11 May 2010, 19:33
Trapper DaveWe arrived at the forest clearing at about 7 in the evening. The forest is mostly stands of pines with groups of birch, alder and hazel just coming into leaf growing in the wetter bits. Spring was on its way but about two weeks behind the UK with early wildflowers all over the place.
It was cold with quite a strong breeze at times. Scattered clouds with occasional sunshine and the only sounds were birds.
There were quite a number of boar tracks and signs where they had been rooting around in the grass.
We settled down into position and glassed the forest edge in every direction every few minutes, hour after hour………..nothing.
Gradually the sun dropped behind the rim of the trees, the light faded and early dusk came on. Shapes in the shadows caught the eye but closer inspection with the binoculars revealed nothing.
Suddenly my companion spotted something and I looked where he was looking. A head had appeared in the fringe of bushes on the edge of the clearing.
The boar trotted out sniffing the air and skirting along the edge of the clearing about 220 yards away.
I put the rifle up, focussed the scope and switched on the red dot.
It didn’t look like it was going to stop so I tried to work out how much lead to give it and fired.
It leapt around and jumped straight back into the forest.
There was a series of crashes and cracks as it pushed through the brush which quickly faded.
Without waiting, we got to the spot where it was and took a close look around. Eventually we found some blood spots which we followed.
In the fringe of bushes surrounding the clearing there was a smear of blood, pinkish so possibly lung shot.
Under the pines however, it was dark and there was no understorey of bushes. I checked out a coupled of well used runs but could find no sign of blood.
Back we went to the bushes on the fringe of the clearing.
Eventually we spotted some fresh prints and another blood spot.
Following the line forwards to the other side of the pine copse we found fresh blood where it had forced its way through a hazel bush.
Then………..nothing.
We cast about some more, ever conscious that one of the shadows might be the beast and it might just be maddened enough to charge.
The rifle was ready but this was close quarters.
Finally more blood was found and we moved forwards again.
Then, what I took to be blood on a twig in the gloom turned out to be a rust of some sort.
Back to the last proper trace and cast forwards again in a different direction.
Again we found some blood on a most unlikely route through the understorey and followed it through.
On the other side, another twenty yards on, we found the boar, half in and half out of a pool, facing towards us, dead.
Probably only 100 yards into the forest but it took forty minutes to find.
My companion produced a large Swiss Army knife and, using the saw, cut down a Hazel branch a few inches below a fork. He cut off one side of the V short at about foot and the other at about 3 yards.
H
e inserted the short end under the jaw of the boar and, using the long pole side like a giant hook, we slowly began to haul it out of the forest.
It took a fair while and a hell of an effort to find a route back out and to get it to the clearing and load it into the 4x4.
Back at the Forest lodge, it weighed in at a shade less than 100kg.
I helped skin it and then watched a virtuoso display of butchering as I was too slow at this and got in the way.
From in the jacket to jointed in a little under twenty minutes!
I’d missed the heart by two inches but drilled it through both lungs. The 180g Barnes TSX didn’t knock it down and it had still managed to run 100 metres.
I’m sure that there are some reading this who are tut-tutting over the folly of following a wounded animal into a forest in the twilight.
It was something we discussed afterwards.
They told me that much of their tourist hunting procedures and tradition are adopted from the German model since the first hunting tourists who came to their country after Red Deer and Boar came from there.
Normally they would wait twenty minutes before following up.
However, they also have other, local traditions which relate more to poaching under the Communists.
The country is littered with abandoned farmsteads and the cemeteries of forgotten villages as collectivisation was forced upon them.
There was, it seems, armed resistance from the forests right up until the 1960’s and many locals also had guns hidden in the forest.
To be caught with a rifle was a death sentence and to be caught with poached boar was a ticket to the gulags.
Nonetheless, it was a risk that many were prepared to take to feed their families.
But, since rifle shots were investigated, by the authorities, speed was essential and shot animals were followed, butchered and spirited away as quickly as possible.
As for my view, I speak as I found. It’s not for me to pontificate as a guest but it is a hell of a rush to follow a boar into its home territory like that.
I’m from a country which killed off its own boar population over 400 years ago and whatever boar hunting traditions and wisdom we had died out back then.
Now that they have recently been re-introduced one way and another, I’m keen to explore what we might learn from others because we will eventually have to get to grips with them.
I had a very exciting long weekend, I learned to skin and joint boar, which bits are best to inspect for Trichinosis and how they cold and hot smoke the meat.
I shot myself a decent boar and help deliver a coup de grace to a wounded one with a knife.
I sat in high seats, walked and stalked the forest edge in the early morning and late at night and got to within 50metres of a group of three but couldn’t get a clear shot through the bushes.
I drank a lot of Vodka, ate a lot of smoked and cured meat and generally experienced a different culture from the street as it were.
Who could ask for a better weekend?
11 May 2010, 22:42
Artemis1Hi guys,
Well done, some nice boar on the forum, it is great to happy faces with great trophies on the side.
I've been in Croatia for most of the time and I missed many posts on the forum so I'll try to be more active in future.
Somehow I didn't manage to put my photos here because I'm doing something wrong but some great trophies have been taken in last 6 months and many in gold medal with the longest tusks of 31cm. The longest so far were 33.2cm but it was 2 years ago.
On the market and in the record books you'll find some photos of boar from the fenced grounds and it shouldn't be there but dishonesty is a great part in every business. Clients and hunters don't know that.
Please check this video among the others.
It is a wild boar male in 5th year max. about 170kg weight and in a few years should be in it's peek. We recon that he'll reach no more than 200kg and tusks up to 30cm. It is open ground in the mountains where the 4th biggest in the world record CIC book was taken. This is very rare to come so close to a big trophy in the open. It was early in the morning and I didn't want to shoot this one because it has a great genetics and there are much bigger and older to be taken out.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_y7R-brUqu8There are some other videos which I managed to put and many more are still on my camera.
Hopefully I'll find the way to put some photos of the trophies.
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