A good many years ago, after returning from a late November honeymoon in Bermuda, I established two hard and fast rules about any future vacation trips. First, whenever possible, vacations would coincide with winter and take place in a warm location offering a brief respite from Maine’s cold weather. Second, and just as important, the chosen vacation spot would offer some type of fishing and hunting opportunities.

When my wife opted for two weeks in Hawaii to celebrate our 25th anniversary, I readily agreed. It seemed the least I could do for a woman with the patience and tenacity to tolerate a quarter of a century with me and my many foibles. One of which I immediately displayed by getting to work checking magazines, books and the Internet for information on outdoor activities on the Hawaiian islands.

The Parker ranch

At 175,000 acres, the largest individually owned cattle ranch in the world is the Parker ranch on the Big Island. Located between two volcanoes, Mauna Loa and Mauna Kea, the land extends from the Pacific seashore upward over black rock and irregular rolling ground covered with alternating lush foliage and arid desert plants, grasses and trees.

From sea level to 7,000 feet elevation, thousands of cattle, hundreds of horses, upland birds and big-game animals share water troughs, pastures, grazing fields with holding tanks and lava-formed ridges and ravines. As our jeep bumped and jarred upward over uneven makeshift roads and tilted paths, the landscape I glimpsed in the headlights was so foreign we could have been exploring another planet aboard a six-wheel space rover.

Dawn’s rosy fingers etched the skyline as our Wagoneer and the pickup following us pulled up and stopped beside a small cabin, windmill, stock tank, and lean-to feed shed. Dave Ramos, ranch foreman and my guide for the day, climbed from behind the wheel, while ranch workers and hunting partners Josh Daley and Wayne Easley disembarked from the back seat. Kinji Kamaole and Steve Foster got out of the truck, put down the tailgate and hushed the whining, restless bird dogs in their travel crates.

Folding chairs and stools, thermoses of coffee and tea and boxes of muffins and donuts were arranged across the tailgate and we all helped ourselves and sat back to watch the sunrise. Daybreak was chilly at 5,000 feet elevation and I was thankful for the advice to pack a windbreaker. Seventy-four degrees at the shoreside hotel had turned into 45 degrees on the mountainside.

Our small band welcomed a new day quietly munching and sipping to the background noise of restless pointers, cackling pheasants, gobbling turkeys and the distant musical comeback call of chukka, quail and francolins. Sights and sounds worth a million to any outdoorsman, and free of charge this temperate Saturday morn to our six-pack of sportsmen waiting for hunting light on the slope of a dormant volcano.

Uneven and uphill

With the rising sun came a heightened activity level among the troops. Breakfast accessories were stowed, dogs were released to cavort around the trucks, shotguns were uncased, and orange vests were donned. We would hunt in two teams of three, Dave, Kinji and I would be together, and everyone would meet back at the cabin at 11:30 for lunch. Dave handed me a Remington semi-auto 12 gauge and a box of No. 4 lead, 3-inch shells; a little heavy for chukka partridge, dove and two species of quail, but necessary for far-flushing sand grouse, blue or ringneck pheasant and all three varieties of francolin.

Just before heading out, Kinji handed me three shells and advised I put them in an easy-to-access pocket apart from my other loads. Upon closer inspection I noted these were slugs and jokingly asked if these were for long-range turkey or in case a steer charged.

“Actually, they are for pigs”, Dave answered.

Wild feral hogs, also called Polynesian pigs, run rampant on the ranch, he explained, and sometimes a hunter comes across a den, gets between a mother and her young or meets a belligerent male in tight quarters.

“Use the first two to stop the hog and keep the last slug for yourself, in case you miss,” Josh offered with a smirk.

Being the new kid on the block, I was pretty sure the boys were having a bit of fun at my expense, so I played along and made a couple of jokes. Wayne put his gun on the tailgate, walked over and unbuckled his canvas hunting pants, dropping them below his knees. The calf and thigh of his left leg were livid with purple and white scars.

“Over 300 stitches,” Wayne said, ” A big boar came out of a den, knocked me down, breaking my lower leg, then ripped me to shreds with its tusks. That pig would have killed me if my son hadn’t shot it. As it was, I nearly bled to death before they got me off this hill.”

Wayne’s left leg resembled a cross between a chainsaw accident and a shark attack. A rare occurrence for sure, but no joking matter. As he rebuckled his pants I placed my three slugs in my very accessible front shirt pocket. As we got ready to head out, the dark humor of an old bear hunter’s line ran through my head, “You don’t have to worry about outrunning an attacking bear, you just have to out run your hunting partner!”

We were less than 100 yards from the trucks when the English setter went on point and the German shorthair honored. I was only halfway to the dogs when a nervous rooster flushed, cackling and clawing for open sky. My load of 4s caught up at 35 yards and my first Hawaiian pheasant was in the bag. As the dog tore off to make the retrieve, it bumped another bird that Kinji dumped in a shower of feathers on a difficult left-to-right angling away shot.

Over the next two hours we added chukka partridge, valley quail, blue pheasant and Erkels francolin to our game pouches. There were wild flushes, missed shots, covey rises, and lucky hits that produced some of the most unusual and beautifully feathered game birds I’ve ever seen. Our trio had no interest in doves and passed up a dozen shots, and I refrained from shooting a Rio Grande turkey from a group of five we surprised at 25 yards.

Within the very first hour I learned some hard lessons about hunting in Hawaii. On old lava flows there’s no such thing as even ground. On any flushed bird, loose lava rock, coarse boot grabbing brush, small sink holes and hidden gullies all make taking a solid shooting stance a real challenge. At least 75 percent of the hunting is up hill or traversing a slope, and even stalking downhill is no treat on sharp, misshapen lava hiding in toe-tripping pampas grass.

Thin air is immediately noticeable at 5,000 feet, and hunting upward to 7,000 feet makes slow steady movement, deep breaths and constant rest stops a must. However, game birds, especially francolin and chukka love to use the steep, heavily brushed sides of gulches formed by lava flow as cover, for protection from predators and the sun.

The hunt gets boaring

About 10:30, knowing the birds would be heading for the lava channels to avoid the sun, Dave lead us to the open, down slope end of a Kahawai that always offered good midday action. This gully was about 16- 20 feet high with fairly steep banks, changing from 6 to 15 feet in width as it twisted and turned uphill. The dogs work close on such confined channels and shots are either straight up or going away as the bird flushes from the high banks. Within the first 200 yards we enjoyed three points, two Erkels and a chukka – two hits, one error.

For the next 10 minutes, the chute narrowed and nary a bird was found, but Kinji prophesied fast action around the next big bend where the gully widened substantially. He was so right – in a very bad way. The dogs rounded the corner first and immediately an uproar of barking began. There, 50 yards away, back hair bristled straight up, popping its jaws, was a large, very irate wild boar. My arm and neck hair came to attention, too.

Upon seeing us, the feral hog immediately charged. Mean in nature to begin with, lone boars in narrow confines, faced by four- or two-legged adversaries, seldom retreat. At this point everything seemed to go into slow motion, but in truth was happening way too fast. Thank the Lord for tough, ornery dogs, because rather than stand their ground or turn and run, our duo actually went growling, snapping and biting to meet the pig. Their brave action saved our bacon, so to speak.

Kinji, to my right, feeling discretion was the better part of valor, ran three steps to the gully wall, laid down his shotgun and began clawing, clamoring and climbing for higher ground, safely out of range of razor-sharp tusks. I began shucking shells from my shotgun, willy nilly onto the ground, just as the boar tossed the German shorthair 10 feet with a vicious head twist. As I pawed my shirt pocket for slugs, the second pointer bit the pig on the rump and the shorthair, thankfully not gored or ripped, tore back into the fray.

Twisting, tuning, grunting and squealing the pig broke loose and started for Dave and me again. I shoved a slug into the chamber and closed the breech, looking up in time to see the dogs grab the boar again, making him turn to defend himself. Dave dropped his first slug as he tried to reload too quickly. I pushed my other two shells into the magazine as the big boar twisted free at 25 yards and came at us again. The next thing I knew the white bead was on the pig’s heaving black chest and the 12 gauge barked and bucked.

Legs buckled, snout and tusks dug into the ground and the running hog somersaulted into a pile. Within a second both dogs were on top biting and barking, but the boar was done for. I walked over and sat heavily on a large lava rock, taking shallow breaths, trying to blame it on the elevation. Dave collected the dogs, Kinji descended and picked up his gun and came to check on me.

That night I was an honored guest at a pig roast on the Parker ranch. At 182 pounds of mean, the Polynesian boar was surprisingly tasty. Dave had the skull, with its razor-sharp, ripping tusks blanched and sent to me, and it sits in my den. When I run a finger along a tusk, vivid memories evolve and my hair still comes to attention.

When folks ask me about hunting Hawaii, I highly recommend they experience the wonderful game bird gunning. I also tell them it can become “boaring” once in awhile – and then I explain the rest of the story!

Outdoor feature writer Bill Graves can be reached via e-mail at bgravesoutdoors@ainop.com