Table of contents for October-November-December 2019 in Bacon Busters

G day All, Well we haven’t seen any change in the weather conditions as rain has been extremely scarce in most of the Australian interior. I’m even on the coast, south of Sydney and we haven’t had a drop. The creeks are running dry, the scrubby terrain is scarce and the outlook is not looking good. I’ve even heard inland cities like Orange and Bathurst have 10months of water left. I can’t even imagine what that would be like. The government must need to see Australia at it’s worst to get out and do something. Anyway, I’m not going into the politics of it all, but I know we can only pray and hope that that miracle of rain can sweep our bone dry continent at this dangerous time. I’ve…

I was on my way home from work on a property that I live on, north of Moree in NSW. That afternoon, I noticed a mob of pigs out on the chickpeas. They saw me and trotted across the road into the tree line which consisted of mainly Belah, Brigalow, Sandalwood trees and low lying ‘Wait-a-While’. I slowed down and drove past where they walked into the tree line and noticed they weren’t in a hurry to go anywhere. There were two nice size black and white boars in the mob and they stood there watching me, so I kept driving slowly past and tried not to disturb them again. Once I got out of earshot, it was on. I flew home as fast as I could and let my…

We’ve been in contact with the farmer over the past few months and as most people are familiar with the tough times they are having on the land, he too has been hand feeding his livestock to keep them in check. I have had a busy few months myself back home. I recently moved into my old man’s house to help care for him as he has been struggling with some day-today habits with early onset dementia. I got away for the weekend with a good mate, who knew Dad and I used to hunt together. My mate and I had the weekend to get away from home and give the dogs a good run. Dad showed me the ways with the dogs since I was young and has always…

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The 2019 Georgetown Boars ‘n’ Bowls hunt was a raging success. We had teams come as far west from Mt Isa and as far south as Victoria driving up to participate. The 2019 hunt SMASHED last year’s numbers out of the park! The 2019 hunt was able to catch a combined total weight of 15,533.95kg, where 2018 was 10,888.10kg! This weight was made up from 388 pigs in total that made it to the scales and 2018 was 260 pigs! “The day was a great success with 30 of the 38 teams bringing back their loads!” This year, Cairns Honda donated a set of custom quad racks to be given away as a nomination prize. Every hunter that had entered the hunt received a ticket on weigh-in day and when…

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It was like any other Friday afternoon. I got home from work and got the missus excited to go chase a few hogs out on a section of property where I work and before I know it, the dogs were off their chains and plated up. With the drought being so widespread, the pigs had been coming into the grain bins and made easy pickings. As we got to the paddock, I flicked the spotlight around and the missus yelled, ‘their in the feed bin’ and sure enough a boar had his head and front feet up in the feeder. After a short chase, our big lugging dog had him pulled up and on the Ute in no time. After cleaning out the feeders, we went for a drive around…

What a way to go out! Dad, Brayden and I were out on one of Roughy’s last runs. After getting access to a new place, it was the right thing to give Roughy his last dance. We had Roughy, our 8year old Bully/Boxer and the two young pups Smash Bully/Stag/Mastiff and Banga, Bully/Boxer/Mastiff, who were only 8months. They had only been on a few smaller pigs out in Central Queensland and handled themselves well enough, but today was going to be a real test for them. After getting off the main road over the ridge and around the bend, we arrived at our spot. It was mainly coastal swamp areas with sand ridges in between. We drove past our first large swamp area that was still holding a little water.…

After years of talking around the campfire, reading mags and watching videos, years of trying to decide who to pick as our guide for the hunt of a lifetime in the Top End, we finally got it together and made a choice and dates to travel. We all wanted the elusive 100kg+ boar to brag about and show our mates, not so elusive in The Top End. We chose Goodhand Hunting Safari’s out of Darwin and to travel in September 2018. We went to the SSAA shot show and yapped to a few outfitters that were at the show. We were all told to take nothing smaller than a 308. My mate Paul wanted to take his .270 and was disappointed to hear that. But no; he was taking his…

1. My hairy dog is full of burs. Can I clip him or not? A: Yes, you can think of getting your dog clipped; alternatively you may be able to brush out the burrs with a suitable deshedding brush. I have included a picture of an example. It is important to get burrs out of your dog’s coat as they can burrow into the skin and cause abscesses and more serious infections. 2. I’ve heard canned dog food is bad. True or false? A: False. When it comes to canned food (and all food in fact) it comes down to the quality of the brand that you use. There are poor quality foods that people do use and these are more frequently implicated in problems. Canned food does tend to…

My love for hunting started when I was about 15 years old. Dad had a mate who owned a grazing block about an hour from town where we would camp out and spend the weekend shooting. As the years went by, I started to hunt the block on my own. Each trip, I would see heaps of pig sign, but struggled to shoot many in the thick scrub where they liked to hide out. The frustration of knowing roughly where the pigs were, but not getting to shoot them, led me to start hunting with dogs, and as they say, the rest is history! Over the years, I’ve tried different breeds of dogs with mixed results. My current dog Ned, a Wolfhound cross of about 3 years old ticks most…

Fifty four teams braved freezing weather conditions during the Cooktown Hotel Hog Hunt at which just a 100gram weight separated the two biggest boars. It was held from July 19 to 21 and because of the temperature, which dropped to 2 Degrees Celsius, the pigs were harder to find this year. A total of 56 pigs weighing 28tonnes were weighed in compared to 212 last year and organizer Michael Wilson, who is the publican of the Top End Pub told Bacon Busters why. “It was held last September when it was hot and some hunters complained it had a big affect on their dogs, so we put it forward to July and it was a big success,” he said. More than $6500 in cash prize money was up for grabs…

We went for a camping trip with some amazing friends and their two boys and our 7month old little man. We did a couple of walks into some jungles with the dogs with no results. As we all jumped into the Ute and drove back to camp, us boys were standing on the back talking rubbish and the girls just stopped expecting us to jump off and let the dogs go, but little did they know we hadn’t seen the mob of pigs that they did. A couple of laughs and realising what was happening, we let the dogs out and ran after them pulling up a little sow and boar, but was great to get the little boys and family in there!…

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I headed out on a Saturday to try my luck in the hills and on my way I was thinking of where abouts to start hunting. I thought my best bet would be to start up higher. Halfway up the mountain, it started to snow and once I got the dogs plated up, the snow got alot heavier. So I headed down to hunt the gullies at the base of the hills. I came around the bend in some tall pine and off the dogs flew. Sitting in the Ute with the heater going, my brown dog came back and the Foxy X was still out there. The tracker said he was on point down in the creek. I wasn’t looking forward to heading down and was very unimpressed when…

One of the local cattle blocks we have hunted for a few years now has recently put a sorghum crop in. The pigs have just started to find where this crop is and we have been having a ball. Over the past month, we have caught a couple of cracking boars that have been trying to make their escape. Dad, Brayden and I decided to go for an early morning run around the crop. We came in the main entrance and travelled along a broken gully that divided the two crops. “The big fella was flicking the dogs around like a whirlwind.” We had our 3year old dog Bash loose, as we were getting closer to the corner where the crop backs onto the scrub. He started to get a…

My 40th was coming up and I said to Dad that we need to go hunting. So, he made a call to his mate at Lake Cargelligo and the dates were locked in for late June. The F-truck was loaded, unloaded and reloaded. How was I going to fit all this gear in! Finally, I got it to fit, but it was like a game of tetris. Then when I got to the old boy’s place, he had more crap to load up. Dad took one look at me and said son I’m glad you have an F-truck. It was a long 10hour trip, but we got to see the country change shape a number of times. Even more so than normal, with the lack of rain. You could clearly…

Like a wagon train circled against Indian attack, the small mob of medium-sized pigs stood shoulder to shoulder, bunched up tight, not willing to break eye contact or ranks. With all focus on the barking dogs, we were able to walk in close undetected. For a short time, the mob held its nerve, unflappable, unmovable, but that persona changed the instant Royce shouldered the compact, hard-hitting coach gun. With an overconfident porker in the front row head-butted a solid, he hit the ground hard and stayed there. Suddenly, like politicians caught in a lie, everyone wanted to be on the next ‘tax payer funded’ flight out of town. It was pandemonium as the mob scattered in all directions. In the commotion, I fired the .50cal white-mountain carbine at a high-speed…