Ep. 21 Zeb Jones on hunting Sambar Deer. The Secrets, Misconceptions and Thermal Hunting. PART 1

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
I wish I had known that, trying to hunt over where
other hunters have huntedalready.
So the worst day to hunt of theweek is Monday, because
everyone's hunted Saturday,sunday.
The second worst is Sunday.
You know, and progressively youget better until you get to
about where I reckon the idealday to hunt is Wednesday,

(00:22):
thursday.
So Samba have had for a longtime a mystique about them that
they ghost the high countryright, so they can ghost in and
ghost out just as quickly.
You can be looking at a Sambaand then it can vanish and you
think it's just there, but it'snot.

(00:43):
They have that ability.
Can vanish and you think it'sjust there, but it's not.
Um, they blend into theirenvironment so well for such a
big animal, they can be so quiet.
They can just vanish righty.

Speaker 2 (01:02):
welcome back accurate hunts.
Hunt to Life Outdoors Indoorsagain tonight, unfortunately,
but I'm coming to you withsomeone I've been actually not
just me, but one of our morerequested guests.
When people write in and sendlittle emails and tidbits and oh
, you should get this person on,you should get that person on,
and one of those, zeb Jones,welcome to the show, mate.

Speaker 1 (01:23):
Thank you, nice day, good to be here, it's good to
hear that people are trying toget me on, so hopefully I can
answer Well all the other peoplewere busy, so I just asked you
instead.
Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:36):
That's all right.
Sorry, no, seriously Answer afew questions.
No, I look forward to it.
It's one of the names thatdefinitely does pop up regularly
and I just want to rewind alittle bit.
I did an episode a few weeksago with Cass Fleming was her
name, and I think it was the onewhere she actually interviewed

(01:57):
me and I've been pulled up onsomething I said and I was
talking about Jägermeister,meaning hunt master, and I can't
quite remember the reference.
But a friend of the show,previous guest Kyle, has sent in
an audio response and I'm goingto play it, so he gets his
minute of fame or two minutes,this one, but this is his

(02:17):
response to me, referring aboutthe Jäger, so I'm going to play
it in the speaker and we'll seehow it comes across.

Speaker 3 (02:23):
G'day Dodge, just thought I'd give you a bit more
info on the Jägermeister youwere talking about in a recent
episode.
You referred to the stag on thebottle and if you actually look
closely at the stag on a bottleof Jägermeister, it's got a
crucifix between the antlers,and this is actually a reference
to St Hubertus, who was a.

(02:44):
He became a saint.
He was originally some sort ofnobility who lived sort of in
the area that we now callBelgium in the Middle Ages, and
his wife and son died inchildbirth and then he turned.
He was always a keen hunter andhe turned to hunting as his

(03:05):
sole pursuit in life.
And one day he's pursuing thisstag and it turns to him and
appears with the crucifixbetween the antlers and God
speaks to him and says you haveto go and seek out this local
priest.
And so he does that and ends upworking for the church, doing

(03:25):
great things for the people ofthe area.
I think he went back into theardennes forest and converted a
lot of the people that livethere to christianity.
But he's actually kind of acontroversial figure because he
actually stopped hunting once hewent into the clergy.
So while he's held up as apatron saint of hunters.
It's also kind of controversialbecause he stopped hunting, but

(03:48):
we actually think that maybe alot of our sort of like fair
chase laws that we now haveabout, you know, ensuring a
quick, clean kill, not killingfemale animals with young at
foot, that sort of stuffactually goes back to rules that
he sort of instituted.
I think it sort of depends whatversion of history you look
into, but anyway, any time youhave that shot of Jägermeister,

(04:13):
that's where the iconographycomes from.
It's from old St Hubertus.
So there's your history lessonfor the week, enjoy.

Speaker 2 (04:23):
Did you know any of that?

Speaker 1 (04:26):
No, no, enjoy.
Yeah, did you know any of that.
No, I know none of that, butit's awesome, and if it's true,
it's a great story, isn't it?
And if it's not, who cares?

Speaker 2 (04:36):
wow, that's right.
It wouldn't ruin a good storywith the truth, would we?
But uh, no, that came from ourresident in-house historian, it
seems, kyle.
Uh, so we'll.
We'll see if he can pull outsome facts in the future and
come back to me.
But he sent me that the otherweek and he sent it to me like
in a conversation.
I said, no, I send that as a,as a proper audio clip so we can

(04:56):
play it.
But uh, there you go every timeyou're 18 and drinking red bull
and jaegers at the pub you'reactually actually bowing down to
Christianity and enjoyinghunting.
So for all you anti-hunters outthere, every time you enjoy
Jaeger, it's on us.

Speaker 1 (05:10):
Thank you.
I didn't even know they weresupporting us.

Speaker 2 (05:14):
But in that he spoke about fair chase rules and
things like that.
Is that something you see?
I mean you're based downvictoria way and, to be honest,
a lot of the negative huntingstuff we see from gma because
they post a lot of it is alwaysstings and things they're doing
down your way and those peopleare probably not following those

(05:37):
fair chase rules.
Um, I've got a bazooingquestions for you and one of
them is what do you do and whereyou're from?
But the one that's bugging meright now is the thermal hunting
thing in Victoria andespecially it seems to be
stirring up some SAMBA-relatedpeople.
What are your thoughts on thatand what's your understanding of
it?

Speaker 1 (05:59):
So my understanding is that the regulations that
they're proposing will allow theuse of handheld thermal imaging
devices.
The ADA have tried to stipulatein the regulations that it
can't be clipped onto a rifle tobecome part of the scope so

(06:20):
that it could only be used as ascanning device, I suppose, not
as a shooting device.
Yeah, so apparently it's comingthrough, but I haven't seen it
in writing yet that it has beenmade legal.
I know they have returned thelead banning.
That's definitely come throughin the email from ADA, but I

(06:44):
haven't seen anything officialabout the thermal.
But yeah, it does stir a fairbit of the fair chase sort of
thing, purely because oftechnology advancements, just
giving the Hummer what a lot ofpeople think is an unfair
advantage.
So I suppose it just depends onwhere everyone draws the line

(07:10):
on what is unfair.
And even with the ADA theirstance is they want their
members and they want to projectfor their members people to
uphold the law and hunt withinthe regulations and the law, but

(07:31):
they don't want to tell theirmembers how to hunt, which is a
little bit controversial on itsown, I suppose.
So the fair chase side ofanything is individual as far as
from one person to the next,that can mean different things.
So that's where the grey lineor the muddy water is, I suppose

(07:53):
, is what is fair chase, anddoes it involve the use of this
sort of technology?
Now, my experience with it isthat it's gone past what we
should be considered fair chase,purely for the reason that you
can see animals behind foliagethat you would never normally

(08:19):
see.
So you know, it basicallyilluminates them, daylight or at
night.
So the idea is that these willbe allowed to be used during
daylight hours only, sort of thesame as the half an hour after
sunset, half an hour before, andall the rest of it for legal

(08:43):
shooting times and all the restof it for legal shooting times.
But yeah, it's sort of dividingthe community, I think the
hunting community With ADA.
I think the percentage was 57%against 43.4% or very similar to
that.
It was very close.
It's practically 50-50,strongly opposed as to strongly

(09:09):
agree to it.
So I suppose a lot of thatmight come from different
demographic age groups.
You know like the younger onesmight be like, ah, come on,
we've got the technology, let'sjust use it.
And then the older ones arelike, ah, we never it back in
the, the old days, um justlearned to hunt and on.

(09:30):
So it depends on what camp youcome from topic there.

Speaker 2 (09:34):
Oh, talking about the olden days and I actually think
it was kyle that had thisdiscussion with me and I hadn't
fully considered it butobviously you know at the moment
where thermals are, the nightvision thermal, whatever, that's
the rage, that's the newtechnology.
You know, 30 years ago I'm justgoing to draw some numbers here

(09:55):
30 years ago it was rangefinders, 100 years ago it was
scopes like, and then you keepgoing back and it was, you know
it.
At all these stages, throughyou know timeframe of shooting
and hunting, there's always beena new development and there
would have always been peoplethat said, oh, you should shoot
open sites, don't use thattechnology.
And then it would have been athing.

(10:17):
And then it's oh, you should beable to do it without a range
finder.
And now it's just a thing.
And, oh, you know, you shouldbe able to do it with this sort
of bullet, and now it's a thing.
And now it's at, you know, andbinoculars are the same, but now
it's at thermals.
And I think, yes, I understandwhy people are up in arms about

(10:40):
it, for want for a better word,but I think come 10 years',
years time, it'll be somethingelse and it won't be this.
People will move on.
I've actually I use them.
I've got thermal.
I've got thermal binocular.
I'm pretty happy with it, butit's not the be all and end all
it.
I I actually I use it forcertain purposes.
If I'm doing a meat run,absolutely I want to be home as

(11:02):
quick as I can.
I'll go out.
I went out the other night withtwo mates from the hunting club
.
We literally pulled up on theside of the road.
There was some in the paddockwe've got access to.
We jumped the fence, we shot it, we're out of there within half
an hour and that was all.
We didn't use one torch at all.
It was all thermal but Ithermal, but I don't use it when
I'm hunting.

(11:22):
So to me, hunting remains what,what I would consider a little
bit more pure.
I'm still using a scope, I'mstill using shooting sticks.
You know these are alladvancements in technology.
So I don't know I I when yousaid the demographic and which
group you come from.
I'd like to see the demographicof those voting numbers,

(11:45):
because I think it's exactlywhat you just said.
Um, there'll be a.
You know the traditional olderlandscape of members that would
prefer it stay the way it is,because that's just the way it
is.
And then the younger guys are alittle bit more open-minded to
technology and also theyprobably want.
The problem with society thesedays is we want things now, we

(12:08):
want things quickly.
So if they can use a thermaland shoot a Samba in their first
hunting trip, well, does itcarry the same weight as
stalking one for a year and ahalf, two years and not getting
one and then finally getting one?
Maybe not.

Speaker 1 (12:23):
Anyway, yeah, it's going to be interesting if it
does come in Sensitive topic, soyeah, so the thing is, once
it's in, it's in and then you'rejust going to have to be either
in the camp or not in the camp.
But you can't get upset aboutwhat other people are doing.

(12:45):
I suppose and I've tried to beyou know, I quite often get spun
up in a lot of things and youknow, sometimes you get worked
up about things.
But I've learnt with huntingthat you've just got to be happy
with what you're doing, becausethere's so many other people
out there doing something thatyou wouldn't consider to be the

(13:08):
right thing that if youconcentrate on that, you're just
not going to enjoy yourexperience.
So I've learnt and it's takenme a long time to learn this is
to basically gloss over whatother people are doing and
basically ignore the bad noiseand try to promote the good

(13:32):
stuff and hopefully that runsthrough in whatever content that
I'm making and what people arefollowing that.
You know I don't like to tryand dwell on what's wrong with
hunting and more try to do whatI think is right and then have
people follow in suit because,yeah, like nearly every weekend,

(13:56):
or every week I go out.
Yeah, lead from the front, leadby example.
You know I've sort of had ahunting career that's spanned
since I was, you know, oldenough to walk around with Dad
and I've seen the advancementsin different things.

(14:17):
We never had binoculars.
When we first started we didn'teven know about range finders,
dial-up scopes.
You know they're all thingsthat I carry now.
But yeah, I don't know If itcomes in.
It comes in but it's going to.

(14:37):
I see it as it'll be abused,unfortunately, like it already
is, to a bigger extent probably.

Speaker 2 (14:47):
And I think they're already being used too.

Speaker 1 (14:51):
Yeah, 100%.

Speaker 2 (14:54):
They're out there.
We already know people areusing them.

Speaker 1 (14:56):
Yeah, They've been out there for what a good five,
six, seven years, probably six,seven years probably.
But I will say that since thenI'm starting to notice what I
believe is the consequences ofit, especially with Samba.
It's getting increasinglydifficult to find a mature stag

(15:19):
in any sort of open countrythat's susceptible to thermal
and long-range those twocombinations thermal with a long
range weapon, is verydetrimental to the Samba
population, Not so much vines,but definitely stags of any sort

(15:43):
of size.
They're not safe anymore at 600plus yards.
They're in big trouble,especially in a big country
where it's a little bit moreopen.

Speaker 2 (15:51):
So there, you think their patterns are changing.

Speaker 1 (15:57):
I think they're dying , they're not surviving,
basically.

Speaker 2 (16:02):
Yeah, it's hard to change a pattern when you're
dead.

Speaker 1 (16:04):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Look, I've hunted one spot forabout 20 odd years and it used
to always hold mature deer, andit's got to the point now where
I don't even look for them on itbecause they're just not there.

Speaker 2 (16:22):
Yeah, two things you said earlier on.
Uh, you talked about yourcontent and I want to get into
that, but when miles will start?
At the start?
You said you've been shootingfrom when you could walk around
with dad or hunting at least.
I'm pretty interested in thatbecause I didn't grow up in that
sort of family with any huntingrelatives, so I'm pretty

(16:45):
intrigued by people who have,and I think that the problem
with our sport at the moment ismost people that are learning
how to hunt are doing so via,you know, the internet or
whatnot, and not having someoneas a mentor in the family.
So I feel like they're skippingsome of the basics that you
know you would have learned as achild or yeah and things like

(17:08):
that hence what you do nowtrying, trying

Speaker 1 (17:11):
to impart that so yeah, so basically, yeah, my
story is dad.
Dad was the one that started,so he, he was one of quite a few
kids.
I think there were six kids inhis family.
Um, he was one of quite a fewkids.
I think there were six kids inhis family.
He was one of the younger ones.
He had some older brothers thatwere into sort of more fox,

(17:31):
rabbits, a little bit of bowhunting.
But Dad sort of must havesparked some sort of interest
there along the lines and ataround 19 years old, you know,
took up duck shooting.
Quail had a hunting dog, he hada Weimaraner, did a lot of fox

(17:55):
shooting back when the skinswere worth a bit of money.
So then I think somewhere alongthe lines and I'll have to ask
him exactly what sparked hisinterest with deer.
But I think a few of thecircles that he sort of roamed
in did a bit of hunting withdeer and yeah, away he went.
He brought himself an oldex-military 308, full wood sort

(18:17):
of thing, did a bit of asporterizing to it, cut the
barrel down and shortened up thestuff a bit, I think, and
welded on or screwed on someside mount scape, because it was
a top of deck sort of jobby theway he went, I think he wounded
or shot at and missed more deerthan the gun was worth and
eventually went and broughthimself a decent rifle which was

(18:39):
a 7mm Remnag and a Ruger Mark I, which mum was unaware of him
buying at the time Apparentlyit's scum of milk, yeah.
So he started to hunt.
So his father wasn't a hunteror even a firearm owner, but his
older brother sort of startedin that archery, a little bit of

(19:02):
shooting.
His older brother had gone towar so he had ex-military rifles
and that sort of thing.
Yeah.
And then I think sort of dadhad this interest but never did
very well, never had anyone tolearn off, just sort of was on
his own.
And then I was only young, so18 months old or something, so

(19:27):
dad would have been his early30s.
We moved to the northernterritory for five years and, um
, he did a bit of culling upthere on some donkeys and you
know, scrub bulls, that kind ofthing, but not really hunting,
just more shooting from the bullcatcher and that sort of thing.
We were mum and dad were sortof working for contract

(19:49):
musterers to inoculate againsttuberculosis, I think it was.
And so we did five years upthere.
But when we come back home Ithink dad's interest peaked
again, back on the Samba and Iwas probably about five or six,
so I still wasn't quite into it.
I didn't have long enough legsto keep up.

(20:09):
But I remember him shooting hisfirst stag and he shot it late
in the evening on a solo hunt.
And he came back home and hewas telling the story about how
he'd seen this stag at lastlight and he took a shot.
An actual bullet had ricochetedoff a tree before it hit stay.
But he had a good blood trailbut couldn't find it and I

(20:30):
begged him to.
That must have been a Sundayafternoon.
I begged him to let me have theday off school.
It would have only been kinder.
But he wouldn't and I stillremember it.
I haven't forgiven him for it.
But I went back the next day,him and his mate with a couple
of Kelpie dogs and basicallyrounded him up and finished him
off.
He was still alive but he wasquite ill.

(20:52):
But I remember him coming homewith the little antlers, only 16
inches or something.
But that was my firstexperience of a Samba and I
think I was hooked from then,just dad's sheer excitement that
night before and, you know,hoping to find it the next day.
And then he did.
Yeah, it really must havestirred something up in me, but

(21:13):
it wasn't probably until I wasabout eight and you've got young
kids yourself too.
Yeah, so nine and 11, two littleboys, One the younger ones
really keen, were they out whenthey were five in kindy.
Yeah, they were actually.
I think I shot a stag with myeldest that he was five, yeah.
But it's funny when you takekids hunting that young, they're

(21:38):
just not ready for it.
You know like I tried to gethim out of bed in the morning
and he's like nah, it's too cold, I want to go home to mum, sort
of thing.
So I ended up shooting thatdeer at like 9 o'clock in the
morning.
I was going to go cut a load ofwood before we went home and I
thought, oh, we'll just walkinto this gully before we start
the chainsaw up, I'll be back.

(21:58):
There was a couple of deer inthere and a big mongrel walked
out and I snagged him.
But yeah, it was like then itwas exciting and he was like
yeah, dad, let's go shootanother one.
I'm like it doesn't happen likethat.
We've got to deal with this onenow.
It's like a 300-kilo.
Yeah, we've got lots of work todo.
Yeah, yeah, so that was boringagain and yeah, anyway, yeah.

(22:23):
So Dad started me off.
Eight years old I startedfollowing along and we, like I
said, dad wasn't very successful.
So we did a lot of walking, wegot barked at, we saw flashes of
deer, but never really had anopportunity at a deer until, oh
shit, I think I was about 14.
Um, yeah, I shot my first oneat 14.

(22:45):
And from then we really startedto achieve a bit more.
We also were lucky enough to getonto some private land, which
made it a little bit easier, andthen, yeah, basically I was
away after that.
I couldn't get enough contentinto me, and back in those days
it was only magazines and books.

(23:05):
So you know, I've got the.
Walking About book.
I've got the Lou Servi book.
I've got you know, peterBurke's book and you name it.
I've got it.
Reading, reading, reading Anymagazine that had a Samba
article in it, I'd read it.
And some people probably justread a story and just go.
That was a good story.

(23:25):
But I took the information outof the story and learnt from the
story and then we'd go up inthe bush and try and implement
what I thought why they weresuccessful in that story.
I think that was the differencebetween me and Dad.
Dad just bumbled around in thebush looking for deer and I had
strategic plans.
Dad just bumbled around in thebush looking for deer, I had

(23:45):
strategic plans and eventually,you know, dad always pushed me
in front.
From probably 14 onwards, I wasthe gun in the front, you know.

Speaker 2 (23:57):
If you could circle back to yourself at that point
in your life now and just giveyourself one bit of information
about hunting, like not life andmoney and those sorts of things
, because we'd all talk aboutthat.
But let's just say, you know,little zeb turns up on zeb's
shoulder and little angel on hisshoulder and just whispers in
his ear.
You know, look on the northface, like what, what?

(24:19):
What's one little bit that youwould have told yourself or you
wish you knew back then I've gota good one for you actually.

Speaker 1 (24:25):
So at the start it was all public land hunting, um,
and we didn't have a four wheeldrive so we're limited on
access to where we can go um.
So a lot of our areas that wehunted were very close to home,
which home was stratford, so wewere hunting the likes of, you
know, valencia Creek, bryagalong, stockdale.

(24:48):
This is all low country scrubsort of hunting, heavily hound
hunted, heavily spotlighted,poached in every other way, and
that's where we spent our time.
And I've got a mate that did alot of hunting in the low
country as a young fella andthen when we started hunting

(25:09):
together, you know, sort of 10years ago, he'd go oh, do you
want to go for hunting at, youknow, just the back of home?
And I'm like, no, not really.
So my thing is I'd rather drivefor an hour and hunt for 10
minutes than drive for 10minutes and hunt for an hour,
because when you're close to apopulation, like, say, for

(25:30):
instance, melbourne, if you'reclose to 5 million people where
there's X amount of hunters,then you're going to be hunting
areas that are just absolutelyhammered.
And if that's all you've gotaccess to and that's all the
time you've got, then just behappy with being in the bush and
hopefully you can find somesign and maybe bump a deer or

(25:50):
shoot one if you're really lucky.
But the extra effort to drivethat bit further to get away
from the population of huntersalways seems to be worth it.

Speaker 2 (26:05):
We're going to get to a story at some point in the
future about your headingoverseas in a couple of days,
but when I was over in Canadaspecifically, we called it the
two-ridge rule and it wasusually you would drive to the
base of the first ridge, becausethat's where the road stopped,
and then we would unload thehorses and mules and whatnot,
load up and then we would goover the first ridge camp.

(26:28):
That'd usually take you a dayto get over that one down to the
bottom of the next one, set upcamp there and the next day
you'd ride over the second oneand at that point you were at a
depth that 99% of communitywould never get to.
So the base of the first ridge,where the road was, the locals

(26:48):
would road hunt that on quadbikes and shoot any moose that
were in a kilometer of that yeahand then you had the locals
that had a horse just one orwere keen on walking, and they'd
do the first ridge and weshared camp with a fair few of
those, but then we would, youknow, continue on for one more
ridge.
It was all public land, yeah,so anyone could have went in

(27:11):
where we were.
Right?
Yeah, we were the onlyoutfitter in there, but any
residents could go in there.

Speaker 1 (27:16):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (27:18):
And it dramatically, dramatically increases your.
Well, yes, it is, and we didthe maths on horseback.
The maths we did was in Montana.
Canada was a little bitdifferent, but if you're on top
of a mountain and you could seeanother mountain, we reckon we
could get there in about eighthours on horseback.

Speaker 1 (27:37):
Yeah right.

Speaker 2 (27:39):
And just the way the terrain was there.
It wasn't super flat, so it washilly enough that to get to the
top of that one was eight hoursdown and up.
If it was a long flat inbetween, obviously that's
different, but it just generallyworked between, you know, six
to eight hours so we'd work onone day I'll get you over one
and then the next day.
You know might take you 10hours to ride in each day.

(27:59):
But it's a uh, yeah, get you,get you, the people gets you to
the highest success.

Speaker 1 (28:05):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (28:05):
So that's a good one.
So you wish you learned thatearlier.

Speaker 1 (28:09):
I wish I had known that, trying to hunt over where
other hunters had hunted already.
So the worst day to hunt of theweek is Monday, because
everyone's hunted Saturday,sunday, the second worst is
Sunday.
You know, and progressively youget better until you get to

(28:29):
about where I reckon the idealday to hunt is Wednesday,
thursday, because people usuallyhave RDOs Monday or Friday or
will attach days off to theweekend, but generally that
Wednesday, thursday, you havehad a couple of days to quieten
down and they just know um, andI've seen it too often to think

(28:50):
there's a coincidence that youdon't know deer quiet down
within a couple of days of notbeing hunted and they just relax
, um, and that makes for betterhunting that's an interesting
point.

Speaker 2 (29:02):
I want to um and have you finished your your origin
story?
Are we?

Speaker 1 (29:11):
I suppose I have.

Speaker 2 (29:11):
No, that's fine, I got.
I got a thousand more thingsrunning around in my head.
So the other one was, there wascontent, and I suppose that's
why you're here tonight isbecause I've seen your content.
Other people have seen yourcontent and what you're
producing and what you're doing.
Can you fast forward a littlebit to you know away from you,
know you growing up and learningto sort of where your business

(29:35):
started, what is it and how didit start and where?

Speaker 1 (29:38):
is it headed?
Yeah, so it's a non-typicalstart to any business.
I suppose it's a non-typicalstart to any business.
I suppose Most people mighthave a passion and a plan to
strive for something or start abusiness.
I started the YouTube channelpurely to show my dad, who had
stopped hunting with me at thetime because he was a bit older

(30:01):
but I was still hunting areasthat we hunted together.
So he stopped hunting with meabout 55 years old and I was
just sort of peaking.
So I would have been some 30years younger than him, so I was
25, you know.
So I was just starting toreally get into backpack hunting
, hard backpack hunting, and hejust couldn't handle it anymore.

(30:24):
He was back and you know he hada wife who was manual labour
basically, so it became verydifficult for him so he just
couldn't keep up.
But after that, you know, Icontinued hunting with a friend
of mine, mark Young, and we weresort of he was a bit older than
me, he was 15 years older thanme but mad, keen fit.

(30:44):
He was a bit older than me, hewas 15 years older than me but
made keen fit, and we were justgetting into some big country
and Dad was like, oh, I wish Icould be there.
And I said, oh, I've got thisbit of footage, you know, and
I'd taken some video on my phoneor on my camera, but it was all
just little screen sort ofstuff.
And you know 55, he's puttinghis glasses on to try and look

(31:06):
at this little screen and I'mtrying to zoom it in, but then
it's getting all pixelated.
He goes, oh, I wish there was away you could put it on TV.
And I said, oh well, I canactually.
I could sort of put it onYouTube, and I already had a
YouTube channel purely forstoring GoPro footage off my
helmet camera from motorbikeriding days.

(31:29):
I literally had it for storage,not for making a channel or
anything.
So what I decided to do is Ihad some content that I could
put together basically in aslideshow wasn't really much
video, it was more photos and Imade a couple little shitty
videos out of those photos andput it up on the youtube so he

(31:52):
could watch it.
One of them was the weekend Ishot that big mangle with the
young fella and, yeah, fromthere then I sort of I had a
mate that was making a few longrange videos and I like watching
them, and I said to him hey,next time I do a hunt, can you,
can I give you all the content?
You make it for me?
And he goes hell, no, I'm notdoing that for you, but here's

(32:13):
the app I use on my phone.
And I said, oh yeah, cool, andso he helped me a little bit on
you know how to edit and all the.
But here's the app I use on myphone.
I said, oh yeah, cool, and sohe helped me a little bit on,
you know how to edit and allthis, but basically off I went
on my own.
I made a.
So we had a pretty cool huntplanned with a mate with his
horses.
We were going to ride thehorses deep into the Alpine and

(32:36):
that was going to be our way toget into some real good country.
I figured that everyone wouldbe interested, especially my
family that are all horse mad tosee me on a horse, because my
parents made me ride a horsewhen I was a kid.
They made me learn to ride ahorse before they'd let me get a
motorbike.
So I had to go through ponyclub and all the rest of it.

(32:58):
You know, I learnt to ride ahorse and I won some event and
mum says when I come back withthat blue ribbon she goes.
The first thing that come outof your mouth was can I get a
motorbike now?
And so it was quite funny to meyeah, job done.
Yeah, later on in life to beactually choosing to ride a
horse, because I basically notthat I hated them, I just didn't

(33:20):
.
I wanted to ride motorbikes, Tobe choosing to ride a horse
whilst hunting.
And, yes, I met a mate.
We rode horses in and I video.
I tried to video the whole youknow riding the horses and you
know crossing the rivers and allthat sort of stuff.
There was hardly any huntingcontent on there at all.

(33:40):
I didn't get any live deerfootage or anything like that A
little bit of deer sign, youknow wallows and whatnot and
rubs.
But the funny thing is when Iuploaded that to basically you
know show mum and dad what I'dbeen up to, I started getting
comments and the comments wereoh, when's the next video coming
out?
I like your content but youneed more of this in it.

(34:04):
What sort of camera are youusing and all this sort of stuff
?
And I'm like who are thesepeople?
I didn't really realise thatI'd made it public and that
anyone could make a comment onit, but it sort of sparked a
little bit of a oh, people wantto watch what I'm doing.
So the next time I went huntingI tried to film a little bit
more purposefully, trying to getdeer on camera and all the rest

(34:28):
of it.
But literally I was using mybinoculars with my camera shoved
onto the lens, just holding itand shaking it, and if you go
back through my content, youwill find those videos where the
live deer footage is reallyshaky and it's purely because
I'm holding my phone to a pairof binoculars to try and zoom in

(34:49):
on the deer.
And then, yeah, a lot of peoplejust said, oh, mate, you need a
better camera.
So I actually went, oh well, ohstuff, this, I'll go buy a
decent camera.
And that's where the youtubestarted.
Um, and then, persistently,once I started putting up some
good content, I constantly wasgetting requests to take people

(35:13):
hunting and for years I justsaid, no, no, it's not what I do
.
No, I hunt with my mates.
I'm not doing that because Idid have a bad experience as a
guide which might be a story foryou actually as being a guide,
unpaid.

Speaker 3 (35:28):
Do it now.

Speaker 1 (35:34):
But yeah, so I just got to the point where I
couldn't keep saying no to allthese requests and I thought,
well, I should try and start abusiness on the side, you know.
But when I looked into it theinsurance of it all and the
setting up was quite expensive Ijust went oh, I don't think

(35:54):
there's that much interest.
So I actually made a video andat the end of the video I sat
against a tree in the rain Ireckon it was and I said hey,
everyone, I'm thinking aboutdoing this, but I need support.
As in, are you guys going toactually pay money to come with
me, or is it just the odd personhere and there that sort of

(36:15):
talks about it but never putstheir hand in the pocket?
The response was prettyoverwhelming just the odd person
here and there that sort oftalks about it but never puts
their hand in the pocket.
The response was prettyoverwhelming.
So it was a pretty easy decisionto start the business on the
side as a weekender, whichquickly turned into out of
control.
Here we are, three years along,pretty much full time.
Yeah, so I didn't intend tostart the business, I didn't

(36:38):
intend to start a youtubechannel.
It happened sort of what youwould call organically, I
suppose I I didn't have anypreconceived ideas of where I
was heading, it just happened Iwrote down three things where
you're talking then, and none ofthem matter, because you want
to hear your dirty guide story.

Speaker 2 (36:57):
Oh yeah, you want to hear your dirty guide story.

Speaker 1 (36:58):
Yeah, you want to hear the dirty guide story.
As long as the person'sprobably not listening.
No, I'm pretty sure, I'm prettysafe there.

Speaker 2 (37:03):
Oh, they just interest me, because I've done
my thing, so here we go, sostrap in.

Speaker 1 (37:10):
So this was an idea of a bloke I was hunting with at
the time.
He was just mad into swap hunts, like he just wanted to hunt
all over the world, but hedidn't really want to pay, so he
was.
He's his.
His skills in finding people toswap hunts with is quite
amazing.

(37:30):
Actually he had the gift of thegab, I suppose, anyway.
So he sucked a lot of people in.
So Christoph from Germany wasour editor for a hunting
magazine over there.
He spoke broken English.
He was probably about early 30s, a little bit overweight,

(37:55):
probably about five foot sixtall.
He came over to Australia to doa little bit of hunting as a
swap for for this bloke that Iwas hunting with at the time.
So the bloke organized, uh,some hunting for in queensland,
I think, pigs, chittle don'tknow if he did reds, but I know
he did pigs and chittle.
And then he came down tovictoria to experience
victoria's Samba High Countrybackpack style, and I was

(38:23):
arranged to take them in becauseI had a really good backpacking
spot at the time where we couldpretty much confidently
guarantee a stag of somedescription.
So here we are.
Day one we drive up really earlyin the morning I was trying to
remember if she was in the carwith me or not.
I think I was.
So we took two vehicles.

(38:44):
My mate and his wife came andKristoff, I think they went in
the one car and then I justdrove up on my own for some
reason and anyway.
So we start fighting in thedark, so headlamping it in.
We've got a big long descentinto camp and we'd been walking
for probably half an hour beforeit started to crack daylight.

(39:04):
So clearly Christoph had noidea past 30 metres or 20 metres
from his headlight being wherehe was heading.
And we start to be able to sortof see a bit because it's
cracking daylight.
He pulls up and he goes.
So where are we going?
And he spoke in English and I'mlike can you see the river way

(39:25):
down there?
And he goes yeah, I said sowe've got to go to the river and
then we've got to go along theriver a bit and then we've got
to go over one hill and camp'sup there.
And he just laughed and wentyeah, whatever sort of thing.
He obviously thought I wasjoking.
So we kept walking down theridge.
Another hour went by and he'slike now, seriously, where are
we going?
I said, oh, you can see it abit better now.

(39:45):
So see where the river is.
That's that hill there.
We've got to go over that hill.
And he goes no, seriously,where are we going?
I said that's where we're going, mate, he goes today.
I said, yeah, today, you know,we had five days of honey Anyway
, so that was all good.
But we get down to the riverflats and it's easy going along

(40:05):
the river flats, so we're justpoking along the river.
But we get to this hill rightand we're talking about it's a
pretty good grade hill, you know, 35, 40 degrees up, but it's
not a long climb.
But he doesn't know that.
So you know, it's my spot.
I know the challenges thatwe've got.
He's just along for the ride.

(40:26):
But going up the hill he startssort of huffing and puffing and
whinging a bit.
So we haven't had a bit of abreak.
And he goes oh, how muchfurther.
You know, like the typical, howmuch further questions that you
get when someone's sort of hadenough.
Oh, I said, mate, sandy, we'vegot to go to the top of this
hill and then we've got to cutacross the gully and we're there

(40:47):
, you know, and anyway.
So we take off back up the hilland meanwhile my mate and his
wife had sort of dropped backand gone to glass from a
different reach and I was takingChristoph in the camp and they
were just going to sort of do abit of scouting for us.
So I've got Christoph on my ownanyway.
So I take off up the hill andsort of you know, went for a few

(41:10):
minutes and I went, oh, I can'thear him.
So I stopped and turned aroundand he's not there.
I'm like, oh shit, where is he?
So I'm sort of walked back downthe hill a little bit and I'm
sort of listening and I'm going,oh, I can hear him walk through
the bush over there.
So I called out a couple oftimes.
Anyway, he sort of called outbut didn't come to me.
So I went down to him and saidChristoph, we've got to go up
this way, mate.

(41:30):
He goes no, we can't do that.
Like, this gets really thickand steep and nasty.
We've got to go up and aroundit.
It's the only way.
And he's like, oh, all right,and so off, I go back up the
hill 30 seconds.
I turn back around and I cansee him walking off the same way
that he was walking before.
So I go back down.
I said, christoph, yeah, yeah,yeah, he goes.

(41:51):
What I said hill mate.
So at this stage he's notlistening to me at all.
Basically he's just off on hisown little path, which he
doesn't even know where he'sgoing.
So anyway, I eventuallyconvince him to go up the hill
again, anyway.
So I'm going up the hill and Iknow that I can hear him turn
off, he's just gone and he'sgone contouring the hill again

(42:12):
Anyway.
So I pulled up for a bit andhe'd gone in this real nasty
spot and actually fallen over,sort of rolled down the hill a
little bit and got himself stuckagainst a tree like a turtle on
his back sort of thing, and Icould hear him sort of scream
out a bit.
So I went down there and pulledthe backpack off him and got
him up on his feet again andhe's like I can't go up the hill
anymore.
And I'm like all right, give meyour rifle, I'll take that bit

(42:36):
of weight off you, that'll getyou going.
So I've got my backpack, myrifle, his rifle.
We start back up the hill againand he just basically lays down
on me.
He goes, I can't do it.
I said what, righto?
I said what do you got in thatpack?
I said just give me that pack.
By this stage I'd lost it, right.
But I was trying to keep mycalm.
So I took his backpack off andI put it on the front of me like

(43:00):
a front bum bag, right.
So I've got my backpack on hisbackpack, on back to front.
His gun, my gun.
He's got nothing.
I said come on, christoph,we're just going to go up the
hill here, cut across the galleyand we'll be into camp.
We're like 500 metres away fromcamp and he still couldn't keep
up with me and like I had Idon't know what 40 or 50 kilos
of gear on and he had nothingAnyway.

(43:22):
So eventually, long story short,I get him in the camp and he
just lays down in the fetalposition in the campsite while I
set up the tents and the tarpsand get out all the, because I
had barrels stashed in there.
And then I started weighing andthinking oh, he must be
dehydrated.
So I said to him you've got tosit up, I need to get some water

(43:43):
in here.
He goes, I'm not thirsty.
I said you just need to drink,mate.
And I said I want you to eatthis Mars bar.
So eventually I convinced himto have a big drink and a Mars
bar.
He was complaining about a bigheadache, so I give him some
Panadol.
I said I want you to go and laydown in the tent and just have
a good rest.
It was early afternoon.
I said no, I'm going to go downand have a look for a deer.

(44:05):
You just have a couple of hoursof sleep.
So I go down the end and I'll bebuggered if I didn't spot this
nice stag across the river.
You know a fair distance off,but you know.
So.
You know a fair distance off,but you know somewhere where we
could go.
So I'd run all the way back tothe camp, get him out of the
tent like, wake up, christoph,wake up, get your stuff, let's
go.
And he'd probably had an hour'ssleep so he was actually primed

(44:28):
up.
So you know, the Mars bar'skicked in the headache's gone
because of the Panadol.
He's grabbed his gun and he'srun down with me and we get down
to the spot and I don't know ifyou've ever had people where
you glass up an animal but youcan't for the life of you get
them to see it.
You tell them it's next to thatgum tree that's leaning to the

(44:49):
right, it's up from the blackstump.
You do all the little jogs totry and get someone to see it
and he could see this deer.
I said just forget about thedeer, the deer's a good one, I
can see it, let's go.
He goes.
So where is it?
I said so, across the river.
See where that big rock bluffis.

(45:10):
I said he's below that, there.
He goes Across there.
I said, yeah, yeah, he goes,I'm not going over there.
I'm not going over there.
I'm like, well, what are youhere for?
He goes nah, not doing it andstarts walking back to camp.
So I'm like, yeah, right, so wewalk back to camp and we're
just sitting there and he's justsort of sulking and I'm just
thinking, well, how am I goingto get this bloke a deer?

(45:32):
I said, righto, it's right atdeer o'clock, we've just got to
go for a walk somewhere.
I said, come on, I'll take youup here.
It's nice and gentle, there'sno big hills.
So we go around, cut throughthree or four little gully heads
and we get to this rock bluffand I said we'll just sit here
and we'll just look across thereand I'll be buggered if a hind

(45:56):
doesn't walk straight out andwith this little stag just
following her, like a littledummy, he's like a little
four-point, about 14 inches long.
I said, christoph, there you go, that's your stag, shoot him.
And he looks at me, he goes.
Not very big.
I said, it's bigger than theone you've got.
And he's like you want me toshoot it.

(46:17):
I said, shoot this one.
He goes.
What if we see a bigger one.
I said you can shoot a biggerone, shoot this one, you've got
one.
Then you see, you see a biggerone, you shoot it as well.
So anyway, I've got my rifle,he's got his rifle, he lines up.
Luckily, I was sort of on theball and ready to go, because
his shot was about second lastrib on a perfectly broadside

(46:38):
deer.
It spun around to take off andI just went whack and actually
hit it in the hips and droppedhim and so I yelled out shoot
him again.
And so he shot him in the chest.
The second shot dropped it.
It was all good.
I was going yeah, good shot,and he goes.
No, no, you, good shot me, goodshot me, bad shot.
I'm going, ah, it doesn'tmatter, you shot at first, it's

(46:58):
all good.
So we go over there and um didthe happy video photos for the
magazine and the story, you know, and all the rest of it, carved
him up, took back straps andthe little tiny head, you know.
So he's carrying it out, um,you know, over his shoulders
like you do.
But by this stage you know it'stwilight, you don't need a

(47:22):
headlamp.
But you know we need to getgoing so that we can get back to
camp before it gets dark.
So I was sort of pushing a bitand I've got long legs and he
doesn't.
And anyway, I sort of pushedout pretty quick and I turned
around and he's cutting aroundthe top of the hill.
He's not following me down theridge.
I said, hey, christoph, youneed to come down here, mate,
and follow me.
And he goes no, no, camp's thisway.

(47:43):
I'm like mate, I've beenhunting this spot for 10 years.
I'm pretty sure I know wherecamp is.
You need to come down here,anyway.
So he comes down to me and theis going up there.
Every time I took off he wenthis own way and so I had to
chase after him and bring himback.
Like, like a, like a mongreldog, really like didn't want to
follow me anyway.

(48:04):
Oh, just just horrendous.
Anyway, now I've got the shitson with him again.
So I've just taken off and I'vejust thought he'll either
follow me or he won't.
Anyway, he was following methis time.
Anyway, I'm smashing down thisridge and then we get to these
little.
There's about three gully headsthat have been eroded with some

(48:25):
heavy rain, so they're aboutmaybe a metre wide, but they're
also like a metre and a halfdeep and I didn't think.
I just walked and just took onelong step and went over it
right and kept going and I justhear this almighty thud and then
this death scream and I've gone.

(48:48):
Oh no, he's gone in thatcrevice and he's broken a leg.
He's done something, you know.
So I race back and it's righton dark.
So I'm like shit, where is he?
And right in the bottom of thiswashed out gully, here's
Christoph, ass up that.
He had literally not seen it.

(49:08):
So he had taken a mid-air stepinto a metre and a half deep
crevice and he was just theright side the right angle to
headbutt the other side of the.
Yeah, just headbutted it becausehe had his hands on the antlers
.
So he's basically headbuttedthe bank on the other side,
fallen into the crevice.
The antler has scraped hischeek and he's put a hand out on

(49:33):
a rock and he's got this hugeflap of skin just flapping in
the wind on the palm of his hand, probably twice the size of a
50 cent piece or something.
And I'm like you know, can youstand up?
Have you got broken arms, legs?
And I'm sort of just feelingaround on him.
I'm like, no, I think you'reall good.
I said, but that flap of skinmate just got to grab it right

(49:55):
now because it only had about 10mil of skin holding on.
I'm like just grab it and just,well, right now, just rip it
off.
And he's like no, no, no.
I'm like, yeah, just grab itand just rip it off.
That's the best thing to do.
He's like no.
So I grabbed his hand to do itfor him because I just figured

(50:16):
if I do it real quick he won'tfeel a thing.
And he pulled his hand back asquick as he could.
You know he was like no, notdoing that.
And I said, roddy, we'll haveto just get back to camp and
we'll bandage you up.
So we put the headlamps on, weget back into camp.
Luckily, our mate's missus wasa training nurse at the time, so

(50:38):
she's got out her first aid kit, she's in her element, she's
got the betadine and there's,you know, she's sterilized it
all, she's patched him up.
That was all good basically.
You know that was the end ofthat night, basically a feed
into bed, and he was pretty sadand sore about it.
You know, the next day, so we'rein there for five days, that's
day one.
Right next day I'm like I saidto me mate, he's yours, I'm out

(51:02):
of here.
So daylight I just took offacross the river, smashed up
this massive big hill and wentway upstream like I was just
gone right.
And then we used to sort ofcall in on the uhf radio every
couple of hours or something.
About lunchtime I get this calland say hey, zed, where are you
?
I'm like, oh, mate, I'm wayupstream.
I'm this big bluff miles away.

(51:23):
He goes oh, christoph wants togo home.
I said, oh yeah, no worries,well, we'll pack out in the
morning.
And he goes no, no, he wants togo now I said, well, it's like
a five-hour hike out of here.
It's lunchtime and I said I'm atleast an hour and a half, two

(51:43):
hours hike away.
He's like, yeah, well, he saidhe's not staying another night
and he's walking out.
I said, yep, righto, all right.
I said, well, you start packingup camp now.
I'm going to smash off thishill and like back in those days
I would have been like mid-20scould fly in the bush.
So I'll come off this hill fromprobably elevation of 1200 down
to like 400 in about 45 minutes, just flying off the hill,

(52:09):
didn't even take my boots offacross the river, just smashed
across the river straight up thehill to camp.
I get into camp and they're alljust sitting on a log eating
lunch and so I just full flippedout, didn't say nothing because
it was all my gear.
I just destroyed the tent, justshoved it in the barrel, got
the tart, rolled it up as roughas I could, packed up all the

(52:30):
stuff and you know they sort ofcottoned on that.
I wasn't really impressed.
I said, right, let's go.
And Christophe got his pack andI grabbed his pack off him
before he put it on his shoulderand I turned it upside down and
I emptied it and so he had likea camel pack in there with
about a litre of water and hehad all his camping gear and all

(52:51):
that.
I got his puffer jacket andshoved it back in there and gave
him the backpack.
I said that's yours.
I got all his camping gear.
I shoved it all in my backpack.
I got his rifle and so I had aI think they said an herbal
stock with the gunslinger.
So I shoved his gun in thegunslinger, had my gun over the
shoulder.
We're out of here.

(53:13):
We've got from this spot.
We've got like four and a halfhour hike back to the car at my
pace, right, and we've gotChristoph.
So back down off the hill alongthe flats and then we've got
this two-hour climb up this hilland I honestly think we can
still see the river flats.
When he said how much furtherwe got to go, I said yeah, we

(53:34):
got a fair bit further to go,mate.
We'd go another 20 metres andhe'd go.
How much further have we got togo?
And I put up with it four orfive times.
And then I just turned aroundand I said to him Christoph, can
you see my, can you?
And he's like no.
I said well, we're not thereyet.

(53:56):
Are we Like?
If you can't see me, we're notthere yet.
Are we like, if you can't seeme, you, we're not there yet?
Yes, and it didn't stop.
How much further?
I kept laying down, sittingdown.
Anyway, we're halfway up thishill and I look down the valley
and the weather comes from frombelow the valley usually, and I
look and I can see thissnowstorm coming and I'm like,
fuck, we were trying to get upthe hill, I'm all sweaty.

(54:19):
So I stopped and I put my rainjacket on, getting gloves out,
and they're all like what areyou doing?
I said have a look at what'scoming.
It's going to be here in 10minutes.
Better to put your gear on nowso you don't get wet and
freezing cold.
Anyway, christoph's like nowI'm hot, I don't want to put my

(54:39):
jacket on, and I couldn'tconvince him to put it on anyway
.
So we start walking up the hilland it starts.
Sleep first, just and windstraight in your face or hitting
your face, hurting your face.
I turned around and said youneed to put that jacket on, mate
, you're gonna get hypothermia.
And he's like no, no, no.
I said I explained to him.
You know, hypothermia, you'lldie.
He goes what is thishypothermia that you speak of?

(55:01):
This is how he's talking to meand I'm like mate, what's going
to happen is you're going to getreally, really warm, then
you're going to take off allyour clothes, then you're going
to run off into the bush andyou're going to die nude in the
bush somewhere.
So then, all of a sudden, he'sgot his puff jacket on.
Anyway, we're going up the hilland he's still doing this.
You know how much further, howmuch further?
And I just turned around andlooked at me, mate, and I went

(55:24):
see you, he's yours.
And so I turned and I went upthe hill and I just put my head
down, had my hood over, it wasstarting to go dark, so I had my
headlamp on, kept going andit's snowing on us and I just
thought I just can't deal withhim anymore.
I'm walking out on my ownanyway.
So I put my head down by my andI'm punching up this hill and I

(55:45):
probably went for threequarters of an hour with not
even a single stop, like justpumping it up this big hill like
this.
And I eventually popped up offthe ridge and it jumped onto a
4b track and I got to one of therun-offs there, where they
divert the water off the track,and I just stopped for a second
and something bumped into me andI went bloody hell, what's that

(56:07):
?
I turned around and it was oldmate's missus and I said oh,
what are you doing?
And she goes to me.
Oh, I couldn't stand anotherminute with that bloke and when
I saw you take off I justthought I'm going to stick on
your ass and go with you.
So that whole time she'd justbeen hammering along behind me.
I didn't even know she wasthere For 45 minutes.

(56:27):
She was one step behind me thewhole time and I said where's
Christophe?
And old mate she goes.
I don't know, I don't know, Idon't care, let's keep going.
So we end up back at thevehicle and we end up just
cranking the vehicle up becauseof the snow, had the heater on
and we were having a few beerswhile we waited for him to come
up and it took him an hour and ahalf to catch up to us.

(56:48):
That was my guiding story fromhell that I remember walking out
of there going.
I'll never be a hunting guidein my life because of that one
time.
Anyway, here I am, probably 15,20 years later.
Luckily, I haven't had anyclients like that since You've

(57:09):
probably learned a lot sincethen.

Speaker 2 (57:11):
Yeah, I've learned how to deal with people Right at
the start of that story yousaid something and you said long
story short.
Yeah, we're 56 minutes in yetwe haven't covered any Samba
topics.
That was a long story short.
I'd love to hear the longversion one day, with a couple
of beers, I'm sure there wassome more.
I'd like to read Christoph'sstory to see how he spun that

(57:34):
into a decent hunting story,maybe.
I think that, well, I know thetitle of the story would have
been Kristoff was pissed off orsomething, but I'm sure it would
have.

Speaker 1 (57:52):
I don't think he planned on telling that to Samba
no.

Speaker 2 (57:58):
No, no, but he got his stag and look, he's shot
more Samba than I have yeah well, there you go.
A couple of things for peoplelistening yeah, yeah, you did
your job as a guide.
Swap hunts are dangerous.
I highly advise people don't godown that path, and the reason

(58:20):
is there's always someone whofeels like they got a better
deal absolutely and there'salways the other person who
feels like they got, they gotshorted and my.
This is off topic, but mytheory in business is if you
sell a hunt for three thousanddollars and I sell one for
three,000 and you want to swapme, well, you swap me, you give
me $3,000 and then when I cometo do yours, I'll give you

(58:43):
$3,000.
It's the same thing.
But what happens is, if nomoney has transacted and changed
hands, you'll come on your partof the deal and then COVID hits
and it's three or four yearslater and I want to come on my
part of the deal and your hunt'sworth more yeah, oh yeah, you
know you don't have accessanymore and I'm like well, you
know, I did my part.
Where's you know?
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, that'svery so.

(59:06):
Anyway, side topic, but guidingsucks.
Uh, I've said this before one ofthe last clients I had.
He taught me this years ago.
He said guiding without clientsis just a walk in the bush like
a walk in the park.
And you know he meant it, youknow proverbially speaking and
you know metaphorically,whatever and factually.

(59:27):
But if you don't have a clientyou're literally just walking
around in the bush.
But guiding, it takes a special.
Everyone thinks they can be ahunting guide, but it's dealing
takes a special.
Everyone thinks they can be ahunting guide, but it's dealing
with those situations that sortof cut the wheat from the chaff
and it's more.
I'm a pretty good people person,but when I was working overseas
, that the bosses and things Iwas working for definitely it's.

(59:50):
Um, when I was working overseas, the bosses knew my personality
and they paired me with clientsthat suited them Ah yeah,
Because I wasn't suited so wellto the high maintenance, really
needy guys, Whereas I seemed toget paired with the guys who
were maybe high value as far asfinancial value whatnot worth

(01:00:12):
something but they were prettykeen to get in and wash dishes
and have a good time.
Yeah, they weren't expecting tobe waited on hand and foot.
Yeah, and they were some of the.
They were some of the besttrips.
But uh, I want to.
We'll get back to the guidingand where you're heading in the
next couple of days in a littlebit.
But you're on here to talkabout samba.

(01:00:35):
I have never hunted samba.
Just then, you've spoken aboutmore samba than I've ever seen
in my life in one trip withpissed, pissed off christoph.
But you know I'm a flatlandhunter.
We hunt fallow up here, uh,goats pretty regularly and
whatnot.
I've done, obviously, doneoverseas things and whatnot.
But the samba, why are they?

(01:00:57):
Why do they hold this esteem atthe top of the triangle, here,
at the top of the peak inAustralia, as such a coveted
species?
What is the attraction?
Why are they premier game andall?
Keep it short.

Speaker 1 (01:01:12):
We've got a thousand questions for you.
This will probably touch alittle bit on why thermals erode
this.
So samba have had for a longtime like a mystique about them
that they ghost the high countryright, so they can ghost in and
ghost out just as quickly.

(01:01:33):
You can be looking at a sambaand then it can vanish and you
think it's just there, but it'snot.
Um, they blend into theirenvironment so well for such a
big animal.
They can be so quiet.
They can just vanish.
Um, and that's why, with thethermal, that that takes that

(01:01:54):
away from them.
So what, what they have as apremier game animal is removed
by the technology.
That's all I'm going to say onthat.
But, samba, so when you compareto other deer species, so what
we've got available to us here?
So fallow deer, red deer sofallow deer to me are sheep, red

(01:02:16):
deer are cattle.
That's how you hunt them.
They congregate in groups.
They are vocal.
During their rut or their roar.
They really tend to like opencountry.
Now, farm fringe samba deer areexactly the same as those
groups of deer, so you can putthem in the same pile.
Samba deer on farm fringe,congregating groups.

(01:02:39):
They're not vocal, but theyconcentrate on those food
sources open paddocks, clover,improved pasture so private land
, farm fringe Samba.
I put them in the same bracketas fallow and red deer in their
natural habitat.
But when you go public land,forest deer is what I've sort of

(01:03:01):
been calling them recently asan explanation as to what they
are.
So deer that don't have accessto any improved pasture or you
know, basically anythingman-made, they're just a deer
that do not over populate.
Uh, I hunt an area that mostpeople would probably consider

(01:03:22):
to be one of the highestpopulation river systems in
victoria, potentially, but evenstill, over 20 odd years of
hunting that that river system,their population, has never
exploded.
It's never got to a point whereit's like, oh my god, this is
so easy.
It's always a challenge.
Even though you might see, um,good numbers of deer over x

(01:03:46):
amount of days, uh, it it'snever got to a point where it's
like they're a feral animal thathave just gone out of control.
Because what I find with salmonis they have this natural
ability and it's probably a lotto do with how they've dispersed
from Melbourne Kooriwrap swampsall the way to the Queensland
border is they have this naturaldispersion about them, where

(01:04:08):
when Dad and I, when I wasyounger, dad used to talk about
back in the 90s and the 80s orthe 90s when I was started
hunting, and the early 2000sthere were areas that you could
still go and hunt where therewas no deer.
There was no Samba deer there.
Yet All those areas are filledwith deer now, but back then you
could go and hunt areas aroundBurnambra and sort of further

(01:04:32):
east of naturally, whereeveryone sort of was going to
hunt them.
You can go and find areas, big,big areas, with no sand to be
in them.
So they tend to have thisthree-year push where the
numbers tend to build to a pointand then they just disperse.
So another way I used to sortof look up, do you think?

Speaker 2 (01:04:56):
that's the stags dispersing.

Speaker 1 (01:04:58):
No, that's everything .
So, young stags, definitelybecause of new territory.
Sorry, I cut you off theremid-question.
No, you're right.
So yeah, that dispersion is anatural thing for sandbar and
that's why they've been able toinhabit all of the great

(01:05:18):
dividing range, all the way upthe coast, you know, and they're
starting to mingle with, youknow, rusa and everything up on
the south coast of new southwales and all the rest of it,
all through kosciuszko.
Whereas other deer species hogdeer, they haven't, fallow deer,
only through farm releases.
Red deer, the same Chittle deer, have not moved within, you

(01:05:41):
know, 100 kilometres of theirhome range for 100 years.
You know what I mean, whereassamba have moved thousands of
kilometres from their originalrelease sites.

Speaker 2 (01:05:53):
So with the forest deer, Are you any in your
studies and things?
Have you found that that issomething that's happened in
their home range, being in deeras well, or is that just
something they've adapted tohere in Australia because
they've been plonked and thenhad the ability to spread?

Speaker 1 (01:06:08):
Yeah, I'll be honest with you, I'm not a.
I don't ever look into thescientific side of things.
I'm a hunter.
I'm interested in hunting.
I don't go into specifics ofyou know like I don't try to
work out genetics.
I'm sort of interested in deerhabitat and how to kill them.

(01:06:31):
And if it doesn't end up, ifthe information I'm trying to
learn isn't about how to killthem, I'm not interested.
I'm not someone.
I don't a lot of people say, oh,you learn more from a live deer
.
Well, if you don't kill enoughdeer, then you don't know how to
kill them.
You've got to kill a lot ofdeer before you learn what you

(01:06:54):
can and can't do.
You know.
It's easy for someone to say,oh, you learn a lot of data
before you learn what you canand can't do, you know.
It's easy for someone to say,oh, you learn a lot more from a
lot of data.

Speaker 2 (01:07:00):
Oh no, I want to.
Uh, I want to ask you aquestion.
We we started this thing acouple of weeks ago on the
podcast, where we're calling ita hat or a hunt.
Basically, people send inquestions uh, they can be for
specific guests of the past,because people don't know what
I've got coming up, or specifictopics.

(01:07:21):
Uh, send in a question throughthe website and ask a couple.
I was going to ask a couple perepisode, but I've had that many
come in this.
I think 45 or so over atwo-week period.
I'm just gonna have to do anepisode with someone answering
questions just to get throughthem, otherwise I won't get that
many asked, but I've pulled outtwo well, pulled out two samba

(01:07:43):
related questions for youtonight and then another one
that have come through, uh,hunting related, and I'll cover
those.
And at the end of it you get topick the best question and the
the person who you think had thebest question wins a hat.
And at the end of the year Ihaven't decided whether that's
going to be fiscal year orbecause I've only just started
this thing or um calendar yearyou go in the draw to win a hat,

(01:08:05):
I win a hunt, and that's thatcomes out of everyone, not just
the questions that are asked.
So send through your questions.
And on the topic of what youjust spoke about, then this
comes in from Tom D I would liketo know more about specific
browsing plant species thatSamba like in a forest, other
than improved pasture and fringecountry, which you just spoke

(01:08:25):
about, them being like cattle.

Speaker 1 (01:08:27):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:08:29):
So what are they browsing on, and does it matter?

Speaker 1 (01:08:32):
So yeah, so to be honest with you, I don't know
the scientific botanical namesof any of the plants.
They eat Dogwood I know theyeat, but that's just like a
common one.
Look, they're a browser.
So, depending on what'savailable to them.
As to you know, have you everheard that a goat will eat

(01:08:52):
anything?
Well, only if you stake it tothe ground it'll eat everything
that it can get to.
But if you let a goat roamit'll eat the clover first, and
if it eats the clover it'll onlyeat clover.
It won't go eating brancheswhen it has access to good stuff
Sambar are the same.
So if they have access toimproved pasture, bulk of their

(01:09:13):
food is going to come from there.
But they also have the abilityto browse.
So the forest deer areconstantly browsing, you know,
at head height, or sometimesI've seen them reaching to pull
branches down.
They're quite clever at evenusing their antlers to sort of
snap willow branches off tobring them down to eat the new

(01:09:36):
fresh shoots of willow branchblackberry bushes.
They don't so much eat thefruit but they eat the fresh
growth of the blackberry bush.
But like I sort of said to youearlier, I could take you
through the bush and show youall the plants that have been
browsed by Samba.
I could not tell you hardly anyof their names, because to me

(01:09:59):
it's unimportant.
It's probably interesting to alot of people to know the names
of these bushes.
It might make you feel smartwhen you're teaching a young
person, but I normally just goto kids that I'm you know, my
kids or people that I've gotguiding with me.
I'm like see this, this hasbeen eaten by a deer.
And they usually ask mestraight away what's the name of

(01:10:21):
that plant?
And I go I've got no ideabecause it doesn't help me kill
deer.
It's interesting to know thatthe deer has browsed it, but
what does it tell you?
So you got to look at deer sign, as it's a um, it's a past
record of what's happened inthat area.
So, yes, a deer walked alonghere once upon a time and it

(01:10:41):
chewed the top off this bush.
What does that tell you?
To me, it tells me there was adeer here once.
All right, so I know there's adeer here.
What do I do now?
I stop looking at the browsesign.
I start looking for a deer.
I need to find the deer.
That's what I'm there for.
I'm not there to find the rubs.
I'm not there to find thewallows.
I'm not there to find thefootprints.
I'm there to find a deer.
Deer sign in general tells youhas happened and how recently

(01:11:14):
it's happened.
But, in all honesty, onceyou've gathered enough
information from that sign, nowyour job is to find the deer.
And unless you're going totrack it footstep by footstep
which no one does anymore, bythe way um, then the sign on the
ground or the browse sign orthe rub tree or the wallow is
irrelevant.
You know the deer are therebecause you found all that.
Now you need to find the deer.

(01:11:35):
So, binoculars, looking slow,stalking, training your eyes in
to find deer.
So, to answer the question,deer will eat nearly anything.
In a drought, I've seen themeat the moss off rocks.
I have seen them eat sticks andbark, and in a drought their've
seen them eat the moss offrocks.
I have seen them eat sticks andbark and in a drought, their
poo changes from green to brownbecause of how much bark and

(01:11:55):
sticks they're eating.
So they survive through eatinganything they can.
But in a good time they eatgood stuff.

Speaker 2 (01:12:05):
I hope that answers that question.
No, I think that was a greatanswer and it reminds me me
something that happened to me alittle while ago.
I've spent majority of my lifehunting private in australia and
I was, you know, hanging aroundwith some people that I
probably shouldn't anymorebecause they just like hunting.
You know our license huntingI'm, I'm, you know, I'll stick

(01:12:26):
to my private land friends.
But they, they wanted me to goout on this public land hunt and
they're all looking for sign.
And I don't look for signbecause I know I have deer on my
property.
I'm looking for the deer and Ithink, like I don't want to
discount the public land systemin New South Wales and the R
license stuff, but a lot of theforests we have up here there's

(01:12:48):
deer in them, them, but there'slarge sections of that where
there is no deer or just becauseof the forestry operations and
things like that.
So it's definitely useful tosay, hey, um, that none of those
footprints are fresh within thelast month because forestry
operations are happening righthere.
Let's move to another areabecause, like you're saying,

(01:13:09):
there's no, all you're doing issaying, yeah, that's a, that's
some history, but it's oldhistory, so get out of this area
, let's go somewhere relevant?

Speaker 1 (01:13:15):
is it?
Yeah?

Speaker 2 (01:13:16):
yeah, it's, uh, so no , I think that was a.
That was a good answer.
Second question come from bow w.
And what do we got here?
There's a lot of.
I'm just going to read it wordfor word and we'll see what
happens.
There's a lot of sand, butcountry has been burnt from
bushfires over the last fewyears.
What are some tips or tricksfor being successful in a

(01:13:39):
heavily burnt out area?
Now, I've been in some pastburnt out areas and I think what
Beau's referencing isunfortunately, the undergrowth
disappears and the side of treesgrow out and you can hardly see
a thing.
Yep, that's common.

Speaker 1 (01:13:55):
So you get what's called epicormic growth.
So I do know some scientificstuff.

Speaker 2 (01:13:59):
I was going to say don't discount yourself.

Speaker 1 (01:14:01):
Yeah, so my dad worked in the bush all his life
and had become an arborist lateron in life, so I did learn a
few little things about treesand become an arborist later on
in life.
So I did learn a few littlethings about trees.
So when a bushfire comesthrough, obviously it devastates
the bush, depending on the burn, I suppose.
But that 2019 fire did a prettygood job of clearing out all

(01:14:25):
the scrub and whatnot, and sothen you're left with a lot of
just burnt sticks, but quitequickly the Australian bush goes
into survival mode, which isepicormic growth out of the
trunks to give the tree time toregrow its canopy.
If it hasn't died in the fireitself, it can survive through
that epicormic growth.

(01:14:46):
For that period of time it takesto get the canopy back in the
heads, through that epicormicgrowth, for that period of time
it takes to get the canopy backin the heads.
So to answer the question withthe burnt country is,
unfortunately and he's not goingto like this answer probably.
You have a very short windowfrom when a fire goes through to
when it's unhuntable, and it'susually about 18 months, two

(01:15:07):
years, but that period isusually exceptional hunting
because of the growth because ofthe feed they've got and
because the trees, yeah, theysprout out from the base.
But generally you can sort ofsee in between until the
undergrowth sort of grows up,and then you get to a point

(01:15:29):
where you just can't see them atall.

Speaker 2 (01:15:32):
So I've hunted country.

Speaker 1 (01:15:32):
Would you suggest that?

Speaker 2 (01:15:36):
Sorry, would you suggest that those areas are
still heavily populated, but wecan't see them and maybe if we
find in that burn zone maybe apocket or a hillside that didn't
get burnt and still has somenatural unburnt that it'd be
worth focusing on.

Speaker 1 (01:15:51):
Yeah.
So basically what I try toteach people in any sort of
mentoring that I do, or huntereducation, is don't hunt the
deer, hunt the terrain.
So you know, when you'relooking for a new spot or you
know an area to hunt A, you'vegot to look for that browse sign

(01:16:12):
, the footprints, the rubs, thewallows to determine whether
there's deer there or not and ifthey're in numbers that are
worthwhile pursuing, right.
So you walk into an area andyou're determined yep, we've got
wallows, we've got rubs, we'vegot browse sign, we've got
footprints.
We've got droppings good, we'vegot deer T rubs.
We've got browse sign.
We've got footprints.
We've got droppings good, we'vegot deer.

(01:16:34):
Tick, right, this is a goodspot, yeah, well, how is it
thick?
Can you?
Can you hunt it?
Is it huntable?
Uh, no, oh, is there heaps ofdeer here?
Yes, well, it's not a place I'dwaste my time on.
So I hunt.
I hunt the terrain more than Ihunt the deer, because if you
just go hunting areas that havebig populations of deer but the
terrain is what I callunhuntable or it's not to your

(01:16:55):
advantage to hunt it, you'llwaste a lot of time.
You can get lucky If there's anexceptional amount of deer in
there you can get lucky.
But say the bush is thick likethis regrowth, you really limit
your possibilities of seeing adeer.
So then you've got to.
Maybe, if you have to huntthose areas, think outside the

(01:17:17):
box, so more ambush style, soreally close range sort of
picking a spot where the deerare moving through.
Maybe you could find that onegully or one, one face that has
some semi-open stuff on it thatyou can look onto.
Concentrate on that.
Tree stand.
Honey in thick country actuallyopens up a fair bit of view.

(01:17:38):
If you can find somewhere tocrawl up a tree 20, 30 feet, you
can actually look down into it.
I've had personal experiencewith tree stand hunting so
that's helped.
But basically I just continuelooking for areas that the
terrain is huntable with anumber of deer in it.

(01:17:59):
That makes it worthwhilehunting there, because when you
get an opportunity you're goingto be able to do it.
You're going to be able to killthat deer.
15 years the bush takes beforeit'll open up again.

Speaker 2 (01:18:15):
The second part of that question.
I think you already covered itthere was.
So this is coming from a guy inNew South Wales.
For the guys travelling fivehours from Sydney to Sambo
country, what would be a usefultip and you've covered it to
avoid wasting precious time onthe weekend when getting away
chasing sambo?
Your first point would be hunton wednesdays and thursdays.

(01:18:37):
Yeah, and I think you knowdoing proper scouting there and
not wasting your time in thethick, the thick burn country.
Yeah, it's another one.
Do you use any online mappingsystem that is up to date, like
can, uh, like with the burn andthings, because Google Earth and
things is not always up to datewith what's been?

Speaker 1 (01:18:55):
done so.
I do use Google Earth, but Iuse it as more of a reference.
So I usually throw it into 3Dmode so I can see the steepness
of the terrain.
I use it for measuring routesin and out so I can go all right
.
It's going to take me fourhours to get to that gully.
Um, because you know a rough, arough estimate on walk times.

(01:19:19):
If it's really hard walkingit's an hour an hour per one and
a half kilometers.
If it's easy going, you knowyou can push it out to two.5 to
4 kilometres an hour If it'sexceptionally good, going 5km an
hour.
So I use Google Maps to look atthe terrain, the steepness, that
kind of thing, but thevegetation side of it it's not

(01:19:41):
accurate enough.
You have to physically go intothe area to find out whether the
vegetation is thick, thin orotherwise.
There's no shortcuts with thatone.
But I've found unless there'ssome sort of other satellite
imaging that I don't know aboutthat's way more accurate and
clear.

(01:20:01):
I don't know, some sort ofmilitary thing might be out
there or some sort of paid thing, but I get constantly asked
about e-scouting or some sort ofpaid thing.
But I get constantly askedabout e-scouting.

Speaker 2 (01:20:10):
I think some of the yeah, some of the paid ones Six
Maps is one of them.
Okay, yeah, so it's abusiness-related one mostly for
city.

Speaker 1 (01:20:25):
So I don't.
A lot of people and this stemsto today's society is people
don't have time, right?
So our mate from Sydney.
He's thinking I've got to drivefor five hours, I've only got
the weekend.
I don't want to waste andthat's the word right, waste any
time.
So he wants to.
Maybe he's looking for ananswer that doesn't exist,

(01:20:49):
because to find good areas tohunt takes lots of time, like
it's taken me 20 years to havefive good spots.
I've hunted hundreds of spotsthat I'd never go back to ever
again, and I think the only wayto really find the good spots is
to be on the ground.
But you wouldn't call it a waste.
No well, that's all part of thejourney.

(01:21:11):
You know, I like to take myclients into good spots, but
every now and again I don't mindthrowing them through a shit
galley, just so they realisethat.
You know, it's not all beer andSkittles, you know all open
nice country, but every now andagain you throw them through a
thick galley.
That's steep and rugged.
That's what it's really about.

Speaker 2 (01:21:32):
The third question for tonight, third question from
other people, and I've stillgot 1,000 to go.
But this comes from Bill F.
It says I've got a lot offriends who only hunt certain
times through the day, likefirst light until 10 am or last
light until 4 pm, whereas I willhunt all day with the same

(01:21:54):
success.
My question is in your opinion,does hunting certain times of
day increase your success?

Speaker 1 (01:22:02):
So that's a good question.
So I've killed a lot of mybeach stags at midday.
Why is that?
It's because I've got to wherethey are by then.
So obviously first light andlast light are fairly active
times for deer.
So the people that only huntthe first few hours of the

(01:22:23):
morning and then come back tocamp and then go and hunt the
last hour of light, they'regoing to be hunting at the times
when deer are most active.
So it's a good strategy.
But if you're trying to optimiseyour time in the bush, then
think about hunting the morninguntil lunchtime, where maybe you

(01:22:48):
can sit down in the bush atthat depth that you've finished
hunting, have lunch, have asiesta if you have to, whatever
maybe spend a couple of hoursjust glassing your face.
You'll be surprised how manydeer you find at lunchtime and
I'll explain why.
And then be somewhere that younormally have to walk into for

(01:23:08):
the afternoon and you're alreadythere.
So you've spent the day in thebush.
But you haven't beenunproductive, sitting at camp
eating biggies and cheese anddrinking a beer or two, because
sometimes that turns intoknockdowning out in the
afternoon.
You know what I mean.

Speaker 2 (01:23:24):
That's right.

Speaker 1 (01:23:24):
So one of the reasons why you can shoot deer at
lunchtime, especially samba deer, is when they do bed down,
which can vary between beddingdown at daylight.
If they're heavily pressured tonot bedding down until 11 or 12
o'clock in the afternoon or inthe late morning, right is when
they sit down, especially ifthey're in steep terrain.

(01:23:46):
They'll sit down, you know,laying one particular weight,
and then after an hour or twothey get stiff and they stand up
and sometimes they just spinaround and they sit the other
way.
It's like you're in bed, youknow, you get sick of sleeping
on this side, you roll over ontothat side, roll onto the other.
Deer are the same.
So if you find a bed of deer atlunchtime, there's a really,

(01:24:12):
really high chance that it willstand up around about two
o'clock, have a small feed,maybe for 10 or 15 minutes, and
then sit down either in the samebed or sometimes, depending on
the time of the year, it mightswitch beds because of the
temperature change.
So it might have been lookingfor sun early in the morning, so
it's sat down somewhere whereit can get the sun and then by

(01:24:33):
two o'clock it's like you knowwhat?
I wouldn't mind some shade.
So it moves around just alittle bit and finds another bed
in the shade.
So it's a really good time tocatch a deer movie when you'd
normally be sitting back in camp.
So I think hunting all day isproductive.
It's more productive in themorning and in the afternoon as

(01:24:55):
far as seeing deer goes.
But I tell you what, if youspot a stag and he's bedded, you
know he's going to be beddedfor the next few hours.
It gives you time to get in onhim and get a shot off, whereas
if you see one late in theafternoon, you've got minutes.
So late afternoon can sometimesbe a bit of a catch-22.
You might see a deer at 500yards and you've only got 10

(01:25:17):
minutes of light left and you'renot prepared to take that shot.
Well, guess what?
You're going back to campempty-handed because you
couldn't get there.
And the same could be true inthe morning.
You might see a deer just rightat first light and it might
sneak off into some thick gullythat you've got no chance at.
So if you find that deer in themiddle part of the day bedded

(01:25:38):
down, there's a really goodchance.
And I've killed quite a lot ofdeer just by finding them in
their beds, because every stepyou take, even if you don't know
they're there but you knowyou're hunting into a bedding
area you're one step closer eachtime.
You know what I mean.

Speaker 2 (01:26:00):
Yeah, in the right place at the right time.
I talk.
When I do my education coursesI usually draw a diagram when
I'm just explaining a verysimilar situation, being X being
camp and if you do a morninghunt loop and come back and then
you're back by 11 o'clock andthen you hang out during the day
and then you do another loopover here in the afternoon
aiming to be back at nighttime,versus that one loop where you

(01:26:22):
come up here and there's yourlunch spot and then you hunt
your way back into the afternoonand evening.
I sort of refrain from sayingone's better than the other
because it depends on situationand temperature and comfort
levels and things, but they'rethe options basically.

Speaker 1 (01:26:40):
They are yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:26:41):
And I personally talking about cheese and bickies
to me.
I learned this when I was sambahunting, unsuccessfully.
The guy I was with, dan was hisname, but he had.
What did he have in hisbackpack?
Cheese and salami cheese andcaponossi, that's all.
He had cube cheese and salamicaponossi, and that was enough

(01:27:03):
to.
You know, he'd have a goodbreakfast and then he'd have a
couple of bits of fruit on theway we sat down.
When we got to X, yeah, I had,I had lunch and he had cheese
and salami.
And then, you know, we huntedour way back, yeah and whatnot,
so back into out of those three.
Well, you can pick out of thosethree questions which one was

(01:27:24):
the better one or the, uh, themost interesting before I go on,
otherwise I'll forget I'm goingto recap them, do?
you remember what?

Speaker 1 (01:27:30):
they were.
So we had the bushfire one andthe browse one.
They're all good actually.

Speaker 2 (01:27:39):
The browsing one, bushfire one and time of hunt.

Speaker 1 (01:27:43):
Oh yeah, I think for viewers, the browsing one,
because a lot of people probablyI know a lot of new hunters get
hung up on deer sign.
So just probably hearing thatyou know once you've found the
sign it's time to give uplooking for sign and start
looking for deer, is probablyone of the little birdie moments

(01:28:03):
that I would have liked to haveheard when I was younger, too,
obsessed with looking at eachrub tree that I went past, tom.

Speaker 2 (01:28:09):
D, you'll be.
I was younger Too, obsessedwith looking at each rub tree
that I went past.
Tom D, you'll be getting a hatheaded your way.
But back to my questions.
Full moon, hunting after a fullmoon Do you care about the moon
?
I do, and if you do, do youthink it makes a difference?

Speaker 1 (01:28:29):
So this is the difference it makes.
If you're a retired hunterwhere you can hunt whenever you
want, the moon makes a massivedifference.
If you're the average Joe Blow,you can't worry about the moon
because you've got to hunt whenyou can.
So I've hunted the moon,biggest moon, I've hunted the
dark moon, no moon and everyother moon phase in between.

(01:28:51):
I've shot deer on every phaseof the moon.
I've seen deer on every phaseof the moon.
But in saying that, if I couldchoose to hunt a moon, it would
be the new moon, the no moon atall.
And the reasons for that aredeer are more active during
daylight hours purely becausethey have night vision, but they

(01:29:14):
can't see without some form oflight moon or stars.
So if you can get a dark nightwith no moon, those deer will be
much more active duringdaylight hours than any any deer
that you hunt when it's a fullmoon.
They just act differently.

Speaker 2 (01:29:34):
So what I've discovered here is we've got
Wednesdays and Thursdays at theno-moon phase is the peak the
pinnacle of salmon hunting.

Speaker 1 (01:29:42):
Do you want the third one?

Speaker 2 (01:29:44):
So talk to me, yeah, go.

Speaker 1 (01:29:47):
What's the trifecta?
We'll get the cloverleaf out.
Well, the trifecta and this isthe most important one cold
fronts.
So if you can get up the bushafter a cold front has come
through, the best honey you'llever have.

Speaker 3 (01:30:08):
I suppose I should say why so?

Speaker 1 (01:30:10):
basically, what we've got is the deer will hunker
down when you've got high winds,cold weather, rain, driving
rain, snow, right.
So they go and hide and whathappens is they get hungry,
tired and cold and when thatweather breaks, they just come
out and they feed head down feedand they're more likely to come

(01:30:30):
out in the open to get the sun.

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Ep. 21 Zeb Jones on hunting Sambar Deer. The Secrets, Misconceptions and Thermal Hunting. PART 1

Cold Case Files: Miami