Pig hunting in New Zealand

kiwi

sika and scruff hit the pork
Oct 10th, 2007, 12:59am ended up going out home to give sika a run seeing as sweep had all the fun yesterday.
wind was blowing again which made life hard. took my cuz and scruff and we hit the bush edge to stalk up a pig with the rifles and dogs at heel,didn't take long til we spotted a few sows and little ones, after areyoushaws questions about sows i thought it was karma wot happened lata on
we took a different gully as the wind was all over the place and as luck would have it found a little handbag boar chewing on a lamb, the two wires where released and after a short chase had it undercontrol, as we are thinning out the pigs at the moment he lucked out.
couldn't find anymore along that gully so we headed for home, as there was still enough lite left i split up with sika and went home the long way.
couple of gullies over and sika's indicating the opposite hill side, i can see a pig head chewing grass in a hollow, a quick look in the scope had little hooks so a quick shot in the head had sika running over to claim her boar..........karma steps in and he is a she and a titty one too whoops, she had four little ones inside so i felt gutted, lesson here sows sometimes have tusks....little ones.
next hill over and sika's getting keen again, calling her in we both peeked over into the next gully, pigs everywhere as the lite was fading fast i dropped the closest one,turned out to be a boar this time, sika bolted out and ran pass the still kicking and standing boar to catch a sucker, she actually jumped over the boar in her haste, i had to stick the pig and then release the sucker.
a quick drag up the hill had my two pigs together and sika chasing another little pig which she also caught, i had to put her back on a lead as it was dark as and we still had a hike, picked the pigs up with the polariss,bit of a long nite but the porks sussed

bit of rooting

and there off, little pig was caught down the bottom

scruff having a pose

the sow/boar "bugga"
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kiwi

posted a post i wrote on another site to sort of give you an idea.........

Helen S

Scruff looks quite like Liesel, is she one of the ones you bred?

Helen S

kiwi

she is sweeps sister and yes i bred her, no relation to your girl helen she is the product of a german imported grandmother,although there's a bit of korskote common blood way back..

Helen S

Interesting that noone has commented on the pighunting. I would have thought that those who own the "versatile" breeds would have been interested in one of the jobs they were bred for.

Helen S

kiwi

it might be a bit too much info for an english hpr site, the german wirehair as you say was breed to do this sort of work, looking at the history of it's introduction to the uk, has it been bred and trained more as a pointer than the allrounder the germans started with Rolling Eyes

, i always like to call my dogs wirehairs and tend to not promote the 'pointer' bit Wink

lou

BenB

I'm interested!

Do you use the gwp's to track the boar or just flush them and bay them? Or do they finish the job for you as well?

sako75

I'm interested too Kiwi !! What rifle do you use , what make and what calibre ??

Is that a Tikka .243 ??

I imagine that you need a substantial calibre to take down those wild pigs !!

munstyman

Hi Kiwi,
I am not sure if I read your post correctly, but like Ben I'm curious if your dogs catch unshot pigs. As my understanding is that Wire's LM's etc are expected to track wounded boar and then hold at bay for despatch by shot.
I would be intriged to find out how a dog would `kill' a pig, even a small one (neck break Question

/ suffocate Question

or other

)
We are of course curbed by the Hunting act in the UK, but having seen wild boar at close quarters I would be less than happy at letting my dogs come into close proximity to those tusks Wink

Peter

Helen S

Kiwi will reply in detail I'm sure but my understanding is that a lot of people use a team of dogs.

Some will be "finders" which hunt and find the pig, some will be "bailers" which corner the pig and keep it there until you arrive to dispatch it and some are holders the bull mastiff x types which will physically hold the pig until you arrive with your knife. I would think that a GWP would both find and bail and probably hold a small pig's back end. You would obviously not want to shoot at a pig that your dog is holding on to. I know that the purists prefer to dispatch a pig with a knife but you need tough holding dogs who you trust to help you. REAL TEAMWORK.

Yes the dogs can get ripped by the tusks and you can get protective gear for them to wear, principally big wide collars to protect their throats.

I stand to be corrected Kiwi, but this is my understanding.

Helen S

kiwi

you done a fine job of explaining it helen.
most "pigdogs" will do a number of roles, finding bailing and holding, a top dog will do all three, as the dogs work away from the hunter the dog must be stockproof as well as capable of only hunting pigs.
the wirehair can do all three and hunt happily with other dogs in a pack.
i like them to hunt off the 'mark' which means they will not free range like normal pigdogs, although i do allow it when hunting with other dogs.
i like to use them as indicating dogs, but there natural urge is to track them, working in pairs and bailing is the ideal way to catch pigs, the wire is not afraid to hold and it's ok on smaller pigs but they learn fast that the big ones "bite back". i don't use rip collars as i don't want them to develop any silly holding ideas, and they can get caught up in the thick bush.
they don't actually kill the pig, that is done with a rifle or a knife.
rifle is a 223.

Bareve

Thanks for the explanation Kiwi. I've often heard about the wirehairs working with boars down in Oz but it was interesting to read more detail as to what they actually do.