With all the house-moving, renovating, etc over the past couple of months, and the change in my work circumstances (new contract), I was getting pretty itchy to 'go bush'. Since this was the last NT long-weekend for the year, it just had to be a hunting trip!
Unfortunately, this weekend also sees the culmination of the notorious week-long Pine Creek Pig and Pussy Hunt, so I figured on avoiding that part of the Territory between Adelaide River and Katherine like the plague! Unfortunately that knocked out a couple of my favourite hunting properties, so the wife and I decided to try a new place which had been suggested to me by a mate several years ago. I simply hadn't had the time or inclination to check out this distant property before, but here was the perfect opportunity!
Driving down on Saturday afternoon gave us the chance to camp beside a scenic billabong, feed the mozzies all night, and get an early start on the Sunday morning.
After walking a couple of dry creeks and several kilometres of river-bank to no avail, we were beginning to regret the decision. It was already well past midday and very hot for this time of year, and the complete lack of fresh sign was quite discouraging. Rebecca was certainly having a very successful 'bush-walk', but the hunting was dismal. Still, it can take a while to get a new place wired, so we decided to hike over to a bunch of tiny waterholes marked on the topo map out in the middle of nowhere, and give that a try.
An hour later, we were just skirting round a small erosion gully when I saw movement in the grass not 10 metres ahead: it was a huge feral tom-cat! The grey-tabby form half-disappeared behind a small bush and stopped to listen, but by then the heavy double rifle was at my shoulder and it must have gone off accidentally because I don't remember pulling the trigger!
The effect of 650 grains of Woodleigh's finest on a 5 kilo feral cat is best left to the imagination, however I was able to use a convenient log to disguise the carnage and salvage a photo:
After that slow start, things started happening pretty quickly. The target waterholes had been hammered by feral hogs, and despite the fickle breeze I was able to catch-out a good boar snoozing in the dappled shade of an Itchy-Tree.
After giving the waterholes the once-over, we set a compass-course back towards the car, but hadn't gone a kilometre when a patch of jungle came into view. Heading over for a look, I spotted a large pig rooting up the soft dirt under a shady Pandanus in the adjacent woodland. One shot from the Greener double absolutely flattened it on the spot, though it turned out to be a big-bodied sow covered in wet mud! This evidence pointed me back towards the jungle fringe, however it was pretty dark in there and a couple of medium-sized pigs made their escape without offering a shot. After skirting round a mess of wallows fed by a tiny spring 50 metres further on, I spooked the boar! Luckily he ran out into a small clearing and hesitated, so I was able to get the bead on his ribs just before he bolted back into the thick stuff!
Continuing on the bearing for home, we struck another patch of dry thicket about 2 km further on. There must have been water somewhere nearby though, as a bit of pig-sign was evident, and soon I spotted one of the culprits sitting up looking at me from his bed under a cabbage-palm. He was perhaps sixty metres away, so I took a steady off-hand shot at his chest, but when he bolted as if unharmed I thought it may have been a miss. Heading over for a look, I was amazed at the copious blood-trail, and couldn't believe that hog made almost 100 metres before expiring!
After the photo, and removing the third jaw for the day, we figured that the hunt was over since the car was only about a kilometre away. However we had just shouldered our packs and started walking this last leg when yet another big boar jumped from his bed in a thicket and took off! I was mentally kissing the big spotted hog goodbye, and had already started talking to Rebecca, when he suddenly stopped and stood looking back at us from about 50 metres. It took a good deal of moving about to find a window through the stems and vines, but the boar stood his ground, to his ultimate demise! Those big blue-nose bullets aren't easily deflected by a bit of light scrub, and the bonded-core projectile flew true to the mark!
After a very slow start, the day had ended much better than expected. The Greener .577 double had spoken six times, resulting in six one-shot kills. I was really gaining confidence in this big stumpy double, despite its short sight-radius and relatively weighty barrels. Four good boars, a sow, and a feral cat was certainly a respectable outcome for the first hunt on a new and completely unknown property. I will undoubtedly be following that up with another visit or two in the near future!
Although many of the Territory's larrikin hunters would have preferred the raunchy festivities on offer at Pine Creek over the weekend, I was quite content with my own private Pig'n'Pussy Hunt in more subdued circumstances!