When I woke up on the 27th of September the sky looked very black before it started snowing heavily.
We had our grandson Aaron up for the night so he enjoyed seeing the heavy snow fall. It snowed for about six hours and I could hear the branches on the pine trees all around the valley breaking with the weight of the snow.
When the snow was easing up Aaron and I went outside. I cleared the snow off the deck while Aaron had fun playing in the snow.
Later in the day when Sloan and Nats came up to collect Aaron a lot of the snow had disappeared which is a good thing as I had sheep lambing.
By the next morning the snow was almost gone so I headed out with the dogs for a hunt.
I was riding the bike around the top of a big gully when the dogs started showing an interest in the breeze coming up to them. Woof and Bruce were on the track with me while Bro and Gus tracked down into the gully. I could see on the GPS where both dogs were looking about 100 meters below me. Bro obviously could not find the pig and just returned to the track when Gus barked. This got the 3 dogs taking off towards the action. This 100 lb boar broke once to where the dogs stopped him 200 meters below the track. This is a big tight gully and as I approached the bail with the gun at the ready the dogs grabbed him. Because of how tight the scrub was I could not see much. When I spotted the boars tail I quickly grabbed it as I pulled the boar back I noticed a black dog holding the right ear. Thinking it must have been Bruce I slide the knife in behind the boars front shoulder until I felt the gush of blood. That’s when I pulled the boar into a clearing to discover two extra dogs had turned up.
Both Bro and Gus always hunt with a muzzle on and Bruce and Woof don’t hold so I don’t normally get a boar of this size held but now I could see why. I called out for the owner of the dogs but he did not turn up. I recognized one of the dogs as it had been lost up here recently and turned up at my house.
Once I had gutted the boar the two stray dogs disappeared and I made the decision to carry this boar straight up to the track rather than the 800 meters down to the bottom track where I would have to walk 2 km back around to the bike. Carrying the pig up where it had come down from was not an option is it was not just steep but also thick. By climbing up the other side I would be in the Douglas firs. The ground is very steep and slippery with the fir needles so I had to be careful not to slip with the pig on my back. It felt good to drop the pig off my back on the track. With the pig on the front of the bike I carried on. About one km further on the dogs hit another pig below the track. It only bailed for a few seconds before breaking away down into the gully. Luckily for me this 4wd track cut around and down to where the dogs were heading. When I got down to the bottom I had to cross the river and head around 100 meters to where the dogs had the 50 lb boar. I did notice on the GPS that Woof had come off and tracked back up to where the boar came from. By the time I gutted this pig and got back to the bike Woof had tracked me down.
Once these two pigs had been in the chiller for a couple of days I boned them out and put them through the mincer and gave the meat away to my Search and rescue team mates.
Also this week woof has been spending a lot of time around the sheep and lambs so that he can be comfortable around them without trying to hassle them.
Woof out on the hill tracking
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