Ever found yourself with your heart racing as a majestic deer emerges from the brush, gun in hand? Do you still get buck fever? That's just a taste of what Dr. Yannick and I breakdown in our latest outdoor escapade, complete with the thrills of stalking, the art of crafting fox skin hats, and the tactical dance of trapping in Western Australia. We even tease our frostbitten future plans to track muskox across Greenland's icy expanse.
Swap your hiking boots for waders as we swim into the wild tales of two Aussies, Yannick and I, who found kinship amidst the Canadian pines on a guided moose hunt. We'll regale you with the camaraderie, the strategic calling, and the thundering hooves that led us to a triumphant harvest. Our adventure didn't stop at the hunt; join us around the campfire as we share hard-earned wisdom on traveling with your prize, the meticulous choices of an Esky, and the ins-and-outs of airline meat transportation.
Pull up a chair and pour a stiff one as we recount a series of misadventures involving a cheeky descent in the bush, an elusive chocolate buck, and the humorous hurdles of swollen rivers and forgettable horse names. Our tales from the wilderness are garnished with a pinch of wisdom on traditional hunting equipment, from double rifles to the trusty bow, and wrapped up with a bow of practical advice on how to bring home the bacon—or rather, the venison. It's not just about the hunt; it's about savoring the journey, the memories, and yes, the meat. So join Dr. Yannick and I for a romp through the untamed tales of hunters and their stories.
For the latest information, news, giveaways and anything mentioned on the show head over to our Facebook, Instagram or website.
If you have a question, comment, topic, gear review suggestion or a guest that you'd like to hear on the show, shoot an email to accuratehunts@gmail.com or via our socials.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
On the 10th episode of our Huron Hunts.
For those that haven't shot oneor seen one, it's basically a
double barrel, side-by-sideshotgun, but shooting a rifle
cartridge.
Correct, yeah, so it's stillrifled in the barrel.
Yep, both barrels are actuallyslightly pointed.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
No, they're actually parallel and your kind of impact
point is designed to be in thecenter of your two points of
impact.
Speaker 1 (00:29):
What happened next was from my vantage point.
I'll give you my part of thestory.
I saw another deer come fromour left and the little raghorn
buck sort of two and a half yearold thing came running into our
croak and was only like 40meters from us and then he steps
out from behind the blackberryfig and he was a toad.
Speaker 2 (00:51):
He was just oh dude.
So you've got to understand.
I come from Western Australia.
We don't really.
I mean, we've got the odd feraldeer that's kind of running
around in the state forest, butdeer hunting's not really a
thing over there.
Speaker 1 (01:07):
Welcome to another episode of Accurate Hunts Life
Outdoors.
I've got my good friend, DrYannick with us.
For those that are watching,you get to see what he looks
like.
Finally, I've spoken about youa fair bit.
Yeah, but Yannick was on our.
Speaker 2 (01:22):
I hope I live up to expectations.
Speaker 1 (01:23):
No, it's disappointing in all accounts,
to be honest, including being afriend.
I forgot my hat.
I'll be back.
If you are watching, you get toenjoy the visuals, but if
you're listening, you'll have toimagine what I'm wearing.
Speaker 2 (01:42):
How would you describe it?
Speaker 1 (01:44):
A fashion statement.
Yannick and I have got someplans in a few years' time to go
and visit some colder areas, ieGreenland, and chase muskox
around.
Speaker 2 (01:55):
Needed appropriate attire.
Speaker 1 (01:57):
Appropriate attire, and what he's done here is he's
made me a fox skin hat, but it'snot just for many foxes.
How did you get these ones?
Speaker 2 (02:07):
They were trapped.
Speaker 1 (02:07):
It've been my latest obsession I want to say going
down that rabbit hole, but it'smore of a fox hole, more of a
yeah, more of a dirt hole really.
Speaker 2 (02:13):
Yeah, it's a fair obsession time consuming, very
time consuming and hard to workout, which is hard when you're
time poor.
Um, very hard to work out.
There's a lot of factors.
I think it's like fishing likeyou gotta, there's so many
variables and you don't knowwhich one you're stuffing up.
Yeah, you change something andyou're still stuffing up, so,
but then you don't know if goingback to what you're doing
(02:35):
originally with the one thingthat you changed was the right
thing to do or not.
So, yeah, steep learning curveand you've been.
Speaker 1 (02:42):
The success has increased, though.
Speaker 2 (02:44):
Yeah, it's starting to get in there.
How many?
Speaker 1 (02:46):
are you?
Speaker 2 (02:46):
up to I think I'm only up to about here maybe a
dozen, 13 or so, but it'sgetting there, cats too, yeah,
I've got two cats as well.
I've managed to catch, but it'syeah, with summer coming, the
young pups and all that are alittle bit easier to trick into
getting into your sets andwhatnot, what?
Speaker 1 (03:07):
are your rules over there for trapping?
It's a bit loose.
Speaker 2 (03:10):
It's actually.
Yeah, it's not as bad as a lotof other places in the country.
I'm from Perth, WA.
Speaker 1 (03:15):
You can put the accent or put some subtitles
over it.
Dear.
Speaker 2 (03:22):
The.
Yeah, it's a little bit morelax in some other states I know
in some states it's completelybanned, especially using
foothold traps.
In WA it can only be onnon-residential property, so it
has to be rural listed and youcan use soft-jaw traps only, so
you can't use steel-jaw trap.
Well, soft-jaw traps are stilla steel-jaw trap, but they've
(03:44):
got on the on the inside of thejaw and the spacing in the gap
is actually wider.
Still, break your finger.
No, no, no, this is not from atrap.
I have caught my fingersmultiple times.
I've caught more fingers thanFoxes to be perfectly honest.
So no, it won't break your yourfinger, but, um, it's a, it's a
(04:05):
quite a job to to get yourfinger out once it's a clamp
shut on it, which is the pointof it, I guess.
Speaker 1 (04:09):
Yeah and what sort of I know you've mentioned a few
things when we talk about ittactics as far as finding
corners and piss points orwhatever well, it's not
dissimilar to chasing deer.
Speaker 2 (04:21):
Uh, it's, you've.
They've all got their traveltravel corridors, their travel
corridors, their travel routes.
There's set areas where they'regonna pick a particular vantage
point, a particular crossingpath.
They like the edges of brushthat leads onto paddock where
they can kind of cross andthey've got plenty of cover to
kind of get away if they sensethemselves to be in harm's way.
(04:43):
And if you find an intersectionwhere multiple paths connect,
that's likely to be a hotspot.
When you've got multiplechannels feeding into that one
point, it maximises your chancesof putting your set in front of
a fox's nose.
Speaker 1 (04:56):
Are you finding them just by looking, like you're
just actually seeing foxes on atrack and you're like, oh, I'll
go and look at that.
Speaker 2 (05:01):
Or is it?
I think the old trapper'smantra is um set on sign.
So you want to um basicallyhunt for sign tracks, scat um,
kill sites, um where they'vescavenged uh kind of carcasses
or or carrying um and they'regoing to be your kind of
principal points of uh focus.
I trap a lot of the placeswhere I've been fox whistling
for yeah, I hate to say it now,but years, over a decade, maybe
(05:25):
close to two um, but uh, yeah,so I know kind of the areas
where their hidey holes are.
And then you, it's just amatter of kind of nutting out
where their, their sign is andum kind of uh hopefully
connecting um.
There's nothing as exciting asfinding one in a trap in this,
nothing as disappointing asrunning your entire trap line
and coming up with an emptyhanded, and what are you doing
(05:46):
when you get one Dispatching?
Yeah, I've got a little 22,.
I'll just use a little 22 short.
How mad are they?
Hey, how cranky are they?
Depends on the fox, really.
Some of them are pretty unhappy, some of them are pretty
aggressive when they see youcoming in, and others are just
very, very, very placid.
I think it's a lot of people.
They all have a bit of adifferent personality, just
content they know the end's here.
(06:08):
Oh yeah, some of them are justlike well, yeah.
Speaker 1 (06:10):
We're done.
We're done.
The time here is done.
What about the cats?
Are they a bycatch?
Cats are.
Are you targeting them, or isit just a?
Speaker 2 (06:24):
bycatch.
No, it's more of a bycatch.
So principally I'm setting forfoxes.
There's many more foxes in theareas where I trap than cats,
but they'll come in.
They're actually easier tocatch than foxes.
Their sense of smell isn't asacute, they're much more curious
and they'll speak a lot less.
So cats target cats.
(06:46):
They'll use what's calledflagging, where you kind of like
it will dangle like a featheror put some feathers and stuff
in a dirt hole at the base ofyour set to attract them to it,
whereas if you did somethinglike that for a fox, they'd
sense that something wasn'tquite right and be gored.
What else can you trap?
CDs.
Speaker 1 (07:00):
Oh, just for.
Speaker 2 (07:01):
Just for reflecting.
And yeah, like a giant cat toyout in the bush.
Speaker 1 (07:05):
My only trapping experience was a little slip
noose.
I set under a hole on a fencemany years ago and I caught a
rabbit around the waist.
So I got the head through andthe front legs but then got
caught.
And then my mate said what areyou going to do?
I said I'll let it go.
He said why?
I said I just wanted to see ifI could.
I didn't need to, fair enough.
And then we let it go.
Never saw it again.
But that's my only trappingexperience.
(07:26):
There's not much trapping inAustralia as a culture anymore.
Speaker 2 (07:32):
I think the biggest cohort, the biggest contingent
is probably the wild dog guyswho do wild dog control for the
cattle ranches and that there'squite a few Big over your side
Cattle ranches over in WA and Ithink Queensland makes up the
bulk of the kind of the trappingcommunity in Australia.
Speaker 1 (07:47):
We've got a bit of a thing here in New South Wales
with dogs that are a bit moreprotected and less trapped and
shot the wild dogs yeah.
Speaker 2 (07:56):
Is that?
Speaker 1 (07:56):
right, yeah, just because they're more city people
, yeah, like the Brumbies, theyhave a bit of protected status.
Brumbies, they have a bit ofprotected status.
Oh right, okay, working on that.
I think it just got removedfrom memory.
The dingoes just got changedfrom a protected species yep yep
, yep, just got taken off thatlist anyway.
So I've uh, we were in camp theother day and I can't remember
what I said, but in midconversation I flicked my tail.
(08:17):
Yes, it's, it's quite thestatement piece.
Speaker 2 (08:20):
I think he's a.
He's a guy with long hairtrapped in a guy with short
hair's body I'm transitioning,it's natural yeah I look forward
to it.
Speaker 1 (08:28):
I look forward to wearing this uh on our future
journeys um.
It's extremely warm, it's notwarm.
Speaker 2 (08:32):
It's definitely warm talking about journeys.
Speaker 1 (08:35):
We've uh been mates.
For how old's your eldest now?
Eight.
She's nine, nine, so eightyears because it's just before
her first birthday.
Yeah, nick and I met over inCanada.
I don't know if I've fully toldhim this story, but I was
working in Canada as a huntingguide and he came over as a
client for that company and Igot placed with him and we had a
(08:59):
few conversations briefly andthen we basically headed out the
next day and packed up andloaded up.
But it was actually the firsttime I'd guided a moose hunt and
I'd never seen a moose before.
That we did.
Alright, we're connected.
Yeah, we definitely connected.
And I was telling someone thisstory the other day and I said,
geez, I think I'd feel hard doneby if I flew all the way from
Australia To meet an Aussie, tomeet an Aussie and to hunt moose
with an Aussie, but it's workedout well for both of us.
Speaker 2 (09:20):
I think there's more Aussies in Canada than Canadians
, to be honest.
Speaker 1 (09:23):
Yeah, especially in that side of industry, the
guiding side.
Speaker 2 (09:26):
It's like English people in Australia.
Speaker 1 (09:27):
Yeah, Well, it's also comfortable because you're with
an Aussie.
You know you're not withsomeone, but no, it worked out
well.
Speaker 2 (09:35):
I think most of our jokes kind of went over our
wrangler's head, though yes, hewas quite tall, but all the
jokes went over his head.
Speaker 1 (09:41):
De, he was quite tall , but all the jokes went over
his head.
Devin yeah, interesting name.
Definitely not something youhear in Australia, devin no, he
was good, and there's one photoand I'll just never forget this
photo of him.
When he finally laid eyes, itwas the biggest moose he'd ever
seen.
As a Canadian, let me have asneak Phew, pardon me.
And just the look on his facewhen he actually walked up on
(10:02):
this thing, it was just like ashock.
This thing had no ground.
Shrinkage.
Speaker 2 (10:06):
No, I think of all the critters I've chased a lot
do have an element of groundshrinkage.
This had quite the oppositeGround growage.
That's the thing, Starting towonder how on earth you're going
to get this thing from point Ato point B once it's on the
ground.
Speaker 1 (10:21):
And point A was a two-day horse ride in to a place
called Boulder Creek, and we'dbeen in there for a few days too
.
Speaker 2 (10:30):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (10:30):
Had some ups and downs and we did speak about
this in the previous podcast,but just touching on it for new
listeners.
But I'm pretty sure we saw thatmoose earlier on in the week, a
fair way away.
Yeah, and there was just aglimpse or it was a long
distance.
End of day I think it was yeahand he was up on that face and
very characteristic antlers onhim, size, wise and makeup.
(10:54):
But we couldn't do anythingabout it.
It was too late in the day orwhatnot.
And then we hunted a bit more.
I fell off in a creek, fell offthe horse, found big moose
antler, which is actually abovethe camera at the moment, turned
into a chandelier.
There's a picture of Yannickand I sitting in it using it as
a chair.
Is that big?
Yeah, big enough.
Speaker 2 (11:13):
Well, I think most things are big enough for me.
You're a small guy.
Speaker 1 (11:16):
Speaking about ground shrinkage, probably sitting in
a hog deer antler in person, uh.
And then that hunt kind of justunfolded pretty textbook, we
use the horses as a decoy.
We had some brown horses andthey looked like, you know,
female moose cows.
So we uh set them up, probably50 or 100 meters up off the
(11:38):
bottom of this big wide valley Ithink the valley was about 200
meters wide, this big flatsection, and then both sides
started to creep up from thereand we went up about 100 yards
and the horses were just belowus tied up, just tied up to a
tree.
They didn't know what they weredoing, they didn't realize they
were used as decoys.
I'm probably happy not to bewalking around yeah, enjoying a
rest tie them up and then wentup above them and started doing
(12:00):
some calling and yannick'sactually a professional moose
caller and he's going to give usan example right now.
Oh, come on, put me on the spot.
Come on, it's all nose.
Well, you don't have to do itwith your fingers but it's so
surprising when there's suchhuge animals and all they can
produce is weird noises.
And that's sorry.
That's a female.
That's a female.
(12:20):
Yeah, that's a cow moose.
Speaker 2 (12:22):
The bull makes an even stranger noise.
That's a female.
That's a female.
Yeah, that's a cow moose.
The bull makes an even strangernoise Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa,
and that's it.
It travels so far that soundit's a real drummy sound.
Yeah, it'll travel.
Speaker 1 (12:33):
If you've ever heard a emu out in the bush Similar,
yeah, you can hear it comingfrom a while away, this sort of
deep clicking noise.
I liken it to that.
But so we were doing the femalecalls and I think you spotted
it first.
But we just see these big whitepaddles, not only just up the
other side of this flat, butthen it dropped down and then up
again and then he was on thatsecond ridge.
(12:53):
Second ridge, yeah, so, whichwas probably 800, 600 to 800.
I can't quite remember thedistance, I don't even think we
ranged it, and then he wasresponding and coming in, he
could hear us.
So that was pretty cool,traveled a fair way and we could
watch him.
But then he went out of sightand I said to yannick I was
pretty confident at this pointbecause he still didn't know,
(13:15):
I'd never seen a moose beforeand secretly I was packing it
and so excited.
But he's a confident shooter.
You had blair's gun, yeah, 300wind mag or something, and he's
confident shooter.
And, uh, you had Blair's gun,yeah, blair's gun, yeah, 300,
win Mag or something, win Mag,yeah, and he was a confident
shooter and accurate enough.
So we were sort of looking atthe 300 to 350 or so.
I'm happy it was our maximumrange and I said I remember
(13:37):
saying he's going to come downout of sight.
We won't see him for a littlewhile.
I'm pretty sure he's going topop up right there and just in
my moose hunting experience hedid exactly what I said he'd do.
Speaker 2 (13:47):
Yeah.
Just cemented my trust in myexperience, confidence in the
guide.
Fake it till you make it.
Speaker 1 (13:53):
Well, we were making it and he popped up exactly
where we thought, and then hepaused for a moment.
We called, he called, he moveda bit further and he was
broadside at 333 or something.
It was yeah, yeah.
And you had a stable rest, youhad your bog pod Yep, two-legged
thing.
Speaker 2 (14:12):
No, it was a tripod with a little yoke on top.
Speaker 1 (14:15):
That's right, and you had your binos, you could also
strap on yeah, cool bit of kit,that thing.
Anyway, strapped on that solidrest sitting on the ground we
weren't standing, but, yeah,sitting, because we were on the
steep slope and you shotstraight across, smoked him
right in the shoulders and hespun on the spot and I think you
put a second into him at thatdistance again and then he just
(14:35):
dropped and I was pretty excitedbecause I'd never seen a moose.
Speaker 2 (14:40):
I was pretty excited because I'd never seen a moose.
Speaker 1 (14:42):
And we didn't actually know how big it was at
that time, either of us.
Oh, we knew it was legal.
Yeah, talking about legal,there's an amount of brow points
, brow times, they have to haveat that time of year.
It's three on at least one side, or a total of 10 points on one
side, on a total, yeah, or morethan 50 inches, yeah, but
that's hard to judge, yeah,Especially if it's the first
(15:04):
moose you ever see.
Extremely hard to judge from adistance when you've got no idea
what you know.
They all look big though Used tolooking at much smaller inches
fallow and things, but so anyway, dropped on the spot High fives
and cheers and whatnot, but wedecided and it was actually a
really good decision in my yearsof experience was to leave
(15:25):
devon, our off-sider, where weshot from, because we couldn't
actually see the moose that haddisappeared into the long.
When I say we could see himclearly, you think you can see
something clearly, but once youget over there the brush is six
foot high the uh and there wasstill a moose above that somehow
yeah, well, they're tallanimals, aren't?
they size of a racehorse.
Speaker 2 (15:41):
Looking at the countryside, you think it's this
beautiful like lush meadow, butit's actually, yeah, six foot
lush, it's willow.
Yeah, it's like six foot ofwillow that is giving you the
appearance of lush meadow.
Speaker 1 (15:54):
Um above it and we were right there on the shoulder
season where it was all theleaves, like we went in there
and there's leaves, and thenwhen we came out there was no
leaves, like it was right onthat cusp of fall, as they would
call it, which made it mucheasier through the willows
without leaves because you couldactually see.
But this thing had disappeared,just dropped and disappeared.
So we left him there as aspotter and I just said hold
(16:15):
your binoculars there, don'tlose that spot.
And something I do now I didn'tdo it then but is take a photo
of that spot and then edit it,open up your phone and edit it
and draw a red dot where youthink you last saw the animal.
So at least then, if you forgetabout it and you're eating
something or whatever, you canlook back up, find that spot and
know what you're looking for.
Speaker 2 (16:35):
It looks very different, extremely different
when you get close.
So it took us some time.
Speaker 1 (16:39):
We grabbed our horses and led them across.
We grabbed our horses and ledthem across.
We took all of them and madeDevin walk across.
We walked anyway, but we wereleading and six foot high, no
tracks.
We were just pushing our waythrough game trails, got up
close and then we used Devin andit was getting late, yeah.
We still had light for thephotos.
I'm not sure what time of night.
Speaker 2 (16:57):
The photos were last light.
Speaker 1 (17:02):
But it was a late like sunset over.
There was nine o'clock or 8.30or something at that time.
So it was quite late in the day, early evening, and I had my
Garmin in reach with me and Ikind of roughly knew where he
was and we got close and thenfinally found him and then
yelled out to Devin and he cameacross and that's when I got the
photo of his.
Look on his face.
Yes, I've got it.
(17:23):
I think we were all excited.
Yeah, it was pretty exciting,but then the hard work happened
Like it's an incredible jobcutting up Days, cutting up and
removing a moose.
We were lucky we had enoughhorses with us to get everything
out in one go, so we caped itup to the back of the head on
the spot and then we butcheredit and took all four wheels and
(17:44):
back straps yeah uh, and then Ithink you took the cape off the
face there, yeah, and then wejust took the.
So the cape was separate, theskull was separate we had the
skull cap and then the meat.
Yeah, um, but that was then.
We had to get back to camp.
Now, withoutmin, I would havereally struggled to get back
(18:05):
because it was dark and we knewwhere camp was, but just finding
an appropriate trail to getthrough was real hard.
The horses were fantastic.
They're pretty clever.
They're pretty amazing, yeah,stalin.
Speaker 2 (18:15):
Stalin.
Speaker 1 (18:15):
With his little mustache.
He was a great old horse.
I have a terrible issue withremembering names and the boss
would say, oh, go and take Tony,debbie and Daniel like the
horses all had normal names.
Go and take those three on thattrip.
And I'd go and get them.
And then I'd come back from a10-day trip and he's like why
have you got Johnny?
(18:36):
He's a spastic.
I was like that's David.
He goes no, that's Johnny.
I said he's not a spastic.
Now he's real broke.
I just grabbed whatever horsesI thought they were and I was
riding pack, even though theyweren't riding horses, and it
was terrible.
But we had a good string onthat one, starling dodgers
through some some pretty gnarlystuff in and out.
Speaker 2 (18:54):
It's amazing how they just seem to know which way to
go they do know which way to go,because you end up where you're
trying to get yeah, they canfind a track when there isn't
one.
Speaker 1 (19:02):
But so moose down, quartered, butchered, taken to
camp.
And then there was a few highfives.
I think you had a little hipflask of whiskey or something.
We all partook in Slept in thenext morning.
And then I cooked up somemousse for breakfast, fillets or
something.
The fillets on it are still thesize of like a fallow backstrap
.
Speaker 2 (19:22):
And then the day happens.
Speaker 1 (19:24):
It was a 10-day hunt with a two-day ride in and out,
so 14 days in total, and I thinkfrom memory it was probably day
four or five when you shot itand we stayed in for another two
days and then packed out on thethird day to head home and that
whole time we were busy.
It was cutting up meat,butchering it, turning the nose,
(19:47):
packing it.
He's still turning the nose it.
It took that long.
The noses just keep going.
One thing about Yannick, and oneof the main reasons I actually
like him as a friend is he's ataxidermist, which means when I
hunt with him, I don't have todo Not so much army.
Speaker 2 (19:59):
Personality.
Speaker 1 (20:00):
No, that's got ground shrinkage too.
We don't have to do thetaxidermy work, he can do it it
for us.
So turning the lips and ears ona on a moose is a.
That's a day sorted.
That's a day sorted, so there'sa lot of time sitting in camp in
the tent in the tent and uh,just enjoying that part.
(20:20):
So it was no use to rush home.
I think we got home for uh,thanksgiving.
We just got out in time forthanksgiving.
We went to the trailhead.
Yeah, that's right.
We got out to the trailheadafter the two-day ride out and
it was nearly dark and we gotback and dinner was on the table
, sort of thing, so it was therethat was the best shower I've
ever had in my life.
I remember it well, talkingabout showers, we'll get to
(20:42):
samba camp in a minute that wasthe best the whole room got a
shower.
It wasn't just me and uh anyway.
So that was, yeah, the wrap upof that hunt.
I mean, it was a rifle hunt.
It was supposed to be anarchery hunt, but I busted his
arrows on the way in yeah, I hadone arrow left.
I said to him jokingly beforewe left why do you need 12?
You only need one arrow, andthen that's what he ended up
(21:04):
with, because I broke.
Speaker 2 (21:05):
11 of them ranch on the way in to be honest, the uh,
the willows were so high Ireckon it would have been tough
going to get it done with theboat.
Hats off to the guys who do it.
Speaker 1 (21:14):
But yeah, and I mean that moose.
Speaker 3 (21:16):
If it was morning time he might have kept coming
yeah, we might have been able tocall him all the way in.
Speaker 1 (21:20):
Yeah but the benefit of rifle hunting is you don't
have to.
So glad we got that done.
But that was adventure numberone.
And then he went home and Iwent home and we thought about
each other and we're like stayin contact and crying in the
shower and then, uh, speak foryourself.
And then we stayed in contactand then continued chatting and
(21:42):
whatnot and uh, I think I'd seenyou.
I came over for shot show orsomething in perth and caught up
and whatnot.
But then I, uh, you werebugging me.
You're like I want to do asamba hunt, I want to do a samba
hunt.
I said, oh, I've got no ideaabout samba, but I picked a spot
and we went down.
We were down at Thalgla Valley,that's what it's called, and
(22:07):
unprepared really, but set up atent, went for a walk in the
morning unprepared really, butset up a tent, went for a walk
in the morning.
I think we were 10 minutes in,just up this little ridge, saw a
Samahine.
I took a shot.
I scared it into a positionwhere Yannick could shoot it.
I missed it so bad I think Ishot under it.
I remember seeing the stickthat I shot.
Yeah, yeah yeah, I cut a littlesapling in half.
Speaker 2 (22:29):
He was just flushing it for me.
Speaker 1 (22:30):
Yeah, buck fever or whatever it was, hind fever,
whatever.
But missed it, clean miss.
And then Nick just put anotherone into it because he had the
better vision on the second shot.
Just a better shot?
Look, yet to be determined.
Speaker 2 (22:46):
And then you played the stereo on the car when we
got back to camp.
It flattened the battery.
It flattened the battery, youflattened the battery, and then
we were stuck in the highcountry without a battery?
Speaker 1 (22:55):
Yeah, without a set of jumpers.
I forgot about that.
We had to go and get reception,ring someone to come and help
jumpers.
Yeah, dan, dan, dan.
Yeah, good old Dan, he'scrackpot.
Speaker 2 (23:07):
Saved our bacon.
Yes, he did.
Speaker 1 (23:09):
And then we really couldn't be bothered hunting
anymore.
I think we went downtown.
We were there for like twonights and three days, I think,
yeah, yeah.
And we went out again with Dan.
He took us to a different spotand showed us a few things and I
think we jumped a few and gothonked, but never saw any to
take a shot the next day.
But then we bailed out and wentto town.
The weather was pretty crappy,so we went to town and booked a
(23:32):
room at the fanciest hotel thisside of prison.
Speaker 2 (23:37):
Probably the fanciest hotel in town.
To be fair, yeah, it washistoric it was yep.
Speaker 1 (23:41):
So were the water, fittings and fixtures.
It was a $90 a night kind ofspecial hotel.
And the shower head.
I turned it on and it wasscrewed on but leaked
excessively from on top to thepoint where as soon as you turn
it on it soaked my clothes, thetowel and everything outside the
shower door.
Everything except you, exceptme Not much water was coming
down.
Speaker 2 (24:01):
It was all going horizontally.
Speaker 1 (24:03):
Oh, it was horrific.
Speaker 2 (24:04):
I remember hearing a shout from the bathroom.
Speaker 1 (24:06):
Yeah, there was water everywhere.
It was like yeah, All my dryclothes were now wet.
Speaker 2 (24:11):
The fitting had come off the apple.
Speaker 1 (24:13):
That's a consistent joke.
That one, Anyway, got out ofthere and come back to my place
and butchered up a heap of meat.
Now, not only is he ataxidermist, but he's also
French, which means pretty goodcook Taxidermist and French.
Yeah, can't be both.
That's a shock.
But yeah, can't be both, that'sa shock.
But good, cook, and I think youcame back to our house and you
cooked us up.
It was something with the Samba.
(24:34):
Actually, you cooked in Canadatoo.
You did like a wild berry fruitsauce.
Yeah, we picked some Juniperberries.
Speaker 2 (24:42):
No, they were blueberries.
Speaker 1 (24:43):
Wild, blueberries Wild blueberries yeah.
And you made a sauce over thereand did some of your mose for
the whole camp, which is reallynice, but then you did it at my
house again, left us with awhole heap of asian recipe items
that we'll never, ever usethey're probably still in your
pantry?
No, we've moved house.
I cleared them out.
But who eats sesame oil?
Like we need that in life?
(25:03):
Yeah, so, but then, uh, then wedo hog deer.
Snake.
Snake Island when I drew my hogdeer tag.
You're allowed to take anon-helper, which I did because
it didn't help at all.
Caught a pike, that's what youhelped with.
Speaker 2 (25:20):
Yeah, yeah, that was dinner for the first night.
Speaker 1 (25:21):
Yep, caught a pike on the way in and then I caught a
flatty while we were over there.
Fed us for a little bit, but no, it was a pretty unsuccessful
trip.
Good in as far as memories andthings, but unsuccessful with
harvesting yeah, pretty coollittle place though very.
Yeah, secluded island camp,there was some we didn't see a
(25:43):
single deer did we?
no, we didn't see a single deer.
There was some deer shot on myperiod, but off the on the
record they weren't shot duringhunting hours we only found that
out after and it made sense Ifthe deer aren't there, they're
somewhere right.
Yes, we did do it.
That is a comment.
Morgan, you're probablylistening at home shooting
(26:04):
arrows in your garage.
We're skipping forward a fewtrips now, but we went on a I'll
call it another deer camp,shooting russa.
And there was another, a bowhunter.
We're skipping forward a fewtrips now, but we went on a I'll
call it another deer camp,shooting Russo.
And there was another a bowhunter in Camp Morgan.
Great guy, great bow teachertoo.
Spent a lot of time with Mel,my wife, helping her sight a bow
in properly and just be calmabout it all.
And he said something while wewere out.
(26:24):
We'd spent the morning sittingin a blind.
He said, well, if the deer arenaren't here, they've got to be
somewhere else.
Yes, that is the truth.
True words never spoken and uh,it's become a bit of an ongoing
joke, but uh, so hog, deer wasa bit unsuccessful.
And then you actually leftearly.
You caught the boat over a dayor so before me.
(26:46):
You had to get back.
That's like yeah, yeah, yeahgot out early yeah, I don't
really have sea legs.
That was a rough it was a roughexit when we left too um, real
choppy that we had to wait outwith all our stuff.
I was chest high in the waterbecause they couldn't come any
closer.
The tide was up and I had towait out with all my stuff and
do three trips out to the boatand back yeah, it's the sea
(27:07):
search and rescue, isn't it?
Speaker 2 (27:08):
uh, yeah, come and uh yep, pick you up.
Speaker 1 (27:12):
Yeah, it was just a donation mainland, take you
across the island and back.
It was a great deal.
They were real confident and ifyou're going to get stuck, you
want to get stuck with thoseguys.
Oh yeah, they're a great bunchof blokes, they were really
really good.
They gave some hot tips on theway back and said oh, if you'd
actually want to come and shoothog deer, don't worry about that
island, go to this island.
It's not legal, but it's.
You know, there's hog deer onit anyway, whatever they're into
.
But uh, what was next?
(27:33):
Yeah, it was deer camp rusa.
Yeah there's a few social visitsback and forth over to perth.
There's no hunting.
Oh, we went to rottenest,caught some fish, kids did well.
No, but rusa camp.
Every now and then I'll ringyannick and say, oh, I've got an
opportunity, okay.
He just says, okay, I'll getsome time off, okay.
So I booked a rooster trip andcame over here and tried your
(27:57):
luck with the bow for a few daysand didn't quite get there.
What do you got?
A 300?
Speaker 2 (28:02):
300 Weatherby yeah.
Speaker 1 (28:03):
Weatherby in a single shot and got it done on a nice
rooster pretty early in the tripyeah, mid-trip, mid-trip.
So that was nice took that homeand got a taxidermy well, you,
taxidermy yourself hanging onthe wall, a bit of hair slip on
the face looking for anotherrooster cape if anyone's got one
(28:24):
, um, get that uh, sent acrossto us.
But then late last year Iaccurate hunts hq, which anyone
who's listening has heard metalk about when that came about,
on the way home from sort ofsigning the deal on that trip, I
rang yannick and said I needyou to be available in april and
(28:46):
he didn't even really ask why.
I think he just said okay.
And then it was a discussion ofwhen school holidays were and
what you could fit in, butfallow rut this year and I
locked you in and here we are.
This is the tail end of that.
But I want you to go back andtell us about the gun that you
bought, not specifically forthis trip but for future trips,
(29:08):
and then what it is, why youbought it, it and what sort of
issues you've had with it.
Speaker 2 (29:12):
So yeah, I'm a bit of a traditionalist Weirdo how do
you want to spell it?
I don't really like all themodern gadgetry.
I'm more into the old schoolstuff.
Anyway, I've been obsessed withdouble rifles for the last few
years so finally found one thatwas, you know, wouldn't cost my
marriage to.
It was a present for yourself,wasn't it?
Speaker 1 (29:33):
Yeah For graduating something.
Speaker 2 (29:34):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, passing one of my million exams
that I've sat in my life.
But yeah, I was at my local gunshop and I walked past the gun
rack and there was a doublerifle, a Sabati in 9.3 by 74
caliber.
What does the arm mean?
It's rimless.
(29:55):
It's basically ballisticallyequivalent to the 9.3 by 62, I
think it is, which is normallyin bolt action rifles.
This is essentially chamberedfor lot double rifles or single
shot rifles.
It's the base of the casing isdifferent.
Speaker 1 (30:11):
So it's a bit more like a lever action, like a
30-30 case.
It's got that wider rim on theback of the shell for ejection.
Speaker 2 (30:19):
Yeah, yeah, extraction Extractors can kind
of pull it out.
It doesn't have a little hook,so the bolt claw can kind of
yeah, it can't go over it, itsort of pushes from behind.
Speaker 1 (30:26):
Yeah, yeah, it can't go over it.
It sort of pushes from behind.
Speaker 2 (30:30):
Yeah, yes, I was very excited about that.
I remember that phone call.
I was supposed to bring it toRusacamp.
Actually that was supposed tobe its maiden voyage, and the
thing about obscure calibres isthat for some reason, ammunition
is really hard to find, which Ifound out the hard way, so it
(30:51):
took me after getting the gun.
Speaker 1 (30:53):
The shop didn't have any.
Speaker 2 (30:54):
No, no, no, no.
And couldn't get it.
No, no, they had to get it overfrom over east and it took
about two months to get overfrom over east.
So I'm sitting here,desperately twiddling my thumbs,
waiting for something toactually shoot out of my shiny
new gun, and had had a littlefox trapping uh trip planned a
(31:15):
couple of months before goingdown to rooster camp.
So I packed it along with meand it was going to be the first
couple of rounds that I putthrough.
It ceremoniously set the thecamera up to to film the first
few shots that it uh,ceremoniously set the camera up
to film the first few shots thatit fired.
And as I lined up, I just hearthis nice click.
(31:37):
I was like what happened there?
Was that a misfire?
Held the barrel down, crackedit open.
No, primer's perfectly smooth,hasn't been detonated.
Okay, no, it didn't cock itproperly.
Cock it up again.
Click, that's weird.
It's only got a single trigger.
So I pulled the trigger again.
(31:58):
It was like okay, well, thatbarrel works and I cracked it
open again.
I had a look and it looked likethe firing pin was actually
broken off at the, at the, thefront of the right-hand barrel,
which is pretty annoying for abrand-new gun.
So there were my hopes anddreams destroyed for getting a
(32:19):
Russo with a double rifle.
And, yeah, when I got back toPerth I brought it to the gun
shop and they were actuallyreally good about it.
They sent it off to thegunsmith that they worked with
and got it all kind of fixed upfree of charge for me and it
hasn't skipped a beat since then.
But it did miss the roostertrip.
(32:40):
So yeah, at that point Idecided, oh well, I'll try it
with my bow, got a couple ofmonths in of archery practice,
which I was getting a bit rustywith because I hadn't picked up
my bow in a couple of years, andwe realised the hard way when
we got across to Roosacamp thatmy sight had been desperately
(33:03):
yeah, one of the screws wasslightly loose.
Speaker 1 (33:05):
Your sight had dropped about nine metres.
Speaker 2 (33:08):
And if you look at the slow-mo footage of the uh,
the arrow coming out of the bow,it really, uh, really, paints a
picture.
Um, yeah, but yeah, always uh,always shoot your um shoot
arrows.
Uh in camp if we're going outfor a hunt would be my only tip.
Um, yes, that turned into arifle hunt.
Speaker 1 (33:26):
So you got that pretty quickly.
You got the double humming andshooting properly.
Speaker 2 (33:31):
Yeah, so the double actually regulates beautifully.
It points really really nicelyOpen sights, but yeah.
Speaker 1 (33:38):
For those that haven't shot one or seen one,
it's basically a double barrel,side-by-side shotgun, but
shooting a rifle cartridge.
Correct, yeah, so it's stillrifled in the barrel.
Yep, both barrels are actuallyslightly pointed.
Speaker 2 (33:52):
No, they're actually parallel and your kind of impact
point is designed to be in thecentre of your two points of
impact.
Speaker 1 (33:59):
So if you're zeroed at 100, you would never have two
in the same hole.
Speaker 2 (34:03):
They'd be left and right.
You should have two holes leftand right of the bullseye,
essentially.
Speaker 1 (34:06):
Otherwise they'll cross over by how far when you
say it's regulated.
Speaker 2 (34:10):
Probably, because otherwise they'll cross over.
By how far?
When you say it's regulated,what's Probably the distance of
the barrel?
So I only like about an inchapart from each other.
Speaker 1 (34:15):
To be honest, if you're getting a group, that's
an inch apart with a doublerifle at 100 yards, yep yeah,
and open sights too, and a lotof offhand.
Yeah, yeah.
You're not really sitting downat a bench to do open sights.
Speaker 2 (34:25):
I think primarily they're designed for driven
hunts in Europe for moving game,because they point very, very
well.
You've got two shots that youcan fire off in rapid succession
and it's usually close quartershunting.
And the other place, obviously,where they're famously a lot of
their heritage comes from, isin Africa for dangerous game
hunting, which is why you boughtit.
(34:45):
Well yeah, that's the ultimategoal.
I'd like to go chase CapeBuffalo one day.
You're going to shoot the muskox with it.
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (34:51):
Yeah, that's the ultimate goal.
Speaker 2 (34:52):
I'd like to go chase Cape.
Speaker 1 (34:53):
Buffalo.
One day You're going to shootthe musk ox with it.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure, Idon't even think I'll take one,
I'll just use your other barrel.
Yeah, so I'd each take twobullets.
Yeah, so we We've had this tripbooked for a little while and
then the rifle fixed itself, oryou got it fixed, and then it
was time to happen and you said,all right, book some flights
and whatnot.
And it's a bit of a busy time inmy life at the moment with the
(35:13):
new kid on the ground, which isagain.
I said this last episode don'tget cold in winter and have a
rut baby.
Think about that, guys.
Poor planning, poor planning.
So I couldn't actually make thetrip with him and I said that's
fine, I'll set you up out thereand leave you out there.
So I picked him up at theairport 6 o'clock in the morning
(35:34):
, drove back to my place, packedsome stuff headed out there.
We were out there by lunch andmet up with some other fellas in
camp.
They were just on the tail endof their trip and they tail end
of their trip and they weregoing home that night or next
morning.
They had, um, some pretty badweather.
They had, yeah, like 200, 200mil of rain over two nights.
Speaker 2 (35:52):
Yeah, 150 mil over that, it was in one night yeah,
that's horrific for them.
Speaker 1 (35:57):
We had it here, but I was in the house.
They're under a tarp and in aswag.
It was pretty, prettyhorrendous and well the the
problem with that rain was whenwe got there, the river was up.
It was substantial.
This is a river we wouldnormally either just walk
through with shoes or, you know,rock hop if it's slightly high,
and this deleted and eliminatedall of our rock hopping
(36:20):
opportunities.
Yeah, it was, it was motoring,it was brutal.
So, you know, we got to camp,had a quick chat and packed up
gear and and went for a hike andthere's a bit of an area I
hadn't been to before and reallywanted to discover.
And, uh, traditionally with theeducation courses there, we're
a bit limited in where we wantto go because we're sort of
short time, success driven needto shoot a goat.
This was more of an exploration.
(36:42):
Let's go have some fun and forinterest sake.
We're right.
I think we were right at thestart of the rut, like early
croaking and then towards evenlike now when we're home, would
be, you know, full swing outthere.
So we were hoping to hear someand help.
That hope that would guide usin our decisions and it turned
(37:02):
out it didn't immediately, butwe got riveted out.
We had to go up, high up aembankment.
That cost you some bruises.
Speaker 2 (37:09):
What Dodger omitted to tell me was that this
property is pretty much sheervertical everywhere.
Speaker 1 (37:14):
Yeah, we call it Little.
New Zealand?
For a reason.
Little New Zealand.
The camp is at a really nicespot.
It's a really high vantagepoint with lots of viewing.
The downside is to hunt.
You need to drop down about 400meter nearly vertical descent,
only to go 400 meters up,ascending the other side, to
(37:34):
then start hunting.
And then the other downside is,if you shoot anything, you have
to do that on the way back withwith the stuff on your back so
we knew that I knew that goinginto it was pretty intrepid,
though it was good.
Speaker 2 (37:47):
I didn't share that.
It's the kind of thing you'rewondering why you're doing it,
why you're doing it, but you'repretty happy.
You're pretty chuffed you didit.
Speaker 1 (37:54):
When you get back, yes, it's that afterburn fun.
So first afternoon, headed out,saw some up on the other side
of the ridge, some deer, a fewgoats that we spooked.
10 metres in front of us, lotsof goats, lots of goats.
But we just came around arandom finger not random, but
came around the finger and forsome reason I'd glassed down a
(38:16):
bit further than I had been onthe previous part of the walk,
found a spiker chilling byhimself, and at that time we
didn't know if he was by himself.
But it turns out he was.
Speaker 2 (38:29):
And then you can tell us how you nearly stuffed that
stalk textbook, textbook,textbook stuff up graceful,
graceful, like uh, I don't knowwe were on a steep, we were high
above we were yeah we were verymuch, probably 100 meters high.
I think thankfully the riverwas raging.
Yeah, because it was prettyloud.
I couldn't actually hear thecommotion that I was making
(38:51):
above it.
But I started my sneaky descent, tried to ease myself over a
fallen log and managed to end uppretty much.
Speaker 1 (39:03):
Head over turkey.
Speaker 2 (39:04):
Yeah, a over T on the other side.
I've got a nice bruise, I'dlike to sport it and managed to
dislodge a good-sized rock,probably a mango papaya would
you say yeah, yeah, that wentcut all the way down.
Down the rock, face down in hisdirection, which got his
attention, got his attention.
(39:24):
He was wondering what the rockwas doing down there.
He didn't really pay too muchattention to where we were up
higher.
Speaker 1 (39:30):
I actually worked in our favour and actually might
become one of my stalking tips.
Yeah, roll a rock down to keeptheir attention while you move
in.
Speaker 2 (39:37):
I was surprised that that didn't blow him out of the
neighbourhood, to be perfectlyhonest.
Then there was a bit of a treethat was in a V down the bottom
of the valley that I managed toeventually get my way to without
spooking half the population,just in reference to the
graceful fall.
Speaker 1 (39:57):
If you've ever been at the pub and watched someone
trip over holding a beer, that'sexactly what this was.
The rifle, at all times, wasabove ground.
Speaker 2 (40:03):
Oh, the rifle was unscathed.
Speaker 1 (40:05):
And you were rolling and tumbling and this rifle was
just floating through the airand not moving somehow.
And then you stood up and youstill had it like a full glass
of beer I can heal.
Uh, the rifle can't um theregot to your v and then he was
alert.
Speaker 2 (40:19):
He knew at this stage he was, he knew something
wasn't quite quite kosher and Itook a shot, missed him cleanly
at that stage and he trottedforward about four yards or so.
And then this is why I have adouble rifle I had a follow-up
(40:40):
shot immediately there Withouthaving to cycle one.
Speaker 1 (40:44):
Yeah, like you wouldn't have bolt action.
Speaker 2 (40:45):
And yeah, ba-boom, and that was it, sacked one.
Yeah, Like you wouldn't havebolt action.
And yeah, ba-boom, and that wasit Sacked him.
Yeah, and he went down.
Speaker 1 (40:51):
Later to discover it was a direct headshot between
his eyes Exactly where I wasaiming, yeah maintain that
Yannick said to me the thingwith a double rifle is you just
have to end up with some fur inthe end of it, because you're
sort of looking over two dots.
You're not getting a whole lotof zoomed in view, like you
would with a scope.
Speaker 2 (41:11):
Oh, he was probably.
What about 75 yards, 73?
Um.
So yeah, there's, uh, you know,not a big, not a big target to
line up with your, with youropen sights.
Um, there, I mean, that's allexcuses.
Really it's my own fault forbringing a double rifle he's
dead?
Yeah, it happened.
Who was dead on the spot?
Speaker 1 (41:26):
happened.
That made for a bit of a funafternoon.
So we did a full.
Speaker 2 (41:31):
No, we just gutted there we gutted him there and
then uh, took the heart andintrepid trip back to chucked
him on a stick over the shoulder, which I've never actually done
before.
Gotta get the heart as well yes, hearts in the freezer.
Speaker 1 (41:42):
Uh, never actually done that before, but chucked
the pole between his legs andtied his legs and carried him
out proper caveman style yep,and that worked fine.
The river was up and we had tocross it twice to get back to
camp yeah, which was the?
easier route.
We didn't cross it on the waythere, but the easier route was
downhill.
It was unladen at that stage,yes, and that involved pants off
(42:03):
, shoes off, socks off.
It wasn't too deep at thatpoint.
That section was probably onthe knee or lower, and then on
the second crossing it got a bitdeeper.
I was probably halfway upthrough my thigh.
Speaker 2 (42:15):
Yeah, so I was up to my neck, basically.
Speaker 1 (42:17):
Yeah, like I hear behind me he was googling
underwater.
We were just pretty concernedabout keeping the deer dry.
Speaker 2 (42:25):
Yeah, it worked out fine.
The head got wet on the skin isfine.
Speaker 1 (42:29):
Yeah, but the uh, the skin.
So I got back to camp and, uh,it was fair.
Oh no, we got the quad bikefrom there up to the top, so
that part saved us a little bit.
But I got to camp, strung it upin camp and then sat down and
had a beer everybody's wonderingwhy we've got no pants on yeah
part of the service withaccurate hunts.
Yep yep, nothing's missed,everyone's looked after and,
(42:50):
again, lots of ground shrinkage.
But with that cold water mate,we'll blame it on that.
Yeah, um, the quad bike ridewas awkward too many up a steep
embankment.
There was a lot of, yeah, skinon skin and only one layer of
fabric got to camp, strung it upon the meat pole, sat down and
had a beer and a few high fivesand then you got to skinning.
(43:12):
Yeah, ripped your skin off.
Longest skinning job, perfectskin, this thing, not a hole in
it and no meat left on it.
Speaker 2 (43:19):
Doesn't even need fleshing.
Speaker 1 (43:20):
No, I had a look at it, she's a clean as.
So that got salted and rolledup and then dinner was had and
it was, uh, call it quits forthat night.
We headed out the next morningchasing some croaks and steep
descent, steep ascent, steepdescent steep ascent, steep
descent yeah, we just kept going.
I kept going, saw a few.
We saw 18 deer that morning, afew bucks, a few girls, a few
(43:46):
spies, and we saw one.
Well, got a glimpse of him, buthe was croaking on a on a stand
but across the creek and notaccessible from where we were
quickly and safely.
So we left him and headed backup into a timbered section.
And that's when it got a littlebit exciting.
We were kind of just talking,walking.
Yeah, we weren't actuallyhunting at that point and then
(44:08):
heard a croak which seemed likeit was 10 meters from us, but it
was actually more like 150, andthen quickly got up over an
embankment and got eyes on it.
I really had a you know threeor four second look at him
through some timber and he was adecent, decent buck, good
timber on top, nice color,mantle, mantle skin, and.
(44:29):
And then I saw some girls withhim.
So I knew he was holding themand he was croaking, not
viciously, but every now andthen.
He wasn't like that other one,but it gave him away.
We would have walked straightpast him otherwise.
So yannick set up probablyabout 15 metres, 10 metres in
front of me and I motioned tohim.
We've got a, a buffalo horncroaker that you made me for my
(44:54):
birthday or wedding present orsomething.
It's pretty amazing piece ofart, this thing.
But I motioned to you to givehim a call and you did.
You had your rifle set up in theV or on the side of the tree
and then you gave a croak and hewent quiet.
Two things one, he's either runaway or two, he's coming
towards us to sort ofinvestigate.
(45:16):
And what happened next was frommy vantage point.
I'll give you my part of thestory.
I saw another deer come fromour left and this little raghorn
buck sort two, two and a halfyear old thing came running into
our croak and was only like 40meters from us, but bothered and
I said to yannick, don't shoot,it's a different deer.
(45:36):
But he didn't hear me becausehe'd already pulled the trigger
I thought it was the, uh, theother fella coming in.
Speaker 2 (45:44):
Yeah, I've got a bit of buck fever at that stage,
yeah lucky.
Speaker 1 (45:47):
It was buck fever, because he missed with two
bullets and the deer just stoodstill.
Stood still when he took thefirst shot and then I've got it
on camera just between the treesand it flinched a little at the
second shot, but only the sound, and then just trotted off,
yeah, and then unscathed it, uh,it crossed down and then went
up the other side and I saw it.
You know, there was no injury,it was not hit, walked away
(46:08):
basically, and at that point herealized it was a different deer
, so there was no reloading andre-shooting, but the big buck
had gone with the girls.
We heard him a bit later on,further away, so at least I know
where he is for next time, Ithink uh instinctively I always
think that they're further awaythan where they're actually at
if I haven't ranged them andtend to miss high.
Speaker 2 (46:29):
So it makes for a nice clean miss.
Speaker 1 (46:31):
Yeah, there's no, yeah, there's no mistaking if
you hit with that gun.
Speaker 2 (46:35):
No, I don't think there's a big hole.
It's not a it's a big whop.
It's not a-.
What pellet what projectile itare throwing uh, they're 286
grain um soft points, but um no,they, they stop things in in
its track they hit hard, exceptwhen you miss right.
Speaker 1 (46:54):
It's a nice, nice way of doing it so that was the end
of that morning was a lot ofwalking after that yeah, a bit
more calling walk of shame wesaw a few more but, uh, no bucks
.
So headed back to camp.
That was a fair hike in andback out and then I went home,
left you there for a few days.
It was going to be a few days.
You're going to be there mondaynight, tuesday night, wednesday
night and come home thursday.
Speaker 2 (47:16):
It wasn't the case so that night I, that evening I
went for a hunt just near thecampsite.
Just, my legs were pretty shotat this stage.
I just went for a little hikedown at the back of camp and
found somewhat of a bit of ahoney hole.
I think.
(47:37):
I found a nice little spit thatkind of looked out downhill and
I sat there glassing for alittle while and saw a doe,
caught my my eyes initially, andthen I sat there glassing her
for a bit and then lo and beholdshe another doe, popped out and
(47:58):
then a really nice uh buck uhcame out with her as well.
So they were way, way, way toofar, definitely out of range of
my firearm.
Speaker 1 (48:12):
In an afternoon hunt when.
Speaker 2 (48:12):
I was In an afternoon hunt.
It was a pretty verticalcountry through there, so I
decided to just sit there andglass.
And I glassed again and I foundanother buck, a bit of a
smaller buck, to the left of him, about maybe 400 metres or so
(48:32):
to the left of him, on the sameface.
I thought, oh, this place isworth coming back to have a look
in the morning.
So I came back the next morning.
That night I don't know, Ithink it was a bit of a cold
snap to come through, but theywere croaking all night, were
keeping me up all night.
I was having a bad noise to yeahfeverish dreams of a giant
(48:54):
fellow croaking in the mist umdreams or nightmares?
yeah, uh, but uh yeah, aboutfive o'clock the next morning it
was too much to to handle, so Ithrew my pack on and made my
way down towards the nearest oneI could hear, made my way down
into this valley, and glass wenton a little bit further along
(49:21):
and continued to make my descentdown.
By the time I got down to thebottom I couldn't see him
anymore, and he'd shut up aswell.
He'd locked his lips.
He must have seen me comingdown the face, but there was
another one.
Didn't roll any rocks down.
I didn't roll any.
No, that's probably what I didwrong.
(49:42):
He was nice.
I saw him on top of a nicechocolate buck.
He had, yeah, pretty decentheadgear on him.
I just had my eight-power binoswith me.
I didn't have my spotting scope, I didn't get a close, close
look at him, but he, yeah, Iwould have shot him any day of
the week, but I could still hearone croaking a little bit
(50:03):
further up.
So I kept working my way downthe valley and it just kept
getting louder and louder andlouder and I could hear him
croaking until I caught aglimpse of a hind kind of up on
the face and she caught aglimpse of me as well.
(50:24):
She was on high alert and shewas just staring at me.
So I kind of sat there for awhile and I was just glassing,
glassing, glassing.
I couldn't see where thecroaking was coming from, but I
could hear it.
This noise travels so far.
It's loud when you're far away,but when you're right up in
their personal space it's justdeafening.
(50:44):
It's quite a haunting soundspace.
It's just, yeah, deafening it's.
It's, uh, it's quite a hauntingsound.
Um, and I, yeah, I was glassingher and then I saw this little
little buck kind of come out, um, from behind a little thicket,
and I was like, oh, okay, he'smaking a big noise for, for a
little buck, um, little rag one,probably, yeah, similar age to
the one I missed the day before,um, and I'm like looking at him
(51:07):
and staring at him through thebinos and then all of a sudden I
hear the croaking start again.
But he's not croaking.
I was like, hmm, all righty,there's another fella a little
bit further in.
So the hind and the little buckmade their way down.
So I kept edging a little bitcloser.
I was kind of on the cut bankof the of the river, uh, this
(51:29):
stage, kind of inching my wayaround.
Um, good, you know, one of themain benefits about being, uh,
vertically challenged is that,uh, it's easy to find a hiding,
uh, a hiding spot.
But made my way around and, um,it was a big, uh thicket of
blackberries, so pretty muchjust at the bank of the clearing
, just above the river, and Iwas staring through with my
(51:52):
binos, staring through with mybinos, and then I could see the
blackberry thicket just gettingthrashed.
I was like, oh, he's got to beback there.
And the croak's getting louder,and louder and louder.
And there's this perfect littlekind of grassy embankment just
on top that made for a perfectrest for my rifle.
And I land up there and I'mlooking through my binos trying
to see where he's coming from,and then he steps out from
(52:15):
behind the blackberry thicketand he was a toad.
He was just oh jeez.
So you've got to understand.
I come from Western Australia.
We don't really.
I mean, we've got the odd feraldeer that's kind of running
around in the state forest, butdeer hunting is not really a
thing over there, especially notin the blocks that I kind of
shoot on on the farms where I'vegot access to hunt.
(52:38):
So seeing a deer is excitingfor me.
But seeing something of thiscalibre was just like oh, my
heart was going a million milesan hour, let alone fully
thrashing the brush and croakingat the same time.
But he just came out, he put ona show for me.
It was nice and cold, stillearly on in the morning.
As he's croaking, you can seethe fog kind of coming out of
(53:00):
his mouth and he's croaking.
I just had this perfect,perfect shot kind of lined up
inside of 50 yards, well andtruly for the double rifle range
and I was like this is my buck.
And yeah, pulled the triggerand that was it.
It was all over mid croak and hedid me the favor of rolling and
(53:23):
falling right into the centerof said blackberry thicket,
rolling and falling right intothe centre of said blackberry
thicket and that was a bit ofsport to get him out of there on
my own.
It was significantly largerthan the spiker we'd shot a
couple of days earlier.
He probably weighed more thanyou.
He definitely weighed more thanme, I reckon about 120.
Yeah, big bucks, yeah, he'd be,yeah, he would have been around
(53:44):
100, I reckon.
Yeah, yeah.
Big body thickness Already losta fair bit of condition in the
last two weeks, yeah, and thenspent the rest of the morning
kind of field dressing him,getting the back skin, the cape
and the antlers and all the meatthat I could carry on my small
frame back up to camp.
And that sheer realisation whenyou're thinking about that
(54:07):
vertical descent that you'vemade to get to where you are.
Speaker 1 (54:12):
You've got to go in reverse.
Speaker 2 (54:14):
It's not going to get any less steep on the way up.
So yeah, that hurt.
I was saying to Dodge the worstpart about being on your own
out there, that you can't evenwhinge to anybody, you've just
got to suck it up and do it.
I like to complain about mybodily aches and pains and how
(54:35):
hard I've got it, but there wasnobody to listen, so I had to
bottle it up inside.
Speaker 1 (54:42):
I don't give you any sympathy when I'm there anyway.
Speaker 2 (54:44):
Yeah, just keep walking.
But yeah, no two steps at atime.
15 minutes, catch your breath.
Another two steps.
Took you a week to get over ittook me about five hours to get
back into camp, but I felt everysingle one of those hours At
least you had all day yeah.
Speaker 1 (55:00):
Comfortable temperature too.
It wasn't too hot.
Speaker 2 (55:02):
Yeah Well it was comfortable temperature by the
time I got back to camp, blackclouds were rolling in, started
thunderstorming and then I justI was.
I had a little light tarp setup kind of out there Shout out
to Alton Goods.
Oh yeah, if you want to sponsorme.
Please get in contact.
I've got.
I'm a bit of an Alton Goods fanboy.
Speaker 1 (55:26):
I've got most of their line up now, I think uh
you're pretty happy with it.
Speaker 2 (55:27):
Yeah, no, it held up.
So then it started hailingwhile I was um, uh, kind of
finishing the cape job out in umin camp and I was like, geez,
that rain's getting heavy andI'm looking down and there's
little hailstones, hot pepperand pepper in the ground in
front of me.
But uh, no, it held upamazingly.
Yeah, I was warm and snug, itwas toasty.
I run their their quilt andtheir bag, the mattress sleeping
(55:51):
mat, which, yeah, highly ratejust for the record I'm not
sponsored by them at all.
This is all purchased out of myown money, but no and the little
tarp and the tarp.
I've got the 3x3 metre tarp.
Speaker 1 (56:03):
Cooking stuff yeah, all their cooking stuff, yeah
he's got their undies, theirsocks, their toenail paint yeah,
lipstick yeah yeah, so you gotto enjoy it in camp by yourself.
Now you sent you knowfavoritism and priorities.
Here I get it.
I left him my garment in reachand first person he texts was
his wife.
I know that because shescreenshotted it and she sent it
(56:24):
to me.
She asked me a question.
She said said what does BBDmean?
Because you just sent her atext saying BBD.
Speaker 2 (56:31):
So I had the Garmin in reach so you have to type in
every letter like an old Nokia.
Speaker 1 (56:35):
It's not linked up to his phone.
Speaker 2 (56:37):
It's even slower than the Nokia phone because you
have to move the little cursoracross to the letter you want.
Speaker 1 (56:40):
So everything was shorthand and BBD and uh, bbd,
and I knew what it meant and Isent that back to her and told
her what it was.
But then your text come throughfrom you and that was uh.
I was very excited to hear thatit was uh yeah, that was um
that's a property.
I haven't hunted the rut outthere yet, so this is our first.
That's our first rut deer fromthat block.
(57:01):
We shot one pre-rut realbeautiful thing.
He's sitting over there on theground.
Jack's one one and geneticallyvery similar.
Speaker 2 (57:09):
Very similar.
I think from a distance you'dbe hard-pressed to actually
tease them apart.
There's a few subtledifferences in the head, but
you'd say they definitely hadthe same sire.
Speaker 1 (57:21):
Yes, definitely in the same part of the family.
Speaker 2 (57:23):
So you've got it on the ground, you've got it home
you've caped it, so you've gotit on the ground, you've got it
home, you've kept it out, you'vecleaned it up.
Yeah, managed to take a nicechunk out of my finger while
trimming up the uh, turning theeyelids.
Speaker 1 (57:34):
And then you stayed for a day or so just to keep
playing with the cleaning themeat up and, yeah, went on and
came back to our house.
Speaker 2 (57:41):
And here we are.
Yeah, managed to get everything, uh, butchered on a kitchen
bench rather than out in thefield, which is a novelty.
Speaker 1 (57:46):
Yeah, it's a bit of a cleaner space to work with.
We're running a little bit lowon time.
I just want to finish up withsome travelling with meat tips
and things that I've beentalking to a few people lately,
but you and I have both done abit of travelling across the
country with eskies and meatobviously coming from Perth.
A few things to consider andone thing that I always
(58:08):
recommend to people is actuallybuy your Esky before you fly and
then bring it over with yourluggage in it.
Speaker 2 (58:14):
Use it as checked luggage, yeah.
Speaker 1 (58:15):
So it forms part of your bag.
Two reasons Then you cancontinually use the same Esky,
but also you've got it with youwhen you get there.
You don't have to worry aboutbuying it after shooting
something.
Speaker 2 (58:26):
That was a bit of a stress of the trip before we
learnt the hard way.
Speaker 1 (58:31):
Yeah, I said I could get my hands on a foam esky and
it turned out no one in town hadfoam eskies.
Airline choice is an issue,qantas.
Speaker 2 (58:37):
Yeah, Qantas are pretty good.
Speaker 1 (58:39):
The most confident and comfortable with it.
Speaker 2 (58:41):
I think Jetstar do as well but you can't fly with
firearms on jetstar, even thoughit requires some scenery.
Speaker 1 (58:53):
Okay, yeah, um, but uh, yeah, you want to check with
your airline?
Yeah, what's the other one, notjetstar virgin?
Say no to.
You can fly with a firearm, youcan't fly with trophies, uh.
So you can't take antlers ormeat from a hunt.
You can take meat from afishing trip, but you can't take
meat from a hunt.
So choose your words carefully.
If you do fly with virgin, butuh, no, we uh try and use qantas
for those things.
(59:13):
But a couple other things thatyou've done and I don't know if
you knew about them or you justtook them on board because I
said it but you need to freezeyour meat down.
The qantas requirements are themeat's got to be frozen, it's
got to beacced and it's got tobe in a sealed, firm-sided
container.
So an esky, it can't be in asoft Yeti-style esky.
Can't be in a hot pot, yeah,but it can be in a foam
(59:35):
seafood-style box, which issilly, because they're softer
than an esky anyway, definitelyless robust.
Yeah, they're concerned aboutleakage is the main issue.
So is the main issue.
So one other thing I do furtherto that is actually wrap each
piece of meat in, so it'scryovac frozen, and then when
you pull it out of the freezeryou wrap it in paper.
Speaker 2 (59:53):
Yeah, because you still get condensation on the
outside of it and that couldcause some moisture.
Speaker 1 (59:57):
And the further tip is to actually freeze it in
either portioned steaks, ifyou've got time, or square
pieces of meat.
So what you can do is put themeat cryovacs inside tubware
containers and then freeze it,or just portion.
And the reason for that is whenyou're putting it in the esky
you don't want wasted space.
Found that out the hard way aswell last time.
Speaker 2 (01:00:18):
Yeah, you freeze big chunks of backstrap and then all
of a sudden you fit onebackstrap in your esky because
of how it's frozen solid that'sright, and you end up with
wasted space and you can't getto your.
Speaker 1 (01:00:26):
The other thing with Qantas is you can actually go up
to 32 kilos if you're a QantasClub member for one piece of
luggage.
Speaker 2 (01:00:34):
And if you go a bit over, I think they just charge
you a Kilo rate or something.
Speaker 1 (01:00:39):
They're a little bit more flexible on it, especially
if you book the extra beforehandand not at the counter.
Speaker 2 (01:00:43):
So at the price of venison on the market, it's
worth every cent Worth yeah.
Speaker 1 (01:00:47):
So you get your two check bags.
So you've booked one extracheck bag.
I've booked an extra check bag.
Yeah, so you've got a luggagebag firearm case.
Speaker 2 (01:00:54):
The firearm case, I think they count it.
Speaker 1 (01:00:56):
As sporting goods.
Speaker 2 (01:00:57):
As sporting goods, and if it comes in under the
weight with your bag, it's fine.
Speaker 1 (01:01:08):
And then I've booked an extra, extra, um the esky bag
, which is my ski.
So, at a total weight you get,you know, either 23 or 32 kilos,
depending on what class you're.
Yeah, so fly with it.
Yeah, frozen.
But then also you've got toduct tape your esky, but you
can't do it prior because theyneed to inspect it, yeah, when
they get there.
So, but uh, other than that,it's been a good trip.
I'm glad you got to enjoy ityeah I'm sorry I wasn't there
for that last bit.
But, um, I'm sorry I wasn'tthere for that last bit, but
also happy my legs weren't therefor that last bit.
Speaker 2 (01:01:31):
No, it was an amazing adventure.
This is a beautiful, beautifulproperty.
Yeah, thank you so much for theopportunity, mate.
Speaker 1 (01:01:36):
Really appreciate it.
Look forward to trying to do itagain next year at Deer Camp.
Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (01:01:47):
Hopefully we hooked on the rut.
Speaker 1 (01:01:48):
Yeah, you had a textbook experience, so, oh,
that was that's got those datesright, it's gonna be very hard
to beat.
Yeah well, thanks for chattingabout it and until next time,
talk to you then.
On the 10th episode of our Huron Hunts.
For those that haven't shot oneor seen one, it's basically a
double barrel, side-by-sideshotgun, but shooting a rifle
cartridge.
Correct, yeah, so it's stillrifled in the barrel.
Yep, both barrels are actuallyslightly pointed.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
No, they're actually parallel and your kind of impact
point is designed to be in thecenter of your two points of
impact.
Speaker 1 (00:29):
What happened next was from my vantage point.
I'll give you my part of thestory.
I saw another deer come fromour left and the little raghorn
buck sort of two and a half yearold thing came running into our
croak and was only like 40meters from us and then he steps
out from behind the blackberryfig and he was a toad.
Speaker 2 (00:51):
He was just oh dude.
So you've got to understand.
I come from Western Australia.
We don't really.
I mean, we've got the odd feraldeer that's kind of running
around in the state forest, butdeer hunting's not really a
thing over there.
Speaker 1 (01:07):
Welcome to another episode of Accurate Hunts Life
Outdoors.
I've got my good friend, DrYannick with us.
For those that are watching,you get to see what he looks
like.
Finally, I've spoken about youa fair bit.
Yeah, but Yannick was on our.
Speaker 2 (01:22):
I hope I live up to expectations.
Speaker 1 (01:23):
No, it's disappointing in all accounts,
to be honest, including being afriend.
I forgot my hat.
I'll be back.
If you are watching, you get toenjoy the visuals, but if
you're listening, you'll have toimagine what I'm wearing.
Speaker 2 (01:42):
How would you describe it?
Speaker 1 (01:44):
A fashion statement.
Yannick and I have got someplans in a few years' time to go
and visit some colder areas, ieGreenland, and chase muskox
around.
Speaker 2 (01:55):
Needed appropriate attire.
Speaker 1 (01:57):
Appropriate attire, and what he's done here is he's
made me a fox skin hat, but it'snot just for many foxes.
How did you get these ones?
Speaker 2 (02:07):
They were trapped.
Speaker 1 (02:07):
It've been my latest obsession I want to say going
down that rabbit hole, but it'smore of a fox hole, more of a
yeah, more of a dirt hole really.
Speaker 2 (02:13):
Yeah, it's a fair obsession time consuming, very
time consuming and hard to workout, which is hard when you're
time poor.
Um, very hard to work out.
There's a lot of factors.
I think it's like fishing likeyou gotta, there's so many
variables and you don't knowwhich one you're stuffing up.
Yeah, you change something andyou're still stuffing up, so,
but then you don't know if goingback to what you're doing
(02:35):
originally with the one thingthat you changed was the right
thing to do or not.
So, yeah, steep learning curveand you've been.
Speaker 1 (02:42):
The success has increased, though.
Speaker 2 (02:44):
Yeah, it's starting to get in there.
How many?
Speaker 1 (02:46):
are you?
Speaker 2 (02:46):
up to I think I'm only up to about here maybe a
dozen, 13 or so, but it'sgetting there, cats too, yeah,
I've got two cats as well.
I've managed to catch, but it'syeah, with summer coming, the
young pups and all that are alittle bit easier to trick into
getting into your sets andwhatnot, what?
Speaker 1 (03:07):
are your rules over there for trapping?
It's a bit loose.
Speaker 2 (03:10):
It's actually.
Yeah, it's not as bad as a lotof other places in the country.
I'm from Perth, WA.
Speaker 1 (03:15):
You can put the accent or put some subtitles
over it.
Dear.
Speaker 2 (03:22):
The.
Yeah, it's a little bit morelax in some other states I know
in some states it's completelybanned, especially using
foothold traps.
In WA it can only be onnon-residential property, so it
has to be rural listed and youcan use soft-jaw traps only, so
you can't use steel-jaw trap.
Well, soft-jaw traps are stilla steel-jaw trap, but they've
(03:44):
got on the on the inside of thejaw and the spacing in the gap
is actually wider.
Still, break your finger.
No, no, no, this is not from atrap.
I have caught my fingersmultiple times.
I've caught more fingers thanFoxes to be perfectly honest.
So no, it won't break your yourfinger, but, um, it's a, it's a
(04:05):
quite a job to to get yourfinger out once it's a clamp
shut on it, which is the pointof it, I guess.
Speaker 1 (04:09):
Yeah and what sort of I know you've mentioned a few
things when we talk about ittactics as far as finding
corners and piss points orwhatever well, it's not
dissimilar to chasing deer.
Speaker 2 (04:21):
Uh, it's, you've.
They've all got their traveltravel corridors, their travel
corridors, their travel routes.
There's set areas where they'regonna pick a particular vantage
point, a particular crossingpath.
They like the edges of brushthat leads onto paddock where
they can kind of cross andthey've got plenty of cover to
kind of get away if they sensethemselves to be in harm's way.
(04:43):
And if you find an intersectionwhere multiple paths connect,
that's likely to be a hotspot.
When you've got multiplechannels feeding into that one
point, it maximises your chancesof putting your set in front of
a fox's nose.
Speaker 1 (04:56):
Are you finding them just by looking, like you're
just actually seeing foxes on atrack and you're like, oh, I'll
go and look at that.
Speaker 2 (05:01):
Or is it?
I think the old trapper'smantra is um set on sign.
So you want to um basicallyhunt for sign tracks, scat um,
kill sites, um where they'vescavenged uh kind of carcasses
or or carrying um and they'regoing to be your kind of
principal points of uh focus.
I trap a lot of the placeswhere I've been fox whistling
for yeah, I hate to say it now,but years, over a decade, maybe
(05:25):
close to two um, but uh, yeah,so I know kind of the areas
where their hidey holes are.
And then you, it's just amatter of kind of nutting out
where their, their sign is andum kind of uh hopefully
connecting um.
There's nothing as exciting asfinding one in a trap in this,
nothing as disappointing asrunning your entire trap line
and coming up with an emptyhanded, and what are you doing
(05:46):
when you get one Dispatching?
Yeah, I've got a little 22,.
I'll just use a little 22 short.
How mad are they?
Hey, how cranky are they?
Depends on the fox, really.
Some of them are pretty unhappy, some of them are pretty
aggressive when they see youcoming in, and others are just
very, very, very placid.
I think it's a lot of people.
They all have a bit of adifferent personality, just
content they know the end's here.
(06:08):
Oh yeah, some of them are justlike well, yeah.
Speaker 1 (06:10):
We're done.
We're done.
The time here is done.
What about the cats?
Are they a bycatch?
Cats are.
Are you targeting them, or isit just a?
Speaker 2 (06:24):
bycatch.
No, it's more of a bycatch.
So principally I'm setting forfoxes.
There's many more foxes in theareas where I trap than cats,
but they'll come in.
They're actually easier tocatch than foxes.
Their sense of smell isn't asacute, they're much more curious
and they'll speak a lot less.
So cats target cats.
(06:46):
They'll use what's calledflagging, where you kind of like
it will dangle like a featheror put some feathers and stuff
in a dirt hole at the base ofyour set to attract them to it,
whereas if you did somethinglike that for a fox, they'd
sense that something wasn'tquite right and be gored.
What else can you trap?
CDs.
Speaker 1 (07:00):
Oh, just for.
Speaker 2 (07:01):
Just for reflecting.
And yeah, like a giant cat toyout in the bush.
Speaker 1 (07:05):
My only trapping experience was a little slip
noose.
I set under a hole on a fencemany years ago and I caught a
rabbit around the waist.
So I got the head through andthe front legs but then got
caught.
And then my mate said what areyou going to do?
I said I'll let it go.
He said why?
I said I just wanted to see ifI could.
I didn't need to, fair enough.
And then we let it go.
Never saw it again.
But that's my only trappingexperience.
(07:26):
There's not much trapping inAustralia as a culture anymore.
Speaker 2 (07:32):
I think the biggest cohort, the biggest contingent
is probably the wild dog guyswho do wild dog control for the
cattle ranches and that there'squite a few Big over your side
Cattle ranches over in WA and Ithink Queensland makes up the
bulk of the kind of the trappingcommunity in Australia.
Speaker 1 (07:47):
We've got a bit of a thing here in New South Wales
with dogs that are a bit moreprotected and less trapped and
shot the wild dogs yeah.
Speaker 2 (07:56):
Is that?
Speaker 1 (07:56):
right, yeah, just because they're more city people
, yeah, like the Brumbies, theyhave a bit of protected status.
Brumbies, they have a bit ofprotected status.
Oh right, okay, working on that.
I think it just got removedfrom memory.
The dingoes just got changedfrom a protected species yep yep
, yep, just got taken off thatlist anyway.
So I've uh, we were in camp theother day and I can't remember
what I said, but in midconversation I flicked my tail.
(08:17):
Yes, it's, it's quite thestatement piece.
Speaker 2 (08:20):
I think he's a.
He's a guy with long hairtrapped in a guy with short
hair's body I'm transitioning,it's natural yeah I look forward
to it.
Speaker 1 (08:28):
I look forward to wearing this uh on our future
journeys um.
It's extremely warm, it's notwarm.
Speaker 2 (08:32):
It's definitely warm talking about journeys.
Speaker 1 (08:35):
We've uh been mates.
For how old's your eldest now?
Eight.
She's nine, nine, so eightyears because it's just before
her first birthday.
Yeah, nick and I met over inCanada.
I don't know if I've fully toldhim this story, but I was
working in Canada as a huntingguide and he came over as a
client for that company and Igot placed with him and we had a
(08:59):
few conversations briefly andthen we basically headed out the
next day and packed up andloaded up.
But it was actually the firsttime I'd guided a moose hunt and
I'd never seen a moose before.
That we did.
Alright, we're connected.
Yeah, we definitely connected.
And I was telling someone thisstory the other day and I said,
geez, I think I'd feel hard doneby if I flew all the way from
Australia To meet an Aussie, tomeet an Aussie and to hunt moose
with an Aussie, but it's workedout well for both of us.
Speaker 2 (09:20):
I think there's more Aussies in Canada than Canadians
, to be honest.
Speaker 1 (09:23):
Yeah, especially in that side of industry, the
guiding side.
Speaker 2 (09:26):
It's like English people in Australia.
Speaker 1 (09:27):
Yeah, Well, it's also comfortable because you're with
an Aussie.
You know you're not withsomeone, but no, it worked out
well.
Speaker 2 (09:35):
I think most of our jokes kind of went over our
wrangler's head, though yes, hewas quite tall, but all the
jokes went over his head.
Speaker 1 (09:41):
De, he was quite tall , but all the jokes went over
his head.
Devin yeah, interesting name.
Definitely not something youhear in Australia, devin no, he
was good, and there's one photoand I'll just never forget this
photo of him.
When he finally laid eyes, itwas the biggest moose he'd ever
seen.
As a Canadian, let me have asneak Phew, pardon me.
And just the look on his facewhen he actually walked up on
(10:02):
this thing, it was just like ashock.
This thing had no ground.
Shrinkage.
Speaker 2 (10:06):
No, I think of all the critters I've chased a lot
do have an element of groundshrinkage.
This had quite the oppositeGround growage.
That's the thing, Starting towonder how on earth you're going
to get this thing from point Ato point B once it's on the
ground.
Speaker 1 (10:21):
And point A was a two-day horse ride in to a place
called Boulder Creek, and we'dbeen in there for a few days too
.
Speaker 2 (10:30):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (10:30):
Had some ups and downs and we did speak about
this in the previous podcast,but just touching on it for new
listeners.
But I'm pretty sure we saw thatmoose earlier on in the week, a
fair way away.
Yeah, and there was just aglimpse or it was a long
distance.
End of day I think it was yeahand he was up on that face and
very characteristic antlers onhim, size, wise and makeup.
(10:54):
But we couldn't do anythingabout it.
It was too late in the day orwhatnot.
And then we hunted a bit more.
I fell off in a creek, fell offthe horse, found big moose
antler, which is actually abovethe camera at the moment, turned
into a chandelier.
There's a picture of Yannickand I sitting in it using it as
a chair.
Is that big?
Yeah, big enough.
Speaker 2 (11:13):
Well, I think most things are big enough for me.
You're a small guy.
Speaker 1 (11:16):
Speaking about ground shrinkage, probably sitting in
a hog deer antler in person, uh.
And then that hunt kind of justunfolded pretty textbook, we
use the horses as a decoy.
We had some brown horses andthey looked like, you know,
female moose cows.
So we uh set them up, probably50 or 100 meters up off the
(11:38):
bottom of this big wide valley Ithink the valley was about 200
meters wide, this big flatsection, and then both sides
started to creep up from thereand we went up about 100 yards
and the horses were just belowus tied up, just tied up to a
tree.
They didn't know what they weredoing, they didn't realize they
were used as decoys.
I'm probably happy not to bewalking around yeah, enjoying a
rest tie them up and then wentup above them and started doing
(12:00):
some calling and yannick'sactually a professional moose
caller and he's going to give usan example right now.
Oh, come on, put me on the spot.
Come on, it's all nose.
Well, you don't have to do itwith your fingers but it's so
surprising when there's suchhuge animals and all they can
produce is weird noises.
And that's sorry.
That's a female.
That's a female.
(12:20):
Yeah, that's a cow moose.
Speaker 2 (12:22):
The bull makes an even stranger noise.
That's a female.
That's a female.
Yeah, that's a cow moose.
The bull makes an even strangernoise Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa,
and that's it.
It travels so far that soundit's a real drummy sound.
Yeah, it'll travel.
Speaker 1 (12:33):
If you've ever heard a emu out in the bush Similar,
yeah, you can hear it comingfrom a while away, this sort of
deep clicking noise.
I liken it to that.
But so we were doing the femalecalls and I think you spotted
it first.
But we just see these big whitepaddles, not only just up the
other side of this flat, butthen it dropped down and then up
again and then he was on thatsecond ridge.
(12:53):
Second ridge, yeah, so, whichwas probably 800, 600 to 800.
I can't quite remember thedistance, I don't even think we
ranged it, and then he wasresponding and coming in, he
could hear us.
So that was pretty cool,traveled a fair way and we could
watch him.
But then he went out of sightand I said to yannick I was
pretty confident at this pointbecause he still didn't know,
(13:15):
I'd never seen a moose beforeand secretly I was packing it
and so excited.
But he's a confident shooter.
You had blair's gun, yeah, 300wind mag or something, and he's
confident shooter.
And, uh, you had Blair's gun,yeah, blair's gun, yeah, 300,
win Mag or something, win Mag,yeah, and he was a confident
shooter and accurate enough.
So we were sort of looking atthe 300 to 350 or so.
I'm happy it was our maximumrange and I said I remember
(13:37):
saying he's going to come downout of sight.
We won't see him for a littlewhile.
I'm pretty sure he's going topop up right there and just in
my moose hunting experience hedid exactly what I said he'd do.
Speaker 2 (13:47):
Yeah.
Just cemented my trust in myexperience, confidence in the
guide.
Fake it till you make it.
Speaker 1 (13:53):
Well, we were making it and he popped up exactly
where we thought, and then hepaused for a moment.
We called, he called, he moveda bit further and he was
broadside at 333 or something.
It was yeah, yeah.
And you had a stable rest, youhad your bog pod Yep, two-legged
thing.
Speaker 2 (14:12):
No, it was a tripod with a little yoke on top.
Speaker 1 (14:15):
That's right, and you had your binos, you could also
strap on yeah, cool bit of kit,that thing.
Anyway, strapped on that solidrest sitting on the ground we
weren't standing, but, yeah,sitting, because we were on the
steep slope and you shotstraight across, smoked him
right in the shoulders and hespun on the spot and I think you
put a second into him at thatdistance again and then he just
(14:35):
dropped and I was pretty excitedbecause I'd never seen a moose.
Speaker 2 (14:40):
I was pretty excited because I'd never seen a moose.
Speaker 1 (14:42):
And we didn't actually know how big it was at
that time, either of us.
Oh, we knew it was legal.
Yeah, talking about legal,there's an amount of brow points
, brow times, they have to haveat that time of year.
It's three on at least one side, or a total of 10 points on one
side, on a total, yeah, or morethan 50 inches, yeah, but
that's hard to judge, yeah,Especially if it's the first
(15:04):
moose you ever see.
Extremely hard to judge from adistance when you've got no idea
what you know.
They all look big though Used tolooking at much smaller inches
fallow and things, but so anyway, dropped on the spot High fives
and cheers and whatnot, but wedecided and it was actually a
really good decision in my yearsof experience was to leave
(15:25):
devon, our off-sider, where weshot from, because we couldn't
actually see the moose that haddisappeared into the long.
When I say we could see himclearly, you think you can see
something clearly, but once youget over there the brush is six
foot high the uh and there wasstill a moose above that somehow
yeah, well, they're tallanimals, aren't?
they size of a racehorse.
Speaker 2 (15:41):
Looking at the countryside, you think it's this
beautiful like lush meadow, butit's actually, yeah, six foot
lush, it's willow.
Yeah, it's like six foot ofwillow that is giving you the
appearance of lush meadow.
Speaker 1 (15:54):
Um above it and we were right there on the shoulder
season where it was all theleaves, like we went in there
and there's leaves, and thenwhen we came out there was no
leaves, like it was right onthat cusp of fall, as they would
call it, which made it mucheasier through the willows
without leaves because you couldactually see.
But this thing had disappeared,just dropped and disappeared.
So we left him there as aspotter and I just said hold
(16:15):
your binoculars there, don'tlose that spot.
And something I do now I didn'tdo it then but is take a photo
of that spot and then edit it,open up your phone and edit it
and draw a red dot where youthink you last saw the animal.
So at least then, if you forgetabout it and you're eating
something or whatever, you canlook back up, find that spot and
know what you're looking for.
Speaker 2 (16:35):
It looks very different, extremely different
when you get close.
So it took us some time.
Speaker 1 (16:39):
We grabbed our horses and led them across.
We grabbed our horses and ledthem across.
We took all of them and madeDevin walk across.
We walked anyway, but we wereleading and six foot high, no
tracks.
We were just pushing our waythrough game trails, got up
close and then we used Devin andit was getting late, yeah.
We still had light for thephotos.
I'm not sure what time of night.
Speaker 2 (16:57):
The photos were last light.
Speaker 1 (17:02):
But it was a late like sunset over.
There was nine o'clock or 8.30or something at that time.
So it was quite late in the day, early evening, and I had my
Garmin in reach with me and Ikind of roughly knew where he
was and we got close and thenfinally found him and then
yelled out to Devin and he cameacross and that's when I got the
photo of his.
Look on his face.
Yes, I've got it.
(17:23):
I think we were all excited.
Yeah, it was pretty exciting,but then the hard work happened
Like it's an incredible jobcutting up Days, cutting up and
removing a moose.
We were lucky we had enoughhorses with us to get everything
out in one go, so we caped itup to the back of the head on
the spot and then we butcheredit and took all four wheels and
(17:44):
back straps yeah uh, and then Ithink you took the cape off the
face there, yeah, and then wejust took the.
So the cape was separate, theskull was separate we had the
skull cap and then the meat.
Yeah, um, but that was then.
We had to get back to camp.
Now, withoutmin, I would havereally struggled to get back
(18:05):
because it was dark and we knewwhere camp was, but just finding
an appropriate trail to getthrough was real hard.
The horses were fantastic.
They're pretty clever.
They're pretty amazing, yeah,stalin.
Speaker 2 (18:15):
Stalin.
Speaker 1 (18:15):
With his little mustache.
He was a great old horse.
I have a terrible issue withremembering names and the boss
would say, oh, go and take Tony,debbie and Daniel like the
horses all had normal names.
Go and take those three on thattrip.
And I'd go and get them.
And then I'd come back from a10-day trip and he's like why
have you got Johnny?
(18:36):
He's a spastic.
I was like that's David.
He goes no, that's Johnny.
I said he's not a spastic.
Now he's real broke.
I just grabbed whatever horsesI thought they were and I was
riding pack, even though theyweren't riding horses, and it
was terrible.
But we had a good string onthat one, starling dodgers
through some some pretty gnarlystuff in and out.
Speaker 2 (18:54):
It's amazing how they just seem to know which way to
go they do know which way to go,because you end up where you're
trying to get yeah, they canfind a track when there isn't
one.
Speaker 1 (19:02):
But so moose down, quartered, butchered, taken to
camp.
And then there was a few highfives.
I think you had a little hipflask of whiskey or something.
We all partook in Slept in thenext morning.
And then I cooked up somemousse for breakfast, fillets or
something.
The fillets on it are still thesize of like a fallow backstrap
.
Speaker 2 (19:22):
And then the day happens.
Speaker 1 (19:24):
It was a 10-day hunt with a two-day ride in and out,
so 14 days in total, and I thinkfrom memory it was probably day
four or five when you shot itand we stayed in for another two
days and then packed out on thethird day to head home and that
whole time we were busy.
It was cutting up meat,butchering it, turning the nose,
(19:47):
packing it.
He's still turning the nose it.
It took that long.
The noses just keep going.
One thing about Yannick, and oneof the main reasons I actually
like him as a friend is he's ataxidermist, which means when I
hunt with him, I don't have todo Not so much army.
Speaker 2 (19:59):
Personality.
Speaker 1 (20:00):
No, that's got ground shrinkage too.
We don't have to do thetaxidermy work, he can do it it
for us.
So turning the lips and ears ona on a moose is a.
That's a day sorted.
That's a day sorted, so there'sa lot of time sitting in camp in
the tent in the tent and uh,just enjoying that part.
(20:20):
So it was no use to rush home.
I think we got home for uh,thanksgiving.
We just got out in time forthanksgiving.
We went to the trailhead.
Yeah, that's right.
We got out to the trailheadafter the two-day ride out and
it was nearly dark and we gotback and dinner was on the table
, sort of thing, so it was therethat was the best shower I've
ever had in my life.
I remember it well, talkingabout showers, we'll get to
(20:42):
samba camp in a minute that wasthe best the whole room got a
shower.
It wasn't just me and uh anyway.
So that was, yeah, the wrap upof that hunt.
I mean, it was a rifle hunt.
It was supposed to be anarchery hunt, but I busted his
arrows on the way in yeah, I hadone arrow left.
I said to him jokingly beforewe left why do you need 12?
You only need one arrow, andthen that's what he ended up
(21:04):
with, because I broke.
Speaker 2 (21:05):
11 of them ranch on the way in to be honest, the uh,
the willows were so high Ireckon it would have been tough
going to get it done with theboat.
Hats off to the guys who do it.
Speaker 1 (21:14):
But yeah, and I mean that moose.
Speaker 3 (21:16):
If it was morning time he might have kept coming
yeah, we might have been able tocall him all the way in.
Speaker 1 (21:20):
Yeah but the benefit of rifle hunting is you don't
have to.
So glad we got that done.
But that was adventure numberone.
And then he went home and Iwent home and we thought about
each other and we're like stayin contact and crying in the
shower and then, uh, speak foryourself.
And then we stayed in contactand then continued chatting and
(21:42):
whatnot and uh, I think I'd seenyou.
I came over for shot show orsomething in perth and caught up
and whatnot.
But then I, uh, you werebugging me.
You're like I want to do asamba hunt, I want to do a samba
hunt.
I said, oh, I've got no ideaabout samba, but I picked a spot
and we went down.
We were down at Thalgla Valley,that's what it's called, and
(22:07):
unprepared really, but set up atent, went for a walk in the
morning unprepared really, butset up a tent, went for a walk
in the morning.
I think we were 10 minutes in,just up this little ridge, saw a
Samahine.
I took a shot.
I scared it into a positionwhere Yannick could shoot it.
I missed it so bad I think Ishot under it.
I remember seeing the stickthat I shot.
Yeah, yeah yeah, I cut a littlesapling in half.
Speaker 2 (22:29):
He was just flushing it for me.
Speaker 1 (22:30):
Yeah, buck fever or whatever it was, hind fever,
whatever.
But missed it, clean miss.
And then Nick just put anotherone into it because he had the
better vision on the second shot.
Just a better shot?
Look, yet to be determined.
Speaker 2 (22:46):
And then you played the stereo on the car when we
got back to camp.
It flattened the battery.
It flattened the battery, youflattened the battery, and then
we were stuck in the highcountry without a battery?
Speaker 1 (22:55):
Yeah, without a set of jumpers.
I forgot about that.
We had to go and get reception,ring someone to come and help
jumpers.
Yeah, dan, dan, dan.
Yeah, good old Dan, he'scrackpot.
Speaker 2 (23:07):
Saved our bacon.
Yes, he did.
Speaker 1 (23:09):
And then we really couldn't be bothered hunting
anymore.
I think we went downtown.
We were there for like twonights and three days, I think,
yeah, yeah.
And we went out again with Dan.
He took us to a different spotand showed us a few things and I
think we jumped a few and gothonked, but never saw any to
take a shot the next day.
But then we bailed out and wentto town.
The weather was pretty crappy,so we went to town and booked a
(23:32):
room at the fanciest hotel thisside of prison.
Speaker 2 (23:37):
Probably the fanciest hotel in town.
To be fair, yeah, it washistoric it was yep.
Speaker 1 (23:41):
So were the water, fittings and fixtures.
It was a $90 a night kind ofspecial hotel.
And the shower head.
I turned it on and it wasscrewed on but leaked
excessively from on top to thepoint where as soon as you turn
it on it soaked my clothes, thetowel and everything outside the
shower door.
Everything except you, exceptme Not much water was coming
down.
Speaker 2 (24:01):
It was all going horizontally.
Speaker 1 (24:03):
Oh, it was horrific.
Speaker 2 (24:04):
I remember hearing a shout from the bathroom.
Speaker 1 (24:06):
Yeah, there was water everywhere.
It was like yeah, All my dryclothes were now wet.
Speaker 2 (24:11):
The fitting had come off the apple.
Speaker 1 (24:13):
That's a consistent joke.
That one, Anyway, got out ofthere and come back to my place
and butchered up a heap of meat.
Now, not only is he ataxidermist, but he's also
French, which means pretty goodcook Taxidermist and French.
Yeah, can't be both.
That's a shock.
But yeah, can't be both, that'sa shock.
But good, cook, and I think youcame back to our house and you
cooked us up.
It was something with the Samba.
(24:34):
Actually, you cooked in Canadatoo.
You did like a wild berry fruitsauce.
Yeah, we picked some Juniperberries.
Speaker 2 (24:42):
No, they were blueberries.
Speaker 1 (24:43):
Wild, blueberries Wild blueberries yeah.
And you made a sauce over thereand did some of your mose for
the whole camp, which is reallynice, but then you did it at my
house again, left us with awhole heap of asian recipe items
that we'll never, ever usethey're probably still in your
pantry?
No, we've moved house.
I cleared them out.
But who eats sesame oil?
Like we need that in life?
(25:03):
Yeah, so, but then, uh, then wedo hog deer.
Snake.
Snake Island when I drew my hogdeer tag.
You're allowed to take anon-helper, which I did because
it didn't help at all.
Caught a pike, that's what youhelped with.
Speaker 2 (25:20):
Yeah, yeah, that was dinner for the first night.
Speaker 1 (25:21):
Yep, caught a pike on the way in and then I caught a
flatty while we were over there.
Fed us for a little bit, but no, it was a pretty unsuccessful
trip.
Good in as far as memories andthings, but unsuccessful with
harvesting yeah, pretty coollittle place though very.
Yeah, secluded island camp,there was some we didn't see a
(25:43):
single deer did we?
no, we didn't see a single deer.
There was some deer shot on myperiod, but off the on the
record they weren't shot duringhunting hours we only found that
out after and it made sense Ifthe deer aren't there, they're
somewhere right.
Yes, we did do it.
That is a comment.
Morgan, you're probablylistening at home shooting
(26:04):
arrows in your garage.
We're skipping forward a fewtrips now, but we went on a I'll
call it another deer camp,shooting russa.
And there was another, a bowhunter.
We're skipping forward a fewtrips now, but we went on a I'll
call it another deer camp,shooting Russo.
And there was another a bowhunter in Camp Morgan.
Great guy, great bow teachertoo.
Spent a lot of time with Mel,my wife, helping her sight a bow
in properly and just be calmabout it all.
And he said something while wewere out.
(26:24):
We'd spent the morning sittingin a blind.
He said, well, if the deer arenaren't here, they've got to be
somewhere else.
Yes, that is the truth.
True words never spoken and uh,it's become a bit of an ongoing
joke, but uh, so hog, deer wasa bit unsuccessful.
And then you actually leftearly.
You caught the boat over a dayor so before me.
(26:46):
You had to get back.
That's like yeah, yeah, yeahgot out early yeah, I don't
really have sea legs.
That was a rough it was a roughexit when we left too um, real
choppy that we had to wait outwith all our stuff.
I was chest high in the waterbecause they couldn't come any
closer.
The tide was up and I had towait out with all my stuff and
do three trips out to the boatand back yeah, it's the sea
(27:07):
search and rescue, isn't it?
Speaker 2 (27:08):
uh, yeah, come and uh yep, pick you up.
Speaker 1 (27:12):
Yeah, it was just a donation mainland, take you
across the island and back.
It was a great deal.
They were real confident and ifyou're going to get stuck, you
want to get stuck with thoseguys.
Oh yeah, they're a great bunchof blokes, they were really
really good.
They gave some hot tips on theway back and said oh, if you'd
actually want to come and shoothog deer, don't worry about that
island, go to this island.
It's not legal, but it's.
You know, there's hog deer onit anyway, whatever they're into
.
But uh, what was next?
(27:33):
Yeah, it was deer camp rusa.
Yeah there's a few social visitsback and forth over to perth.
There's no hunting.
Oh, we went to rottenest,caught some fish, kids did well.
No, but rusa camp.
Every now and then I'll ringyannick and say, oh, I've got an
opportunity, okay.
He just says, okay, I'll getsome time off, okay.
So I booked a rooster trip andcame over here and tried your
(27:57):
luck with the bow for a few daysand didn't quite get there.
What do you got?
A 300?
Speaker 2 (28:02):
300 Weatherby yeah.
Speaker 1 (28:03):
Weatherby in a single shot and got it done on a nice
rooster pretty early in the tripyeah, mid-trip, mid-trip.
So that was nice took that homeand got a taxidermy well, you,
taxidermy yourself hanging onthe wall, a bit of hair slip on
the face looking for anotherrooster cape if anyone's got one
(28:24):
, um, get that uh, sent acrossto us.
But then late last year Iaccurate hunts hq, which anyone
who's listening has heard metalk about when that came about,
on the way home from sort ofsigning the deal on that trip, I
rang yannick and said I needyou to be available in april and
(28:46):
he didn't even really ask why.
I think he just said okay.
And then it was a discussion ofwhen school holidays were and
what you could fit in, butfallow rut this year and I
locked you in and here we are.
This is the tail end of that.
But I want you to go back andtell us about the gun that you
bought, not specifically forthis trip but for future trips,
(29:08):
and then what it is, why youbought it, it and what sort of
issues you've had with it.
Speaker 2 (29:12):
So yeah, I'm a bit of a traditionalist Weirdo how do
you want to spell it?
I don't really like all themodern gadgetry.
I'm more into the old schoolstuff.
Anyway, I've been obsessed withdouble rifles for the last few
years so finally found one thatwas, you know, wouldn't cost my
marriage to.
It was a present for yourself,wasn't it?
Speaker 1 (29:33):
Yeah For graduating something.
Speaker 2 (29:34):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, passing one of my million exams
that I've sat in my life.
But yeah, I was at my local gunshop and I walked past the gun
rack and there was a doublerifle, a Sabati in 9.3 by 74
caliber.
What does the arm mean?
It's rimless.
(29:55):
It's basically ballisticallyequivalent to the 9.3 by 62, I
think it is, which is normallyin bolt action rifles.
This is essentially chamberedfor lot double rifles or single
shot rifles.
It's the base of the casing isdifferent.
Speaker 1 (30:11):
So it's a bit more like a lever action, like a
30-30 case.
It's got that wider rim on theback of the shell for ejection.
Speaker 2 (30:19):
Yeah, yeah, extraction Extractors can kind
of pull it out.
It doesn't have a little hook,so the bolt claw can kind of
yeah, it can't go over it, itsort of pushes from behind.
Speaker 1 (30:26):
Yeah, yeah, it can't go over it.
It sort of pushes from behind.
Speaker 2 (30:30):
Yeah, yes, I was very excited about that.
I remember that phone call.
I was supposed to bring it toRusacamp.
Actually that was supposed tobe its maiden voyage, and the
thing about obscure calibres isthat for some reason, ammunition
is really hard to find, which Ifound out the hard way, so it
(30:51):
took me after getting the gun.
Speaker 1 (30:53):
The shop didn't have any.
Speaker 2 (30:54):
No, no, no, no.
And couldn't get it.
No, no, they had to get it overfrom over east and it took
about two months to get overfrom over east.
So I'm sitting here,desperately twiddling my thumbs,
waiting for something toactually shoot out of my shiny
new gun, and had had a littlefox trapping uh trip planned a
(31:15):
couple of months before goingdown to rooster camp.
So I packed it along with meand it was going to be the first
couple of rounds that I putthrough.
It ceremoniously set the thecamera up to to film the first
few shots that it uh,ceremoniously set the camera up
to film the first few shots thatit fired.
And as I lined up, I just hearthis nice click.
(31:37):
I was like what happened there?
Was that a misfire?
Held the barrel down, crackedit open.
No, primer's perfectly smooth,hasn't been detonated.
Okay, no, it didn't cock itproperly.
Cock it up again.
Click, that's weird.
It's only got a single trigger.
So I pulled the trigger again.
(31:58):
It was like okay, well, thatbarrel works and I cracked it
open again.
I had a look and it looked likethe firing pin was actually
broken off at the, at the, thefront of the right-hand barrel,
which is pretty annoying for abrand-new gun.
So there were my hopes anddreams destroyed for getting a
(32:19):
Russo with a double rifle.
And, yeah, when I got back toPerth I brought it to the gun
shop and they were actuallyreally good about it.
They sent it off to thegunsmith that they worked with
and got it all kind of fixed upfree of charge for me and it
hasn't skipped a beat since then.
But it did miss the roostertrip.
(32:40):
So yeah, at that point Idecided, oh well, I'll try it
with my bow, got a couple ofmonths in of archery practice,
which I was getting a bit rustywith because I hadn't picked up
my bow in a couple of years, andwe realised the hard way when
we got across to Roosacamp thatmy sight had been desperately
(33:03):
yeah, one of the screws wasslightly loose.
Speaker 1 (33:05):
Your sight had dropped about nine metres.
Speaker 2 (33:08):
And if you look at the slow-mo footage of the uh,
the arrow coming out of the bow,it really, uh, really, paints a
picture.
Um, yeah, but yeah, always uh,always shoot your um shoot
arrows.
Uh in camp if we're going outfor a hunt would be my only tip.
Um, yes, that turned into arifle hunt.
Speaker 1 (33:26):
So you got that pretty quickly.
You got the double humming andshooting properly.
Speaker 2 (33:31):
Yeah, so the double actually regulates beautifully.
It points really really nicelyOpen sights, but yeah.
Speaker 1 (33:38):
For those that haven't shot one or seen one,
it's basically a double barrel,side-by-side shotgun, but
shooting a rifle cartridge.
Correct, yeah, so it's stillrifled in the barrel.
Yep, both barrels are actuallyslightly pointed.
Speaker 2 (33:52):
No, they're actually parallel and your kind of impact
point is designed to be in thecentre of your two points of
impact.
Speaker 1 (33:59):
So if you're zeroed at 100, you would never have two
in the same hole.
Speaker 2 (34:03):
They'd be left and right.
You should have two holes leftand right of the bullseye,
essentially.
Speaker 1 (34:06):
Otherwise they'll cross over by how far when you
say it's regulated.
Speaker 2 (34:10):
Probably, because otherwise they'll cross over.
By how far?
When you say it's regulated,what's Probably the distance of
the barrel?
So I only like about an inchapart from each other.
Speaker 1 (34:15):
To be honest, if you're getting a group, that's
an inch apart with a doublerifle at 100 yards, yep yeah,
and open sights too, and a lotof offhand.
Yeah, yeah.
You're not really sitting downat a bench to do open sights.
Speaker 2 (34:25):
I think primarily they're designed for driven
hunts in Europe for moving game,because they point very, very
well.
You've got two shots that youcan fire off in rapid succession
and it's usually close quartershunting.
And the other place, obviously,where they're famously a lot of
their heritage comes from, isin Africa for dangerous game
hunting, which is why you boughtit.
(34:45):
Well yeah, that's the ultimategoal.
I'd like to go chase CapeBuffalo one day.
You're going to shoot the muskox with it.
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (34:51):
Yeah, that's the ultimate goal.
Speaker 2 (34:52):
I'd like to go chase Cape.
Speaker 1 (34:53):
Buffalo.
One day You're going to shootthe musk ox with it.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure, Idon't even think I'll take one,
I'll just use your other barrel.
Yeah, so I'd each take twobullets.
Yeah, so we We've had this tripbooked for a little while and
then the rifle fixed itself, oryou got it fixed, and then it
was time to happen and you said,all right, book some flights
and whatnot.
And it's a bit of a busy time inmy life at the moment with the
(35:13):
new kid on the ground, which isagain.
I said this last episode don'tget cold in winter and have a
rut baby.
Think about that, guys.
Poor planning, poor planning.
So I couldn't actually make thetrip with him and I said that's
fine, I'll set you up out thereand leave you out there.
So I picked him up at theairport 6 o'clock in the morning
(35:34):
, drove back to my place, packedsome stuff headed out there.
We were out there by lunch andmet up with some other fellas in
camp.
They were just on the tail endof their trip and they tail end
of their trip and they weregoing home that night or next
morning.
They had, um, some pretty badweather.
They had, yeah, like 200, 200mil of rain over two nights.
Speaker 2 (35:52):
Yeah, 150 mil over that, it was in one night yeah,
that's horrific for them.
Speaker 1 (35:57):
We had it here, but I was in the house.
They're under a tarp and in aswag.
It was pretty, prettyhorrendous and well the the
problem with that rain was whenwe got there, the river was up.
It was substantial.
This is a river we wouldnormally either just walk
through with shoes or, you know,rock hop if it's slightly high,
and this deleted and eliminatedall of our rock hopping
(36:20):
opportunities.
Yeah, it was, it was motoring,it was brutal.
So, you know, we got to camp,had a quick chat and packed up
gear and and went for a hike andthere's a bit of an area I
hadn't been to before and reallywanted to discover.
And, uh, traditionally with theeducation courses there, we're
a bit limited in where we wantto go because we're sort of
short time, success driven needto shoot a goat.
This was more of an exploration.
(36:42):
Let's go have some fun and forinterest sake.
We're right.
I think we were right at thestart of the rut, like early
croaking and then towards evenlike now when we're home, would
be, you know, full swing outthere.
So we were hoping to hear someand help.
That hope that would guide usin our decisions and it turned
(37:02):
out it didn't immediately, butwe got riveted out.
We had to go up, high up aembankment.
That cost you some bruises.
Speaker 2 (37:09):
What Dodger omitted to tell me was that this
property is pretty much sheervertical everywhere.
Speaker 1 (37:14):
Yeah, we call it Little.
New Zealand?
For a reason.
Little New Zealand.
The camp is at a really nicespot.
It's a really high vantagepoint with lots of viewing.
The downside is to hunt.
You need to drop down about 400meter nearly vertical descent,
only to go 400 meters up,ascending the other side, to
(37:34):
then start hunting.
And then the other downside is,if you shoot anything, you have
to do that on the way back withwith the stuff on your back so
we knew that I knew that goinginto it was pretty intrepid,
though it was good.
Speaker 2 (37:47):
I didn't share that.
It's the kind of thing you'rewondering why you're doing it,
why you're doing it, but you'repretty happy.
You're pretty chuffed you didit.
Speaker 1 (37:54):
When you get back, yes, it's that afterburn fun.
So first afternoon, headed out,saw some up on the other side
of the ridge, some deer, a fewgoats that we spooked.
10 metres in front of us, lotsof goats, lots of goats.
But we just came around arandom finger not random, but
came around the finger and forsome reason I'd glassed down a
(38:16):
bit further than I had been onthe previous part of the walk,
found a spiker chilling byhimself, and at that time we
didn't know if he was by himself.
But it turns out he was.
Speaker 2 (38:29):
And then you can tell us how you nearly stuffed that
stalk textbook, textbook,textbook stuff up graceful,
graceful, like uh, I don't knowwe were on a steep, we were high
above we were yeah we were verymuch, probably 100 meters high.
I think thankfully the riverwas raging.
Yeah, because it was prettyloud.
I couldn't actually hear thecommotion that I was making
(38:51):
above it.
But I started my sneaky descent, tried to ease myself over a
fallen log and managed to end uppretty much.
Speaker 1 (39:03):
Head over turkey.
Speaker 2 (39:04):
Yeah, a over T on the other side.
I've got a nice bruise, I'dlike to sport it and managed to
dislodge a good-sized rock,probably a mango papaya would
you say yeah, yeah, that wentcut all the way down.
Down the rock, face down in hisdirection, which got his
attention, got his attention.
(39:24):
He was wondering what the rockwas doing down there.
He didn't really pay too muchattention to where we were up
higher.
Speaker 1 (39:30):
I actually worked in our favour and actually might
become one of my stalking tips.
Yeah, roll a rock down to keeptheir attention while you move
in.
Speaker 2 (39:37):
I was surprised that that didn't blow him out of the
neighbourhood, to be perfectlyhonest.
Then there was a bit of a treethat was in a V down the bottom
of the valley that I managed toeventually get my way to without
spooking half the population,just in reference to the
graceful fall.
Speaker 1 (39:57):
If you've ever been at the pub and watched someone
trip over holding a beer, that'sexactly what this was.
The rifle, at all times, wasabove ground.
Speaker 2 (40:03):
Oh, the rifle was unscathed.
Speaker 1 (40:05):
And you were rolling and tumbling and this rifle was
just floating through the airand not moving somehow.
And then you stood up and youstill had it like a full glass
of beer I can heal.
Uh, the rifle can't um theregot to your v and then he was
alert.
Speaker 2 (40:19):
He knew at this stage he was, he knew something
wasn't quite quite kosher and Itook a shot, missed him cleanly
at that stage and he trottedforward about four yards or so.
And then this is why I have adouble rifle I had a follow-up
(40:40):
shot immediately there Withouthaving to cycle one.
Speaker 1 (40:44):
Yeah, like you wouldn't have bolt action.
Speaker 2 (40:45):
And yeah, ba-boom, and that was it, sacked one.
Yeah, Like you wouldn't havebolt action.
And yeah, ba-boom, and that wasit Sacked him.
Yeah, and he went down.
Speaker 1 (40:51):
Later to discover it was a direct headshot between
his eyes Exactly where I wasaiming, yeah maintain that
Yannick said to me the thingwith a double rifle is you just
have to end up with some fur inthe end of it, because you're
sort of looking over two dots.
You're not getting a whole lotof zoomed in view, like you
would with a scope.
Speaker 2 (41:11):
Oh, he was probably.
What about 75 yards, 73?
Um.
So yeah, there's, uh, you know,not a big, not a big target to
line up with your, with youropen sights.
Um, there, I mean, that's allexcuses.
Really it's my own fault forbringing a double rifle he's
dead?
Yeah, it happened.
Who was dead on the spot?
Speaker 1 (41:26):
happened.
That made for a bit of a funafternoon.
So we did a full.
Speaker 2 (41:31):
No, we just gutted there we gutted him there and
then uh, took the heart andintrepid trip back to chucked
him on a stick over the shoulder, which I've never actually done
before.
Gotta get the heart as well yes, hearts in the freezer.
Speaker 1 (41:42):
Uh, never actually done that before, but chucked
the pole between his legs andtied his legs and carried him
out proper caveman style yep,and that worked fine.
The river was up and we had tocross it twice to get back to
camp yeah, which was the?
easier route.
We didn't cross it on the waythere, but the easier route was
downhill.
It was unladen at that stage,yes, and that involved pants off
(42:03):
, shoes off, socks off.
It wasn't too deep at thatpoint.
That section was probably onthe knee or lower, and then on
the second crossing it got a bitdeeper.
I was probably halfway upthrough my thigh.
Speaker 2 (42:15):
Yeah, so I was up to my neck, basically.
Speaker 1 (42:17):
Yeah, like I hear behind me he was googling
underwater.
We were just pretty concernedabout keeping the deer dry.
Speaker 2 (42:25):
Yeah, it worked out fine.
The head got wet on the skin isfine.
Speaker 1 (42:29):
Yeah, but the uh, the skin.
So I got back to camp and, uh,it was fair.
Oh no, we got the quad bikefrom there up to the top, so
that part saved us a little bit.
But I got to camp, strung it upin camp and then sat down and
had a beer everybody's wonderingwhy we've got no pants on yeah
part of the service withaccurate hunts.
Yep yep, nothing's missed,everyone's looked after and,
(42:50):
again, lots of ground shrinkage.
But with that cold water mate,we'll blame it on that.
Yeah, um, the quad bike ridewas awkward too many up a steep
embankment.
There was a lot of, yeah, skinon skin and only one layer of
fabric got to camp, strung it upon the meat pole, sat down and
had a beer and a few high fivesand then you got to skinning.
(43:12):
Yeah, ripped your skin off.
Longest skinning job, perfectskin, this thing, not a hole in
it and no meat left on it.
Speaker 2 (43:19):
Doesn't even need fleshing.
Speaker 1 (43:20):
No, I had a look at it, she's a clean as.
So that got salted and rolledup and then dinner was had and
it was, uh, call it quits forthat night.
We headed out the next morningchasing some croaks and steep
descent, steep ascent, steepdescent steep ascent, steep
descent yeah, we just kept going.
I kept going, saw a few.
We saw 18 deer that morning, afew bucks, a few girls, a few
(43:46):
spies, and we saw one.
Well, got a glimpse of him, buthe was croaking on a on a stand
but across the creek and notaccessible from where we were
quickly and safely.
So we left him and headed backup into a timbered section.
And that's when it got a littlebit exciting.
We were kind of just talking,walking.
Yeah, we weren't actuallyhunting at that point and then
(44:08):
heard a croak which seemed likeit was 10 meters from us, but it
was actually more like 150, andthen quickly got up over an
embankment and got eyes on it.
I really had a you know threeor four second look at him
through some timber and he was adecent, decent buck, good
timber on top, nice color,mantle, mantle skin, and.
(44:29):
And then I saw some girls withhim.
So I knew he was holding themand he was croaking, not
viciously, but every now andthen.
He wasn't like that other one,but it gave him away.
We would have walked straightpast him otherwise.
So yannick set up probablyabout 15 metres, 10 metres in
front of me and I motioned tohim.
We've got a, a buffalo horncroaker that you made me for my
(44:54):
birthday or wedding present orsomething.
It's pretty amazing piece ofart, this thing.
But I motioned to you to givehim a call and you did.
You had your rifle set up in theV or on the side of the tree
and then you gave a croak and hewent quiet.
Two things one, he's either runaway or two, he's coming
towards us to sort ofinvestigate.
(45:16):
And what happened next was frommy vantage point.
I'll give you my part of thestory.
I saw another deer come fromour left and this little raghorn
buck sort two, two and a halfyear old thing came running into
our croak and was only like 40meters from us, but bothered and
I said to yannick, don't shoot,it's a different deer.
(45:36):
But he didn't hear me becausehe'd already pulled the trigger
I thought it was the, uh, theother fella coming in.
Speaker 2 (45:44):
Yeah, I've got a bit of buck fever at that stage,
yeah lucky.
Speaker 1 (45:47):
It was buck fever, because he missed with two
bullets and the deer just stoodstill.
Stood still when he took thefirst shot and then I've got it
on camera just between the treesand it flinched a little at the
second shot, but only the sound, and then just trotted off,
yeah, and then unscathed it, uh,it crossed down and then went
up the other side and I saw it.
You know, there was no injury,it was not hit, walked away
(46:08):
basically, and at that point herealized it was a different deer
, so there was no reloading andre-shooting, but the big buck
had gone with the girls.
We heard him a bit later on,further away, so at least I know
where he is for next time, Ithink uh instinctively I always
think that they're further awaythan where they're actually at
if I haven't ranged them andtend to miss high.
Speaker 2 (46:29):
So it makes for a nice clean miss.
Speaker 1 (46:31):
Yeah, there's no, yeah, there's no mistaking if
you hit with that gun.
Speaker 2 (46:35):
No, I don't think there's a big hole.
It's not a it's a big whop.
It's not a-.
What pellet what projectile itare throwing uh, they're 286
grain um soft points, but um no,they, they stop things in in
its track they hit hard, exceptwhen you miss right.
Speaker 1 (46:54):
It's a nice, nice way of doing it so that was the end
of that morning was a lot ofwalking after that yeah, a bit
more calling walk of shame wesaw a few more but, uh, no bucks
.
So headed back to camp.
That was a fair hike in andback out and then I went home,
left you there for a few days.
It was going to be a few days.
You're going to be there mondaynight, tuesday night, wednesday
night and come home thursday.
Speaker 2 (47:16):
It wasn't the case so that night I, that evening I
went for a hunt just near thecampsite.
Just, my legs were pretty shotat this stage.
I just went for a little hikedown at the back of camp and
found somewhat of a bit of ahoney hole.
I think.
(47:37):
I found a nice little spit thatkind of looked out downhill and
I sat there glassing for alittle while and saw a doe,
caught my my eyes initially, andthen I sat there glassing her
for a bit and then lo and beholdshe another doe, popped out and
(47:58):
then a really nice uh buck uhcame out with her as well.
So they were way, way, way toofar, definitely out of range of
my firearm.
Speaker 1 (48:12):
In an afternoon hunt when.
Speaker 2 (48:12):
I was In an afternoon hunt.
It was a pretty verticalcountry through there, so I
decided to just sit there andglass.
And I glassed again and I foundanother buck, a bit of a
smaller buck, to the left of him, about maybe 400 metres or so
(48:32):
to the left of him, on the sameface.
I thought, oh, this place isworth coming back to have a look
in the morning.
So I came back the next morning.
That night I don't know, Ithink it was a bit of a cold
snap to come through, but theywere croaking all night, were
keeping me up all night.
I was having a bad noise to yeahfeverish dreams of a giant
(48:54):
fellow croaking in the mist umdreams or nightmares?
yeah, uh, but uh yeah, aboutfive o'clock the next morning it
was too much to to handle, so Ithrew my pack on and made my
way down towards the nearest oneI could hear, made my way down
into this valley, and glass wenton a little bit further along
(49:21):
and continued to make my descentdown.
By the time I got down to thebottom I couldn't see him
anymore, and he'd shut up aswell.
He'd locked his lips.
He must have seen me comingdown the face, but there was
another one.
Didn't roll any rocks down.
I didn't roll any.
No, that's probably what I didwrong.
(49:42):
He was nice.
I saw him on top of a nicechocolate buck.
He had, yeah, pretty decentheadgear on him.
I just had my eight-power binoswith me.
I didn't have my spotting scope, I didn't get a close, close
look at him, but he, yeah, Iwould have shot him any day of
the week, but I could still hearone croaking a little bit
(50:03):
further up.
So I kept working my way downthe valley and it just kept
getting louder and louder andlouder and I could hear him
croaking until I caught aglimpse of a hind kind of up on
the face and she caught aglimpse of me as well.
(50:24):
She was on high alert and shewas just staring at me.
So I kind of sat there for awhile and I was just glassing,
glassing, glassing.
I couldn't see where thecroaking was coming from, but I
could hear it.
This noise travels so far.
It's loud when you're far away,but when you're right up in
their personal space it's justdeafening.
(50:44):
It's quite a haunting soundspace.
It's just, yeah, deafening it's.
It's, uh, it's quite a hauntingsound.
Um, and I, yeah, I was glassingher and then I saw this little
little buck kind of come out, um, from behind a little thicket,
and I was like, oh, okay, he'smaking a big noise for, for a
little buck, um, little rag one,probably, yeah, similar age to
the one I missed the day before,um, and I'm like looking at him
(51:07):
and staring at him through thebinos and then all of a sudden I
hear the croaking start again.
But he's not croaking.
I was like, hmm, all righty,there's another fella a little
bit further in.
So the hind and the little buckmade their way down.
So I kept edging a little bitcloser.
I was kind of on the cut bankof the of the river, uh, this
(51:29):
stage, kind of inching my wayaround.
Um, good, you know, one of themain benefits about being, uh,
vertically challenged is that,uh, it's easy to find a hiding,
uh, a hiding spot.
But made my way around and, um,it was a big, uh thicket of
blackberries, so pretty muchjust at the bank of the clearing
, just above the river, and Iwas staring through with my
(51:52):
binos, staring through with mybinos, and then I could see the
blackberry thicket just gettingthrashed.
I was like, oh, he's got to beback there.
And the croak's getting louder,and louder and louder.
And there's this perfect littlekind of grassy embankment just
on top that made for a perfectrest for my rifle.
And I land up there and I'mlooking through my binos trying
to see where he's coming from,and then he steps out from
(52:15):
behind the blackberry thicketand he was a toad.
He was just oh jeez.
So you've got to understand.
I come from Western Australia.
We don't really.
I mean, we've got the odd feraldeer that's kind of running
around in the state forest, butdeer hunting is not really a
thing over there, especially notin the blocks that I kind of
shoot on on the farms where I'vegot access to hunt.
(52:38):
So seeing a deer is excitingfor me.
But seeing something of thiscalibre was just like oh, my
heart was going a million milesan hour, let alone fully
thrashing the brush and croakingat the same time.
But he just came out, he put ona show for me.
It was nice and cold, stillearly on in the morning.
As he's croaking, you can seethe fog kind of coming out of
(53:00):
his mouth and he's croaking.
I just had this perfect,perfect shot kind of lined up
inside of 50 yards, well andtruly for the double rifle range
and I was like this is my buck.
And yeah, pulled the triggerand that was it.
It was all over mid croak and hedid me the favor of rolling and
(53:23):
falling right into the centerof said blackberry thicket,
rolling and falling right intothe centre of said blackberry
thicket and that was a bit ofsport to get him out of there on
my own.
It was significantly largerthan the spiker we'd shot a
couple of days earlier.
He probably weighed more thanyou.
He definitely weighed more thanme, I reckon about 120.
Yeah, big bucks, yeah, he'd be,yeah, he would have been around
(53:44):
100, I reckon.
Yeah, yeah.
Big body thickness Already losta fair bit of condition in the
last two weeks, yeah, and thenspent the rest of the morning
kind of field dressing him,getting the back skin, the cape
and the antlers and all the meatthat I could carry on my small
frame back up to camp.
And that sheer realisation whenyou're thinking about that
(54:07):
vertical descent that you'vemade to get to where you are.
Speaker 1 (54:12):
You've got to go in reverse.
Speaker 2 (54:14):
It's not going to get any less steep on the way up.
So yeah, that hurt.
I was saying to Dodge the worstpart about being on your own
out there, that you can't evenwhinge to anybody, you've just
got to suck it up and do it.
I like to complain about mybodily aches and pains and how
(54:35):
hard I've got it, but there wasnobody to listen, so I had to
bottle it up inside.
Speaker 1 (54:42):
I don't give you any sympathy when I'm there anyway.
Speaker 2 (54:44):
Yeah, just keep walking.
But yeah, no two steps at atime.
15 minutes, catch your breath.
Another two steps.
Took you a week to get over ittook me about five hours to get
back into camp, but I felt everysingle one of those hours At
least you had all day yeah.
Speaker 1 (55:00):
Comfortable temperature too.
It wasn't too hot.
Speaker 2 (55:02):
Yeah Well it was comfortable temperature by the
time I got back to camp, blackclouds were rolling in, started
thunderstorming and then I justI was.
I had a little light tarp setup kind of out there Shout out
to Alton Goods.
Oh yeah, if you want to sponsorme.
Please get in contact.
I've got.
I'm a bit of an Alton Goods fanboy.
Speaker 1 (55:26):
I've got most of their line up now, I think uh
you're pretty happy with it.
Speaker 2 (55:27):
Yeah, no, it held up.
So then it started hailingwhile I was um, uh, kind of
finishing the cape job out in umin camp and I was like, geez,
that rain's getting heavy andI'm looking down and there's
little hailstones, hot pepperand pepper in the ground in
front of me.
But uh, no, it held upamazingly.
Yeah, I was warm and snug, itwas toasty.
I run their their quilt andtheir bag, the mattress sleeping
(55:51):
mat, which, yeah, highly ratejust for the record I'm not
sponsored by them at all.
This is all purchased out of myown money, but no and the little
tarp and the tarp.
I've got the 3x3 metre tarp.
Speaker 1 (56:03):
Cooking stuff yeah, all their cooking stuff, yeah
he's got their undies, theirsocks, their toenail paint yeah,
lipstick yeah yeah, so you gotto enjoy it in camp by yourself.
Now you sent you knowfavoritism and priorities.
Here I get it.
I left him my garment in reachand first person he texts was
his wife.
I know that because shescreenshotted it and she sent it
(56:24):
to me.
She asked me a question.
She said said what does BBDmean?
Because you just sent her atext saying BBD.
Speaker 2 (56:31):
So I had the Garmin in reach so you have to type in
every letter like an old Nokia.
Speaker 1 (56:35):
It's not linked up to his phone.
Speaker 2 (56:37):
It's even slower than the Nokia phone because you
have to move the little cursoracross to the letter you want.
Speaker 1 (56:40):
So everything was shorthand and BBD and uh, bbd,
and I knew what it meant and Isent that back to her and told
her what it was.
But then your text come throughfrom you and that was uh.
I was very excited to hear thatit was uh yeah, that was um
that's a property.
I haven't hunted the rut outthere yet, so this is our first.
That's our first rut deer fromthat block.
(57:01):
We shot one pre-rut realbeautiful thing.
He's sitting over there on theground.
Jack's one one and geneticallyvery similar.
Speaker 2 (57:09):
Very similar.
I think from a distance you'dbe hard-pressed to actually
tease them apart.
There's a few subtledifferences in the head, but
you'd say they definitely hadthe same sire.
Speaker 1 (57:21):
Yes, definitely in the same part of the family.
Speaker 2 (57:23):
So you've got it on the ground, you've got it home
you've caped it, so you've gotit on the ground, you've got it
home, you've kept it out, you'vecleaned it up.
Yeah, managed to take a nicechunk out of my finger while
trimming up the uh, turning theeyelids.
Speaker 1 (57:34):
And then you stayed for a day or so just to keep
playing with the cleaning themeat up and, yeah, went on and
came back to our house.
Speaker 2 (57:41):
And here we are.
Yeah, managed to get everything, uh, butchered on a kitchen
bench rather than out in thefield, which is a novelty.
Speaker 1 (57:46):
Yeah, it's a bit of a cleaner space to work with.
We're running a little bit lowon time.
I just want to finish up withsome travelling with meat tips
and things that I've beentalking to a few people lately,
but you and I have both done abit of travelling across the
country with eskies and meatobviously coming from Perth.
A few things to consider andone thing that I always
(58:08):
recommend to people is actuallybuy your Esky before you fly and
then bring it over with yourluggage in it.
Speaker 2 (58:14):
Use it as checked luggage, yeah.
Speaker 1 (58:15):
So it forms part of your bag.
Two reasons Then you cancontinually use the same Esky,
but also you've got it with youwhen you get there.
You don't have to worry aboutbuying it after shooting
something.
Speaker 2 (58:26):
That was a bit of a stress of the trip before we
learnt the hard way.
Speaker 1 (58:31):
Yeah, I said I could get my hands on a foam esky and
it turned out no one in town hadfoam eskies.
Airline choice is an issue,qantas.
Speaker 2 (58:37):
Yeah, Qantas are pretty good.
Speaker 1 (58:39):
The most confident and comfortable with it.
Speaker 2 (58:41):
I think Jetstar do as well but you can't fly with
firearms on jetstar, even thoughit requires some scenery.
Speaker 1 (58:53):
Okay, yeah, um, but uh, yeah, you want to check with
your airline?
Yeah, what's the other one, notjetstar virgin?
Say no to.
You can fly with a firearm, youcan't fly with trophies, uh.
So you can't take antlers ormeat from a hunt.
You can take meat from afishing trip, but you can't take
meat from a hunt.
So choose your words carefully.
If you do fly with virgin, butuh, no, we uh try and use qantas
for those things.
(59:13):
But a couple other things thatyou've done and I don't know if
you knew about them or you justtook them on board because I
said it but you need to freezeyour meat down.
The qantas requirements are themeat's got to be frozen, it's
got to beacced and it's got tobe in a sealed, firm-sided
container.
So an esky, it can't be in asoft Yeti-style esky.
Can't be in a hot pot, yeah,but it can be in a foam
(59:35):
seafood-style box, which issilly, because they're softer
than an esky anyway, definitelyless robust.
Yeah, they're concerned aboutleakage is the main issue.
So is the main issue.
So one other thing I do furtherto that is actually wrap each
piece of meat in, so it'scryovac frozen, and then when
you pull it out of the freezeryou wrap it in paper.
Speaker 2 (59:53):
Yeah, because you still get condensation on the
outside of it and that couldcause some moisture.
Speaker 1 (59:57):
And the further tip is to actually freeze it in
either portioned steaks, ifyou've got time, or square
pieces of meat.
So what you can do is put themeat cryovacs inside tubware
containers and then freeze it,or just portion.
And the reason for that is whenyou're putting it in the esky
you don't want wasted space.
Found that out the hard way aswell last time.
Speaker 2 (01:00:18):
Yeah, you freeze big chunks of backstrap and then all
of a sudden you fit onebackstrap in your esky because
of how it's frozen solid that'sright, and you end up with
wasted space and you can't getto your.
Speaker 1 (01:00:26):
The other thing with Qantas is you can actually go up
to 32 kilos if you're a QantasClub member for one piece of
luggage.
Speaker 2 (01:00:34):
And if you go a bit over, I think they just charge
you a Kilo rate or something.
Speaker 1 (01:00:39):
They're a little bit more flexible on it, especially
if you book the extra beforehandand not at the counter.
Speaker 2 (01:00:43):
So at the price of venison on the market, it's
worth every cent Worth yeah.
Speaker 1 (01:00:47):
So you get your two check bags.
So you've booked one extracheck bag.
I've booked an extra check bag.
Yeah, so you've got a luggagebag firearm case.
Speaker 2 (01:00:54):
The firearm case, I think they count it.
Speaker 1 (01:00:56):
As sporting goods.
Speaker 2 (01:00:57):
As sporting goods, and if it comes in under the
weight with your bag, it's fine.
Speaker 1 (01:01:08):
And then I've booked an extra, extra, um the esky bag
, which is my ski.
So, at a total weight you get,you know, either 23 or 32 kilos,
depending on what class you're.
Yeah, so fly with it.
Yeah, frozen.
But then also you've got toduct tape your esky, but you
can't do it prior because theyneed to inspect it, yeah, when
they get there.
So, but uh, other than that,it's been a good trip.
I'm glad you got to enjoy ityeah I'm sorry I wasn't there
for that last bit.
But, um, I'm sorry I wasn'tthere for that last bit, but
also happy my legs weren't therefor that last bit.
Speaker 2 (01:01:31):
No, it was an amazing adventure.
This is a beautiful, beautifulproperty.
Yeah, thank you so much for theopportunity, mate.
Speaker 1 (01:01:36):
Really appreciate it.
Look forward to trying to do itagain next year at Deer Camp.
Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (01:01:47):
Hopefully we hooked on the rut.
Speaker 1 (01:01:48):
Yeah, you had a textbook experience, so, oh,
that was that's got those datesright, it's gonna be very hard
to beat.
Yeah well, thanks for chattingabout it and until next time,
talk to you then.
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