My mate Peter called me a few weeks back to see if there was a chance of picking up a night's hunting somewhere in the NSW Southern Tablelands where I live.
He's in Sydney and most hunts involve more than one night and a long drive whereas I'm only 2 hours of freeway away and there is usually game to be shot.
So I rang a friend who owns a property on The Great Dividing Range near Collector and squared up to go hunting on his property.
It rained on and off most of the day today but we were pretty certain it was ok......until it dumped down and continued to rain for about 1/2 an hour before Peter arrived and for an hour longer.
Soon however the rain slackened off and by watching the Bureau of Meteorology website we worked out the system would pass by the region in about an hour and we should have a window of a few hours to spotlight.
Around 8pm we were on the property and spent our first half hour on foot using a battery powered hand spot.
Peter had his Bentley Vanguard single bbl 12g and I spotted although my Sportco Martini Hornet was over my shoulder in case a long shot presented itself.
No sooner had we walked a little way and rounded the corner of the main machine shed were 4 rabbits running all over the place.
Peter was on fire and soon laid down 3 of the long eared bandits with healthy doses of BBs.
We then swapped and I dropped my own bunny with the shotgun, something which pleased me no end having very little experience with a shotgun.
We then returned to the Peter's Land Rover and readied ourselves with the big spotlight and rifles.
No sooner were we ready to shoot when more rabbits showed themselves in a paddock right next to the sheds and yards so we turned in there to try and nail them.
I smacked down one with an offhand shot I was pretty pleased about.
It was no long shot but the scope was only on 3 power and I locked with the Sportco Martini Hornet when the pressure was on.
A 40gr Nosler Ballistic Tip tends to ruin anyone's day.
My next shot managed to hit a rabbit but the last couple of inches were through grass as he was crouching and I think the BT began to fragment as soon as it hit the wet grass and so it was not terminal.
I tried to anchor it with a follow up but missed and it was gone.
From there we went in search of foxes and hares and more rabbits.
Peter nailed another bunny, this time with his Weatherby Vanguard Deluxe .243, but the foxes stayed right out past 250yds where they felt safe.
This being late May I think their minds were on mating, not on getting a feed.
They'd probably also been shot at before so we had little luck there.
Peter shot at one and we were pretty sure he hit it but it escaped, goodness knows how, and so it couldn't have been too hurt.
From there we searched for hares.
One breeding pair had given us the slip so we took a back route into a large paddock and Peter nailed a big one.
After a bit more searching we found its mate and soon they were together.....in a metaphysical sense.
Then the rain began to fall again so we packed up and left.
The window of clear weather had been perfect so we were very thankful we'd been able to take advantage of it.
The tally.......6 rabbits and 2 hares.
