Pig Hunting In Hawaii
Today’s excerpt from my upcoming book Maui Wowee features pig hunting in Hawaii, and the kind of maniac it takes to hunt pigs Hawaiian-style. To set the scene, it’s late September, 1974, and my Kona harvest was only days away. Why was I on Maui instead of with my plants in Kona? Because my next door neighbor’s exploding greenhouse had taken out a police chopper that morning. It seemed a wise move to make myself scarce till the heat died down. (It’s a long story, but you can read all about it in Kona Gold.) Anyway, in this excerpt, Ray and I are doing a reconnaissance of Happy Valley, making sure the 100 acres of rainforest we might buy was as ideal for growing pakalolo as we thought.
Just one of the many problems facing the outdoor pot grower.
Though off the grid, thanks to a windmill with batteries and a generator, the Sloth’s place in Happy Valley had electricity. No TV reception, but with only three channels to choose from in those days, we weren’t missing much. Radio reception also sucked, but I had a guitar. Which, according to some, also sucked, and was why our stereo was always on. Our main concern was whether the gorgeous property could grow us a ton of pakalolo or not. To find out, we’d gone for a reconnaissance hike, two of Ray’s white German shepherds leading the way. I knew my pup Rocky, still in Kona at the time, would love running with them.
The stream bisected the valley floor and we set out on the left flank, the one farthest from our gate. Ray, having been there a couple times before, led the way. When not beaching it, he always wore khaki shorts and a khaki shirt with epaulets. One shirt pocket held Tiger Balm to grease up his mustache. The other held that day’s joints. His ego-accommodating Panama hat expanded and featured a pheasant feather lei hatband. On his belt, a razor sharp Buck knife. With his long hair and beard, he looked like a Furry Freak Brother on safari. As for me, I wore surf shorts and a Lightning Bolt Surfboards t-shirt. I had a Swiss Army Knife. It had dull blades, but, also, a lot of other stuff I had no use for and wasn’t even sure what they did. I looked like a hippie lost in the woods.
We soon noticed a few existing trails.
Ray said, “Pigs.”
I nodded, said, “Right.”
He meant the kind with hooves and curly tails, not the two-legged breed. We weren’t thrilled to see them, but pig trails are ubiquitous in the rainforest, and unless you’re in a park on a designated hiking trail, the natural trails in the rainforest meant one thing: wild pigs. A grower’s nemesis. As you saw in the photo above, along with narcs and ripoffs, these guys were about as bad as nemesises came. I don’t care how jaded you are, getting porked backdoor-style by an actual porker can’t be any fun. Rape was bad enough, but with the pigs came another nemesis. . .the insane Hawaiians who hunt them with nothing but huge testicles, a sharp knife, and a pack of dogs. I’m not making that up.
Upon encountering a pig, instead of climbing a tree or running for their lives like a sensibly panicked haole would do, a local and his dogs will chase the pig down and murder it. For sport. And because they have huge appetites. A grower did not want pigs or pig hunters in his plot. Fierce and belligerent, they’d rip a haole apart. The wild pigs were no picnic, either. As you can see, the pig hunter above was foolish enough to go hunting without his dogs. A lesson learned the hard way.
We meandered around the forest for a couple of hours, seeing only a portion of the property, but liking what we saw. An industrious group of growers could put unlimited plants in a place like that, and yet there was no sign the Sloth or anyone else had ever bothered. By the end of the tour, what with a Kona harvest just weeks away, I was impressed though not committed. Now, after the recent debacle in Kona, I was ready to go for it.
Have you read Breaking Good yet, the first novel in the Señor Bueno Travel Adventure Series? If not, what are you waiting for?
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