Uhunt Mag Information

• Posted By : BRISTLE UP
• Posted On : May 03, 2019
• Views : 577
• Likes : 2
• Category : PIG DOGGING » STORIES
• Description : “Someone was here before us but we still cleaned up”

Overview

• With four days off, the misses and I planned a pigging trip to western NSW.
  Knocking off from work on Friday I got home and my girlfriend Eloise already packing the ute. After loading the gear and pups up, we got on the road for a long 11-hour drive north from Victoria. I have three pups with me, the oldest being Luka (12-month-old Ridgeback x Arab) and the other two Ivory and Rocko are 10 month old (Bull Arab and Bull Arab x Dane). Driving all night, we arrived at the camp on the Darling River just before sun up. Not wanting to set up camp in the dark we decided to go for a walk straight away, only taking five minutes before the pups took off and got a little boar, they were off to a good start. We headed back to camp and jumped into the swags, getting up around 4.30pm we went to town for diesel then headed back to explore some areas to hunt. After sundown on Saturday we plated up the pups and headed out in the ute to run some lignum locked creeks, by 10 pm I was getting a little frustrated by only getting two, there didn’t seem to be as many pigs as last time. “Where are they all??”

  
  
  And it wasn’t long before I found out why at about 2.30am Eloise spotlighted a mob of pigs in the middle of a paddock. Confused to why the pups didn’t smell them, I slowly stopped the ute, checked the wind and then quietly changed direction and drove downwind of them, bloody pups still didn’t jump!. When we got closer we realized they were all dead carcasses that had been lined up by another hunter, I’m guessing only a few days before. The next night the same thing, more bodies. So whoever was there before us must have had a blast. I was still getting the odd one, so I wasn’t too mad, just nothing too big, just leftovers. I wasn’t giving up on getting at least one half decent boar so on the last night we ate the rest of the food we had and set out for one last try at a big stinker. At around 1 am Eloise and Ivory were dead asleep, I had Luka and Rock up, and we weren’t far from sleeping ourselves. Thinking about calling it quits Rocks nose lifted up and Luka quickly switched sides, staring into the mirror I knew they were keen so I slowed up the Ute. Luka started whining her head off, I was on the brakes, and she was gone straight away with Rocko hot on her tail. Watching their red and blue tracker lights they went out to the river and then followed its edge upstream and out of sight. 
  
  
  
  Luka started barking hard. I knew it was a good one. Eloise would have woken in the middle of nowhere to me running off into the darkness screaming back at her “THERE ON, LET IVORY GO”. After a hundred meters or so I knew she had woken because Ivory tore past me in the darkness knocking me to the ground, later realizing he made me drop my knife from my pouch. When I got there, Rocko and Ivory were on the ears of solid black and white boar with Luka fighting with him from front on. Starting to get worried about the dogs I grabbed his legs to help them out. I could see Eloise’s headlamp bobbing through the tall grass behind me I screamed a few “boyfriend encouragement words” at her so she would get to me faster. After she finished him off we admired his little hooks, gave the dogs a well-deserved pat and grabbed a couple of photos. We headed back to camp for a sleep before the long drive home. I am very proud of how much the pups skills are improving, and the boar they got was about 75kg, a good way to end a great trip with a total of 12.

  By Nate Maniapoto