Kai Ken: The Tora Inu

With the season drawing to a close, I headed down to my brother's place. He's been asking me to take him and a couple of his students out to the mountains. The weather report wasn't promising, but it ended up alright.

I haven't actually hunted the area down there much, twice in the past 3 years actually, so it was a good chance to scout out the place. LOT's of boar tracks, from the looks of it there are a couple family groups in that small spot we hunted. Didn't manage to figure out where they were holed up, but a nice walk through the mountains anyway. For round 1 in the morning it was just Haru out there, and Baron joined in for round 2 in the afternoon.

Recently I've been wondering if Haru might not have what it takes to be a successful hunter. She's still young though, so I'm giving her time. This trip she really seemed to be making some progress, though she really does seem very 'birdy'. During round 2 she flushed and chased a deer that was laid up less than 3 meters away from us under a pile of fallen logs and brush. Could see she was onto something, but thought it was a bird or small game. She jumped right in the pile of logs and out popped a deer. She tore of after it, had a few barks in here and there when she was right behind it, and came back around 15 minutes later. Baron was downhill and didn't see the deer, but when he came up and caught the scent he took off as well. Came back within 5 minutes though.

At the end of the hike, Haru caught scent on the wind and went bounding up the hill to our right. Around 30 meters up she flushed a yamadori which is a bird similar in size and look to a pheasant. Yamadori season ended on the 15th of last month, so I let that one go.

Back near the car we spotted a lot of hiyodori flying around above a stream. My brother was anxious to try some on the BBQ so we knocked down a few and I showed them how to prep the birds. They were really quite tasty. We managed a nice BBQ with a side of ribs and yakiniku from the boar I took last Saturday.

I spent the night, and just my brother and I headed out the next day. There was a slight drizzle, and it was starting to get cold, but nothing too harsh. Got a new deer call for calling in Muntjac sent over from the UK and decided to give it a go. Muntjac escaped/were released from a small zoo that went bankrupt several years back, and since then they've established a large feral population in the prefecture. There is a lot of effort going into eradication, but they're very elusive little deer. Since they breed all year round, using deer calls seems to work well. I've now tried the call 3 times, and all 3 times I've had Muntjac come pretty close in.

After fiddling around with the deer call we got the dogs out to walk them a bit. Went down to the road aways to a bamboo thicket above some fields. There was a lot of boar sign up there, and as we headed up I heard some movement up to the left. Baron went after it, but seems the pig wasn't interested in stopping at all. I was right on Baron's heels in case he should get into trouble, but there wasn't any. The rain was picking up so we headed back to my brother's.

Had a good trip, got to see my 3 cute little nieces, and have a bit of fun hanging out as well. Took today off as the weather was crap, but will be back out in the mountains for the last 3 days of the season starting tomorrow.