Sheep hunt turned pig hunt on Mauna Kea

[doccherry]

Went after Mouflon sheep up on Mauna Kea Friday late afternoon. I was walking through the lava fields up at 9200 feet elevation, scrub brush here and there and lots of nothing but rocks and rubble. No sheep appeared but a boar popped out from behind a bush and scurried off, turning broadside for just a moment 75 yards away. The 300 Win Mag dropped it in its tracks. The pig looked good to me but when I dressed it out there was very little meat and its fur was really sparse, sort of like one of those "before" guys on a hair growth commercial. He was 140 pounds or so but he was mainly hide, bone, and gristle.

Have any of you JHO'ers ever heard of a wild pig being taken at an elevation of 9200 feet or more? I certainly haven't. This has got to be some sort of record.

The pigs here at our house are still going nuts, digging and plowing and screaming in the evening, fighting or mating or whatever it is that they do when they make that loud squealing noise. They are in the process of knocking down the lava rock wall that is our rear property boundary. I put up an infra red sensor there and the chime that it sets off is in our kitchen. The first evening I did that the chimes went off right before dark so I sneaked to the back wall and looked over. Two medium-sized pigs were digging beneath the monkeypod tree. It sounded like a good idea to put the sensor in, but I need to turn it off at dark because there are so many pigs that the chimes keep us awake. I got permission to hunt the property from the owner so I may put a stand up in the monkeypod tree and use my bow. Or, just as easily, I'll hunker down behind the wall and pot them with my crossbow.

This morning my wife was running in a benefit 10k race. We pulled out of our driveway at 6:10 AM and right outside the gate of our community is a small pasture with cattle. Sure enough, pigs were scooting here and there and feeding right beside the cattle. The owner of the property behind our house is the owner of that property, also, and he told me to go shoot as many of them as I want. They're eating his lawn and his fruit and he hates them. Dog hunters don't like hunting there because the grass is so thick at this time of the year that the large boars hunker down and ambush the dogs.

The first photo shows the terrain where I took the boar. Does that look like pig country to you? The second photo shows the pig. Notice how sparse the bristles are.

Aloha for now. You guys gotta come over here and help with the pig problem. It's absolutely unreal how many pigs are running around now.

 

[EvBouret]

Sounds like fun, That terrain in the pic doesn't look like anything I'm used to, looks like a playground to go hunt though...

 

[doccherry]

Just went out to check the infra red sensor I installed on top of the lava wall at the back of our property. It was lying 8 feet away. The pigs must have knocked it over. I reinstalled it to a fence stake and secured it with duct tape.

Just to let you know what is going on, I've attached 3 photos. The first shows the monkeypod tree off in the distance just beyond our back wall. [Notice in this photo the small metal trap on the dirt in front of my truck. That's for mongooses that get into everything.] The second photo shows the lava wall and the barb wire fence just beyond it. I'm on the adjoining property shooting toward our house. The third photo [I had to put it on the next Reply] shows all the loose lava rocks on the ground, the ones that used to be part of the wall. Pigs can go underneath the bottom strand of barb wire and hop the wall onto our property or they simply run along the wall, having gained access somewhere else, jump down onto our property, and go to work.

 

[doccherry]

Here's the third photo. You can see the monkeypod tree and the open area the pigs have dug up in their search for the monkeypod beans [like great big mesquite beans]. That's a water line [for cattle] on the ground and you can see the infrared sensor sitting on the wall. I'll put the rocks back up and repair the wall but by tomorrow they'll be back down. If I concrete the rocks in place, the pigs will move 50 feet up or down the wall and do the same thing again.

And to think I used to drive 8 or 10 hours just for the opportunity to hunt pigs back in CA. I never, ever would have dreamed that in only a few years I would have to walk 200 feet to hunt them.

 

[Uncle Ji]

Aloha Bruce, Here on Maui I have seen (but never taken) pigs at the 9000+ feet elevation while hunting chukars these high elevation pigs always being leaner than the forest pigs and usually gamier in taste due to their shrubbery diet as opposed to the fruit diet of forest pigs, so I've always preferred hunting the Laupahoehoe pigs vs the Mauna Kea pigs for this reason. My pet piggy Lucille I found at about the 7000' elevation she being the Polynesian variety smaller size, jet black, long snout, big shoulders, straight tail similar to the high elevation Big Island pigs. Your pig looks to be growing back it's coat after it's annual summer hair shed which all these mountain pigs go thru, he would of had a thick coat by end of October, Lucille sheds like this every summer, she goes from looking from a beautiful shiney coat trophy to an ugly rhino look:

BEFORE SHED

AFTER SHED

Is your area too populous for firearms of any kind? Have you considered snares along the back wall trail strictly as a control and fill the larder measure?

We are having a similar problem with deer here. I wish I had a telephoto camera to take pictures of the deer here they are going off population wise, coming back from church this morning a herd of 20 resting under a pepper tree just 50 yards from busy highway, they are always there around mid day. Researchers calculate 20,000 deer on Maui by 2010. I almost hit a couple in Makena at mid day on main highway, they are getting thick. My wife roasted a deer backstrap with just a dry rub cooked meduim rare, this was like eating the best filet mignon no gaminess just lean onoliciousness.

 

[Uncle Ji]

PS Lucille is chunky for a usually lean mountain pig due to us spoiling her with the plentiful avocados and bananas.

 

[baboltin]

dont think its a record but i think that it is a good size hog,congrats

 

[EvBouret]

Dont worry about those deer Ji, those eradication specialists from NZ called ProHunt should make their sweep through the islands soon. Shoot some while you still have a chance. Those guys are good at what they do.

 

[Uncle Ji]

Sad part is 90% of the deer are on private land with no access allowed to the average Joe, that's reason why they have multiplied pretty much unmolested, on public lands there is no bag limit, no sex or size restrictions only problem is deer are rarely if ever found on public lands on Maui. There is a whole lot of poaching going on though which can get dangerous for rural dwellers my friends at Kahikinui on Hawaiian Homestead land being shot at unintentionally at night in there homes from jack-lighters not seeing their house.

Ev- how is the Blacktail population on Kaua'i doing?

 

[EvBouret]

Its spreading out towards lihue, they found 2 at alexander resevoir in the 80s. I guess they spotted more than a dozen different deer way back in blue hole (wailua) on game cams a few years ago. Kokee from the Kalalau lookout all the way to the bottom of the hill and stretching out towards Makaweli canyon is covered in deer. They opened up a special deer hunting season this year in waimea heights because there were so many. Hopefully they'll make their way to north shore one of these days and browse out all the bushes so you can walk around without a machete in hand.

 

[Nic Barca]

I'm still waiting for those deer to get into Kalalau so we can hunt them from north shore side. The deer on Kauai are not nearly as high density as the maui axis deer and I don't know if they ever will be. Supposedly, they caught one or two fawns near alexander reservoir some while back in the 80s or early nineties. Our friend bass said that when he took the hunter safety course, the instructers were talking about the deer on the game cams above wailua near blue hole.

I'm on Maui now and it is rediculous. I got to work early so I walked around in a fallow pineapple field and there was tracks everywhere, all the tall grasses were browsed, the place even stunk of deer. I never even made it 100 yards before the first deer, a doe, sprang out in front of me, running low to the ground with a wide gate, before stopping just long enough to poke her long neck strait up, give mne a quick look and keep running. All I could think was about how easy it would have been to nail her with my shotgun. She was only 10 yards away when she spooked. You can tell they bedded in caves made within the tall grass. When my supervisor arived, we spotted 4 or 5 more. Later that day while driving off Haleakala, one of the guys I was with spotted 20 or 30 in a pasture. Now I'm gonna go try Ukumehame tomorrow just to explore. I read something that said there are goats present and a tourist I sent over there said he saw a goat on the cliff. But I brought my shotgun but no ammo, expecting I could buy some here. Not the case. I couldn't find anywhere that carried 20 gauge slugs. All I have is five rounds of buckshot. I hope I can get close enough to anything I see. I almost borrowed an SKS from a relative but I'm just gona go with my trusty shotgun instead. Wish me luck; I'm goping exploring again. The TNC guys over here told me there are a few over there but I'm not expexcting to see any.