Hunting down under!!!
This article can from Benno in
Alice Springs NT Australia. In Australia has many large feral animals in Australia. Australia has a need to control these animals that were released many years back.My friends Macka and Simmo came up for a bit of a hunt. I will let him tell most of the story. He had a great hunt. They came up from the south for the weekend.
Anyways we headed out and saw a few of the famous Northern Territory (a very remote part of Australia) Bunnies (wild Ass) like the ones below. They come in 2 sorts - a standard field rabbit (Rabbit is a slang used for feral wild Ass ) and also a snow bunny model! They are tough to drop despite having thin skin and being pretty dumb at times.
and
the snow bunny model
W
e camped up at about the best spot I know of up here for hunting. Its a little dam out in the back country with a permanent water. Its the only spot like that for a long way around so the feral population out there is incredible. There local populations of donkeys, brumbies and scrub cattle. There are camels that stop for a drink as well on their treks round the countryside. Plus the local Dingos like it as we found out with a bit of a "close encounter" in the camp.
Macka got a baby
camel on the way in to the camp, perfect size for meat.
dropped it nicely with a 40m shot and it only went 50m or so before
rolling over
We
spent the next day either staking out the dam or hunting around it.
there was a fair bit of action. We saw a few camels in the early morning.
We saw
brumbies pretty much all day. We would have seen at least 100 animals drinking at that dam over the next two days. These animal do a LOT of damage in this light country with their hard hooves. There is a need to cull a lot of them regularly.
A bit of a funny
incident happened early in the day, I had been out for a bit of a
walk as Macka and Simmo were staking out the dam. I got in to about
15m on a good stallion in the scrub but couldn't get a clear shooting
lane on him so I passed it up.
Then as I was walking back towards that dam
I saw another stallion coming walking thrugh in a
line that was going to pass by me at less than 30m. Perfect! so I'm
standing dead still behind some good cover and the stallion came on
in to about 40m, I draw the bow waiting for the shot then it sat
down, well actually collapses and rolls on its side! I come so
close to nailing Simmos horse for him a second time!
Then I had a bit
of a sit in a little hide by some gum trees and saw plenty of
horses.
I hit him nicely
thru both lungs and got a partial pass thru but he still made it
almost 500m. I has to slipped in and gave him a finishing
shot. My first ever brumby, I was pretty stoked with it. They
are very skiddish animals and its hard to get the drop on them without a
dam or watering point to stake out.
We were just
coming back from the stallion to the water when we saw one of the
famous NT bunnies coming in. I hadn't got one this trip so I had to
have a crack. He saw me at about 30m, their eyesight and hearing is
surprisingly good but I double lunged him as he turned. He only went
50m or so I gave him a second shot as well even though it was obvious
he was going to drop, just because no-one likes too see an animal
suffering more than necessary.
At about this
point my girlfriend and I decided that we had had enough so we
packed up and headed for home. Macka and Simmo stayed the night then
headed back south. Hope you all like my little read of the
weekend
Cheers
Benno
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