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ARTICLES, TIPS & HOW TO GUIDES
Description : “Walking creeks and to the top of traprock mountains covered in prickly pear.”
Overview
By Chloe Mathers
Slippery traprock, hooky boars, aching legs, fallen trees, cliffs, and unforgiving terrain are just some of the things to expect when hunting mountain country. We always make sure we have a plan of where we are going and how we can ensure we get to the dogs as quickly as possible. Mountain hunting comes with a lot of walking and unpredictable outcomes. You can walk 15km up, down, through and around mountains and not come up with a single thing and then the next weekend simply be checking boundary fences and come across a good hooky boar laying up in a creek. Having a property on the edge of 50,000 acres of pure traprock mountains means that good pigs are always traveling through but never tend to stay very long at all, this makes targeting the bigger fellas difficult. Mountain hunting is different to hunting cattle and crop country as you never really see the pigs at all, signs are always visible but they spend a lot of time up at the very tip of the mountains. Walking the mountains comes with its own problems, especially when it comes to energetic pups and sharp rocks. As with all hunting, you must always be prepared for anything and everything. We make sure to always carry a fully stocked dog first aid kit, plenty of room temperature water, electrolytes and a rifle. We ensure that someone has a small bag on their person full of the basics (staple gun, saline solution, vet wrap, super clot, artery clamp, and gauze pads).
Having these basics on your person ensures that if you end up a few kilometers or even just a few hundred meters in the mountains away from the quad or ute, you can still treat the dogs and get them stable to walk back to the quad. We also make sure to carry a rifle with us too. You never know what kind of pig the dogs may have or what you are going to come across when walking. If you are licensed and are able to carry one, a small caliber rifle could get you out of some potentially hairy situations if need be. Another thing we do to ensure the safety of our dogs while hunting the mountains is never going solo. By hunting in pairs or in a small group means that if something happens to one of the dogs you can carry them out. With our dogs on the verge of finding, we tend to do as much walking as we can. Walking creeks and to the top of traprock mountains covered in prickly pear. Knowing that pigs love these type of areas it makes targeting specific locations easier. Also, by having slightly smaller dogs makes hunting the mountains a bit easier as they have the agility to run through the thick bush and maneuver around the fallen trees. But getting there ourselves before the dogs lose the pig is one of the challenges. Jumping over fallen trees, weaving through cactus and crawling through the thick bush is the main struggle when you’re trying to get to the dogs as quickly as possible. But when you eventually get there and dispatch the pig, the views that greet you don’t get much better! Hunting the mountains may not be the easiest nor the safest, but it sure is rewarding in more than a few ways.