A friend of my wife's and mine just moved to the Big Island from San Diego. He's an outdoors kind of guy and has been hinting about going on a boar hunt with me. Today was the day and he met me at West Hawaii Explorations Academy in Kona, where I teach. We met at 3:30 PM, drove to the Kilohana hunter check station at the 6000 foot level on Mauna Kea, sighted in my Ruger 77 .300 Win Mag at 4:30 [it was dead nuts on], and then drove up to the high country. I still wore my shorts and t-shirt and tennis shoes, my teaching attire. The first thing we saw was a herd of Mouflon sheep right in the middle of the 4WD road. They took off but I didn't follow because I had hurt my back loading the gear in the truck and could barely walk. A mile further up the road we saw one of the ugliest boars I've ever seen, scraggly and scrawny and, well, just plug ugly, if you know what I mean. We parked the truck and slowly trailed him but nada, so we called it quits. I drove up to the 11,000 foot level and showed this guy the view---incredible!! You can see a zillion miles in every direction. At night, you can actually see the Southern Cross from this vantage point, which is really quite a treat for anyone north of the equator.
We headed back down the hill and I took a short side trip on a rutty road that ran alongside a grassy meadow. "I've seen pigs over here before," I said.
"What's that?" he replied, pointing to a spot about 50 yards off the road.
My eyes followed his pointing finger. A black furry thing moseying through the grass caught my attention. "Oh, that? Why that's a boar, my friend. 150 pounds, I'd judge."
I pulled off the road, took the rifle from its case, fed it a couple of rounds, centered the crosshairs a couple inches behind the boar's shoulders, and squeezed. The boar dropped like it had been brained with a Louisville Slugger.
"It's usually not that easy," I said, somewhat apologetically. "I usually have to walk a couple of miles and spend a few hours glassing."
"Well, this time you had to hike 18 inches," he said. "I like boar hunting. It's almost as much exercise as drinking a beer."
I walked up to the boar and tossed a rock. It thumped against the ribcage and the boar just lay there. 15 minutes later the choice cuts were removed and in the cooler. We headed home.
"Boar hunting is really cool," my friend said. "I expected it to be a lot of work, maybe hiking up and down hills in the heat and then crawling around through the brush and getting sweaty and dirty and tired. But from what I've seen here, it's pretty much like hunting at a petting zoo."
"It's usually not this easy," I said, repeating myself.
But, damn!! This Hawaii hunting is getting ridiculous!! You Californians have got to come over here and see it to believe it. After reading all of your posts about hiking over mountains and crawling through acres of poison oak and bugs and rattlesnakes and crystal meth labs and getting all excited when you see tracks and then I step out of my truck in my beach clothes and pot a fat boar with no more fanfare than picking up a frozen chicken at Safeway...well, I'm almost embarrassed to even write this.
Aloha for now.
We headed back down the hill and I took a short side trip on a rutty road that ran alongside a grassy meadow. "I've seen pigs over here before," I said.
"What's that?" he replied, pointing to a spot about 50 yards off the road.
My eyes followed his pointing finger. A black furry thing moseying through the grass caught my attention. "Oh, that? Why that's a boar, my friend. 150 pounds, I'd judge."
I pulled off the road, took the rifle from its case, fed it a couple of rounds, centered the crosshairs a couple inches behind the boar's shoulders, and squeezed. The boar dropped like it had been brained with a Louisville Slugger.
"It's usually not that easy," I said, somewhat apologetically. "I usually have to walk a couple of miles and spend a few hours glassing."
"Well, this time you had to hike 18 inches," he said. "I like boar hunting. It's almost as much exercise as drinking a beer."
I walked up to the boar and tossed a rock. It thumped against the ribcage and the boar just lay there. 15 minutes later the choice cuts were removed and in the cooler. We headed home.
"Boar hunting is really cool," my friend said. "I expected it to be a lot of work, maybe hiking up and down hills in the heat and then crawling around through the brush and getting sweaty and dirty and tired. But from what I've seen here, it's pretty much like hunting at a petting zoo."
"It's usually not this easy," I said, repeating myself.
But, damn!! This Hawaii hunting is getting ridiculous!! You Californians have got to come over here and see it to believe it. After reading all of your posts about hiking over mountains and crawling through acres of poison oak and bugs and rattlesnakes and crystal meth labs and getting all excited when you see tracks and then I step out of my truck in my beach clothes and pot a fat boar with no more fanfare than picking up a frozen chicken at Safeway...well, I'm almost embarrassed to even write this.
Aloha for now.
