Ever had one of those months?
DVD, video and computer die.
An extra heavy workload at your job.
Major commitments in voluntary organisations outside of work cause massive stress because of other people's behaviour.
The car has serious and expensive overhaul and then completely cooks the motor one week afterwards.....with the family on board on the way to holidays.
Pressure from extended family.
General but constant hassles with the local council.
That pretty much sums up the my life over the past 3 or 4 weeks.
I was really looking forward to getting out hunting to a regular big property near the Abercrombie River in NSW.
It looked dicey last week and then, just in 24 hours, it all sorted itself out and we headed out really early on Friday morning to try and reach the property not long after sun up.
It really is beautiful country.
This is the scene that met us as we wound down toward the homestead around 7am.
It was around 2 degrees but there was no wind and although we could see our breath and imitate a mad bull when breathing through our nostrils it looked like becoming a great hunting day.
Here are my mates Pete and Carly, regular hunting buds of mine who actually met for the first time this trip because I usually hunt with one or t'other.
First up the property owner marked out the boundaries, something we've NEVER had before, despite having hunted here at least 4 times before.
Then we headed out to the easier entry to the top end of the property.......to find the gate there was locked.
So we headed back to the homestead and informed the owner's missus who said there'd been a disagreement with the neighbour and we'd have to try the steeper route to the top end.
Unfortunately, due to the wet ground, we couldn't get up the slope.
A previous driver had torn it up and so we were forced to see if there was another approach.
We finally found a ford against the south-western fence and crossed there.
The Pete's Land Rover Discovery laboured up the slope and we actually got with 200m of the track at the top of the ridge.
The pics don't really do the Landy justice.
It climbed some seriously nasty stuff.
But in that last 200 metres the contour lines were REALLY close together and the land was rising up to 1.5m per 1m in distance.
The only standard sort of hunting vehicle that could get you up that sort of nastiness is a Haflinger or Pinzgauer and so we were forced to turn around and retreat back to the other side of the creek.
We parked the car and decided to go for a leisurely walk with our rifles in case anything stuck its head up.
The countryside really is gorgeous and the low lying cloud didn't lift until after 10am.
The dewy coatings on the spiderwebs were still there almost until almost 11am.
The biggest problem for us, however, was the proliferation of kangaroos.
As we were leaving I that night asked the owner "Are you breeding roos?" and "Yup....plenty of 'em," he replied with a wry grin.
And everytime we turned a corner in the gully 10 to 20 roos would spook and hop away across the hills.
Sometimes they went up but for the most part they simply ran before us.
The perfect early warning system for all other game.
Why the roos flee like mad is a mystery because they have nothing to be afraid of.
They've never been shot at and are the healthiest animals I've ever seen.
I know because the owner is a colleague and has strong views about why and when to shoot roos.
But it wasn't all bad.
We did sight a fox.
Pete had already strolled past, Carly well off to my left and I was wandering along just looking around when to my right, across the other side of the creek, a large reddy brown dog fox broke cover and began to move quietly but intently up the saddle and away from us.
I tried to motion to Pete, who was dead keen on knocking down a fox with his new T3 Hunter in '06 but he was oblivious.
So I swung my T3 Lite Stainless toward the red coat, shoved the plug properly into my right ear and chambered a 9.3mm 270gr as quickly as possible.
When the the action give that signature "shnick,shnick,shnick!" the fox doubled his speed and fairly bolted up the slope towards the crest.
It also let Carly and Peter know I was about to fire and they turned to see what was happening but the fox was safe.
He made his escape good and found cover in one of the many blackberry bushes in the next ravine.
It was disappointing but it was certainly an indication that the game was there.
We sat in a few well hidden spots and employed a button whistle for a while but the old fox must've known what a rifle action meant and was staying away.
Here's a pic of the sort of country:
So we moved on rounded a corner and were quietly chatting as we watched the roos flee in front of us.....again....when I suddenly hushed the others.
"Goats!" I whispered.
"Where??" they asked and I pointed to some pines along the creekbed about 200m away.
In between the trees were 6 or 7 goats and, as we'd feared, the rotten kangaroos were spooking them.
The small group disappeared and then another mob appeared higher up the hillside.
There must have been 15 or 20 animals!
We chatted a little and discussed tactics then proceeded as quietly as possible.
We shouldn't have bothered.
Goats don't often run but they can move steadily and over any terrain.
Before we knew it they we gone, we were at the northern property boundary and even from the highest hill there was nothing to be seen.
As is their wont the goats had disappeared into the hills without trace.
We were disappointed but it wasn't yet 1pm so we decided to return to the Landy and try the steep access to the top end of the property after the sun had dried it a little.
It took us ages to get back to the Landy as we must've walked a miles along the gully floor and the second attempt at the muddy access track was no better.
So we returned to the homestead and let the owner know about the condition of the access track.
He smiled humourlessly at me and said "The missus got mixed up.....here's the key's to the locked gate."
That made me a little happier.....but they would've been MUCH better about 6 hours earlier!
We still had 3/4 of an hours worth of drive to get to the top end and it was about 2:50pm with sundown at 5:17pm.
We made our way as swiftly as possible but in the end we did not reach the top end until just before 4pm.
So we put on our gear, grabbed our rifles and headed north as quickly and stealthily as possibly.
There was sign of goats, mostly hoofprints and we even managed to hear and smell them at one point.
But the light was failing fast as we climbed the last hillside we dared.
And when we reached the saddle the closest goats were departing around a ridge almost 500m away.
So we made our way back to the Discovery and cooked up a simple dinner.
We did see a fox on our way out and Carly had him completely in his sights but the little bugger was on the top of a ridge, completely skylining, and we had to let it go.
In the end the only game taken on the entire trip was a decent sized rabbit knocked down by Carly's Husqvarna ex-mil M96 sporter in 6.5x55.
I was pretty subdued but the others were philosophical and Pete, who lives in Sydney and can't get enough of the outdoors,
loved the day.
He thinks the property is beautiful and reckons the 3 of us should make sure our next trip last for a few days.
My big lesson for the day is that if you SEE something at 200m and it's likely anything you see will be spooked quite quickly then you should shoot it at 200m and not try and get closer.
I don't like to say my enjoyment of hunting is based on killing stuff but, well, there are times when following that primal urge and succeeding is truly cathartic.
But gun plus long drive and/or walk doesn't
always = success.
That's why they call it hunting........not shooting.
