Another pig bites the dust in New Zealand.

So I went back down to my mate's place to drop off some heat lamps for the pheasants he's raising for release, and as you do, took the rifle because it was looking unloved after sitting in the safe for 2 weeks. I've just fitted a 3 screw trigger that Lisa at SSS sent me, so I wanted to try it out on game, shooting paper it made a HUUUGE difference over the creepy, gritty feeling standard Stevens offering ... I also wanted to try out the results of working up a load ... 140grain ProHunters over Varget.

We set up the pheasant shed and sorted the lamps out and finished the other farm chores and my mate says "Didja bring your rifle?"

Well duh I thought, but "Yes indeed" I politely replied.

"Righto, we'll have a feed and head up the back then"

"Oh alright, if we must"

So we did. Up the back and onto the ridge between the clearing and the bait paddock we went. Shanks spotted a wild cat stalking through the paddock so he shot down to see if he could snot it with his bow. Good height at a 40 odd metre shot but not quite enough allowance for the gale force winds meant the cat escaped to be shot another day. Back to waiting for piggies to show up ... "They've completely run out of feed on the bait pile so I hope they're still here" Shanks says. A couple of minutes later I spot a big black pig moseying through the clearing so I point it towards it. Half a second later I hear "Take it now".

"Something's up" I think and take a shot, anchoring the pig with a spine shot. The new trigger made a great difference to my confidence in the shot and the reloads performed flawlessly, I recovered the perfectly mushroomed ProHunter on the opposite side of the pig, under the shield, it had smashed through ribs and spine and remained intact. Lovely!

We head down the 120m or so, me with a decent dose of the adrenalin shakes. Reaching the pig, it's a big old boar with a big shield, covered in scars from scrapping with an even bigger boar (you can clearly see one scar on his right side in the pics) and what look to me to be big scary tusks. A few congratulatory "woohoo"s and we get stuck in and start gutting him.

"Quick, turn around" I whisper to Shanks, because 25m away is another big boar (130 - 140lb looks big to me alright!) heading down towards us from the paddock. Shanks dives for his bow and is just about set up to shoot when the tan and black beasty stops 10m away from us, sees us moving and bolts back up the hill. Bugger! Oh well, was exciting enough seeing him that close anyway.

So we finish the job and then head back down the hill.

The next morning we pick up the tractor to go pick him up and dump a bit of maize silage on the bait pile. I carry the pig up the hill to the tractor (well, almost to the tractor! ;)) and the friggin thing won't start. A few choice words were said and off we headed, pig on back, about a km to where we could get the car ... luckily the packhorse formerly known as Shanks was there to help with the carry ... and by help, I mean, carry it about 800m of the km walk ...

A bit of rigmarole but we got him back to the shed for a weighing (where Shanks used the scales wrong and we had a wee moment where the boar was allegedly 190lb :o) ... 158lb, I'm a happy camper. 8)

We weigh our pigs with guts out, so lord knows what he would have weighed 'on the hoof' so to speak.

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[img width=600 height=450]http://i285.photobucket.com/albums/ll56/shankspony_photos/Timsboar005640x480.jpg[/img]

[img width=600 height=450]http://i285.photobucket.com/albums/ll56/shankspony_photos/Timsboar008640x480.jpg[/img]
Carrying him up the hill ... thought my legs'd snap but they didn't luckily!

Nice looking hog. And a couple of FINE looking dogs. What breed are they?
Charlie

We took the dogs for a run when we went back to pig up the piggie yesterday, Silent is a black lab who's a gamebird dog but is a bit (completely!) deaf now, and Max the brown fella is an 8 month old GSP cross pup who's being trained as a pheasant and duck dog. He's still a bit young and over-enthusiastic at the mo. Out of shot is the less photogenic Tyna, who's a bull terrier/heading dog pig dog.

Good on ya, Cleaky. I see that gum boots are still standard for New Zealand hunting. I've got pictures of me hunting down below Wellington with mud up to my knees.

;D

They certainly are Frank! We managed to get a lull in the nasty weather for that hunt, but it was damn muddy after all the rain we've had this spring.