Ned Makim
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Everything posted by Ned Makim
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I know what you mean Les. There are lots of good looking dogs over here but I gotpast looks along time ago. All I care about is how they work. Otherwise to me it's like picking soldiers on how handsome they are. Once we are in the field the one that finds and stops the boar ends up being good looking to me. A bloke could certainly breed some magificent looking dogs from the workers that areabout over here though that's for sure... Cheers.
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It is the same boar. Took 12 months for him to pop up again... He's all I think about at the moment. No I didn't get the dog. He picked up a poison bait. Cheers.
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There are a lot of pigs around here at the moment. There have been a couple of very wet years and the pigs have been able to rear more of their young each year so nmbers have grown exponentially. However, while I will pest control as many pigs as I can for a landholder, in terms of hunting I am onlyreally interested in patterning and then catching the big boars. There are always boars around but the big ones, the old ones or the ones with the big teeth get that way by being smarter and quicker to react than the rest. It's those onse I love to catch. Sometimes it takes me weeks to work one out.
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Couldn't believe it all worked so well. The more you hunt, the more you learn... Cheers.
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Got a beauty today. I had seen this boar once before and the landholder had seen him once as well so I have been haunting this particular area of the property in the hope of bumping into hi. Today is ws cold and blowing a gale so I headed for the boa's stomping ground in the hope of finding him lurking deep in a gully in the sun but out of the wind. It was just one of those days when the plan lines up with the reality and we all met up. Mary and Dave the pup jumped from the truck and spooked him out of the gully before stopping him about 600 metres away. I walked, slid and climbed into them an
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Some of the keen young ones don't make it past 12 months. But a smart, tough dog will work to seven years and beyond although they are at their peak from about three until five or six IMO. In that period their experience and thei bodies are in sync. They stay wiling until they die of old age but you have to be realistic. Cheers.
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Just to let you know son Paul is still catching his share, here's a decent boar he got a few days ago down on the flat country. The action shot taken with an Iphone so not up to the usual clarity. Cheers
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Thanks for the comments... Well I have written a book called The Makim Method which is about basic dog psychology with sections on specific pig dog training. I had a bit of an issue with the publisher and it is still sitting in my computer rather than on the shelves... A surprising number of people (to me) have bought copies of the paper copy that I have just emailed to them and a few others bought copies in folders I have had at dog training days. So it's ot there but the distribution is a bit amateurish ha ha. Speaking of the dog training days, I've done a few now, the latest had 52 payin
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Another couple of rough little boars in the steeper country...that's Mary and Julie in the top pix.
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We eat some, dog food most. Some gets left as a bait pile to attract pigs and foxes to an area. I used to hunt for the export market but now it's all about managing specific areas rather than ranging far and widefor big numers. Cheers.
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Here's another boar on a game camera. It was coming to a dead cow that had been partally covered by dead branches in prep for burning. And again, here's the result... This one made me look like a genius because I had told the cocky about the boar and roughly when he was coming in to the cow. I was sitting with him havin a cup of coffee at 8pm and said I'd better get going because I had an appointment with the boar at about 8.30pm. I went to the area, Mary and Suzie jumped rom the truck on windborne scent and nailed this thing. I was able to use the two-way back to the house at 9.42
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I should say this whole operation is not about eradication. Eradication is an impossiblity but what is possible is management of numbers so their impact is reduced. I love catching the big boars but the landholder allows me to hunt there on the basis that I kill every pig I come across. Of course he loves to see a big boar go because they are a direct threat to lambs and in some cases adult ewes so I always let him know when I've caught one with wool in its stomach... Cheers.
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A few little ones poking around a feeding station. I use these to help guage what pigs are where on the property. And the result...that's Suzie with one of hers for the morning. I got seven that day, my best on the place this season. Another one Mary caught.
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There's more stuff to come but I have to do a couple of things...back soon as I can.
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And here is the second game camera boar...I got him in the morning after trying for him at midnight. Did no good then but went for a look on a hill I thought he might have been camped on and got lucky.
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You see other things too, like this fox trotting off after a feed.
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I then set up a game camera on what was left of the weaner because another boar will oftenb come in to claim an unclaimed prize like that... This bloke popped up soon after... Once you pattern them a bit it gives you a real chance of hitting them without having to be up all night and/or wearing out the dogs looking for them in rough country.
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A big orb weaver spider. She was from the tip of my middle finger to the middle of my palm from front to back as she sits here. A weaner calf half eaten by a boar...this was the start of the season for me. A weaner went missing and I went looking for it... This is what I found. As we approached a gully, Mary jumped from the tray of the truck and took off straight down the slope. She hit this not 50 metres from the weaner so she surprised him perfectly. If he had wind of us it might have taekn a kilometre to stop him.
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A couple of wallaroos taking a break from a big territorial figh...best I've seen. A wedgetailed eagles nest. Rare to be able to get above one to see in when the eggs and chick arriv e in the next month or so. A couple of butterflies asleep just before dawn.
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Some of the ridges are like this, long grass and big rocks you only find when you hit them. The sun coming up with a few little storms on the horizon...
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Just after the rain again. Rainy, overcast days often get pigs out in the open... The moon rising over the prickly pear. he pear is a cactus, a weed in Oz and the pigs like the sweet fruit that comes on in the autumn and winter. General shot on top of one of the ridges. The place is fairly bumpy by local standards.
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G'day everyone, I've got a few photos to show you all from this season's pig control on one property. As i said before I have had to curtail my forum activity because I am involved in hunting law enforcement and management in Oz but I am able to show you some personal stuff as long as it doesn't contravene and work rules... So here we go. I gained access to this block about a decade ago but gave it to son Paul as he grew into hunting on his own. Well h has moved further west and this year I took up the pig management responsibility again ahead of the lambing season when the boars take
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My old dog Cathy died the other day. She was 13 and a half years old and had been retired from catching pigs for some time. She was in the top five of all the dogs I've had or bred in 35 years of pig catching and for ages was in the top two best I'd seen. She was the mother, grandmother, aunt, great aunt and so on and so on of every one of our dogs. Arrogant, ridiculously tough, and could find pigs in any country. She was named by my daughter Madeline who was 8 when we got Cathy. Mad is now 21, that's a big chunk of a person's life to know a dog. Cathy could be trusted to catch rough pigs for
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This is last night's effort (well early this morning actually because we got him after midnight). My mate Luke had seen some decent tracks in the bush not far from where he lives and invited me out for a look. The short version is we walked in on two different tangents to where we reckoned the boar was feeding and kept in touch with handheld UHF radios. We also have each others dogs on our tracking receivers so we can see what's going on just in case using the two-way will give the game away. Anyway, Luke is only 28 or so but is no joke in the pigdog world out here and his dog Saus (short for
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This next pic was taken the same day. It's a mob of wild (feral) goats that have appeared on the place in the past 12 months. It is open slather on these. You can't go hungry in Oz, there is a lot of meat walking around...
