It was a regular morning in the office. Emails, coffee and catching up on the day's inbound work when the phone beeps into life...

A mate with a few acres in the Brisbane Valley had recently installed some new trail cameras on his property.

His text messages – containing three videos – showed footage of a mob of pigs giving his property a flogging with a couple of decent boars among their number.

A weekend hunting was the perfect break from the daily grind. I quickly punched my response back into the phone keypad, “When are you letting me at them?”

This country is usually known for its red deer, however a number of pigs were starting to move in and had taken their toll on the countryside with the creeks and flats starting to look like a bombed out war zone.

I’d recently purchased the iAiming 612 thermal scope and was keen to give it a run with my .223.

Keith, NIOA’s armoury manager, was a “dyed in the wool” Victorian hunter — until he moved to Queensland where hunting in state forests is restricted. He was itching for a shoot.

A plan was launched. We’d head up Thursday after dinner and hunt into the evening using the thermal.

Forty-five minutes’ drive from the CBD and you’re on the fringe of the beautiful Brisbane Valley which includes delightfully-named country towns such as Esk, Toogoolawah and Linville surrounded by farmland, forests and picturesque rural settings.

It’s a weekend hunter’s dream, and it’s hard to believe you’re in the heart of deer country so close to the big smoke.

The excitement was building when we arrived at the property around 11pm. We drove to an area known for decent boars.

A quick roll out of the swags and we were out with the iAiming thermal having a scout. From a distance we could see pigs working the creekline.

A large boar emerged from the creek and we thought we might be on. A slight change in wind and we watched in disbelief as he trotted off into the neighbour’s property, followed shortly after by another mob of eight pigs.

Pigs 1 v Team NIOA nil.

The temperature was starting to plummet, and the Kestrel dipped to –1.6°. Cruising around in the side-by-side was slowly losing its appeal so it was back to camp for some shut eye. Time check 3.30am.

The crisp morning and half light that precedes the sunrise is something to behold in this magnificent corner of Queensland’s great southeast.

By 5.15am we were back at it and this time we had to wait for the fog to slowly lift as the sun struggled over the mountains.

Glassing hard into the fog, the landscape started to open. Now it was up to us as hunters. We poked down the creek in the side-by-side when we spotted an impressive boar, head down digging into the creek bed.

It was time to act swiftly or again be defeated. Keith was out of his seat and had the crosshairs on this pig in a flash.

He let rip with a 150gr Federal Fusion for a double lungshot and dispatched the boar in an instant. High fives all round – Keith was back in the ball game with a healthy young animal on the scorecard.

As always time flies when you’re having fun, so we headed back to camp and packed up.

Wringing out every last minute from our short getaway, we decided to take a different route out of the property through the high country which put us in a location of several shootable deer.

We were rewarded when a young doe stood up from her sunny spot on the side of the hill. Keith again was like lightning on the .308 with a well-aimed shot and she was down, ready for the freezer.

The Federal Fusion ammo had done the work.

A good boar for the water cooler chinwag back at work, and a tasty meat doe for the freezer.

Team NIOA was rolling down the Brisbane Valley back to reality with grins from ear to ear. The drought was well and truly broken.