we were within 100 meters of him he came back to us. I have seen him do this in the pig block with my sow. He knows that he is not allowed to bail the sow so leaves her alone. So I am sure that Fog would have had a sow on this occasion.
Next morning we were a bit slack on getting up early as it was raining outside. Even though it was the last day of January it was not to hot for a hunt. We only got a couple of hundred meters along the track when the dogs started working. We had fog in one gully and Lightning in the next gully over and Thunder was hanging back. It was Fog that bailed first so I gave Lightning a beep on the collar to get him to come back around because he would not have been able to hear Fog from where he was. The place that they had this 85 pound boar was real crap. Richard was keen to stay up top with the bike so I had to go down on my own to sort the pig out. The only open stuff was on the pig tracks which I had to crawl down. When I was in the gully I worked my way up the creek to the action. When I got to the pig the dogs were just above me on a small waterfall. The dogs ended up bringing the boar down the waterfall to me.
Before I had got into the creek I had plans of getting the dogs to try and work the pig down the creek 600 meters to where I could get him out a bit easier. Once into the creek I knew there was no way I was going to be able to get this pig to move anywhere. It was just a formality to kill the pig and gut him. I did not hesitate to chop the head off as this would have got caught up on every bit of scrub that I had to go though. This was to be my hardest carry for the year so far. In places I had to take the pig off my back and drag it through the pig tunnels, at other times I was getting tangled in vines and that was sapping a lot of my energy. It was only 400 meters up the hill to the four wheel drive track but the hill was steep. Richard was surprised when I finally popped out of the scrub with the pig on my back. By now I was soaked to the bone not only form the moisture on the scrub but also from the amount of sweat that I had lost. So home for a nice hot shower and a cold beer.
Once I was nice and dry again I said to Richard that we may as well take the dogs to another spot. so we threw a box of beers in the back of the truck and went to park up at a nice spot that I know of. So there we where sitting in the truck enjoying a nice cold one with the dogs sitting around, that was all of the dogs bar Fog who just can not sit still unless he is at the kennels. It only took ten minutes before we noticed Fog stationary 200 meters away. We got out of the truck walk thirty meters to the edge of the gully and heard Fog give out his first bark. Because I had done a big carry on the last pig, this one was Richards. As soon as he left me I drove the ute down the hill a bit and parked up. I could not help myself the draw of that sound of the bail was to much for me so I headed towards the action. I was almost there when the gun shot went off. Richard said that he was looking at the pig trying to work out weather it was a sow or boar when it charged Lightning, the dogs were quick to turn the pig again and it sat its bum on Richards feet with out realising that he was there.
By this stage Richard could tell that it was a boar so he just put the gun to the boars head and that was the end of him. If I was thirty seconds quicker I would have got this on my camera. This 129 pound boar was in good nick and it was only one carry each to have him back on the truck. This hunt was less than 15 minutes and helped that next beer taste even better.