A close encounter while hunting wild dogs

Off to my left, a deer barked in alarm. I stopped my slow walk along the boundary firebreak. The deer could not have seen or heard me, and the wind was right. Something else must have disturbed it.

The boundary ran by the edge of a long ridge, just a little off the top of the crest. The rim had a 50m-wide strip of thick scrub and lantana. There was a long, open glade of grass on the other side of the elevation, a likely spot to find deer just before sunrise.

Then several deer barked in panic, from maybe 100m away, on the other side of the scrub line. My hopes leapt. Quite likely, the deer had been spooked by the wild dogs I had been chasing for months, so far without success. Here might be an opportunity, at last.

Something entered the ridge-top thicket, noisily crashing towards me. In my mind’s eye I envisaged at least two dogs having a running tussle over some treat, as I had seen them do on other occasions. The careless hurtling through the vegetation was coming towards me. I saw agitation of the low bushes.

I dropped my hiking staff and slid the rifle off my shoulder. As the Merkel K3 came up to point I thumbed the cocking lever forward. Not a second too soon either. A black shape was barging my way. My view, and aim, were blocked by a lantana bush a few metres away. Suddenly, a boar popped out into the open and I instantly shot him in the forehead. He nosedived and rolled towards me, and I had to step aside as he came to lie right where I had been standing.

I was glad of my discipline of always hunting with the scope set to its minimum power. Even then, at 1.7x magnification, the boar’s head had filled my sight picture. The illuminated red central dot and a larger red circle of the Swarovski Z8i had helped with quick target acquisition in the dawn light.

I have never carried loaded rifles with the safety engaged. One of the great attractions of the Merkel K3 is that, like many other German-made rifles, you can have a round chambered and the rifle uncocked. Thumbing the safety latch forward cocks the rifle. The Fusion 95gr factory round from my .243 Winchester had done the deed reliably yet again. The Fusion is my ‘go-to’ choice for general hunting where I might encounter pigs, deer or distant dogs. Fine accuracy and excellent weight retention ensure reliable performance on all the game I seek.

To be fair, the boar had not been charging me. I found myself precisely in its path, which just happened to be on a well-used game trail that cut across the firebreak and under the boundary fence. Maybe the barking of the deer had worried it, or perhaps the boar was making haste for home before the sun came up. I had a few trail camera photos of this pig, always in the dark early hours. So, it was a real bonus to chance onto it in daylight and put a shot away.

The boar appeared to be in the 70-80kg range, and he had nothing much in the way of hooks. After my shot, I had not heard any indication that the deer had galloped away. That required some investigation. I had been intending to try for a yearling after sunrise, about a kilometre ahead. Maybe the deer were still just over the ridge.

I spent a half-hour slowly and carefully stalking through the scrub to gain a view of the grassy valley below. I took a little more time glassing the area thoroughly, but no deer were evident. Never mind, I would pay that location more attention in the future. It looked a promising spot, complete with busy game trails and was much closer to where I parked my vehicle, making for easier venison recovery. I went back to ‘Plan A’ and set off to stalk the location I had seen regular deer activity on my trail cameras.

I watched and waited for any deer, but the pig encounter had delayed my arrival past the magic hour. When I checked, the trail camera photos showed the spiker deer I wanted had been and gone before I belatedly arrived. I returned to the boar and took a few photos, then set up a trail camera overlooking the carcass. I was expecting wild dogs would find the remains that night and planned on a first light stalk of the cadaver. If there were no dogs present, I would go on and try for that sunrise spiker again.

I was confident that the resident wild dogs would put in an appearance, and I would check on that the next morning. A few weeks prior I had shot and butchered a spiker and put a trail camera over the remains. Unwisely, I had assumed it might take several days to attract some wild dogs.

When I returned a couple of days later, and stalked that carcass, all I found were some well-gnawed bones dragged off into the undergrowth. The trail camera showed the dogs had completely demolished the scraps during the first night, with a number of large, robust wild canines in attendance. So, I was optimistic that my boar might give me a couple of nights and some more chances on those elusive wild dogs.