Poofter Boars

Where still waiting for the wet season here in the gulf with little to no rain. On Sunday we headed out to some of our favourite swamps that usually hold good water until around October- November and to our surprise the majority of them were bone dry. When your best swamps are dry at the end of the wet season it could be a tough year ahead finding those big boars.
Some of the swamps had small mud puddles at the bottom and we still managed to find a couple of tough boars. Real hardy boars that seem to be the only pigs left in the area and boy could they punch on.

We had two bikes and a polaris buggy for the day and were just hoping from swamp to swamp. The first swamp we pulled up at has a man made dam at one end and this holds water year round. We pulled up 150m from this dam in the ute an unloaded the bikes and buggy. It was about 10:00am but was already stinking hot and I took Max over for a drink at the dam, the other boys were still loading there rides. Couple of minutes later Craig starts making his way over to the dam and I see him waving his hands pointing to the right of where I was, he flys over and I see this big boar come out of know where and take off. This boar would have been 150 metres from the ute the whole time just watching us unload the bikes, buggy and hounds I couldn’t believe it. But anyway the big boar was off and Craigs Dog Xena wasn’t far behind him, she ended up pulling him up just at the tree line and they were boxing on, a good solid boar. Couldn’t have asked for a better start to the hunt.

After this we were disappointed swamp after swamp as we would fight through the stick stuff to get to them only to find them all dry. But we pushed on clocking up a few more km’s. Finally we came out into one swamp a big opening and you hear come over the radio BOAR, BOAR, BOAR! Craig had spotted one and dropped little Louise a stag hound X Pitbull a tiny little thing no more than 25kg’s and she managed to pull it up quickly out in the opening. Now this boar was still pretty green at this stage and as the bikes and buggy surrounded it he thought bugger this and took off again, little louise hangs like a tick and I captured some great footage of this solid boar running full noise with little louise latched onto one ear just getting dragged along. The big boar eventually managed to flick louise and it was time to drop another dog to give her a hand. Big maxy was the lucky boy and he was just the backup Louise needed. As big Maxy hit up on this solid boar the boar drove him into a termite mound but as the dust settled Louise and Max had an ear each and this boar was going no where. Another big tough boar estimated at 85kg.

Now ive seen some pretty amazing things while out on the quad bike travelling into some beautiful remote places. But something that happened on Sunday I tell you what scared the absolute sh*$t out of me. I was cruising along through the thick stuff knocking down trees as per usual. I looked down at the handle bars and as I did a blue tongue lizard squeezed its way up out of the bike where the handlebars pass down through the plastics and landed on my seat. Now blue tongue lizards don’t phase me the slightest but this thing really took me by surprise as it come flying out nearly landing on my crutch I was off the bike in a second with it still rolling on into the trees. I tell you what I needed a change of jocks after this.

More km’s and more dry swamps we then came into a thicker swamp full of dried tries not as open as we like them. I managed to see some dust off in this distance and caught site of some cattle moving out of the thick stuff this usually means water which is a good start to finding some pigs. I made my way over to them and pulled up at the mud puddle they were lying in just on the other side of the mud puddle was two cracking boars standing there together one of them being far larger form the other. I checked on the GPS and the other boys were a long way off so I was on the radio trying to let them know what I had found. Now anyone that hunts with radios can understand when the tensions high and the radios aren’t working that it can be very frustrating. I was relaying to Craig to get the hell over here as I only had one dog and I didn’t want to miss this second boar. I was directing him in (or trying to anyway) while I watched him on the GPS. The whole time I was talking to him his radio was on the wrong channel and after watching these boars for 3-4 minutes I see him come up behind them and say on the radio “Where the hell are ya ive got 2 boars just standing here” yeah no sh#*t mate ive been watching them here for ages trying to get onto you. But from then it was game on the boars were off and I see him drop his dogs I let Maxy go and prayed he would grab his own. They headed into the thick stuff so I missed the hit up but I was stoked when I was fighting through the trees to pass Craig’s dogs with one big fella pulled up. I kept going and found big maxy on the biggest boar of the two and they were punching on. Now Max is a massive dog and he can make a big boar look small but seeing him swinging on this big fella I knew he had a new P.B, I quickly dispatched the boar and could not wait to weigh him up. We dragged the big boars out and took a few photos and had a few laughs, we strung the big fella up and he went 101.7kg live Maxy biggest boar one out to date. The other boar we didn’t string up as it was hard work in the heat but we estimated him to be between 90-95kg. Poofter boars of this size and we nailed both we were all stoked no better way to finish off a long hot day in the sun.
We managed to capture some great footage that will be in HDQ4. Another good day out bush, now we just need to pray for some rain to fill the swamps up again!