It was a beautiful day. Perfect sunshine after a frosty morning. No wind to speak of. Well, not until a gentle breeze in the late-afternoon. More on that later.
I’d shelved my plans to look for feral pigs on a nearby farm when I heard from the owner that sheep and cattle were being moved all over the place, in preparation for lambing that would start next week. Instead, I would make good use of the gorgeous weather and do some reconnaissance amongst the hills next to the farm. They offer a delightful mix of deep forest, woodlands, scrub and open slopes and ridges. I would be carrying only chocolate topped muesli bars and binoculars. You already know what happened, of course. :-)
A manager from a local parks and wildlife office told me last week that in these hills I would find all manner of troublesome critters. Some with bushy tails. Others with tusks. Even some with antlers. Two kinds of those, he said. Hmmm! :-) He also said it was an area regularly frequented by mating pairs or family groups of common, yellow booted, iPhone fixated, bipedal primates and therefore he would strongly recommend that I not be seen carrying a bang-stick. We knowingly discussed how this could lead to the unnecessary arrival of a small swarm of other primates, of the black booted, poker-faced, blue-light swat variety. Hmmm. :-|
I parked my car at the northern end of the hills and traversed southwards along and up the steep eastern slopes, to reach the highest peak, which afforded a wonderful view of the surrounding farmlands. I saw plenty of hoof marks and pig rooting, but no trees rubbed by antlers. Up the top, with warm sunshine on my shoulders and barely a hint of breeze I walked further south along the descending ridge-line. The forest gradually cleared and opened up to give me a great view down to the farm I wasn’t going to be hunting on today. My binoculars are to blame for what happened next.
The farm looked very pretty from up on top of the ridge. My face would have looked pretty funny when I spotted the mob of pigs that had just left the sanctuary of the bushland, to now be ambling along through the lush, green grass that several hundred heavily pregnant ewes were meant to be enjoying. My iPhone is to blame for what happened after that. ‘We’ve finished mustering. You’re welcome to have a go at them,’ was the property owner’s answer.
Google Earth tells me that I was three and a half kilometres from my car. I tested my heart as I walked as fast as I could back up along the ridge to the mountain top. I then jogged down the long, lightly timbered northern slope. My Mauser M03 was snugly packed up and locked away in a Mauser rifle case and even though I was in a hurry, I took my time to assemble it carefully. Not carefully enough though. I forgot to install the bolt and cock the action before torquing the barrel bolts. More on that later.
I drove into the farm and tracked along the fence at the edge of the forest I’d been walking through earlier, keeping an eye on the hills above me to gauge where I should stop before bumping into the pigs. I didn’t want them to hear or see my Landcruiser. I judged well and walked through a dip and up to a crest before spotting a small swarm of piglets buzzing around each other, out in the open. I was walking smoothly but briskly, aware that the breeze had picked up as the shadows of the afternoon lengthened. It was blowing directly from me to them. I took a firing rest beside a big, old gum tree and then observed through my rifle-scope that all of the piglets were lifting their heads and sniffing the air. They started moving to the right and away from me, towards the hills and the forest. But where are the bigger pigs? The direction the piglets took gave them away, partially hidden in the grass. Two sows caught my scent at that moment and immediately turned for the forest.
I knew that the first shot from my 270’s clean barrel would fly a little higher than usual, but it seems I didn’t allow enough for that. Or, the reason that shot missed the larger sow could be that I didn’t get the barrel tightening sequence right. ‘Remember Rick. Bolt in, cocked, then the final tightening.’ My eye caught a flash of brass flying in the dappled sunlight as I reloaded. The sows were jogging a lot faster now, heading for a hole in the fence. The piglets couldn’t keep up. The leading sow paused to wait and caught a Berger 150gn projectile in the shoulder. Geez they work well.
What else works well is the Mauser M03 take-down switch barrel system. It took me a couple of minutes to put together a completely disassembled rifle, right down to the bolt head being removed for security. This rifle then knocked over a medium size sow at 150 metres, albeit with the second shot. The miss with the first shot was my fault.
