am
I myself hav been quite dis-heartened by the way this thread had gone and only hope you will post future tracking moments as they arrive with your-self and your dog
very interesting to see and hear how different tracking is done in other countries due to the differing species and hunting techniques along with the law
ie with bow hunting and also boar,
Personally I don't hav an issuse of using a young dog to try and track a possibly wounded boar, aslong as it is done in a controlled manner , but I think I may use a different type of dog if I had to deal with a lot of boar
but you still hav to start them at some point so depending on wether you actually know if it was an adult or a piglet will hav a lot of bearing on wether you use a young dog or not, as you don't really know if you were going to find this boar dead or not
my guess is... it was still alive at that point
This is my Account of an incident I had in another country shooting Boar
As we got to the first hunting place, a sounder of boar were already feeding in the ride
slowly crunching our way down the snow filled forest track, it was suggested I go alone to get into a suitable shooting position then as and when take my chance now about 150 yards away I lay down and tried to crawl closer
as i slid through the snow i felt a coldness that shook my body, the boar had moved on, my heart sank, my excitment slowly edged away, they had gone
suddenly from the right a new bunch appeared
"Phew "
Once again I signalled to my guide and chose my boar
This time they were milling around squabbling, desperatley I tried to keep my eye on the chosen one
it went quiet , the boar stood still ...An opening appeared and the 30-06 shattered the silence once more, within seconds the ride was clear, as the sound of the strike was still echoing in my ears I watched my boar dissapear into the trees
My guide confirmed my thoughts by saying how the boar reacted to the shot
A chest shot but not perfect
We waited for all the commotion to die down and made our way down the the point of strike
lots of blood and a good blood trail to follow
As we tracked the blood in the snow tell tale signs started to appear
stomach contents
blood covered futiments
things were not looking good, my guide was now confused wondering where the boar was
I was not
I knew now the bullet had struck low and unzipped the stomach
This was now going to be a difficult track as it was reaching nearly 600+ yards in an ever thicking forest, light was now fading and the moon had not yet risen over the tree tops, so visibility was still poor considering
we reached an area that was now becoming impossible to penetrate
I knew at this point we needed a dog and so did my Guide
from here we made our way back to the motor
A dog man was called
From here I saw a different side of tracking
Something I had heard about but not yet experienced
we went back to the original POI
From there my Guide took the lead once more and led the search
now a little confused as I assumed the dog man would of taken charge but he followed behind with the dog on the leash
I soon worked out why
There was no need to let the dog of here as we knew where the trail had taken us to in the first place
so we just follwed our tracks in the snow till we reached where we had stopped and left the trail
It was here the Dog man took over
Unleashing the Yak terrier on to an untouched blood scent,
it took of like the devil it's self, weaving in and out of the trees untill it disappeared yapping all the way
The dog man at this point loaded his s/s shotgun with solid slugs and turned his torch on, that was taped to the barrel and we just listened and waited
In the distance the terrier started yapping but to another tune like it was in a fit of excitement,
The dog man leapt into action, moving like Linford christie towards the excited terrier
This point my guide told us the boar was still alive nearly 2 1/2 hours later and possibly 100 yards from the initial shot
Then came the tell tale sign, a shot rang out and the terrier was quiet
a shout from the dog man confirmed all was sorted
the terrier had caught up with the boar and was biting it's back end yapping like mad causing the boar to bail around in circles
so keeping the boar in one place while it's master could locate them both from the yapping noise,
if the terrier had just sounded off in a howling way it would of indicated it had found the boar dead
It was only a 27kg piglet
the trusty dog man with his s/s and torch taped to the barrel, cheap and nasty looking but very, very effective
myself the Guide and the dog man after the track
some evening but a good ending,
Tracking like I hav never seen before
So like I said,
I do hope you continue to post, as I for one am very interested as I'm sure are a few others
ATB