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One of the young fellows from my workplace had been helping me out with preparing foundations for my shed, so the pay-back was a hunting trip 'down the track' to try for a buffalo. The buff and boar hunting is usually long-finished in the Top End by December, with the onset of the wet season, but this year its been holding off. The temperature and humidity have not, however!

We planned to do 'the usual', ie hunt up one creek-line for 6 or 8 kilometres, skirt the escarpment, then hunt back down an adjacent valley. After an hour or so of walking, we encountered fresh pig sign, and it wasn't long before Pez jumped a lone hog out of a muddy wallow. His shot with the borrowed .416 Taylor was just a little hasty and the boar took off at top speed. I had been walking the higher ground, so had a good view of the proceedings from about 70 metres away.

Following the bolting boar over the sights of my Jeffery .400 double, I waited for either the boar to falter, or a follow-up shot from Pez, but neither had occurred by the time I had a clear arc of fire so I gave the fleeing animal about a foot and a half of lead, and slapped the front trigger. Down he went in a cloud of dust! It was a very satisfying off-hand shot, right through the boiler-room. Turns out the initial shot had registered a hit but passed low through the shoulder, superficially cutting the brisket rather than entering the chest cavity.

The second boar was rather an anti-climax by comparison. He was also wallowing but had not yet detected my presence. As I snuck up to the last tree-trunk about 15 metres short of his position, he heard Pez crunch a dry Pandanus frond across the gully, and pricked up his ears. That was the signal for the Jeffery to break the silence once again.

At the very top of the little valley, the last series of spring-fed wallows also showed promise with fresh buff sign everywhere. Pez took the lead, and the very last muddy pool was occupied: not by a buffalo, but yet another good boar. The unfortunate animal never made it out of the water! Pez's perfect shot smashed the spine, passed through the chest, and lodged low in the off-side shoulder. I've never seen a Woodleigh so trashed as that recovered bullet! Simply devastating!

The walk down the adjacent creek-line during the afternoon was bloody hot, sweltering in fact, and sadly uneventful. Still, if the young fella gets his buffalo, I'll lose my bargaining chip, and I need a strong back on the wheel-barrow when we pour that slab in a week or so!

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