So I finally got out in the bush to use the new Tikka Hunter 308 - my mate called me and asked if I wanted to come for a run out the farm (he had some work to do on the backhoe so he said come for a run and when we get that done we can go for a armed bush walk and see if we can find any pigs - well I didn't have to be asked twice so I got the rifle prepped and grabbed the ammo and a drink and I was good to go.
Anyway we got the work on the backhoe sorted in a few hours and it was time to go walkabout so we drove up to one of the spots where pigs have been known to frequent from time to time. We parked the vehicle in some shade, got the rifles out and headed off, we'd only be walking about 10mins if that and we spotted a pig in a small clearing among a heap of blackberries
he was about 100m or so away so not a hard shot, I had to shoot down hill as this was in a bit of a gully, anyway I wrapped the sling around my arm whilst resting up against a tree and found him in the scope and steadied myself as best I could and waited for it to appear out from some ferns etc then sent a 130gn Speer HP Fed on it's way, the thump and blood that instantly appeared on it were a dead giveaway that the shot had at least connected, after the shot rang out another pig darted off at high speed into some surrounding blackberries never to be seen again, anyway I couldn't see where the pig I shot was but I was confident it was a good shot and didn't think it would have gone far if it did manage to run off, so off we went down the side of this hill (farking mountain goat country) anyway we were scouting around looking for where we'd thought I'd shot this pig and we couldn't find it
anyway we looked for any blood sign we could find and couldn't find any signs of that either, so my mate headed back up to where I'd shot from whilst I stayed where we thought it was, he couldn't see me and I couldn't see him so clearly were were in the wrong spot and it turned out we were we were 1 clump of blackberries out
, so he directed me over to where the pig was laying and there it was dead as a do do.
That was a relief as I sure as hell wasn't going into any blackberries looking for the bastard I can tell ya. Anyway a few quick pics to remember the victory over the ferals and we headed off to a nearby dam to have a look and see if anything was hanging about there, nothing was seen so we sat for a little while to see if something might come in but nothing seen so we went for a little walk around the dam and I noticed this long black thing moving over the other side of the dam, a nice healthy looking blacksnake was doing what snakes do, so I decided to take a pic of it (I like Redbellies, they just cruise along doing their thing without fuss and don't seem to be aggressive at all going by all the encounters I've had with em so far.
Anyway we scouted around some more blackberries but no more pigs seen or heard so we called it a day and headed back to sort the backhoe out as it had been overheating during the work we'd done, turns out the radiator was covered on dirt and was hardly recognisable as a radiator
so we drove it down to a hose and gave it a good clean and hopefully that's all it was.
Anyways here's a pic of the pig and snake and the countryside we were chasing em in.