How to hunt bushpig? Very difficult indeed! How to shoot bushpig? Still a challenge.

My own hunting career in areas where bushpig do occur spans some few score of years. In this time I've seen bushpig in daylight three times. Once in early morning while glassing a mountainside for kudu two mature bushpigs walked by. Bang! That was a very tasty animal indeed. Then, some years lated very eaarly one morning I had only a .22 LR with me on the way to go and ambush some vervet monkeys when two very big pigs came by. A subsonic between the eyes of the sow was all that was needed. Unbelievably tasty meat, the best of all meats I've ever eaten, by far! A third sighting was mid-morning, but it would have been illegal to shoot. All three sightings were "pure chance" happenings while hunting other animals.

I have also often deliberately hunted bushpig with ethical walk-in-search for method. Never managed to see one. Heard one run off was as close as I ever came. You think a kudu is difficult to outsmart? Try hunting a bushpig in the thick bush and scrub on a mountainside where the lie up during the day! It became a bit of an obsession to get a bushpig in it's natural environment by ethical hunting methods. It still is an obsession, and I'm not going to change my plans, one day I will walk quietly enough, with the wind in my favor and get to shoot one in broad daylight. One day I'll also win the sweepstakes. The chances for the latter happening seems slightly better than for the first mentioned to happen!

I have also had a lot of attempts at shooting – as opposed to hunting – bushpig at night. I have waited many night on the edge of maize fields where they feed with a high-magnification large objective diameter (Zeiss 8X56) scoped rifle. Wind, rain, noise and my possibly dozing off at a critical time has also prevented me from scoring by this method.

Another method that I’ve tried a few times is to walk right in the maize field where they feed with a double barrel slug-loaded shotgun. You hear them feeding from some distance and then creep closer against the wind. Knowing that these animals are really dangerous adds spice to the stalk. Even in good moonlight the visibility amongst the high growing (irrigated) maize is very limited. We are talking of seeing only a few dozen yards down the rows and much less across the rows. Shooting would be shotgun style at the center of where you are looking at. Wind eddies, or my noise or they simply always saw me – I don’t know which - have thus far prevented me from getting close enough! Had some frightening moments when they suddenly all break and run from very close. The little piglets get confused in the scramble and seem to run in mad circles looking for mom. The big ones – as judged by the sound of their running – seem to get away from you very quickly. They can and do also just disapper. Suddenly it is all quiet, no more feed crunching, no sound of running, nothing to be seen. Nothing! Stand sill and look and listen. Nothing.

Just you in the middle of a maize field in the night. Very frustrating!

I call this night hunting, and will be very happy to eventually get one by this method, which I personally regard as an ethical hunting method.

I have also had the exhilarating pleasure of seeing, and hearing the New Hannover/Greytown pack of hounds in action with the legendary Spyker in the lead. On this particular day the chased pig ran onto the next door property, where we did not have permission to enter.

Keeping up with the pack and everything about the day was extremely demanding and much enjoyed. I would love to go back and do it again. As to the ethics of such methods? I regard it as a form of vermin control, not hunting. So I would never mount a trophy shot by this method, but man, this is really great fun! With the pig being chased for some time the taste of the meat would be, ? Well I don't know, yet.

There are some farmers that I know personally where you have a very good chance of getting a shot at a bushpig. You can pre-book a hunt a few months in advance. They then set up and use maize bait at a feeding station. This is positioned near a convenient tree in which a shooting platform is built. As soon the pigs come to feed regularly you will be phoned and the shooting episode is arranged. You will go to wait on the platform at dusk. The noise of the pigs feeding can be clearly heard. A rheostat controlled spotlight is then used to slowly increase the light until you can pick off one. In my personal book this is not regarded as an ethical hunting method, and I have not tried it yet. I do however know that the success rate is very high, and, if I could afford it, would not mind getting the lovely meat on the table by this method, but I don’t call it hunting!

So, as far as I’m concerned, bush pig are targets of opportunity. If you are in their area, with a rifle and a prepared mind, you may connect. Just as you may get to win a lottery if you actually buy a ticket and so enter. Just as you may increase your chances of winning by buying more tickets, so you can improve your chances of success on a bushpig by going hunting in areas where they are abundant. The nuts, avocados, pineapples, sugarcane and similar crops in KwaZulu-Natal and the Mpumulanga lowveldt are favorite foods, and these areas are better than the dry Limpopo and North West bushveldt where I have mostly hunted them.

"n Bosvark is 'n bliksem."