Last stand in the afternoon

TOP: Hannah holds the boar as Paul runs up the ridge. Pix taken on the run.

ABOVE: Paul and Molly and the boar.

BOTTOM OF PAGE: That's Hannah (foreground) and daughter Mary (grey bitch) and the 77kg dressed boar.

PERSISTENCE paid off for son Paul this afternoon when he grassed a 77kg (dressed) boar that had dodged the dogs and the landholder three times before. The boar was a cracking fighting pig initially grabbed one out by Mary after being wheeled by cousin Molly in a top display of pace up the hills.

The action started as Paul and the dogs climbed up a ridge in the Rodeo testing the breezes that swirl around the sharp little hills in which the boar had been seen during the past month or so. This particular landholder wants us to target these big boars because he has seen six of them mob up on his lambing ewes and kill them. He wants the boars gone.

Hannah had pulled up sore in the leg after taking a few bumps from the rocks last week. She was rested and daughter Mary given the job of finding. Cousin Molly was also unclipped. She has a great nose but won't lug. Mary, however, has a great nose and no fear.

Both dogs disappeared on a mission down into a gully. Paul knew it well. He'd only been there the week before and left behind a pig carcase. Was something feeding on it? At that moment a big, tall and very fast boar broke out of the gully and flew up an opposing ridge. Paul said he was staggered at the boar's pace. It just ate up the ground. But Molly is lightning fast and she wheeled the boar before the top of the ridge in a grassy clearing. Molly barked just as she closed on the boar, it spun to meet her and she dodged to nip at his back end. As the boar did a full circle trying to get to Molly, Mary hit him head on and stuck. He hit her up the ribs and opened her up but she didn't falter. Then Hannah (who had been released by Paul when he saw the pig) hit the boar and Mary let go to look for any other pigs that might be running (we teach them to run on...let go on command or keep going if there are too many dogs and grab the next pig...). Paul arrived after shooting a great pic on the run of Hannah holding the boar. He grabbed the pig and stuck it, checked out Mary and attended to her, and then set about getting the pig out of the hills and onto the truck.

The boar dressed 77kgs for the export trade.