It has been well over a year now since I sold my old hunting dog Zulu to her (now) owner Brian from Wanaka - so this particular story is a recall from that last hunt with my girl (Aug 31-Sept 1 2007). The plan was to head down to Wanaka to visit Curley and Zulu for a good catch up.. sorry there arent a lot of scenic photos, it was raining for most of the time and I didnt want to get the camera wet - so we only took some once the rain eased off.

Curley has a local spot where there are pigs, deer, and chamois, so we heade dup there for the afternoon. Once we were at about 1000m we jumped out of the truck to have a glass into a gully that Curley knew about, and within 20 minutes we spotted a group of pigs rooting about in the scrub and gorse.

We watched them for about 30 minutes trying to work out which to take first, and then planned our stalk. They were about 800m away at first, and we closed the gap to 150m before setting up. In order to see into the scrub and gorse we had to shoot from an elevated position, so we all lay down and took aim, and this unlucky boar was the one we shot.

In total there were just over a dozen pigs, but once the first shots were fired, pigs scampered everywhere. Only a handful of piglets and weaners ran into the open, while the bulk of them bolted through the scrub and there wasnt a chance to shoot another good sizer.

Happy with just the one boar, we gutted it, and used one of Curleys belts and my gun strap to strap it up, and I packed it back up the hill to where we had parked the truck. Packing out pigs is a breeze compared with deer, the dimensions make them fit like a over weight school bag. The boar weighed about 120-130lb.

Brian and zulu are also best mates now, so its great to see her in such good hands, and enjoying every moment of her life =) The biggest diference was that she chases rabbits a sh!tload more than she ever used to, but thats probably wanaka for you - and i dont think brians too worried about calling her off them

Packing the pig up the hill back to the vehicle. It wasnt all that far to the truck - about a 30minute pack, but it was all uphill. We shot the boar down to my right in the gully of gorse, scrub, and matagouri.

This next photo is a better shot - the pig was down in that gully where you can see all the rubbish. It was avoidable, but just meant a detour here and there.

This photo says it all - i really miss that companionship like you wouldnt believe :-/

And thats all to report at this stage folks