I started catching pigs with my own dogs on my own country when I was 17. At the time I was about 99 per cent enthusiasm and 1 per cent knowledge but I managed to catch a few pigs and slowly improve the quality of the thinking involved in the process. At that time my main hunting focus was on 50,000 acres of hill country west of Bundarra in New South Wales. At the time, the late seventies, the district slipped into a major drought. As conditions deteriorated from west to east in NSW, the wild pigs moved in the same direction. Massive numbers of pigs came east through the country split by the Gulf Creek Rd closer to Barraba and up into the higher ridges just above the Gwydir River in the granite country. That's where my country was.
The first morning Rob (Boora) Kent, his cousin Chris Kent and I looked out over a particular cleared paddock in the midst of the big granite boulder ridges we counted 153 pigs in different mobs. We could not believe it. Down the slope we went, picking our way through the timber and rock to line up the best possible pigs we could see. (Best for us is always, big boars). We had the dogs held so we could get as close as possible to the pigs before the action started. This gave us a chance to catch them before they hit the blackberry bushes...more on blackberries later... We crept closer and closer, straight into another 36 pigs on the slope. All our plans immediately went to shit as dogs, pigs and young blokes went everywhere. We ended up with 32 for the run and some cracking good boars among them.
From then on Boora and I in particular crawled all over that 50,000 acres catching pigs every spare moment we had.
It's a fair while since those early days now and some of the faces have changed but the hunt for the big boars that walk the hills around my home town still fills every spare moment I have.
The first morning Rob (Boora) Kent, his cousin Chris Kent and I looked out over a particular cleared paddock in the midst of the big granite boulder ridges we counted 153 pigs in different mobs. We could not believe it. Down the slope we went, picking our way through the timber and rock to line up the best possible pigs we could see. (Best for us is always, big boars). We had the dogs held so we could get as close as possible to the pigs before the action started. This gave us a chance to catch them before they hit the blackberry bushes...more on blackberries later... We crept closer and closer, straight into another 36 pigs on the slope. All our plans immediately went to shit as dogs, pigs and young blokes went everywhere. We ended up with 32 for the run and some cracking good boars among them.
From then on Boora and I in particular crawled all over that 50,000 acres catching pigs every spare moment we had.
It's a fair while since those early days now and some of the faces have changed but the hunt for the big boars that walk the hills around my home town still fills every spare moment I have.
No comments:
Post a Comment