Trapping and Hunting in Iokea
Trapping and Hunting In Iokea (6 minread)
I went hunting twice while I was in Iokea; the first time was to go and check some traps, and the second time was with a shotgun from World War II. Today I’m going to share with you those stories.
Iokea is a coastal village on the east side of Gulf Province, bordering Central Province. I was spending a few weeks there and during my stay I was offered the opportunity to hunt. One night some of the village’s men asked me if I wanted to come and check on their traps in the morning, and as an adventurous person, I immediately said yes.
They woke me around 4am as we had a lot of ground to cover and it is best to start before the sun is out. We walked along a dirt road for a few hours, telling jokes and stories of previous hunts. The men were smoking their local farm grown tobacco and chewing betel nut. As the sun was starting to rise we ducked off the road to check the first trap. It was a fairly steep hike down at first, and the men strategically used trees and branches to slow their descent. Following machete notches in trees we navigated through the dense brush to our first trap. The trap was made of bamboo walls and some vines used as rope, which held a large log to a delicate trigger mechanism, with boiled coconut as bait. The men told me that the smell of coconut attracts a variety of animals but they were hunting for bandicoot, a marsupial that lives on the jungle floor. The first trap was empty, but a good way to admire their craftsmanship and learn how the trap was made.
We spent another 30 minutes hiking to the next trap, and this time we got one! The trap had worked successfully in crushing the animal. They reset the trap and we made our way back to the village. They gutted and prepared the animal, cooking the heart in a banana leaf for me to eat, because it was my first “hunt”. It really didn’t taste that great at all, and is my least favorite of the proteins to eat in Papua New Guinea, but I smiled gratefully and ate my portion.
The second hunt I went on was maybe 4 days later. I was with the same men and I was talking about hunting seasons back in my home country of the United States. I explained the different seasons, animals you could hunt, weapons you could use and gun ownership. One of the men told me that he had a shotgun from WW2 that his uncle used for hunting but was in pieces, and naturally I had to check it out. We made our way over to his uncle's hut; it was made of bamboo and on stilts for a shaded area underneath. As we walked around the back of the hut I noticed the jaws of wild boar and tusks hanging from strings as trophies. We unlocked the gun safe and took out the pieces. It was a 12 gauge single barrel shotgun with an obscenely long barrel. I explained that I owned a similar gun at home and asked if I could put it together. He told me I could and I proceeded to do so. Everything fit together snugly and I was surprised at how well maintained the gun had been kept. I of course asked the boys to take me on another hunt, and they laughed and agreed, but first we needed to find ammo.
They led me to another hut where they said we could purchase ammo, and I waited outside with one of them while the others went in. I didn’t really know what to expect while trying to purchase ammo in a Papua New Guinea village, being in the land of the unexpected and all, but my experience went splendidly! The man was big and jolly, laughing and embracing me in a hug. He commended me on wanting to go for a hunt and handed me two 12 gauge birdshot rounds. He also gave me a liter of frozen water and a cold coke, which was very unexpected in a village with no power, but very much appreciated.
We set off again down the road we had traveled earlier that week. This time we were walking in the sun, and the intense rays were a great reminder to leave for hunts before dawn. As we were walking they explained to me that we would be hunting wild boar and wallabies. Right away I thought to myself: “Firstly, I’m not going to shoot this gun unless I know I’m going to get something, and secondly, with the birdshot I was given I would need to be very close in order to actually kill one of these animals.”
The plan was to make our way through the jungle to some tall grass fields and hills. We would look out for animals while we were navigating the jungle, but the main idea was to get them into the tall grass. Once we got to the field, myself and some of the men would quietly make our way around it, and position ourselves on a small hill on the other side. Then the rest of the group would start a small brush fire in the field to scare the animals and direct them towards us. When they broke through the tall grass at the top, I was to take the shot. It sounded like a slightly dangerous plan but I trusted their experience.
I found it quite difficult as we made our way through the jungle as the shotgun I’d put together had a barrel that was maybe 3 feet long. I had to continually reposition it to get through the thick brush and vines, while doing my best to keep the barrel point away from anybody. When we finally made it to the field there was a young wild boar right away. The man in front signaled and I made my way over to him only to catch a brief blur of hind legs scurrying into the tall grass. I didn’t take the shot for fear of missing and scaring away everything else, so we slowly crept to the other side of the field.
Once we were positioned we signaled to the others to set the field a blaze, and it took no time at all for the fire to pick up and make its way towards us. We patiently waited, looking and listening for something to break out. We could see a couple wallabies far off in the distance bouncing in the opposite direction, but too far for me to take the shot. A few other big animals emerged from the field, including a rather large monitor lizard which they let carry on its way. Unfortunately everything had escaped us and the sun was starting to set, so we made our way back to the road and walked home to the village. While my second hunt was ultimately unsuccessful, it was an amazing experience nonetheless.