As many of you know I live in rural Australia about 2 hours southwest of Sydney.
A little while back Peter, a friend from Sydney, and I hunted a big property about 60 miles north of town and we had a good time bagging feral goats there.
We intended to go back last weekend but other people were hunting there and so I decided he could stay with me instead and and we'd try the local properties I hunt that are all between 10 and 20 miles from town.
The week before didn't bode well.
I got a pretty severe shoulder injury and spent the Monday and Tuesday off work.
I recovered midweek but it was back with a vengeance by Friday when Peter was due to arrive.
I could've wimped out but he was driving the 2 hours from Sydney and I decided I'd grit my teeth.
Our Friday night hunt started about 9pm when we headed for a property southwest of town owned by a colleague of mine.
Unfortunately the wind was howling and light mizzle fell most of the time but I did whack one rabbit with my .25-20 Martini Cadet and Peter thumped a pair of crows with a single round from his BRNO .22lr.
There was other game about, like a pair of hares, but due to Peter's unfamiliarity with my rifles and the weather we just weren't lucky so we called it a night about midnight.
My bunny taken with a Hornady 75gr HP from the 25-20 Martini.
A pair of ex-crows thanks to Peter's BRNO.
And I was pretty pleased to be home too.
Peter's Land Rover Discovery has coil springs but my back and shoulder were pretty painful by the end.
A long sleep-in was supposed to cure my shoulder but it didn't.
After some messing about and a visit to the penny grabbing local gun shop where the owner tried to sell Peter some stock standard Federal Power Shok '06 ammo for $37(:mad:!!) we headed out to a big property about 20 miles southwest of town.
This property is about 1000 acres and the game tends to be rabbits and hares although the owner had some tags this time so we were also open to cull a few roos.
Upon arriving at the place I knew there would be rabbits in the yards by the house and we took 2 there.
We then headed for the far end of the property but little was to be seen.
Peter did however take yet another crow, this time at 110yds with my 25-20 Cadet.
From there we saw little until the sun set and we got out the spotlight.
There were TONS of rabbits in different spots and Peter took another by the sheds before knocking over 2 hares.
He then took the spotlight and I took over shooting duties taking down a hare for myself.
Knowing we were close to the top of the property and areas roos frequent we went up into the timber there and they were grazing there as I had expected.
Peter got a chance to knock over a nice female with his new Tikka T3 Hunter 30-06 using a Federal PowerShok 150gr factory load.
I'd also counted on taking some roos and perhaps was a little overgunned.....but hey, just adds to the fun.
I knocked over 2 big males with my T3 Lite Stainless in 9.3x62 and it was "Goodnight, Nurse" for them both.
I have to say shooting that rifle just makes me feel good all over, well, except when I shoot it off the bench.
From there I took another rabbit and hare and one more rabbit in the house yards on the way out.
Again, my shoulder and back were pleased to head home.
Here are some pics:
Our first bunny taken and the first game I've ever taken using my 1910 Remington Mod 6 "boys rifle", iron sights and all!
Peter with the crow he sent to that big fence post in the sky.
Here's a rough panorama I made up from a few shots to show the terrain:
Peter and one of his hares.
Myself and my hare......yep, that's a LOT of blood and some came home on my jeans.
Peter's female roo taken with the T3 30-06.
Myself and the T3 Lite Stainless 9.3x62 with the big male roos........a 270gr Speer Semi-Spitzer tends to dampen the spirits when delivered at 2300fps. :p
My bunny and the 25-20 Martini Cadet topped with a Weaver K6.
Hare a'la hollow point.....those 75gr Hornadys really change the colour of your day at close range!
I slept long on Sunday morning, which is unusual as I'm a regular church goer, but the rest did my injury some good.
After a good lunch of beef stew and mash we headed out to another property about 12 miles from town.
I've had little success here recently and the sign on their front gate that said they had been baiting foxes with 1080 poison sealed any hopes on bagging a redcoat.
We did manage to knock over rabbit and walked around in search of more but in the end all we got to do was some extended periods of wildlife observation - namely kangaroos.
Unfortunately no tags were forthcoming on that place so we could only watch not shoot.
In fact due to the massive numbers I'm beginning to suspect the owners are farming them!
Here are few pics:
The lone bunny taken on Sunday's mostly fruitless hunt.
As the sun sets Peter sitting in wait with his BRNO in case another rabbit is silly enough to show it's head.
Some of the huge mobs of roos we saw.....there are 6 in this pic and most of them knew we were watching but apart from the odd curious stare continued to graze.
In the end the weekend was success.
Despite game numbers being down, the weather and my injury we still came away with....
- 3 crows
- 6 rabbits
- 4 hares
- 3 roos
I must make it back to the big property soon though.
There were so many rabbits and at least another 6 hares we missed.
Additionally Peter, his son, myself and another couple of friends are heading up to the big property 60 miles north from 5th to 9th January next year.
The weather will be real hot but it should be a cracker of a hunt.......rabbits, hares, foxes, goats and possibly even hogs.
We'll probably catch some yabbies (native freshwater crayfish) in the water holes too and cook them up.
Gotta love hunting!
