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Winter has finally arrived on this first Saturday in December, where a crystalline sun peeks out after weeks of uninterrupted rain. The wild boar hunting season began a while ago, but in the few hunts I've had the chance to participate in, luck hasn't smiled on me once, granting me unsuccessful hunts and no encounters. Today I'm invited to a hunt at "Monti di Castro," a beautiful location well-known in the wild boar hunting community. It's a magnificent AFV in the municipality of Ischia di Castro, where the Maremma of Lazio meets Tuscany. The spirit with which I prepare for this hunt is a mixture of bitter dislike for hunting for the disappointments it has caused me and a strong desire for revenge for all the emotions I inevitably expect from this hunt.
" The area we'll be hunting today is called Albatreta ," Riccardo Batassa, the head gamekeeper of Monti di Castro, explains to me. " It's a very picturesque area, textbook wild boar habitat ," he adds enthusiastically. The name derives from the term albatross, a synonym for strawberry tree, an evergreen shrub that covers practically the entire territory we'll be hunting. Indeed, as we head along the ditch where the long line of posts unfolds, the tall shrubs and rather sparse undergrowth immediately fill me with enthusiasm due to the excellent visibility in this area, compared to the dense thicket of the lower Maremma, where the animals glide just a few meters from the hunter, sometimes unseen.
As we descend towards the ditch, Riccardo assigns the stakes to the hunters, and there isn't one that doesn't seem optimal and promising to me. Riccardo asks me to cover two posts from the position where he leaves me, and the idea of being able to see an animal from tens of meters gives me an emotion that I haven't felt for a long time. As soon as the release of the dogs has been announced, the reaction of the forest is that of a correct joke that starts under the best auspices. Canizze rise one inside the other, the blows in the upper part echo up to the ditch where I am. The animals are there! On the radio, a post excitedly commented that a herd of about thirty animals passed in front of him.
Meanwhile, the shots are getting closer; the posts are firing above me. " Four animals are coming down the ditch, " a voice announces, my adrenaline pumping as well. Shortly afterward, two sows and two reds run up ahead of me, followed by a single dog. As I brace myself for the shots that will reach them lower down, where they'll be in range, a large animal, evidently ahead of the four, heads quickly toward my post, descending and charging. I engage it at the red dot and follow it down the rapid descent until, 15 meters away from me, I release the shot.
A dead weight, he continues his descent, promptly caught by the biting auxiliary. Not long after, while I'm still basking in the satisfaction of having brought down this beautiful sow, another animal heads toward my post. With two close-range shots, this boar also falls and is immediately caught by the three dogs that had been tracking him at a short distance. Meanwhile, I learn over the radio that a remarkably defensive boar has been shot at the post just above mine.
The day goes on excited and brilliant. 23 animals make up today's game bag. Almost all the post offices have had the opportunity to shoot and the enthusiasm is felt. The greatest joy is of the canai, headed by the great Peppino, who in addition to the satisfaction of having worked well, have recovered all the dogs without significant injuries.
The greatest satisfaction is for the hunting leader Riccardo, together with Anton Giuseppe Bernabei, owner and concessionaire of the AFV, happy to have organized a well-conducted and successful hunt, worthy of the best Maremma hunting tradition.
