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Winter has finally arrived on this first Saturday in December, where a crystalline sun peeps out after weeks of uninterrupted rain. The season of wild boar hunting it started a while ago but in the few jokes I got to participate in, fate didn't smile at me even once, giving me unsuccessful hunts and no match for me. Today I am invited to a hunt at the "Monti di Castro" a beautiful reality well known in the beltlaian environment. It is a magnificent AFV in the municipality of Ischia di Castro, where the Lazio Maremma joins the Tuscany. The spirit with which I prepare myself for this hunt is a mixture of bitter disaffection towards the hunt for the disappointments it has caused me and a great desire for revenge for all the emotions that I inevitably expect from this hunt.
"The area we will beat today is called Albatreta - Riccardo Batassa, the hunting leader of the Monti di Castro, explains to me - it is a very suggestive area, the textbook habitat of the wild boar”He adds enthusiastically. The name derives from the term albatross, synonymous with strawberry tree, an ever-green shrub that practically covers the entire territory in which we are going to hunt. In fact, when we head along the ditch where the long line of post offices is explained, the tall shrubs and the rather sparse undergrowth immediately transmit to me a great enthusiasm for the excellent visibility in this territory, in the face of the dense fortress of the lower Maremma where the animals run a few meters from the hunter sometimes without being seen.
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 going down into the ditch”A voice announces that the adrenaline is running high for me too. Shortly thereafter, two sows and two reds run up in front of me, followed by a single dog. As I prepare to hear the blows that will reach them further down where they will be within range, a large animal, evidently ahead of the four, rushes towards my post office, proceeding downhill and at a peak. I engage him in the red dot and follow him in the rapid descent until, 15 meters from me, I let the shot go.
A dead weight continues its descent, promptly reached by the auxiliary bite. It is not long before, while I am still enjoying the satisfaction of killing this beautiful sow, another animal heads to my post. With two close shots too boar he falls and is immediately joined by the three dogs that chased him a short distance away. Meanwhile, on the radio I learn that a highly defended boar has been shot down 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.
