A hunter's life

The author and a couple from the night before.

By Mick Frost

There is a hunter and gatherer in us all. That much is true.
In the modern day it presents itself in ever more sophisticated forms. Life circumstances, culture, environment and ideologies dictate whether the individual acts on their primal instincts and picks up rod, gun or knife and engages in hunting in it most pure form. Being raised on the land and having a huge innate drive to catch, trap or shoot anything that ran, hopped, flew or swam it was inevitable that I would develop into someone obsessed with the hunting of animals and fish. As with everything, one naturally moves onto more challenging pursuits having mastered a certain skill set. Pest control on the farm errs on the side of mundane after a length of time. My hunting and pest control experiences have now led me to what I believe is one of the most challenging, rewarding, effective and dangerous forms of hunting available in the Australian bush; the targeting of big wild pigs (especially mature boars) in mountainous country with well trained holding dogs.

The amount of frost on diggings tells you how far ahead the pigs are.

After an inch or so of rain the patches of soil would be turned over. The scotch thistle and stinging nettles on the sheep camps up high on the mountain tops drew the most attention. I knew what was doing it. Hogs in these parts on the NSW New England Tablelands are nocturnal and rarely if ever sighted in their travels in the light of day. Their whereabouts would be indicated by the diggings and wallows. I would come to realise by the volume of the sign I had seen, there were a lot more pigs then I realised at first. With the coming of winter the frosts would scorch the pastures and the odd cow and sheep would fall victim to the cold of the tablelands. Their bloated carcasses would be there one day and gone the next with only a few tufts of hair and wool left on the ground. So many questions surrounding these animals were posed to a young hunter. Pigs were more of an enigma then anything at that time. They had a certain aura around them. I was always warned they were extremely dangerous when cornered or wounded, and heard mumblings and read of some of the more ‘adventurous’ hunters somehow catching them with dogs. They were obviously nocturnal and retired back into the thick undergrowth of the eucalyptus scrub and mountain ranges that met our boundary fences with the first of the morning sun.

Rocks, scrub and timber all work in the boars' favour.

Habits of Sus Scrofa were studied in detail. Game plans formulated. Many a time the tell tale dewclaws of pigs using pads were followed with rifle in hand back into the thick of the mountains after a bit of wet weather. Following their tracks for what seemed like kilometres before they would peter out, I would be left standing in the dense encompassing eucalyptus scrub thinking I was chasing a mob of ghosts. It had all seemed so easy...the deer, foxes and rabbits of before.

Years later in my late teens a couple of good mates offered to come up from the coast for a hunt to target a few of the pigs that had been busily tilling up the basalt. They had a couple of pig dogs. Lo and behold... Of course, I knew what ‘pig dogging’ was. Those two words had so many differing connotations for people on the land, some positive, some of them not so much. It smacked of rough and tumble and had a controversial edge to it. One could be led to believe it was the sport of ruffians, something a purist rifle shooter and deerstalker like myself thought of as a bit taboo initially. To a young country bloke who loved the thrill of the chase and snuffed at a bit of danger with delight,  once discovered, it was like a tonic.

It was after dark as we descended into a swampy area I knew pigs had been frequenting. My hopes were not high as we strolled along immersed in a conversation about something else. All of five minutes into our hunt the dogs had disappeared, barely raising an eyebrow on my behalf. Bloody things will probably chase the sheep, I thought. With that a, bark and the loud squeal of an adolescent boar promptly punched through the cooling night air. The hair stood up on the back of my neck. I was converted, a ‘born again pigger and I ain’t goin back’ to quote the song, (God forbid).

It had all started with the trapping of rabbits at the age of five, quickly progressing to shooting. Rabbits although still fun to shoot, don’t take too much thinking to find and dispatch, but a marksman of me it made. Where there is smoke there is fire and so it is with rabbits and foxes. Yet armed with only a .22LR foxes are a hit and miss affair during the day. The Tenterfield fox whistles arrived in the mail three weeks later. The cat and dog were whistled in and I was away. The extraordinary fact that an animal as smart and wily as a European Fox could be whistled in and sniff the muzzle of your barrel is still not lost on me to this day.

Glen Innes country is riddled with fallow deer. Foxes and rabbits were put on the backburner and fallow deer became the main objective. Knowing ballistics it was obvious a .22 wasn’t going to cut the mustard. My stalking skills already developed from the pursuit of rabbits and foxes, were honed to a razor's edge in the pursuit of deer with a .22. Stalks were made into a range of 30 or 40m and less in order for clean headshots to be made. A deer’s head is roughly the size of an entire rabbit so it was no problem placing a .22 projectile through the centre of a deer's skull at that range. The freezer was perpetually full. Crumbed venison backstraps and baked shoulder were a staple for a while and the kelpies got fat too.

Along with a love of hunting existed an infinite love of dogs. Among my best and truest mates has always been a cattle dog, even to this day. With the responsibility of owning and looking after a dog it became apparent early that a dog should have a job to do, it should be trained correctly and have a purpose in life. A bored and ill disciplined working dog is a dangerous dog, and a waste as well. To watch a kelpie cast around 1000 wethers or an old cattle dog draw blood from the nose of a recalcitrant beast and send it floating back into the mob is always a delight. To watch a 30kg bull terrier dog put its life on the line for you and hang from the ear of a 100kg boar in a stand of tea tree is sublime.

The hunting of pigs, and more specifically mountain dwelling pigs, has become an obsession. Sambar aside, it is my opinion that catching big pigs with one or two holding dogs is the pinnacle of hunting in southern Australia. Not just any pig chasing but the tracking down and outsmarting of secretive, mature mountain boars. It is far removed from the numbers game that can exist out west. Dogs are never dropped on sighted pigs and a spotlight seldom used. A dog's nose and its ability to follow it quickly and proficiently reigns in the mountains. I approach the hunt from a purist’s perspective. My style of hunting dictates that all pigs should be smelt and found by the dogs. The aim for me is to train a dog that will efficiently find, locate and hold any size pig in rough, steep country without the aid of a spotlight, even to the extent of only using parking lights to minimise the amount of light projected from the vehicle. Dogs need to be quick on deciphering scent, and highly committed on a find, whether that is from a briskly moving ute or quad or on a walk while targeting a particular pig or training a pup. The slightest flash of light, the bang of a chain on a headboard or the squeak of a cage will send the better pigs tearing off into the thickest and most inaccessible areas of scrub. The faintest of wafts is all the dogs have to go on most times. Prey drive needs to be huge, the brain needs to be switched on while on the find and the heart needs to be engaged when the dog is connected to something nasty. Pigs in the mountains can be akin to a needle in a haystack. A rifle is as useless as a hip pocket on a singlet when they are a kilometre into scrub you can't see more then a couple of meters into. A seasoned working pig dog is what's needed, one that is able to sniff out that 'needle', grab it by the ear and hold on indefinitely. It is these attributes that make a dog an extremely valuable tool that is unsurpassed in its effectiveness in a hunting/pest control role (baiting aside) for feral pigs.

A natural progression takes place with everything we do in life (profound statement I know), and so does it in hunting. Some will have you believe ‘pig dogging’ is a barbaric practice. Yet as someone who actively participates in it, and who has hunted with both bow and rifle, it is one of the most pure and deeply satisfying forms of hunting that exists when practiced correctly. No other form of hunting puts you so in touch and connected with your quarry, nor is there anything that involves you on such a deep level with the ‘tools’ of your trade. It's in your face. Its real. It holds none of the falseness of the modern world. You get blood on your hands, and you ain't going with the flow of the status quo. Yet it's morally far superior to the poison 1080. Our animal liberationist friends like to spruik and advocate against dogging pigs preferring the 'apparently' less cruel means by which 1080 kills an animal. Footage of animals going through the throes of death and agony of 1080 seems to conveniently be a little harder to come by and doesn't make it on to the 7.30 Report. No, 1080 allows death to take place out of sight and out of mind. It's better for everyone that way, no one has to see and its nicer just to not think about it all. 1080 means pigs die in silence out in the bush. We don't get to watch it on Youtube, or Facebook. See no evil hear no evil. The city kids like it that way...

Dogging is raw, unadulterated, real. A juxtaposition from the everyday world around us. A break from 'reality'.

Hunting with a rifle is an often sterile and dreary science when compared to the art of being an accomplished dogman. Every dog is different. Every dog has his day. You can't add half grain of powder, glass bed the action, change primers or load boat tails. It starts when he's a pup and continues until the day he dies. It starts with you as a dog trainer, handler, conditioner. A dogman. Where the dog will lead you and what it will achieve all hangs on you. Watching him on the ute, knowing when that smell crashes into his face. Expecting the jump. Grassing that 100kg rank boar. It's all about the dogs, and yet it's all about you as a hunter. When you hunt.  How you hunt. Where you hunt. Being in the right place at the right time. Having the 'firepower' to stop that rank boar charging through thick scrub.

Dogs. They're all different. Some mad and stupid. Some brave and smart. Knowing what makes him tick is not merely science but an art.

Having driven through a block and come up with nothing, you want to close the gate knowing there was nothing there that day. That's the dog that one aims for. It is the variables and randomness that come with the reliance of a fallible animal and mate. The frustrations and challenges and the never-ending pursuit of the ‘perfect’ dog and the biggest of boars. 

In a life of variables, pig catching is a constant

 

MOST of my hunting is done with dogs.
I breed them, train them and use them to find and grab wild pigs for pest control and for the freezer.
I am also well aware that some people find the whole concept challenging. And with good reason.
As I often say to those enquiring...it's not a game of tennis.
You can mitigate the risks, particularly for the dogs; have them fit, have quality protective equipment, be quick to support them. But dogs that want to find and stop pigs (and that is a crucial point, the dog has to want to do it...) are going to put themselves at risk.
Catching wild pigs with dogs is potentially dangerous and puts dogs and the hunter at the snorting, pointy end of agricultural and environmental pest management (and food gathering for that matter...). A bad pig can certainly hurt you or a dog but that's not all that's out there. There are sprains and strains, puncture wounds from sticks and knives, cuts from barbed wire, injuries from vehicle mishaps and the odd fall off a cliff... and that's just what's happened to me.
Pig catching is what I like to call 'big R reality'. It's not a concept or a theory. It's not open to interpretation. It's not my reality versus someone else's.
Catching big boars, particularly in steep mountain country, involves putting your hands on a very alive and very dangerous animal that can and will hurt you properly if you give it the opportunity. (Getting hit in the knee by a boar is like being hit by a sledge hammer with a spike welded to it...)
It's that reality I like.
For me, it's clean and clear; get it right or deal with the consequences.
There is no question that crawling into a blackberry bush at 2am to grab a nasty boar held by one of your dogs is 'big R reality'.

But why do it that way? Why not just shoot, or poison or trap pigs if it's all about pest control and shoot and trap if it's about food gathering?

Well, of course it's not all pest control and sourcing organic meat. It is mostly about the dogs.

The relationship with the dogs, the breeding and the training is what drives it all for me. The use of dogs has a perfectly practical application and forms one of the pillars of population management but the reason I hunt with them rather than shoot from a chopper is because it satisfies something inside me.
You can become very close to an animal that will put itself directly in harm's way rather than let you be hurt. In my case, there is no doubt I am in charge of my dogs. They behave as I wish. I am a benevolent dictator but a dictator all the same. But that relationship is more like a brother or sisterhood at the moment a big boar is on the ground as the result of our combined effort. There is a depth to the experience, the shared danger and that can be felt but remains elusive to adequately describe.

In pest control terms, around here anyway, landholders and managers use poison, traps, helicopter gun platforms and pig doggers in whatever combination they can afford or see fit.
Dogging pigs is not the best or the only way to manage the invasive pest issue, and you can say that about any of the methods mentioned. What can be the best method to one landholder or manager might be the worst to another. Dogging pigs is just one of the ways it can be done and any real attempt to manage pigs in an agricultural or ecological sense needs to consider all options and how they might fit together and then be Co-operative, Co-ordinated and Broadscale.
That's what the experts in population management tell us and I think they are right.

But while all that co-operation and co-ordination is being negotiated and funding is sought for the broadscale application of whatever method is chosen, I haunt my landholders' properties with my dogs. It keeps up the pressure on the pigs and keeps us in pork.

If the pigs reach a population level that makes me or the landholder uncomfortable, I will activate traps as well as dog the pigs that refuse to be trapped.

However, whatever happens, I keep coming through the front gate with the dogs ready to work. Of course, the pigs work out your tactics and change their behaviour so you have to be ready to adapt.
I keep coming through the gate but what time of day I do it, what phase of the moon, even what I am driving and how I drive when I enter the property will vary.

I want to hunt, the dogs want to hunt and the landholder wants us to hunt...

It makes you a part of the management of land and a part of the landscape.

It is a constant and will be until I can't physically do it any more.

It's not a sport to me...

HUNTING for me is not a sport. It is not something I do in my spare time. It is not a choice I make...

For me hunting is part of a bigger whole, a relationship with the natural world that includes the birds, the bees, the wind and the rain. I never know for sure what the date is but I always know the phase of the moon.
I look at the world in four dimensions. There is everything I see. And overlaying that is everything I already know and everything I have yet to learn about how all of that fits together.
I don't see wild animals as good or bad, as more or less entitled to respect, or as guilty or innocent. I just watch what they do and try to understand.
So why hunt? Why not just watch?
Well I do watch...a lot. I watch every bird I see. I watch insects, the weather, the flowering of trees.
However, I don't feel like just an observer. I feel like I am a part of it all. I feel like a part of the natural jigsaw in which everything relates to everything else.

When I was little I was fascinated by anything to do with catching things. I watched movies and TV shows about Daniel Boone and the mountain men of the American West. I read about animals hunting one another and indigenous people's understanding of their natural environment. The commonality for me wasn't fun, or ethics it was about need. The people and the animals needed to hunt and gather because they lived in the natural world and their capacity for survival was a function of their ability to hunt.
As well as that fascination, I grew up among country types. My father was a farmer, soldier, saddler and my mother, the daughter of a bullock driver and opal miner worked with Dad on the land and later in the saddlery as well as doing the books for Mother's Choice bakery among other things.
Lots of things lived and died around us; pets, horses, working dogs, livestock and pest animals. I had to adjust to death because killing was not something that came naturally to me but it was obvious it was necessary if we were to eat, or protect our food or ourselves.
A dog called Mac that my father loved bit me when I was less than three years old. It was shot without hesitation. Countless snakes met their end as they crossed the yard, tried to make it under the house or made it into the house. And my mother would slither through the kitchen on her stomach with a .22 to poke the barrel through the smallest of gaps in the back door to shoot the crows that stole our little chickens...
There was no thrill in any of this and no judgement of the animals involved. It was all just practical. Some things live for now but everything and everyone dies in the end.

I predominantly hunt pest animals. I am obsessed with hunting wild pigs and in the past few years I have developed an almost all consuming interest in trapping wild dogs and foxes. I use my own family of dogs (known as Makim Dogs to some) to find and grab wild pigs which I kill with a knife. It is potentially dangerous for dogs and hunters but offers a means of getting pigs in thick and/or steep country which might not offer many clear shots (and I don't like shooting near my dogs because of the potential for a misplaced shot). With the wild dogs and foxes, I like the science behind out-thinking an effective predator and trapping it. But both of those passions are subjects for another day.

My point is I hunt pest animals now because I love the challenge of attempting to manage their impact on the natural and agricultural environment. To me it is part of my role in the natural world and something about which I have no choice. It is my part to play in the same way as a bird flies, a 'roo hops and an eagle soars.

I hunt because that's the way I am made.