havgunwilltravel
Active member
It's always a great adventure to get up in northern Australia and hunt dangerous game and a few mates and i have just finished a self guided hunt in some incredible country. We were very lucky to have a couple of local lads assist with locations and access and without them it wouldn't have gone so smoothly.
There is so much to tell from the ten day hunt where we crammed as much in as possible, but i will go over a few of the more interesting encounters and pictures.
After landing we grabbed the hire car and raced/roared/sped our way into the wilderness and this time of the year the locals start lighting fires all over the country to burn off the grass and promote green pick/growth for the animals to feed on. It's an eery but cool sight to see many fires burning in the night, sometimes the horizon is loaded up as far as you can see with flames.
We had the use of a couple of Canam's and a quad to cover country in and we encountered many different species of wildlife, both native and introduced. This young pup dingo gave us a good chase before we managed to get ahold of him.
In parts of the buffalo country there is frantic buffalo catching going in many places as a massive order for live export has been placed by the indonesians and this will surely impact numbers of male buffalo in some locations. We took part in a mornings buffalo capture using a helicopter, a few 4wd's and a big truck, to say it was hectic and exciting with a touch of danger was putting it mildly. As a result, it took a lot of effort to find bulls on the hunt, but we were happy to walk away from the younger type animals in the hope a few get through and make it to maturity.
A mate had travelled a long way to join us and we were happy for him to shoot a few critters at every opportunity and after looking over a few animals he took this big old bull. It was an exciting stalk and an excellent shot in difficult circumstances that put this bull down but as we got close he got back up and tried to charge us, but the boys had rifles ready and we managed to escape unscathed with him falling less then 10 metres away.
There were many great sites along the way, from the rock formations, to escarpments, to a huge range of reptiles and birds. This is a bower bird nest, they are collectors of anything that takes their fancy, they do this to entice females into their site. I heard a story in the diamond region of northern western australia a local guy stumbled onto a bower bird nest that had a habit of collect diamonds from lake argyle and taking them back to his nest. This local kept it quiet and regularly visited the nesting site to make a fortune out of the hard work and keen eye of this interesting bird. Unfortunately there were no diamonds in the region we hunted and old shells was the best we could turn up in the many nests we looked at.
Scrub bulls, (wild cattle) are often encountered and we seen a few of these on the first part of the hunt. Due to a delay with our rifles (airport mistake) we had to use our local mates guns and the .7mm mag and .308win were slightly under gunned for the buff and bulls. But we got it done, always following up with solid shot placement after our initial shots and we made sure to try to place the first shot inline with the back leg of most of the big animals, where possible and get one through the ribs into the lungs. It worked and of the many animals we shot, we never lost an animal with these smaller calibre's, close calls were had, but it all worked out. This massive scrub bull fell to a single shot from the borrowed .7mm mag as he stood in the shade of a tree out on a grassy plain, we had seen him that morning, but were looking for a big bull buff and had left him alone. The meat was taken and the locals said that young buffalo was much better table fare.
One afternoon we took the buggy for a massive drive into remote country, seeing a few buffalo and boars. My mate was up to shoot and when we found this big old bull we snuck in closer and got it done. He was very happy and we were excited to have him at our feet after a long stalk.
We were many miles from the homestead, but kept hunting until dark incase we found another big bull, but he was the best we located that day.
Being so hot it was lucky we had a couple of cold beers in the back in the cooler and we really enjoyed these to quench our thirst after a big day in the heat.
The hunting vehicle we had for a few days, was a good machine, took a lot of knocks and bumps but came through ok without any major damage.
There is so much to tell from the ten day hunt where we crammed as much in as possible, but i will go over a few of the more interesting encounters and pictures.
After landing we grabbed the hire car and raced/roared/sped our way into the wilderness and this time of the year the locals start lighting fires all over the country to burn off the grass and promote green pick/growth for the animals to feed on. It's an eery but cool sight to see many fires burning in the night, sometimes the horizon is loaded up as far as you can see with flames.
We had the use of a couple of Canam's and a quad to cover country in and we encountered many different species of wildlife, both native and introduced. This young pup dingo gave us a good chase before we managed to get ahold of him.
In parts of the buffalo country there is frantic buffalo catching going in many places as a massive order for live export has been placed by the indonesians and this will surely impact numbers of male buffalo in some locations. We took part in a mornings buffalo capture using a helicopter, a few 4wd's and a big truck, to say it was hectic and exciting with a touch of danger was putting it mildly. As a result, it took a lot of effort to find bulls on the hunt, but we were happy to walk away from the younger type animals in the hope a few get through and make it to maturity.
A mate had travelled a long way to join us and we were happy for him to shoot a few critters at every opportunity and after looking over a few animals he took this big old bull. It was an exciting stalk and an excellent shot in difficult circumstances that put this bull down but as we got close he got back up and tried to charge us, but the boys had rifles ready and we managed to escape unscathed with him falling less then 10 metres away.
There were many great sites along the way, from the rock formations, to escarpments, to a huge range of reptiles and birds. This is a bower bird nest, they are collectors of anything that takes their fancy, they do this to entice females into their site. I heard a story in the diamond region of northern western australia a local guy stumbled onto a bower bird nest that had a habit of collect diamonds from lake argyle and taking them back to his nest. This local kept it quiet and regularly visited the nesting site to make a fortune out of the hard work and keen eye of this interesting bird. Unfortunately there were no diamonds in the region we hunted and old shells was the best we could turn up in the many nests we looked at.
Scrub bulls, (wild cattle) are often encountered and we seen a few of these on the first part of the hunt. Due to a delay with our rifles (airport mistake) we had to use our local mates guns and the .7mm mag and .308win were slightly under gunned for the buff and bulls. But we got it done, always following up with solid shot placement after our initial shots and we made sure to try to place the first shot inline with the back leg of most of the big animals, where possible and get one through the ribs into the lungs. It worked and of the many animals we shot, we never lost an animal with these smaller calibre's, close calls were had, but it all worked out. This massive scrub bull fell to a single shot from the borrowed .7mm mag as he stood in the shade of a tree out on a grassy plain, we had seen him that morning, but were looking for a big bull buff and had left him alone. The meat was taken and the locals said that young buffalo was much better table fare.
One afternoon we took the buggy for a massive drive into remote country, seeing a few buffalo and boars. My mate was up to shoot and when we found this big old bull we snuck in closer and got it done. He was very happy and we were excited to have him at our feet after a long stalk.
We were many miles from the homestead, but kept hunting until dark incase we found another big bull, but he was the best we located that day.
Being so hot it was lucky we had a couple of cold beers in the back in the cooler and we really enjoyed these to quench our thirst after a big day in the heat.
The hunting vehicle we had for a few days, was a good machine, took a lot of knocks and bumps but came through ok without any major damage.
