Being late October the weather is starting to warm up so most of my hunting is done early in the morning before the day heats up.
On one hunt I was heading out nice and early with all four dogs. I had sheep in the driveway that I had to ride through down to the road gate. I had not put the muzzles on Bro and Gus at this stage as I was planning on putting them on when we reached the road, however as I was cruising down through the orchard block I saw both Bro and Gus put their noses in the air and I could tell that they could smell a pig. Both dogs jumped the pig skin fence then across the creek before disappearing into the native QE11 block.
I watched them on the GPS as they went up the hill then out to the right so I took the bike further down the track and through the next gate away from the sheep. I was standing on the track with Bruce and Woof when the other two dogs opened up with a good bail about 150 meters away. When Bruce and Woof arrived the pig tried making a break for it. The scrub is tight and hard to get through in this block so the pig had every chance of doing his best to get away but with the four dogs together he could only break down hill into the creek. With bro and Gus not having their muzzles on they were quick to hold this pig. Bruce and Woof did bail even with the pig being held and it was easy to come in and stick this 96 lb boar.
With him gutted I only had to drag him 30 meters to the track and l had him hanging in the chiller in under 20 minutes from leaving my house for a hunt.
Because it was still early and I wanted a bit more exercise I decided to carry on with my planned hunt. At the early stage of my hunt we came to a place where a pair of New Zealand Falcons were obviously nesting as they started to dive bomb the dogs and because I wanted to go past this spot they even had a couple of dives down at me. It was an interesting minute or so getting past these birds.
The rest of the hunt was not as exciting with just a couple of young pigs not taken but the veiws and the exercise was well worth the walk.
I had just completed a couple of days driving a truck which makes me restless as I like the physical side of hunting and feel I need that exercise.
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