Slacking

Seriously slacking on the blog. I do it all the time, with a lot of things. I forget to record them. So caught up in the doing. I'm going to try to play catch up now, but everything's going to be in the wrong order. Sorry.

For starters the hunting season started on the 15th. It doesn't mean as much to us as it used to since we hunt all year now, but that's just within the confines of Tateyama city, and only by request of the city or landowners. I've been busy, busy, busy, and with the 14th/15th being the NIPPO Grand National in Hiroshima (which Mark and I drove down to!), the first day I could actually make it out was the 19th.


I think the typical hunter gets all worked up for his one day a week he can go out. He's planned the day, all the gear is prepped, and he's up and out there at the crack of dawn. Here you can see Baron and I getting into the truck at 11:45 haha. We're like that. I'm not a fan of wasting time (quality over quantity yo!), so we try to get in, get a boar, and get out. Efficiency. It ties into everything, including hunting with 1 dog over a whole pack, and then hunting style too. I just don't want a quality hunting dog I've put years of work into getting injured. Our hunting style has evolved to fit this ethos, though it may appear strange to some. We don't do it the 'right' way haha.

So 11:45 we head out, and by 12:45 we head into the mountain. I pick the ridge, we move up, Baron goes off to the right to a known boar nesting area. He runs a little loop in there, so I move around on the high ground, and out pops a little boar. I yell to Baron that it's up here, the boar runs downhill, Baron catches, I dispatch with knife. All of 15minutes and we have our first boar of the season. Nice start, so I decide to go for one more. First we get the 15kg boar to the truck, and gut it. I pop it in the river to cool it, and realize I dropped my jacket somewhere on the trek down. We head back up, I grab the jacket, and notice that Baron is ahead with tail high and twitching. He starts barking into a bunch of gnarly undergrowth, so I load up the shotgun as the boar bolt out the back. Baron gives chase for a bit, then comes back to get me. I move downhill with him and see the boar around 50m away. Not a good shot though. We move forward, Baron lures the boar toward us, and they charge, but Baron's in between me and them so no shot. We give chase for a bit more before calling it.

We move across the stream at the bottom and over onto the facing ridge. As we climb through the bamboo there's plenty of fresh track. We get in under some orange trees, and I notice Baron's picked up fresh scent, and the boar are close. It's 14:15. Baron moves into a complete tangle of undergrowth, and I hear him growling, low and quiet. The boar's in there. I'm not crawling straight down after him, so I move to on the high ground to the right to cut off one escape route. As I'm wondering how to get in there, Baron and the boar make contact for a second and I hear the scramble and growl of Baron in close quarters. I have to get in there before Baron has a chance to get hurt. I crawl in.

I'm gonna throw the video in here as well, but that's the running commentary. I'm sliding in on my ass, the undergrowth is too low for me to stand, and it's a bit dangerous since I can't really move to get away from a charging boar. I pick the only 2 thin trees in there, and make eye contact with Baron. He knows what's up, and moves to the right and downhill to push the boar back up toward us. He moves around a bit to make sure he knows exactly where the boar is, and I go back to pick up my pack that I took off when crawling in. I just want to make sure I'm ready for a chase. Baron goes to my left to lure the boar into charging, and I set up my position. I hear the boar take the bait, Baron comes flying through, the boar right behind, and at 3 meters I drop the boar. 58kg and a nice female. 3 slugs through the head, pretty much instant death.

We bleed the boar, and then drag it out of the mountain. It's just past 14:20, but that's enough for today. We run into a few farmers down at the bottom of the mountain, everyone thanking us for keeping the boar in check. It was a good day and a good hunt.


Comments

  1. Lovely post I love reading about how you and Baron hunt he sounds like one amazing dog.

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