Here's a few pics of a recent hut up around Goodooga (New South Wales / Queensland border of Australia. Bloody dry but we found hogs in any cover near a water source. We dogged a few but shot heaps as well. 66 pigs over 8 days of hunting, worth the trip. Biggest was around 80kg, shot with a Rem 7600 .270

Another.

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66 pigs over 8 days of hunting

Now that's hog hunting!

Congrats,

Bob

Nice...

66 pigs will fill up a couple of freezers at least!

Fenring,

What kind of dogs are you running?

Mostly mastiff / dane types but myself I have a staghound. (greyhound / deerhound) He's good for the long shots.

Fenring nice going !! I have just got a staghound pup here is a pick of him, he came from around Balranald.

Just curious guys but with these Staghounds do you have a lot of long chases on hogs in open areas? It seems to me that this is how you'd hunt a dog like this. But I guess with Staghounds, the chases probably don't last very long.

By the way Fenring, hell of a nice hunt.

Most action is fairly close and fast and is taken care of by the nose dogs. The stag is great for any that are a way out and getting away - he's like the 270 while the other heavy dogs are the shotguns with slugs! Mine is not a real hard dog, will tend to bail pigs by himself but will hang on well when help gets there - mainly on the rear end, which I hear is characteristic of the running dogs. Not much nose on pigs which pisses me off as he has a good old sniff around when we go out on the bunnies. Mine is 28 inches at the shoulder, will find a decent pic and post it.

Fenring looking forwards to the Pics, my dog was born in April so I am unsure how tall he will grow at this stage.

Here ya go PC, pics not that good but you get the idea. My dog (Bullet) came from near Woodend in Victoria, half his litter were smooth coated like greyhounds and the same colour as the stampeding puppy above. The other half were broken coated. None were rough coated like a deerhound. Make sure you pup gets plenty of clacium - those legs and the long spine need it. Also, don't run him hard when he's still young, their foot bones can be damaged in the growth stage. Just walking and playful running is enough - they are fast by nature anyway. Stags can be slow to mature mentally and physically, may not show any interest in biting for the first year or so. They can also be pretty timid and if they are punished hard they can be scarred for life. Often just a sharp command will pull them into line. THey have a great, gentle nature with people too.

He definitely looks to be built for speed!

Fenring,

awsome looking dog, where are you situated ?? PM me if you want.

I must make an effort to get my dog "woodleigh"some calcium. Tonight he was pigging out on left over mash potatoe of all things

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Originally posted by PC:
...my dog "woodleigh"...

So this dog is a round-nosed canine? Or is he a protected pointer?

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Originally posted by CaneCorso:
66 pigs will fill up a couple of freezers at least!

I may be wrong, but I doubt these will be eaten (at least by humans)?? Most "feral" animals in Aussie-Land are shot and left.

I guess it was pretty warm when these were hunted. If the pigs had been intended for eating, one would have imagined the first thing to do would be to dress them... Pork spoils pretty quickly, unless you get air into the carcass.
- mike

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Originally posted by Charles_Helm:

quote:

Originally posted by PC:
...my dog "woodleigh"...

So this dog is a round-nosed canine? Or is he a protected pointer?

Woodleigh is actually Round Nose Black Powder Nitro canine reccomended impact velocity of around 65-70km

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Originally posted by PC:
Woodleigh is actually Round Nose Black Powder Nitro canine reccomended impact velocity of around 65-70km

OUTSTANDING HUNT!!!

Looks like GREAT FUN. I am going to have to get
there sometime. 60 Hogs? wow

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Originally posted by mho:

quote:

Originally posted by CaneCorso:
66 pigs will fill up a couple of freezers at least!

I may be wrong, but I doubt these will be eaten (at least by humans)?? Most "feral" animals in Aussie-Land are shot and left.

I guess it was pretty warm when these were hunted. If the pigs had been intended for eating, one would have imagined the first thing to do would be to dress them... Pork spoils pretty quickly, unless you get air into the carcass.
- mike

The little ones went to the farmers chiller for dog meat. The larger one ended up in a commercial chiller for I assume export an human consumption.

Good on you Fenring! I understand the issue with too many feral animals in Aussie-Land, but I have never really been comfortable with not utilizing the meat. In particular wild pork, which is some of the best wild meat available IMHO. Still, when in Rome...
- mike

Thanks for the replies - have a hunt planned for early Sept. to Wilcannia - fingers crossed there will be a few more pics to post.

Fenring - can you give us a few more details about how you hunt? To me the hunt is always more interesting than just the kill. I'd like to hear how you guys do things.

I have a hunt planned for August 13th and 14th. I'm taking a group of old friends that get together several times a year to hunt. Should be a good time...always is. I can't imagine an 8 day hunt.

Sure thing. The property where we went for that hunt is around 200,000 acres. Whilst there we stay in shearers quaters, so we do it pretty easy - power and hot water. They run cattle and also plant wheat on the property. Water comes from an artesian bore that flows into a shallow channel that cris crosses the property and also feeds into various small holdings. Recently most of this channel was converted to 4 inch pipe to eliminate evaporation waste. The pipe feed to a couple of troughs in each paddock. There is alos a river going thru the property as well. We get going at around 0500 each morning, load the dogs into the trucks and head off along the numerous tracks on the place. A couple of the boys normally ride beside the trucks on motorbikes, through the semi cleared paddocks, 100 metres or so off to the side. That way they will put up anything sitting nearby. We stay in contact via UHF. Anything that runs towards the utes is for the dogs to run down. If it goes the other way the blokes on the bikes chase it down and shoot it. It's top fun but you need to look out for stumps and not get too close to good boars as they will turn and the hunter becomes the hunted! We will normally hunt thick cover (normally lignum or other scrubby brush) near a water source. We let the dogs out and they hunt by scent. Anything they grab gets stuck with a good sized knife. The shooters often pick a few up that evade the dogs (not too many do.) Some dogs, highly valued, hunt off the back of the ute - they scent while you cruise along and bark like mad when they pick up a scent. You stop and let them off to hunt. We will also spotlight any freshly ploughed ground at night or early morning as hogs love that soft dirt and can smell it from miles away. We are currently having a protracted drought over here, prior to it hitting hard, in 2000, we got 191 pigs on the same property over the same length of time. It was not unusual to be driving along and see a mob of 20 pigs running away up ahead. It really is full on when this happens, dogs going in all directions, shots popping off, pigs running everywhere! Hunting thick cover with dogs is really suspenseful, as you can't see a long way, all you can hear is the crunch of undergrowth, dogs huffing and puffing, not knowing when all hell will break loose. Occasionally you will kick a pig out of cover, and need to get off a snapshot, being very mindful that the rest of the party is around as well as the dogs. We will often have half a dozen dogs out at once. Occasionally you will hear a boar near you in the scrub, clicking his tusks and stomping around in challenge, and boy that wakes you up. You know he's decent as he's stood his ground and he's not happy with you being there. You need to take a lot of care and be ready for a quick shot, either that or yell out for the dogs to come over. A couple of the guys don't acrry guns, just a sticking knife. For this close action I have a Ruger 96/44 with a 1.5 to 4.5 on it, which I find to be fast handling and versatile, as I can wind the scope up for the longer shots, and find it faster at low power than open sight, especially on running pigs. It's a full on sport hunting with dogs, with some good chases on foot and by lunch time we are back in camp having a cook up and ripping the top off a few cans.

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mho: I understand the issue with too many feral animals...but I have never really been comfortable with not utilizing the meat. In particular wild pork, which is some of the best wild meat available

My new neighbor lost about 1/3 of his milo crop to hogs and is merciless now, leaves them for the buzzards, as many as he can get.

Yeah, they are like little mini bulldozers when the get in a crop. A dozen hogs rooting around for a few hours overnight, you'd thing there had been an army tank driving in your paddock.