10 wee hunting/pig hunting tips
It all begins with an idea.
Always hunt with the wind in your face. If the animal smells you before you smell it, you will have minimal chance of taking it home.
Go slow. This is extremely important as the more time you spend waiting, watching and listening, the higher the chance is you’ll come across an animal. My man likes yo say, “smokers catch more pigs, because their always stopping for a dart!”
Take notice of your surroundings. It’s super easy to get confused as you change your location constantly. I recommend you pick distinctive objects like big old trees, rivers, hut or fence lines to avoid walking in circles in dense bush. We usually hunt with a GPS so that makes life easy.
Learn how to read your dogs. It is a wonderful sight to see when a hunter communicates with his/her dogs through a handful of subtle gestures and commands. Batman, who hunts exclusively wild pigs, will let us know when there is a deer near by coming in and silently sticking close by our side. Very handy!
Look for sign. Tracking your prey can be pretty exciting, especially when you come across a massive patch of freshly turned up earth (pig rooting) or a sizeable trotter print one the mud! If you know what your looking for, this will heighten your chances of sneaking up on whatever your after.
Check the weather. I think this ones pretty obvious but had to pop it in. If the wind is blowing a gale in all different directions then your dogs are pretty unlikely to pick up on a reliable air sent. If it’s poured down the night before, the rain will of washed out any ground sent from pigs the day before. If it’s going to be a scorcher then get up before a sparrows fart and hunt early or in the evening after the suns calmed down. Hunting your dogs, midday in the hot sun will rinse them. Never, let your dogs over heat and always keep them watered.
Be prepared. Having your gear organised is so important and really makes all the difference between a good hunt and a mess of a hunt. I have a check list in my head I run through before I leave the house. Obviously the list gets a few alterations if the kids are coming along to! They love it!
Study the area before you go. If you don’t do this you’ll probably miss out on some sneaky wee spots where tasty animals could be hiding! If you are familiar with the lay of the land then when a pig shoots off up and over a ridge, you have you’ll have a fair idea of where he’s gone and you can put the dogs into place.
Who else could be near. Weather it be farm land or doc you need to know who else is around. In New Zealand we have hunting permits and licenses to keep everyone safe. When we hunt on farmland we always make sure we have a yarn with the farmer about who’s about and what the stock are doing before we get into it.
Gun safety. I saved the most important tip for last. Well its not really a tip, rather common sense. Know the 7 rules of gun safety, which are..
treat every firearm as if it’s loaded
always point firearms in a safe direction
Load a firearm only when ready to fire
identify your target beyond all doubt
Check your firing zone
store firearms and ammunition safely
avoid both alcohol and drugs when handling firearms
Standard pig hunt
It all begins with an idea.
So here we are, down on the edge of Lake Benmore in Canterbury, New Zealand with my partner Sharn and our 3 kids. We drove in late last night and set up camp, prepared for hunt ahead. The sun is still yet to rise and the children are running around playing as we collar the dogs and organise what gear we will be taking on the days mission.
I will head off with the dogs to see if we can track a wild boar and Sharn go of in the opposite direction with the children in hope of spotting a deer. My bag pack is filled with a light snack and a empty bottle as I know there is a stream up the gut I will be walking. My knife belt is equip with knife and dog first aid kit, something I never go without on any hunt. So with my GPS unit in hand I head off into the hills with the dogs leading the way.
Ive always lived by the rule “hunt with the wind in your face, never let the pig get a wif of you before you get a wif of him or hell be off and away. Pigs have incredible noses and they know the terrain a lot better than us. I think of this as I slowing make my way up the hill keeping a close eye on the GPS to see what the dogs are doing. If there has been a pig rooting around last night, my dogs will hopefully pick up that sent and follow it to where he is hiding out.
The dogs are on! I hear a faint bark in the distance, signalling Batman (my main dog) is bailing a pig. I can’t hear any squealing so fingers crossed he’s a biggy. Picking up the pase, I head in the direction of the noise, using the GPS to guide me, jumping over streams, tunneling through bush on my hands and knees with my heart rate beginning to rise! I make it to the bail up to see the 3 dogs surrounding a wild boar. I asses the situation carefully and get set up to take the shot. As I do so the dogs sensed my presence and lugged up. I safely put my rifle aside and grabbed my knife. I grab the boar by his back legs and attempt to heave him over, but he is to heavy for me to flip. I take a different approach, sliding my knife in between his ribs, into his heart, ending his life as quickly and as cleanly as possible.
Succes! “Good dogs” I say as I give all our clever dogs a congratulatory pat! It really is the pig dogs that do all the hard work and man do they love it. Next, I gutt the boar, this is vital for 2 reasons, 1; because removing the internal organs preserves the over all quality of the meat and 2; nobody wants to carry that extra weight out do they now!
I make a hole with my knife between tendons on all four legs of the pig. This is so I can thread through a piece of rope from my dog kit, attaching the left front and left back leg together, and right front and back leg together, making him into a back pack!
Up onto my back he goes and off we go down the hill with the dogs in toe, back to the campsite to see what the others have found.
A yarn about me.
It all begins with an idea.
I was born in a wee spot called Pungatotara, situated in the Motueka Valley, New Zealand. We lived on a forrestry block in the middle of nowhere so I was constantly surrounded by nature. Im pretty sure we didn’t have electricity in the early years but that didnt matter, I was outside most of the time making huts and exploring the bush with dad anyway.
My family moved to the Hawkes Bay when I was five so that I could attend the Taikura Rudlof Steiner School, in Hastings. I was heavily into art so continued on to study graphic art and design once I graduated.
My love of snowboarding inspired the move to Queenstown where I lived, snowboarded and worked as a house painter before meeting Sharn. I then moved to Wanaka, just over the hill, where i live today with our 3 children and 3 pig dogs.
Sharn was the one who introduced me to this hunting life style we now lead. Id never shot a rifle or stuck a pig before but I was keen to learn and I was very comfortable spending time in the wilderness. Being able to sustain our body’s with wild game that would otherwise go to waist made so much sense to me. Supporting farmers by keeping pig numbers down. Teaching our children important survival skills and doing our part for the biodiversity of our land seemed like good reasons enough for me to hunt.