Instagrammed

Just realized there's quite a bit on Instagram that I've left off the blog, some nice pup pictures and stuff. Scrolling back I also noticed that I missed posting this pic of the first boar of the year.


My brother and I go out for a hunt every 1st of January. This year we took another friend out with us, and bustled Baron and Karen into the car for the afternoon jaunt. We hunted a small mound of a mountain around 5 minutes from my house. The boar seem to like sleeping in this tiny hill for some reason, and today they were in the bamboo as usual. We tried to sandwich the boar, which sort of worked I guess. Of course the boar went the direction of my brother and friend, neither of whom had a firearm. I saw video they took of a good size boar trotting past them less than 5 meters away. Baron gave chase, but once boar run like that, the likelihood of us catching up to them in the dense cover is virtually nil.

We hunted the next mountain over, rustled up a herd pretty quickly, but they were runners too. It had been a couple hours, so we decided to head home. Walking on the mountain road past the first hill we hunted, Baron slowly moved off the asphalt and uphill. I told the lads they didn't have to come with, but that there was a good chance something was still up there. 50 meters up and I saw Baron at attention, focused, tail high and wagging. When Baron's tail wags, boar are within 10 meters. We were on a pretty steep slope, and I couldn't pick out the boar, but Baron was carefully moving right and left with me right behind him. Finally I saw that the boar was still sleeping, and a pretty good size one at that. All I could see was its back though, and the head was behind some underbrush.

At this point Baron and I were less than 5 meters from it, and things happened rather quickly. Baron moved to the left and a meter in front of me, barked, the boar's ear popped up, and I fired my first shot as it started getting up. It was a good hit, but a big boar takes a lot to go down. The boar started rumbling downhill to my right, and as I took the second shot Baron dove around two meters from above and to my left, practically on top of the boar. In a flash they were tearing downhill with Baron grabbing the left ear, and Karen who was below us catching up just then to grab the right. The boar dragged them further down and through some more bamboo and small trees as I flew downhill after them.

Boars will often try to brush off dogs that are hanging on by knocking them against trees, and this boar ran into a little thicket just as I caught up and popped the third shot in its head. The boar was an 81kg male, some great meat, and a great experience for Karen. Being 50 meters from the road was a plus, and getting the boar into the van and home was easy. This was basically my first hunt of the season since my MCl and meniscus injury put a stop to any ideas of mountaineering. We've been out a couple times since, and taken a few more boar.

Anyway, 1am and time for sleep. Baron's as solid as ever, and Karen has potential.


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