Well I did it. Glad I did. Wouldn't do it again.

The hunt was a seven hour drive out of Jakarta, due south, as the crow flies. You pass through Jampangkulon and end up close to Tegalbuleud on the coast. We stayed in a rustic private house. No frills like AC, plumbing, etc. Sleep on a mat on the floor, eat off the floor, look at the daylight through the cracks between the board walls. The food was typical Indonesian fare. What you don't eat for breakfast comes back at you for lunch, then dinner, and so on. The people live simply here, or not at all. You didn't get much sleep; the roosters and occasional wound-up motorbike saw to that.

There were three weapons for the hunt; a .308, 30.06 and 30 cal. M-1. I believe the first two rifles were built locally and had no markings on them. They were bolt action, but were not of sufficient quality to feed a second shot quickly for a follow-up shot. You would generally find the empty hull and fresh round trying to occupy the same space. The owner of the weapons, a local police honcho had a strange habit of sand-papering the outside of his shells, supposedly so they would "fit" better. I think it worked against him as I found the .308 I was shooting would have the hulls expanded so hard against the chamber walls that you couldn't eject some until they cooled a little. His ammo was military with the tips cropped to hopefully allow them to mushroom a little.

The hunting took place in and among palm tree plantations, rice fields, jungle, high grass, and vegetable plots. The weather was fine. Some nights were clear with beautiful star-filled skies, which over the course of a night would yield light cloud cover and rain. There was no moon.

The routine was hunting from 4:00pm until 4:00am from a 40 year old Land Rover with high-seat. The spotter scanned the ground with the sealed-beam for hogs, shook the light in the path of the "jeep" if he saw one, to stop the vehicle, then put the spot back on the pig hopefully.

The first outing we saw only a a group of four piglets. I hit one in the tall grass, we found some meat, but not him. I suspect he burrowed somewhere into the meter tall grass and we just never found him.

We set up the following afternoon at various spots hoping to find them coming from the jungle to the fields, but found nothing. The next night was our night. We saw plenty of pigs in the 50 to 60 lb. class, but nothing huge. I had my normal luck. All the pigs popped up on the other side of the vehicle where the man with the 30.06 sat. He proceeded to miss every pig he shot at. I shot one of two on my side and by the time I got the action working on the .308 "Mr. '06" had missed again and scared the second pig off. We figured we would have had six or seven pigs had the man been able to shoot.

He had a lot of hunting experience, but by my definition he was just not a hunter. He missed on one good group of pigs, and as one stopped broadside I held the crosshairs on him waiting for the '06 to drop him, then another miss and he was gone. I promised then I was not waiting any longer. The driver and guides were getting frustrated with the poor shooting.

I will say this; if the man shot as many pigs as he thought he shot, his freezer would be overflowing.

That frustration aside, it was a unique experience being in the jungle, hunting hogs, hearing the call to prayer, and loudspeaker ranting from a nearby military outpost in the middle of the night.

We drove through various palm plantation worker "camps" during the night where people came out of their hovels as your beam cut a shaft of light through their world and high powered rifles split the silence. They seemed to take it all in stride; and maybe they appreciated the fact that we were trying to prevent a few pigs from eating what was left of their small gardens.

The drive back to Jakarta convinced me that when you start seeing grown men making bad decisions it's time to put some distance between you and them. I noticed on the drive down that "Mr. '06" did not have a feel for where the off-side of his car was. I was riding in the front seat on that side. He constantly came close to hitting people, trucks, motorbikes, etc.; by a matter of inches, or less. At one point, at speed, his outside mirror on my side tapped the outside mirror on a car parked along the road. I jumped; and he paid no attention.

The problem persisted as we left camp on our return. We consistently had to tell him to hold to the right as he almost drove into ditches and off bridges. I've never seen anything like it. He then proceeded to drive swiftly up behind trucks, and motorbikes to within inches of the left front bumber then veer away from disaster at the last moment as you gritted your teeth, or flinched.

Fast driving doesn't bother me; stupid driving does. Our luck ran out while driving through a small town. His left side struck a stopped taxi type van, left a blue wound completely along the side of his car, slammed his outside mirror into the window, breaking the mirror. He then tried to drive on, rather than stop to see about the damage he had caused.

Looking at the damage later to his car I saw that another 3" to the left and the car we were in would have jacknifed to the right into oncoming traffic or into the shops on the other side of the narrow road.

An hour and a half later his friend had bailed him out of his mistake (for US$150), taken responsibility for being the driver, and we drove on with a fresh driver at the wheel.

His only goal unfortunately was to stay with the two-vehicle "convoy" ahead of us. It was full gas, full brake, full gas, full brake as he attempted to keep up through the winding mountain road with heavy oncoming traffic. I told him what I thought of him, and got his son behind the wheel. At that point I realized that "Mr. '06" and "go-cart man" didn't care whether any of us got home alive, and I called Jakarta and had my driver head my way. I switched vehicles, and for the first time in 36 hours could close my eyes without thinking it would be for the last time.

Thanks for the report <crosses Indonesian pig hunt off list>.

Hunting in indonesia? However very interesting. How do you find the opportunity? It's legal?

I was invited by a co-worker. I never got any indication it is illegal. Usually there are enough give-aways. Not in this case. I've never seen any hunting proclamation defining the season, etc.

The rifles were all held legally, by permit. The rifles were in the possession of the local police commandant in the area, who was along for the hunt. I hunted with him one night. There are quite a few local hog hunters, with one large organized hunt, by invitation only, on a nearby island.

thanks. One day I will go there.

Kensco,

Clearly, you went with a wrong group of people. There are terrible hunters all over the world, Indonesia is not an exception. But, I can assure you, not all hunts in Indonesia are like that...

JS

"sandpapering shells" "tips cropped" ?? This belongs in the reloading section .