Jun 24 The rain fell, but the hunt was all on for the hardy locals at the annual Wakefield Hotel Hunt

The Bowater Toyota Landcruiser 70 Series Double Cab - the perfect vehicle for the job when the hills are slippery and covered in mud!

For the second year running the team at Bowater Toyota came along to the Wakefield Annual Boar & Stag Hunt at the Wakefield Hotel in the midst of snow down low on the surrounding hills, a bitterly cold wind and some heavy rain.

This was nothing compared to the hard slog faced by the 151 entrants in the Annual Hunt though, who had spent at least some of the previous 24 hours out in the thick of it hunting down their hopefully prize winning specimens.

Event organiser Sue Ferguson from the Wakefield Hotel said that this year has been the most successful yet. The event has been running for the past 3 years with the generous support of sponsors such as Bowater Toyota putting up a plethora of prizes to make the event complete.

Competitors must have caught their prey within the 24 hours preceeding the weigh in at 4pm Saturday afternoon in the back carpark of the Wakefield Hotel. Unfortunately for all concerned it was bitterly cold with rain and snow to low levels during that 24 hour period, so there were plenty of cold hunters showing up at weigh in. It was a record year for the hunt, with a much larger number of animals brought into the official weigh in, most of them quite a decent size.

A few of the team from Bowater Toyota came along to show their support, show off some hard working bush bashing Hiluxes and to present a bunch of Bowater Toyota vouchers to lucky competitors.

This year 9 ladies, 109 men and 42 children entered the competition to bring in boar and stag in the adults section, along with assorted goats, possums, rabbits and hares in the kids section.
The car park as ever was completely jam packed with Toyota Hiluxes of various shapes and ages - a representation in real terms of why the Hilux is and has been NZ's favourite ute for 30 plus years. Pig hunters, forestry workers, bush bashers all love the Hilux because it is built tough and can take the knocks, but most importantly there is a legacy of legendary reliability!

Click your way through the gallery - a great time was had by all.

The evening cruised along with a fantastic meal for a couple of hundred people by the Wakefield Hotel, followed by a massive prize giving. The rugby was on, and then a live band kicked it all into high gear for the rest of the evening. 

The winner of the heaviest boar was Ryan Nesbit with an 85kg mud coated, rain drenched monster. A boar this big took a wee bit of manoevering to get it up on the hooks.

The average weight winner was Allan Shaw with a 48kg boar.
The ladies were represented and Abigael Rowe brought home the bacon with a 50kg boar to win that section.

The overall winner of the heaviest stag was Cameron Strange and Ben Buschl with a majestic 122kg creature. This was one very large animal, complete with an impressive set of antlers.

Another very well run competition, well supported by the local community.
Bowater Toyota was proud to be able to help and we look forward to seeing some of you hunters down here checking out our new swollen range of "worked in" Hiluxes. Last month was massive for us with the Toyota Fieldays Specials, which means that along with a Bowater Toyota record month of new Hilux sales most of these came off the back of a Hilux trade in........