Hunting brings couple together
It’s all about work-life balance for contract milkers Luke Ross and Bee Bryant.
When this couple is not working on the 120ha 350 cow dairy farm on the outskirts of Tokoroa, they are hunting pigs.
Not the most common hobby but perfect for these two who like nothing more than to be out in the bush with their teams of pig dogs.
Luke, who is in his seventh dairy season, has been hunting deer since he was a teen but the introduction to pig hunting came when he moved from Whakatane to South Waikato.
‘‘I had always hunted, but out on the coast it was mostly deer hunting. A mate, who lives and farms at Piopio took me pig hunting about five years ago,’’ Luke says.
He already had a small team of dogs and had a reputation for breeding ‘good’ dogs.
‘‘I love my dogs so going pig hunting here was a good fit.’’
Luke met Bee when she was looking to buy a pup.
‘‘He wouldn’t sell me the pup I wanted,’’ she says with a grin. ‘‘I was determined to get it. I guess the rest is history.’’
Her pig hunting experience started as a young girl going out with her father and aunties who always hunted. She was always pestering them to take her with them. She now combines her love of horses and dogs with her love of being in the great outdoors. This is no shrinking girlie/girl. She is as keen on the hunt as her partner Luke. She has her own team of three dogs, the two hunters, with their two dog teams, make a formidable pig hunting duo.
‘‘We just like being out there with our dogs,’’ Luke says, ‘‘it clears your head. You never know what will happen. But we nearly always come home with a pig (or two).’’
Pig hunting is a tradition in the South Waikato. The forests and bush offer the perfect home for wild pigs and farmers whose land connects with the bush are more than happy for pig hunters to hunt the land as pigs can do considerable damage to pasture and will kill lambs.
‘‘My last boss (in the back of Lichfield) had a real problem one year. The pigs almost completely destroyed a young maize crop. They made a real mess. The boss had to re-sow one lot,’’ Luke says.
‘‘We had to go out nearly every night and other locals were going out with guns just to try to get the wild pigs under control.
Each year Luke renews his pig hunting permit to allow him to hunt in the Kinleith pine forests [May 1 to August 31] and when the season is closed he hunts on private land. He often gets a call from farmers who are having trouble with the pigs coming onto their farms. He goes out most weekends and often after work.
Luke and Bee have seven pig hunting dogs ranging from pup to five years. They are all bitches. Luke prefers to hunt with the female dog, he says it’s just personal preference. They both take three dogs out at a time, rotating the dogs and taking the pups so they will learn from the older dogs. Luke breeds his own dogs and they are well sought after as good performing dogs. He is quick to say he doesn’t breed his bitch for the money, ‘‘it’s just important to always have a couple of pups coming on’’.
Pig hunting can be tough on the dogs. During a hunt a couple of months ago Luke’s best bitch Meg ended up down a hole – about two metres down – with the boar.
‘‘We couldn’t find her at first. But we back-tracked from the last position showing on her tracking collar and found her down this bloody hole. The boar was tearing into her. I managed to pull her out without getting stuck by the boar and then we got a mate who was nearby, I knew he had a gun. He came and shot the boar.’’
Meg was lucky, the vet said. It was only millimetres between her being alive or not. She underwent five hours of surgery which cost several thousand dollars. She has recovered well and is keen to get back out hunting.
Luke and Bee decided she needed a little more protection and have got her a ‘rip-proof’ vest which gives her more protection.
‘‘We gave her plenty of time to recover. But every time she hears the collars, she is jumping up and down, keen to go hunting again.
‘‘They are our number one priority,’’ explains Bee. ‘‘Our dogs and our pig hunting, getting out in the open air. It’s just what we do in our spare time.’’