For The Record: Week 4

Dog breeding plans progress in a good hunting week

(July 22 - 28, 2013)


Up high on Happy Valley.

By Ned Makim


 

Dog breeding plans dominated the start to this week with the hunting pushed into second place for a moment.
One of the working dogs, Suzie, was finally in season and I had to get here to Luke on the grain block north of town for a rendezvous with one of his dogs.
Suzie is one of the most honest dogs son Paul and I have bred. Paul produced her from a pair I had bred, Kevin (Russell x Cathy) over Hannah (Russell x Milly) and from five months she was at the pointy end of some rough pigs.


Suzie attached to a boar on the plains.

She has a beautiful nature, not a scrap of nastiness in her, but good Lord is she tough. Like all of ours she can find and stop a rough pig but Suzie is just that extra level of hard. If she's attached you could send a little kid in to grab the pig...
Luke's dog is not one of our family of hunters but that makes no difference to me. I've wanted his blood in my yard since I saw him and his brother work a few years ago. Like a lot of great workers, he doesn't look anything out of the ordinary but he is a genuine one-out big boar dog and he throws excellent pups. Within 24 hours of dropping her off the pair had been joined. There were a couple more matings during the week, so if all goes well we should be welcoming some pups in late September.

With the dog breeding plans under control, it was back to hunting. I headed out to Trap Rock to scout for a few more pigs. The landholder had also asked for a goat for his sheep dogs.
I decided to get the goat early in case I got caught up with the pigs and headed down to the creek country. It's permanent water fed by steep rocky slopes where the feral goats like to prop. They aren't always there but if you cover the country and pay attention there is always a chance.
As it was, the ball bounced my way and I spotted a decent billy high up in the rocks and apparently unaware of me down on the creek. I'd been driving along a track with the dogs loose in case they picked up on a pig scent when I saw the billy. I stopped where I was, locked up the dogs and grabbed the 30-30. A bit of climbing and then a careful stalk and I was within 80 metres or so of the billy. I used a spindly sapling as a rest and put one through his chest. The goat dropped on the spot.
I got him back to the truck and dressed him for the landholder before getting the dogs out of the cage and heading off again.



A feral billy taken among the rocks for the landholders sheep dogs.

The rocky outcrop where the goat was perched.

While I was in the creek country I saw some relatively fresh pig sign so after getting myself a bit further through the rough country in the vehicle I stopped and started stalking the gullies with the dogs. Of course, I left the rifle behind. I don't like to mix up working pig dogs and a rifle much. For me there I just too great a margin for error...and it's just another thing to carry.
I'd covered about a kilometre when I followed the dogs up a feeder gully. They were having trouble settling on a scent and that often indicates a sow with little ones. Single family groups like that leave a lot of confusing sign, lots of crisscrossing scent. After a minute or so doing circles, the dogs went further up the gully and took me with them. Ahead of them I spotted the sow and piglets in the long grass on another slope and prepared for the inevitable.
Something of a climb later, the sow and one little pig were removed from the property and it was back down to the truck. I took a different track out and half way up the hill from the creek Dave jumped and took Alice with him. Within 300 metres they had another small pig and I had another climb ahead of me, this time down and then back up... Three for the day.

I managed to get back up to Happy Valley during the week and pick up another two pigs there. Nothing special again but the object on my blocks close to home is pest control, not ego, so every pig counts and every pig makes my landholders happy. One thing that might excite the trophy hunters though was the combined mob of red stags and fallow deer bucks I saw on the oats in Happy Valley just as dawn broke on my way to the high country pair of porkers. A couple of decent heads among them and I was tempted but time was a factor and they were allowed to live for another day.

One of the two little pigs from Happy Valley.

 At home again and I was well and truly over the backyard fox. It hadn't come close to stepping in my leg hold trap. I dug around in my bag of tricks and added some of Ted Mitchell's smoked egg lure and bingo. One little vixen was taken out of the equation. I live backed onto a 5000 acre Conservation Area and this female would have added to the pest burden in Spring time. There is still a dog fox to catch so the trap is reset.

The first backyard fox.
 

The final excursion for the week was back out to Trap Rock. The landholder had seen three pigs since I'd been out for my goat shooting run earlier in the week so I headed out Sunday afternoon for another look. I visited the pig trap and it still hadn't attracted any interest so I moved it into the lambing paddock for another try. While I was there the dogs indicated a pig but could not find it in the horse grass. Around and around they went but it wasn't until I walked with them that Dave found the little sow.
From there it was up to Ironbark Gate where a pair of sows had been seen during the week. Through the gate and Dave jumped again. Within 60 metres we had another little sow. On to the scrub block and a walk up hill with the wind from the Northeast and Dave and the pup Alice worked back and forth ahead until I heard the scrub cracking and a third little pig squeal. That was Alice's and Dave was yipping on the butt of a fourth for the day.
To his credit Dave stopped the sow through some terrible sticky scrub on a bad slope and I had four before dark.

The fourth pig from Sunday afternoon's run.

WEEK 4:

Pest animals removed    11
Free range dog food      32kgs
Kilometres travelled        391kms

PROGRESSIVE TOTAL
Pest animals removed    22 pigs
                              1 goat
                              1 fox
Kilometres travelled         1503kms