After taking first boar and shooting one roebuck (the one with nasal bot fly infestation…) I concentrated on taking another wild boar. This time my dad wanted to get one to make some sausages. He wanted a small 25-30kg pig, one of the last years piglets as they are usually the tastiest. It is easier said than done, as majority of the pigs we saw were sows with piglets or mature boars, but they also are quite elusive. We got a nice boar (spotty one) earlier, and there were other smaller animals around, but this sounder was shot already and they disappeared from the area and we could not locate them again.

Clear fell roebuck

We went out quite early one evening after another buck. It was quite windy and we could not see any roe anywhere… After a drive around we parked near the wood with clear fell bordering with some farmland. This bit was nice and sheltered from the cold wind and we could see red silhouettes of roe between the green of the grass and growing back trees. There were three or four does and a nice buck. He looked quite tall, but his brow tines were very shot. We watched the buck for quite some time and tried to age him, and when we agreed it could be a  shootable animal, I put down my camera and took the rifle off my shoulder. At this point one of the does spotted me and all deer ran away… 🙄

Well, I still had a few days left to catch up with him… at least that was what I thought… I went to this clear fell at least 6 times later on and saw the buck several times. He was chasing a doe once and then lay down… I bumped the doe on approach and he ran away another time… And only does were there another time I went there… To my father-in-law’s amusement I went back to Scotland without this roebuck. 😆

Full moon

Full moon was in a day or two, best time to hunt wild boar, but the weather changed and it was raining again… We went out anyway. 😆 Rain is usually not a problem and a cloudy night is better than full moon and no clouds at all. We went to the first area we thought we could find wild boar and soon located some pigs. Unfortunately, these were two sows with piglets. We stalked to about 30m and watched them feeding. One of the sows chased something away, so it was possible there was a yearling somewhere nearby, but we could not see it between the trees. There was a badger also between them, so maybe the sow actually chased one of them away? Anyway, we could not pick up any other boar and the two sows were feeding happily so we left them and went to another area.

It was the place we saw a group of wild boar before, but they got the wind and ran away before we could figure out what is what. We slowly approached the area and there was a single animal. It was a bit dark, but it was definitely a male. I put my rifle on sticks and tried to find the boar in the scope, but I could not see a thing… It was a bit strange as I could see the boar without binoculars and it looked like the scope misted… 🙄 My father-in-law found some tissue and soon cleared the glass. Now I could see the boar and as soon as he was more or less broadside I squeezed the trigger aiming on the shoulder, to save some tracking time… but the boar ran away. We could clearly hear him running and broking branches. It sounded like he dropped after a few steps, got up, ran and dropped again. It all soon went quiet… good!

We went to the spot where he was when I shot him and went between the trees. We looked everywhere, but he was not anywhere near… Back to the point where we started and we went slowly forward following the trail. The boar ran across the trees and branches and after 50m got to a deer path and went on… Not great, maybe he was not hit as good as I thought? Usually mortally wounded animals run away not sticking to paths… We followed on not so good now trail when we found the boar dead 150m from the place we started. It was shot low on the chest and the bullet smashed the far shoulder, that is why he dropped a few times.

It was a good shot after all, it just shows they usually do not drop on the spot… even shot with a .30-06. I gralloched the boar and my father-in-law went to have a look where is the nearest track. We had to drag it for about 200m and loaded it to the car. It was a nice male weighting about 65kg, but a bit too big than my dad wanted, so it went to the dealer.

When we loaded the boar, we realised that I left the sticks where I shot the pig from. We went back to fetch them, and there were pigs again… Unfortunately, this time there were two sows with piglets, so we left them in peace and went home.

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