January 9, 2024 • 52 mins
Accurate Hunts, a life outdoors episode 3
Ron Kiehne joins Dodge from his amazing shed in Glen Innes for an expedition into the world of fox hunting and the intricate art of Fox whistling. Together, we journey back to the days when the fox skin trade was the lifeblood of local economies, discussing the skill required in skinning, and the craftsmanship needed to turn a pelt into a prized possession. Ron's tales from the field bring the past to life, as he blissfully recounts many a nights of remarkable success and shares his wealth of knowledge in the creation of the Silva Fox Whistle.
Venturing beyond the hunt, we dissect the cunning nature of our vulpine subjects, revealing their habits and the environments they thrive in. The call of a fox whistle is a siren song to these creatures, and Ron recounts the strategies and patience required to outwit them. Rons wife, Lynn's role behind the camera is paramount, capturing the essence of these encounters despite her aversion to the limelight. As we navigate the dance of predator and prey, the episode is rich with the wisdom needed for successful hunts and the understanding that each missed shot is a lesson learned for both hunter and fox.
From the sharp crack of a 17 HMR rifle to the hushed excitement of rabbit hunting by moonlight, this episode brims with the raw thrills of the chase and the enduring tales of country marksmanship. We share family stories of precision shooting that would make Annie Oakley tip her hat, and the ripple effects of environmental activism on wildlife management. As we wrap up with a heart-stopping account of an eagle's forceful dive, the episode stands as a testament to the unpredictable beauty of nature and the primal joy found in the pursuit of wildlife. Join us for an auditory adventure that's as close to the wild as you can get without setting foot outside.
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.
Dodge Keir (00:05):
Third episode of Accurate Hunts:
Ron Kiehne (00:08):
With foxes.
They've got two sensors thatare absolutely brilliant.
You can't beat it and that'sthe smell and sight.
We popped up on a rock and hejust popped it and he went that
whistle's loud.
He said where do you get them?
And I said oh, you don't.
I said I make them.
He said you should make themand sell them.
Soon as he goes, puts his noseup like that.
You've got to fire within abouttwo seconds or he's gone Sure.
Once this goes up, you bust it.
Dodge Keir (00:36):
Welcome back to another episode of Acura Hunts A
Life Outdoors.
I'm here with Ron Keener.
He's already upped me a fewtimes to say his last name wrong
.
He's a Keener than I am in thefox whistling side of things.
Ron Kiehne (00:48):
Thanks for coming on and having fun.
Thank you very much.
Dodge Keir (00:50):
Welcome.
You've invited me here to yourlovely shed up here in Glen
Innes.
It's a beautiful part of theworld.
Ron Kiehne (00:56):
How long have you?
Dodge Keir (00:57):
been up this way.
Ron Kiehne (00:58):
Very similar to where you come from.
Dodge Keir (00:59):
Yeah, down the southern highlands.
Yeah, how long have you livedup this way?
Ron Kiehne (01:03):
A boat was raised in Dundee Deepwater area, which is
only like 40Ks north of here.
So yeah, born and raised in thisarea only 40Ks north, I grew up
with all my uncles and theirfriends fox whistling, shooting
(01:23):
rows of weekends.
A lot of the area out there wassupported by shooting rows,
skinning rows back when it waslegal, sure, and those skins
were dried and sold to supportthe local tennis club, the local
hall, all that sort of stuff.
So it was a weekend out, agreat weekend hunting.
It was a real industry backthen, so it supported the
community.
(01:43):
And who was buying them?
I'm not sure who they sold itto.
One of my great uncles sort ofused to handle it all and get
all the sales and everything.
We'd just take them home andpeg them out in the lawn and dry
them and at the end of the yearwe'd have 1500 raw skins to
sell off.
What sort of money do youremember?
I don't remember.
Dodge Keir (01:59):
I was pretty young back then it was back in the 60s
.
Ron Kiehne (02:02):
I'm talking about.
Dodge Keir (02:03):
And what about the fox trade?
Did the skin trade take off uphere?
Ron Kiehne (02:07):
Fox trade was great back in the 70s.
I sort of got into it a bit,not like some of the blokes
around here.
When things were tough on thefarms, they just full-time fox
shooting.
Not so much me.
I had a few other hobbies, butyeah, I loved the fox shooting.
I only had one real rifle,which is a.2250, which wasn't
very favorable for shootingfoxes.
(02:28):
It made a bit of a mess of them, a little bit tibia-hole.
Yeah, we used to try anddownload it and play around with
it, but I actually downloadedthat far that I got the
projectiles to start to tumble.
Yeah, we shoot in targets.
One day and a projectile wentthrough sideways, had a long
line, yeah he yeah it was a lotof fun.
But yeah, back in the 70s we ourbest night like for around here
(02:52):
we don't shoot big numbers offoxes, but I think we shot met
from memory 17 in one night andthey averaged about 45 of skin.
So it was big money back then.
That's more than week wages.
Oh yeah, it was good money.
Dodge Keir (03:04):
And hard to skin or like what was the process, so
shoot and then take home, oryeah, we generally weight-lower.
Ron Kiehne (03:10):
just about cold.
I didn't like skin and coldones, so you know, shoot four or
five and then skin them Wasthat easier than real warm.
Oh yeah, no, real warm is good,but yeah, if you get onto a
patch where there's a few foxes,you don't want to be skinning
while you can be shooting, yeah,and how did you rip them off?
Dodge Keir (03:25):
I was just pulling off like a jumper.
No, I don't.
Or tube skin or flat skin ismore what I was asking.
No, flat skin.
Ron Kiehne (03:31):
Yeah, no, that was anyway I knew.
So yeah, just cut them out.
I could do one in about fourand a half minutes.
Dodge Keir (03:36):
You got the tails down pat, because I know it's a
bit of a thing people strugglewith.
Ron Kiehne (03:41):
Yeah, there's a couple of fingers or two little
sticks, two sticks, you can seethem, rip them off.
Dodge Keir (03:45):
Yeah, it's one.
There's a couple gadgets outnow you can get, yeah, so a bit
like I liken them to when kidslearn how to use chopsticks
They've got the elastic band onone side and you can just close
the other side and pull.
We did a root tail yesterdayactually, with an American lady
and she was very nervous and Isaid just pull.
Yeah.
She said I've never been ableto pull an animal's tail off.
Yeah, right, it's just skins.
Yeah, because we're talkinglarge ruben.
(04:06):
Doesn't happen with foxes.
It's not often breaks, doesn'tit, if you pull wrong.
Yeah, so then you got the skinhome.
Ron Kiehne (04:11):
What did you?
Oh, we just lay them out in theback lawn and used to use
pieces of number eight wireabout that long and just peg
them out in the lawn becausethere was never enough shed
space, just air dried.
Yeah, there was never enoughshed space on the walls or
whatever.
You'd always have them on thegratings in the shearing shed or
on a wall somewhere, but you'drun out of space inevitably
before that all dries.
So you'd be pegging them out inthe lawn and hope for no rain.
Dodge Keir (04:32):
Yeah, Was there money in rabbit skin still then.
Ron Kiehne (04:36):
I never really shot rabbits as skins Dad and his
relations did, but no, it wasn'ta thing when I was a kid.
It was more meat Right.
So we were getting fourshillings a pair for rabbits
back when I was shooting andtrapping.
Money was tough when I wasyoung and I remember Mum and Dad
(04:58):
saying to me if you wantedanything, you got to earn it.
So I used to borrow dad's trapsand go and set some traps and
sell some rabbits and Dad wouldalways be trapping.
So yeah, eventually, afterenough trapping, I eventually
bought myself a repeater LISCO22, opens on site.
That was the first rifle Ibought and, yeah, I loved it and
(05:20):
from then on it was no lookingback at what shooting and
trapping forever.
Dodge Keir (05:24):
How does the trapping work.
Obviously, we've got some herebehind us.
Yeah, they're just old ones andthey're not allowed to be used
anymore.
Ron Kiehne (05:29):
But these ones you've picked up or personal use
or both, no, just picked upover the years.
Most of them are branded traps,more valuable traps, yeah.
But yeah, I used hundreds andback.
Dad and I used to set outprobably 100, 150 traps a night
and shift them every three orfour nights.
These start back when they werelegal, shift them every three or
four nights.
You'd leave them set out.
(05:49):
The first night you'd set themout, you'd run them on dark
because you'd have catch thefirst night.
Yes, so there's always hawksand foxes around, so you run
them just on dark or just beforedark and then you run them next
morning just on daylight,because then a rabbit's in a
trap.
He's free game for foxes orhawks.
Spot on the mile off.
(06:09):
So you've got to be out earlyand run your traps.
Dodge Keir (06:13):
And you're setting it up at the head of the warren.
Ron Kiehne (06:16):
Yeah, and what we used to call pill beds is rabbit
will always go in one spot andpiss in the one spot.
So he's got this little area.
You'd always put one there, andyeah little entry holes on the.
Dodge Keir (06:27):
Didn't lose too many fingers.
Ron Kiehne (06:28):
No, dad had one finger that was caught, but no,
I never got caught, luckily.
Dodge Keir (06:32):
I don't know why, but A bit smarter, quicker on
the fingers Probably should have, but you learn a bit as you go.
On the fox side of things, I'vespoken about it before.
I ate one once, did you, andI'm guessing by your reaction
then you never have no notguilty of that one no and.
Ron Kiehne (06:49):
Tried a lot of things but not fox.
Dodge Keir (06:51):
What's the issue?
Why not?
Does the smell?
No, I just never have.
It's like.
I mean protein's protein, and Ididn't like it at the time, but
I think it was more to do withmy poor handling of it.
I just literally we scun it.
I still had the smell on myhands, cut the meat off, cooked
it, ate it it was all the same,but Smelling hands would be
enough to turn you off.
(07:11):
Well, yeah, it was just afavorite point that we could, I
think, and actually learned alot in the last couple of days
with a lady that specializes inthat sort of thing about how
non-dangerous meat is.
And we all talk about rottingand time frames and things and
she's like it doesn't matter,just aging, it's just.
Yeah, the smell is justbacteria producing a gas and
cook it.
Ron Kiehne (07:31):
Well, my deer legs.
When I go and get a deer, I'llput the back straps in my beer
fridge.
I just wrapped them in a bit ofcalico or something like that
and only lived in there for acouple of days and then they
first to be eaten.
But the actual legs, I leavethe skin on the deer leg and I
put it in the beer fridge andit'll stay there for months or
six weeks, just in the beerfridge, and when you pull it out
, where you've cut it off thebody, it'll be black.
So I put a bit of bad stuff onit or the good stuff, just shave
(07:54):
that off, skin it, and when youskin it under the skin is just
like the day you shot it, andthen I just segregate all the
muscles out and cut them up andjust put them in the freezer or
bag.
Glad, bag, bag.
Dodge Keir (08:05):
So I noticed on the wall here there's a fair few
fallow heads around.
That's your local species ofchasing.
Ron Kiehne (08:11):
Yeah yeah, there's a few reds around, but not many.
They're pretty light on.
Dodge Keir (08:16):
Well, obviously you've got a fair few antlers
around, but you're chasing meat,or I don't chase both A bit of
both.
Ron Kiehne (08:21):
I don't really chase them, but around the rut I'll
go out a fair bit.
I may need to take people out.
I'll take my linear out orgrandkids or whatever, because
they get excited when they hearthem roar and carry on.
Yeah, it's all good fun andyeah, I used to sit four or five
a year but last year I shot one.
The year before I shot one.
Yeah, don't shoot many anymore.
(08:42):
I shoot a couple of days formeat.
Chuck them in the freezer.
Dodge Keir (08:47):
But if you can hear the noise in the background, we
had a bit of a storm last night.
We're actually going to headout this morning and try and
whistle up some foxes, but itwas.
We got 20mL of rain overnight,so still raining this morning,
but a bit of wind whipping theside of the shed.
So if you can hear it, that'swhat that is.
But we were going to head outthis morning and chase some
foxes.
The joys of growing up in alocal area you've got a little
bit of access.
It's not something I grew upwith.
(09:08):
I do have one really good localaccess to where I live, but
it's something I'll earn laterin life.
Yeah, I'm going to say it'snearly jealous, or it is nice to
meet someone who's got localaccess from growing up around
the area.
But these properties you'vebeen shooting.
Ron Kiehne (09:22):
I know so many people around over the years and
different organisations andbusinesses I've been involved in
.
You sort of get to know all thelocals and yeah, that's been
good.
Dodge Keir (09:31):
Do you think?
What's the general agriculturearound here, Mainly farming
Sorry, grazing Shipping cattle.
Ron Kiehne (09:38):
It changes around.
There's quite a bit of with thefeedlot.
Now there's quite a bit ofgrain growing For silage, like
corn, Because the local feedlothere at Rangers Valley they're
running, I think, close to$40,000 now Right.
So it's a big set up, a lot offeed?
Dodge Keir (09:54):
Yeah, A lot of silage.
If they can get it locally,it's a better thing.
Yeah, so it's the grazing andthe sheep and things like that.
The farmers are probably alittle bit appreciative of
someone who can shoot foxes.
Ron Kiehne (10:04):
Yeah, mainly the graziers.
With the sheep yeah, when thesheep were worth big money they
dropped off a bit now, but whenthey were really good money a
couple of years ago the oldphone was ringing all the time.
I've got a problem fox out here.
Can you come out and see if youcan get him?
Dodge Keir (10:17):
When they say I've got eight problem foxes, do you
quite often find it's multiple,or do they just think it's one,
or is it one that gets a bitcheesy?
Ron Kiehne (10:23):
With chooks it's generally multiple foxes, but if
you get one, I had one out nearDeepwater, a bloke here that
was a chef and he rang me and hesaid I've got a problem fox out
here.
He said I don't know.
He said what it is.
He said I'm sure it's not a dog.
But he said we're getting bigmarked lambs bitten around the
neck and whatever.
(10:44):
And I said I'll come out andhave a look.
And I whistled two places anddid not be lucky.
And the third place I went,which I thought looked good.
I thought I had a whistle onthis little creek and this big
dog fox come down.
He was out of a hill and hejust come like a freight train
and he was the leanest dog.
No-transcript.
(11:05):
He arrived next week with acarton of beer.
He said no more problems.
Dodge Keir (11:08):
So he was very happy , mission accomplished.
Yeah, you just said.
Then you went for a whistle andit looked like a good spot.
Can you explain why you'd pickone spot to whistle a fox over
another?
Ron Kiehne (11:20):
Foxes Sorry, foxes are basically a creature of
habit.
They'll travel certain paths atnight time or when they're
feeding.
They love watered areas becausefrogs, skinks, all that sort of
stuff that are easy prey.
Little birds at nest in thereeds and blackberries along the
(11:42):
banks of the river, they'llclean up a nest real quick.
Or young birds, frogs, theylove frogs.
You'll see them chasing micealong the edges of the water,
things like that.
Yeah, they love water.
So you get creek, it's gotblackberries, reeds, all that
sort of thing.
Then, once you move away fromthe watered areas, blackberry
bushes they love blackberrybushes For shelter and rabbits
(12:06):
at all prey.
In winter time they'll just layout in the open country.
If you've got grass sort of sixor eight, sorry, a metre high,
yeah, foxes will just lay in thegrass in the sun and you'll
often be out in open paddock andyou can give a whistle.
Next thing you'll see one comebolt in and often you don't even
know they're there.
But I know what magpies will doand I know what little minor
(12:29):
birds do.
I can be sitting here and I canwhistle and all of a sudden I
know there's a fox coming fromout there, because the minor
birds are going off and I knowexactly the call that they make
when there's either a fox or acat coming.
So they're alerting theirfriends that there's a fox and I
know the call that they do andthey do a lot of calls.
But I can just go and I'll justgo to Lynn and she'll just spin
(12:49):
around and I'll spin around,we'll sit and wait for her and
you can't even see them.
Dodge Keir (12:53):
But they're coming and you mentioned Lynn, she's
your wife and head cameraman.
Yeah, Camera woman.
She's caught some pretty coolfootage over the years.
Ron Kiehne (13:00):
She has and for some of you who's never done it
before, she picked it up reallyquick.
She does a great job.
Dodge Keir (13:05):
Does she interest in blowing the whistle too, or is
that a?
Ron Kiehne (13:07):
Yeah, yeah, it's just hard.
She has trouble holding.
She hasn't done a lot ofshearing.
She's a terrific shot buthasn't done a lot of shearing
because I'm always the onethat's sitting at the front and
we're always chasing goodfootage.
So, basically, and I'm the onewe're sort of trying to promote
and get out there, so she getsstuck behind the camera, which
she loves, because she hatesgetting in front of the camera.
(13:28):
Yeah, I've had this one of ourvideo clips that we put up on
YouTube and there's three orfour remarks on it oh, did you
two have a blue just before youwent out to film that night?
No, she just hates being infront of the camera.
Dodge Keir (13:44):
Yeah, yeah.
So there's a couple of realpopular videos that have done
really well.
But how have you Like youdidn't put yourself in that
situation, it just happened.
Obviously you were calling Foxand some of them you didn't even
have a rifle.
You're just having a bit of funon the side of the road, or?
Yeah, I'll often do that.
Ron Kiehne (13:59):
You just get bored and Well, some of the good
footage I've got is being I'vejust been driving along the side
of the road and I think, geez,that gully looks nice and yeah,
cameras are in the back, let'sgo back and have a whistle, yeah
, and yeah, that's how they comeabout, and a lot of people
would get good footage but theydon't realize that Fox is coming
in could be the perfect shot,the one that jumps on your chest
(14:21):
or botched your foot orwhatever, but you've shot it
before and got a chance to Sureyeah, and that's what happens.
Dodge Keir (14:26):
It's nice to leave the gun in the car at home, yeah
.
Ron Kiehne (14:30):
I've said to quite a few people, I had a Fox right
on a netting fence one day andit was Wouldn't have been half a
metre from my foot and it wassitting there looking through
the grass on the netting fence.
It couldn't smell me, pardon me, but I'd moved my foot and
every time I moved my foot he'dlook and he'd think of what's
going on and try and get at it.
And when he'd do that, I justlooked down the post and said,
(14:52):
what are you looking at?
And he'd look up and he, andthen I'd wiggle my foot and then
he'd go.
He was there for like 10minutes, going backwards and
forwards between those twothings, and had no idea what it
was.
Dodge Keir (15:01):
Yeah, just good wind .
Ron Kiehne (15:02):
Yeah, you just got to have a good wind With Fox's.
They've got two sensors thatare absolutely brilliant.
You can't beat it, and that'sthe smell and sight.
And they're hearing.
A lot of people don't realisethat a Fox can rotate both ears
360 degrees.
So if you're actually whistlinga Fox in and watch him, he can
pinpoint a noise.
He'll rotate this ear and he'llrotate that ear and they can
(15:25):
bring him right around and he'llpinpoint where that noise is.
And once they do that, thenI'll say, right, it's there.
And they'll pick up that.
That sounds there, the wind'scoming from there and it's
blowing out there.
So I'm going to work my wayaround here and I'll know what
it is.
When I hit that scent trail,it's out there.
Yeah, see, how do you combatthat Bullet.
Dodge Keir (15:42):
Yeah, so as long as you can see it moving, then
they're in range.
Yeah.
Ron Kiehne (15:45):
And when you see a Fox, if he's coming in and you
think he's getting close to yourscent trail, soon as he goes
puts his nose up like that.
You've got to fire within abouttwo seconds, or he's gone Soon
as that nose goes up.
You're busted.
Dodge Keir (15:57):
And the old saying you know, I missed Fox is a
learned Fox.
Or yeah, exactly, it definitelyhappens, oh yeah.
Ron Kiehne (16:04):
I educate a lot of Foxes by whistling and getting
good footage.
Well, I know I'm never going towhistle that Fox again, but
I've got the good footage so itdoesn't matter, Sure.
Dodge Keir (16:11):
So they just, you just don't think they respond as
well the second time, orthey're disappointed because
they've worked out.
There's a noise, but it didn'tturn out to be food.
Yeah, yeah.
Ron Kiehne (16:18):
I think it just educates them.
Dodge Keir (16:19):
You know more cautious.
Yeah Right, and what with thewhistles?
What sound do they replicate?
Ron Kiehne (16:27):
A rabbit, an injured rabbit.
But having said that, I've beeninto areas, I've been out round
Broken Hill and Burke andplaces like that where there are
no rabbits and you know heavyclay soils, and yeah, I've
whistled rabbits.
We whistled Foxes there.
I went out there with mybrother and we just were driving
along and I said there's got tobe Foxes around here.
I want to try and whistle someand what I worked out is
(16:48):
everywhere I would see an eagleon the road.
I know there's fresh food.
Eagles love fresh food, so andthere'll be a real fresh roo
there.
Fox in the city and he justdropped me there and he drove
100 metres up the road and Ijust pulled up and I whistled
and we actually straight awayand pulled the Fox out, because
they're around too chasing freshfood.
They don't really care.
It's just mimics somethingthat's injured.
It's probably not exactly likea rabbit, but it's something
(17:11):
similar.
Dodge Keir (17:12):
They're interested.
Well, yeah, I shot a rabbit,one of the first well, I think
it was the first thing I shotwith my bow.
The arrow pinned it to thefloor and in that 10 seconds or
so before it died, it squealedand I was recording.
So I had that as an audio clipand I've played that on the car
Just out the window, and thenyou get eyes pop up and things
(17:32):
never successfully caught me in,but it was enough to replicate.
Oh yeah, it's hard to catch arabbit and ring it, just to
record that noise.
Exactly, they never make thatnoise on cue.
When did you first startplaying with Fox whistles, like
as a using as a kid?
Ron Kiehne (17:48):
Well, the first Fox I ever whistled in, I think from
memory I was about seven.
It was not long after I boughtmy first 22, the old Lithgow,
and I remember where I shot itand everything else.
It was on our property nearRangers Valley just outside of
Deepwater.
And remember that was the firstone.
But my great uncle, gilbertCanipe him and dad were great
(18:09):
mates.
They used to fish together andshit together all the time and
had occasional drink and asBlake did back in those days,
and yeah, when he was a bit of akid, he was telling me that
they lived up the top end ofDundee and he could hear all
these shots being fired with ashotgun.
And he said to his father thisday, what are they shooting?
(18:31):
And he said, oh, he's Foxwhistling.
It's one of I think it was hiselder cousin was shooting next
door with a Fox whistle and hesaid, oh, what's a Fox whistle?
Anyway, that night he came overand had two with him and he was
showing them what it was and itwas just a folded up bit of old
tobacco tin with a hole punchedin it.
And that was back in the 1920sand that's how long it's been.
My great uncle was born back in, dad was born in 26.
(18:53):
And I think Gilbert was about10 years old, so mid teens he
would have been born, I guess.
And yeah, so that's how longit's been in our family.
Dodge Keir (19:02):
Have you done any research as to where it actually
came from?
Ron Kiehne (19:05):
I think.
From what I can gather, I sentsome whistles back to England
and they were very keen onpromoting it through Fieldsports
Britain.
Did you tell?
Dodge Keir (19:13):
them.
You were keen on.
Ron Kiehne (19:16):
I sent them over and they were very keen to sell
them and we sent 50 over and,yeah, the reply was we got back
at the best Fox whistle came outof England Straight after.
So they just copied it and sentit back.
That's a nice compliment, Iguess.
Yes, but what I can gather,they'd never seen anything like
(19:38):
it before.
But I think it's very similarto a shepherd's whistle which
they used to use, I guess any ofthe old shepherds that never
couldn't whistle.
They had a bit of a whistle tocall their dogs and one day, I
guess the Fox reacted to it andsaid oh okay, this might work.
So it's so been the old Germans.
They've built something thatworked.
(19:58):
Did they use one in Babe?
Dodge Keir (20:00):
No whistling, though I don't know.
So they call left and rightusing whistles.
Is that when they're usingCould?
Ron Kiehne (20:05):
do yeah.
Dodge Keir (20:06):
As we do with our sheepdog now.
Ron Kiehne (20:09):
Yeah so one of my great uncles, whistles, is still
here.
When he passed away, I stillhad this one here, because I
borrowed it off him one day andhe had a few lying around.
That's very crude, as you cansee how they made that.
One's just had a bit of oldcollarbone zikanoil.
Dodge Keir (20:27):
Right, so just a fold, a bit of tin.
And what's the dynamic of it?
The wind is passing over andthrough Wind goes through the
bottom hull.
Ron Kiehne (20:33):
So a tip of your tongue's got to be on that back
edge like that and you don'thave to do anything else.
The wind automatically, onceyou get it in the right place,
the wind goes up through thebottom hull at the top, but you
don't have to direct it through.
So yeah, that was one of hiswhistles and this is what our
original whistles used to soundlike.
Oh, got the wrong way up.
The reason I did that mine areall got the longer bottom lip,
(20:54):
his has got the longer lip onthe top.
Whistling, whistling.
So that's what they soundedlike and you're wobbling it side
to side.
Yeah well, when you're blowing awhistle.
I'll just give you a minute.
They go on everywhere, don'tknow what they want most.
Anyway, just turn that way alittle bit.
Yeah, oh, just side on.
(21:14):
It's better to show.
So with the whistle, two fingersin each side of the lanyard
where the knot is, two fingersinside thumb underneath behind
where the lanyard enters.
So what that does is the noiseactually goes out between your
two fingers, like that.
Out in that direction tends todraw the noise away from your
(21:35):
ears a bit.
So when you're blowing it,you'll blow first of all, tip
your tongue on the back of it,like so that just directs the
air up through the bottom.
So you don't have to try anddirect it, but it automatically
happens.
Now what I've said to a lot ofpeople I'll blow raspberries,
I'll go, and they'll slobber andspit and carry on.
(21:59):
It's because you got your mouthtoo loose and not tense enough.
So what I've said to people tryand do it as if you're going to
whistle, so you'll blow.
It makes it a lot easierbecause you've got your mouth
tensed in the right position.
So once you do that and you'vegot your mouth slightly tensed,
(22:21):
you're blowing middle puffs likeas if you're blowing out of
care, it'll just so.
Once you do that, then you geta bit of panic in it.
You'll actually put a bit of aquiver into it, so you'll.
It gives you a bit of an ideawhat you can do with it.
Dodge Keir (22:42):
That's how you get the noise Right and different
sizes, slightly different pitch.
Ron Kiehne (22:48):
Well, this particular whistle my original
whistle and my great-uncleGilbert's this is an old one I
used to use back in the 60s.
Dad had one that was made outof a bit of brass.
It had an old claws-foot bathplug chain and they all had this
straight shrill.
It never had any raspiness toit.
(23:08):
It sounded like this.
So back in the 70s, the night Idon't think it was the night we
shot the 17, but I had a reallygood night we never put any
value on fox whistles.
We basically threw them in theback of the year or in the
glovebox or somewhere, and thennext time we went out we thought
, oh, what did we do with that?
(23:29):
We'll go and make another one.
So there was a continualprocession of fox whistles going
through.
Anyway, this particular nightwe were going out, I said to my
uncle I said you got any foxwhistles?
He goes no, no, I got done, Ican't find mine.
What do we do?
I said, oh, I'll go and quicklymake one.
So I went into the shed, justslipped one out and came out and
it was real raspy.
It had this funny note and Ihadn't pruned it up or tidied it
up with a file or anything andit just had this.
(23:50):
I called it all croaky.
Anyway, we went out this nightand I whistled up hopes of foxes
.
They just really showedinterest.
So, and going back in about 10years ago, I had a really good
mate here.
He was a police officer and wegot talking about chasing foxes
and fishing and whatever.
And he said, oh, you lovechasing foxes?
(24:11):
I said yeah, and he said, oh,we must go out sometime.
I said, yeah, I know.
So we did.
We arranged the time and becausewe're going out to one of his
properties, I just let him takethe lead and he did his own
thing and I just took my oldwhistle and anyway, he whistled
up three or four foxes and thenwe got to this real open area
and there was a big hill rightout in the background, probably
(24:31):
half a kilometre away, and therewas a few blackberries down the
bottom and he had a whistle andnothing.
And I said, oh, do you mind ifI have a whistle in it?
No, so I pulled that mile girland that rip and within about
three or four blasts this foxcame down the hill about a
million miles an hour and poppedup on a rock and he just popped
it and he went that whistle'sloud.
He said where do you get them?
And I said, oh, you don't.
(24:52):
I said I make them.
He said you should make them andsell them.
I said, oh, ok, so that was howit started.
So then it had to go from jamtins to the Silver Fox.
So I thought how can you sellthat?
There's already the teneffield.
Out there there's a buttonwhistle.
Dodge Keir (25:10):
I need something different that I Before we get
into the Silver Fox.
So you say, teneffield, that'sa style, that's a style, yeah,
which is the folded with a holethrough.
Ron Kiehne (25:18):
Yeah, it was just called the teneffield.
It was from this area.
So John Cooper up in teneffieldused to make them.
He's probably similar age to mydad.
Every man, his dog around herewhen I was young Made one in the
shed.
Made one in the shed, yeah, sothey're not from this particular
area.
You'll talk to people fromCadoble or wherever and they'll
say, oh yeah, I remembergranddad used to make them, so
(25:40):
they were everywhere, but thenthey just it became a dying art.
So just not many people did FoxWhistley anymore.
And when my mates said I shouldmake them, I started to put my
thinking cap on.
I thought, for all it's worth,it probably won't work.
And then I started thinking.
I thought, well, I'll give it atry.
(26:00):
So I thought, well, I need tomake it out of something good.
So I looked at stainless steeland it's so hard to work with to
get the right note and thepitch and be able to bend it and
it's flexible and it doesn'tcrack and there's a lot of
things involved, pardon me.
And then I had 12 months where Iwent back to my memory.
(26:21):
Well, my memory went back towhere this whistle, back in the
60s, where the old one I calledOld Crokey, and I thought I
wonder if I could get thatoriginal shrill of that original
whistles and mix it with that.
So I don't know how manywhistles I made and throw away.
And I even made one with twoholes in it.
So I had two holes side by sideand one was a shrill and one
(26:42):
was the raspy notes.
And it worked.
But I thought, no, I just Icouldn't get it repetitively
enough to get the same, and whenyou make one whistle you've got
to make all the other soundsthe same.
So it just went on and on andon.
So I had 12 months period whereI went out every day no, sorry,
every week for 12 months periodand in that 12 month period I
whistled up 360 foxes In a 12month period.
(27:04):
There wasn't a week in thatyear that I didn't whistle up
fox.
But mind you, in that week Imight have went out three days
and whistled three differentproperties.
So you know it was a lot ofhard work, but that was the
testing, that was all thetesting and in that period
that's where I come up with thesilver fox whistle and I got the
redate right.
Dodge Keir (27:24):
Without giving too much away on the little.
The script or not script, theseare the differences in it.
What makes it raspy, is it yeah?
Ron Kiehne (27:33):
Well, I could tell you, but then I'd have to kill
you.
Yeah, so you'll hear.
It's got two distinct noteswhen you listen to it.
It's got the shrill which goeslong distance.
How far are we talking?
Oh?
Dodge Keir (27:44):
well, it's hard to tell because by the time you see
it, no, it's not.
Ron Kiehne (27:46):
It's not.
I've been out here where we'regoing this afternoon.
I've been on the property whereI know I've been at least two
kilometers from the house stillafternoon in winter and I've
whistled, and since I'vewhistled the dogs have arced up
at the house.
So I know it goes twokilometers.
Dodge Keir (28:01):
Yeah, how long does it take a fox that's interested
to come?
Ron Kiehne (28:03):
two kilometers, I don't know, I wouldn't know that
I whistled one that far.
I would say I've whistled foxesfrom a kilometer away, but I
wouldn't say two kilometers.
Yeah, you don't know, becauseyou sit there for five minutes
and some foxes just come in flatout and others will come in,
wander pee, wander in and theyjust laxate as you go.
They just do what they want todo, but others will just bolt.
And if I get a fox, that if I'msitting out in the open and I
(28:28):
get a fox coming in, I don'twant him to spot me.
So every time he slows down tothink about having to sniff
around or whatever, as soon ashe slows down and goes to sniff
the ground, I'll hit the whistleagain and he's on the move
again.
So I don't give him time tolook around, whereas if I'm in
tight stuff and I want him tocome in slow, then I'll get a
lot of footage.
I'll change my method ofwhistling, right?
(28:50):
So yeah, pardon me, the twonests.
Going back to the two nests,you can hear that really high
pitch one and then you can hearthat Full volume and you can
hear that a lot.
Dodge Keir (29:07):
Yeah, the secondary sound.
Ron Kiehne (29:09):
That's what took all the work.
That took me 12 months someguys.
Dodge Keir (29:13):
I've been out with one contract guy and he carried
several different whistles and,like you're saying with your
mate, you know you try one thatwouldn't work, yeah, the next
one might work.
Is that something that you door you just have to know?
Ron Kiehne (29:24):
just have the one and I don't even own a whistle.
I just walk over there everytime I go out.
I just go and picking you oneout.
So there's somebody out therehas got one of my old whistles
and I've whistle foxes.
Then I just clean it up and putit in the box itself.
That way I know they all work.
Nice, I know you clean it, yeah, yeah, yeah, no, it was clean
them up and shove them back in abox and I don't get some
anesthetical.
Yeah, yeah, no.
(29:45):
Well, every whistle's been inmy mouth, every whistle, because
I tune every one of them.
They're all individuallyhandmade, handmade and
hand-finished.
Dodge Keir (29:52):
Everyone, so everyone of them been there at
some stage you briefly touchedon a couple of situations with
foxes at your feet and if peoplewant to head over to your
YouTube channel, I'm surethey'll see it, but yeah, that's
them.
I can't even say close calldoesn't get any closer.
Yeah, I'm talking about the oneI'm talking about.
Ron Kiehne (30:11):
The one that jumped on my chest.
Dodge Keir (30:12):
Yeah, how did that come about?
Ron Kiehne (30:13):
Well, I had had some people coming here to do some
guided I'm not a guided huntingto do a YouTube clip, and they
got to know them pretty wellthrough one of the expos and I
said to my son we really shouldgo out and just see, because
foxes respond different,different ways at different
times a year and I've never beenable to predict that.
(30:35):
I can't say, look, I'm gonna goout today, I'm gonna whistle
foxes, because sometimes theyjust switch off and they will
not.
Obviously, when they're matingI think they've got other things
on their brain and they justsay, no, we're not coming.
There's only one thing on mymind and I think it's like a
fellow deer in the rut they allthey want to do is they don't
want to eat.
So that's why at the end of therut you see them, they're all
holed up and they haven't eaten.
(30:55):
No, they're in his recoverymate and I think foxes are
pretty well the same.
So I generally July I don't domuch at all and June's always
pretty good but anyway, thisparticular time these people
were coming, I said to my son Iwe better just tuck out and see
if you know anything's whistlingor whatever.
So we just ducked out to one ofthe local reserves here, one of
the LP boards, and Just duckedin off the road and I said, oh,
(31:18):
we'll have a whistle here.
And we whistled up a foxstraight away and I said I will
go back down there, this gullydown, a bit further.
Anyway, I'm whistling away andthere's one come out to my left.
I could see him coming flat outbut there was electric fence
with electric wires on thebottom to stop roos going
backwards and forwards throughit and he just came to that and
stopped.
Anyway, while I'm watching himand you'll actually hear this on
(31:40):
my Video we use a little thing.
What we do is if I want tonotify lean or whoever's on the
camera it is fox coming, I'lljust go.
So if you ever hear that meansthat's a notification that look
at me.
Forget what you're looking at.
There's something else where.
So I'm looking here.
All of a sudden I've gone toBrock and he spun around.
(32:02):
Luckily he did.
There's a fox coming from outhere pretty quick.
So I thought, oh, yeah, anyway,come along the track.
There's a bit of a track comingalong and he, he sort of slowed
down a little bit and then Ithought I'll give him another
whistle, see how close you'llcome.
Well, when I hit thatsecond-last whistle, he just put
in the full mode, flat outstraight at me.
So no, this could beinteresting.
I'm thinking to myself and I'mstill watching through the
(32:22):
camera.
I'm not thinking about what'sgonna happen, I'm watching
through the camera.
I thought, oh, he's disappearedcompletely off the screen and
actually, oh, and his back legshit me in the guts and his front
legs landed there and his facewas there and had a snap in his
face, but he actually winded me,just knocked the wind out of me
, hit that hard, wow, yeah, andyou know it's probably happened
(32:43):
to other people, but they'venever got it on film.
Dodge Keir (32:44):
Well, unlike you said earlier, it might have
happened to other people wherethey shoot them.
Yeah, before they get to thatpoint.
Ron Kiehne (32:49):
I've had a lot of foxes that I've shot like three
or four meters away, come andflat out.
So you don't know how that wasgonna end up.
What do you shoot with youshotgun?
I used to be always shotgun butnow I've gone to the 17 HMR.
It was funny when I firststarted because I always used to
ads all hammer gun I.
I thought, oh yeah, I've got tobe able to film it and my
(33:10):
ex-wife wasn't really intohunting so I thought I've got to
do it all on my own when Ifirst started doing it.
So I got an old Backpack and Istripped it all down, used to
use the H frame and the harnessand I'm out at a movie camera on
the top shoulder and got somereally good footage.
I thought, oh, this is good, Ican pull the hammers back, I can
see all that.
Actually got some late lateafternoon ones where you see the
(33:32):
flash out of the barrels, andthat was good.
With the first fox I shot, anycomes, any comes, following
beautiful.
Oh, don't you see sky?
You don't see the fox gettingshot because the shoulder goes
back up, goes the camera, yeah,so that's not gonna work.
So I thought I'm gonna have togo back to a 22 or something
like that.
Anyway, I'm talking to myanother mate.
He said oh why don't you giveone of those 20 has 17 HMRs a
(33:54):
try?
He said they're really good.
I never even heard on Any.
I bought a little.
Just show you nothing fancy.
Yeah, a little paddle tail,ruga, all synthetic and
stainless, so it's Very easy tomaintain.
Nice and light.
Yeah, lightness is theexcellent, is the main thing,
(34:15):
because all my shooting iseither done freehand or just off
one knee.
I don't shoot with any rests.
Scopes, nothing fancy, justthree to nine and a camera man
on top of the screen, on top ofthe scope.
Dodge Keir (34:28):
It is a Bushnell High contrast optics.
Ron Kiehne (34:32):
They are Bushnell, all the buddy Yep free plugs
You've got over the years, yeahshout out I to Bushnell.
Dodge Keir (34:38):
Was it a three to nine?
Yeah, nothing fancy, With somecustom-made mounts on top.
Ron Kiehne (34:43):
by the look of that yeah, they just other mounts
turned upside down.
That's the mount of the camera.
Dodge Keir (34:48):
Yeah, very clever.
How many foxes do you think sheshot?
No idea a lot.
How many foxes do you think youshot?
Have you ever thought?
Ron Kiehne (34:55):
about it?
No idea.
Thousands yeah, I've got noidea.
That's a lot.
In the last 10 years we've soldover 14,000 whistles it
facilitated the shooting of alot of other foxes.
Dodge Keir (35:07):
Yeah, yeah.
Ron Kiehne (35:09):
Saved a lot of native wildlife and feral cats.
Have you ever gutted one to seewhat was in it?
No, I haven't.
I posted one the other day thatsomebody had done All the bits
inside.
Dodge Keir (35:19):
Yeah, skinks and many birds.
I'll just put this back.
You touched on cats.
You've had a bit of luck onwhistling cats as well.
Yeah, cats love them.
Ron Kiehne (35:29):
Yeah, they'll come.
Cats are so sneaky, though likea fox, the birds will give a
cat away too, but a cat.
You don't know where they'recoming from until they're nearly
on top of you.
They'll just any little bit ofgrass, they'll fall around
through it, they're just sosneaky One of the videos you
showed me this morning.
Dodge Keir (35:46):
that was the cat.
Ron Kiehne (35:47):
Oh, the cat and the fox coming together.
Yeah, the cat and the fox.
Well, the cat was coming firstand the fox came up out of a big
heap of logs.
Then he came in behind the cat.
Dodge Keir (35:55):
It nearly looked like he was trying to get the
cat.
Do you think a fox would go acat?
Ron Kiehne (36:00):
Yes, a small cat, because I've lost one.
Okay, mike's wife had a tonk ofknees and lost it to a fox.
Yeah, mate, he one night leftthe back door open and I said,
oh, the cat will be back in aminute, it'll be right, because
it was never loud outside.
I hate cats outside at nighttime.
So anyway, I dived out and Iwould know we've got foxes here
and feral cats.
Anyway, about 10 minutes laterit was a hell of a commotion.
(36:21):
My dogs went off and they wereout and raced up the driveway
and made this commotion and nomore cat.
So I know where it went.
Dodge Keir (36:30):
Yeah, right, fox got it.
But in this video that, like Isaid, the cat was coming in
first, the fox followed it upand then they had a bit of a not
an altercation they overstandoff.
They were doing the sidelineand sidewalking.
I've had that a couple of timeshappen With fox and cat.
Fox and cat yeah, Okay, thatwas the first one you got on
film yeah, and then the catbailed off and got yeah, he just
(36:50):
left he got mad.
Ron Kiehne (36:51):
I'm bad enough.
Dodge Keir (36:52):
The fox kept coming in.
That was cool.
Yeah, it looked good.
Before we sat down, you showedme through a little trophy room
out the back and you've got somereally coloured, nice coloured
rabbits.
Yep.
And you mentioned a particularshooting method for rabbits that
I've never heard of on purpose,where you actually miss them.
Ron Kiehne (37:11):
Oh yeah, yeah Back.
Explain that and how it worksWell back when, back when dad
and I were shooting Because itsounds like an excuse yeah no.
Dodge Keir (37:19):
Sounds like something I'd use if I miss
something yeah, no.
Ron Kiehne (37:22):
Dad and my great uncle.
They were just in the droughtsin the 60s, both property owners
.
There was no money to be madeout of the farm so they took up
rabbits were everywhere, so theytook up chasing rabbits and at
that time they were getting 40cents a pair, which was good
money.
And dad actually bought himselfan EK Holden Ute out of
shooting rabbits and he couldfit 400 pair sorry, 400 rabbits
(37:45):
in the back of the EK Holden Ute.
Used to put star pickets acrossand just pair them and hang
them in the back and he couldfill the back up and get 400
rabbits in there.
And yeah, that was good moneyback then.
Yeah and yeah.
So what was it?
Dodge Keir (37:57):
And I'll see.
You want clean pelts withoutholes in there.
Oh, so clean meat.
Ron Kiehne (38:01):
Yeah, well, you weren't allowed to shoot
anywhere behind upper chest, sono bullet holes anywhere down
the back.
It had to be high chest, neckor head.
But their preferred method waswell, it just came by accident
they used to shoot withopen-sided 22s.
I never had scopes and we usedto use a push bike headlights
(38:22):
with a big wooden box on yourback which held five of the old
telephone batteries.
I can't even picture how bigthat is.
Well, I can show you.
All.
Right, you go and get one,because I'm going to make it,
I'm going to make a replica box.
Okay, that's roughly what I'mcalled.
This is a spotlight from back inthe 60s, roughly Right.
(38:46):
So you can imagine five ofthose on your back in a wooden
box.
Yeah, it's probably a kilo,yeah, I don't know what weight
they.
So what we started out with wassomething like that, which is a
push bike headlight.
Now Dad was good friends with alocal electrician and he said
now, if you run five of these,which are 1.5 volts, heavy as
(39:08):
all hell I used to powertelephones, he said run five of
those, I'll give you 7.5 volts.
Run a six-volt bulb in this,give you a nice bright light.
So what we did then is made alittle bracket that ran off here
with a bit of strapping runningaround and that went around the
front of your hat and thenbehind that you had a bit of
elastic and you had to have itthat tight because it was heavy
(39:30):
and if you moved a lot and atthe end of the night you always
had a headache because it wasthat tight and we did everything
on foot.
Dodge Keir (39:36):
This is the conception of a lead lender.
Ron Kiehne (39:38):
Yeah, so that's the headlights we used to use and
what we did that was in a woodenbox on your back and that was
body heavy.
Then we had little bits oftimber we'd put through our hand
with a hole drilled in it and ahook on the bottom, and with
hook that's through thehamstring of the rabbit, you
could carry probably 10 or adozen rabbits in one hand.
(40:00):
So you'd carry that along.
You'd see a rabbit, you'd justdrop that fire shot and because
we were so used to shooting, alot of the times you wouldn't
even get the rifle up to you toactually sight down the barrel,
you just nearly hip shot, butyou'd only get it to your
shoulder and go bang and youeither tried to head shoot but
it only came as an accident headshooting, but we're trying to
(40:20):
just shoot over the tops oftheir ears and it just seems to
stun a rabbit and in that nextfew seconds you can walk up with
a small sticker, a bit of polypipe, and just smack them over
the head and that way you get arabbit that hasn't got any
bullet holes, no meat damage, no.
But yeah, we got that good inthe end we were just going bang.
Oh he's dead.
Oh he's dead.
Oh no, we'll have to hit thatone, but you got so good at it
(40:41):
because you're just doing it allthe time.
Do you remember what riflesthey were using?
Yeah, my dad had a sport coatone of the very early sport
coats and I still had my list go.
About 22s, yeah, all 22s 22ammo would have been readily
available All walking.
So we didn't drive anywhere.
You basically went and parkedsomewhere.
He'd go one direction, I'd goanother.
(41:01):
He'd say oh, when you shoot 50rabbits or 20 rabbits or
whatever, take them over and putthem on this fence.
We can get the ear to there, wecan gut them, hang them there
and then around midnight wedrive around and pick them up,
take them back, put them in theor.
We had a limb with just ahashing bag over it.
We just slide over it so youcan hang them all on this limb
on the tree.
(41:21):
We'll just pull the bag over tokeep any flies away and then
daylight next morning you go andpick them up and take them into
the chiller.
What was your gutting method?
Just kneel down back leg undereach knee and just rip the gut,
go up in the lungs, pulleverything out, make sure you
get the bladder and the extract.
Dodge Keir (41:40):
I've done it before, I've filmed it and I want to do
it again and get a better filmof it.
But the old just grabbingbehind the chest and sort of
roll and it pops out and throughthere.
Yeah, but you're shooting.
Ron Kiehne (41:51):
It's not for human consumption.
Yeah, when you're doing for thechiller, you've got to have
them open, so they can suppose,because when they take them in
they'll actually peel them openand check the lungs.
So I think you had to leave thelungs in, that's right.
So there was no high daddardsor anything they used to check
for any disease, was that?
Dodge Keir (42:05):
often Did you get many with worms and things.
Ron Kiehne (42:09):
No, not really no, they were all good, yeah, so no,
they were a bit old days.
My favourite job was dad usedto drive me to school and I said
you're getting them out of thecar and I'm putting them in the
chiller, because it was fivedegrees warmer in the chiller
than what I was outside.
It'd be minus five or sixoutside and the chiller was like
two degrees.
Dodge Keir (42:25):
So I was like walking into the kitchen,
Walking into summer yeah it'spretty cool that you're doing it
on the way to school.
Yeah, things are a bitdifferent.
Back then you just walk aroundwith the firearm on the basal.
Ron Kiehne (42:35):
Well, dad had a 22 that used to live up the
backseat of the car all the time.
We just sat down the whole year.
Dodge Keir (42:39):
Someone told me a story the other day.
Their bus driver used to stopon the way to school and shoot
pigs out the window and thenkeep driving, drop the kids off,
come home, pick the pigs up anddown it.
Yeah, country times were alittle bit more fun.
Ron Kiehne (42:49):
Yeah, I used to shoot rabbits on the way home
from school and whatever.
Dodge Keir (42:54):
I'll get a photo of it too.
But you told me a pretty coolstory about your dad was playing
with marksmanship, shootingsmaller and smaller things, and
they got down to somethingpretty damn small.
Ron Kiehne (43:04):
Yeah, my um, this is still open sites my dad and my
great uncle using 22.
So he went down to a placecalled Glenelgen, which is east
of Dundee, and they used to campin a hut down there and they'd
shoot all night till they gotthe back of the youthful and
then they'd come to town and getrid of the rabbits and go back.
So they'd shoot most of thenight and then during the day
they'd sleep.
So you'd wake up at like tillthree o'clock in afternoon and
(43:29):
nothing to do.
So they used to practiceshooting.
So they started off.
They had a little pieces offirebrow and they'd take it and
see how far they could shoot itwith an open, open sighted 22.
And they just kept putting themfurther and further away and
smaller and smaller pieces.
Then they said, oh, let's chuckjam tins up into the sky and
shoot them.
So they were doing that andthey could do that pretty good.
So then they said, oh, let'sget the pieces of firebrow and
(43:51):
we'll chuck them up in the airand see if I can shoot them.
So they were doing that andthen I'm getting smaller and
smaller pieces of firebrow.
Anyway, they got down to let'schuck the penny up and see if I
can shoot a penny.
So anyway, I don't know howmany times I did it before I hit
one, but they had both ended uphitting a penny and I've
actually still got my dad's mygreat uncle, I think hit here's
(44:11):
pretty well in the center andthey never found it.
They heard it hit and theyheard a bit of a noise but never
found it, and my dad's hit abit off center and what it did
it made just spinning eyes and Iand it went into the grass and
only very short grass, so theyknew where it went.
So they just went and lookedtill I found it.
It's crazy, I'm actually stillgot it yeah, I saw it up there.
Dodge Keir (44:32):
You got a little, a pretty cool little cabinet.
There's some memorabilia in it.
Yeah, I spotted it and yes,that's the one we're talking.
What are they?
25mm or so, yeah, not very big.
That's a.
That's a trick shot in today'sturn.
Oh yeah.
Yeah, that's right.
So we're gonna head out thisafternoon and check out a
property.
Yep, and again, you saidthere's certain times a year
(44:52):
where they're not particularlyreactive.
What are we now?
August?
Yeah, so are we.
When are they breeding?
When are they in the den?
And then I often hear so,background, I haven't done a
whole lot of fox.
You, I've shot some.
Actually my arch nemesis I'vemissed more than I've shot,
because I get really nervousabout him, because the whole
farmer thing, like if you miss afox you don't come back, and
(45:13):
yeah, so you're nearly betterthan not telling them, but they
make me nervous.
Deer and things, not an issue,but there's a time of year, so
I'm told, when the younger onesstart to come out and they're,
they're quite reactive.
Yep, because they're dumb.
Ron Kiehne (45:26):
They haven't had that education so at the moment
we should be looking at thevixens still being in the den.
If we do whistle up any,they'll be all bare down the
belly.
They'll have pups in the den.
Normally it's good to find themand where they are.
But generally if you shoot avixen you've got no chance of
getting the pups because they'llbe right up inside a log or in
(45:46):
under a pile of rocks orwhatever.
So they just die natural death.
There's nothing you can doabout that unless you can get to
them quite easily or goodaccess, which very rarely
happens.
But if you shoot vixens at thistime of year they could be
still not have pups.
It could be pups on the groundgently.
In September you'll startshooting vixens that have got
(46:09):
pups on them, so you'll see thatthey got nada.
And yeah, as far as you know,whistling in pups generally
January right as when they'rearound and stupid little bit
easier, january, february.
Dodge Keir (46:22):
Yeah, and I saw you got a pile of fox skins in there
.
You summer foxes different towinter foxes, skin wise, oh yeah
years ago, foxes were, um, youknow, very popular skin.
Ron Kiehne (46:33):
They were sold overseas and whatever.
But the fur and bamboo brigadeand the greenies have, you know,
seen to, they wrecked all that,which is more detriment to them
and and nature.
Because what they've done isbecause it's not economically
viable to shoot foxes, they justlet breed, and same with feral
(46:56):
cats.
So it goes exactly against the,to the opposite effect to what
the greenies want to do, insteadof, you know, little birds and
native ground, dwelling birdsand mammals.
On that, I think, quite acomprehensive, do they?
No, it's the same as locking upa mash like a national park and
not burning it.
You know, it gets that muchdebris on the ground that
(47:17):
eventually it's going to like,it's going to burn and disappear
, and then it just kills all thebig trees, you know, just
because it burns too hot yeah,they can't understand the whole.
Dodge Keir (47:25):
You know not one thing.
Out to save others, or that's.
Ron Kiehne (47:28):
They just want to save everything and it makes
everything worse well withbushfires years ago who put them
out, like 200 years ago, whoput a bushfire out every
lighting strike, start thebushfire and it burnt to let it
water.
So that's just natural conceptregularly.
Dodge Keir (47:40):
Yeah, so it kept nature in check so you're doing
your part for keeping nature incheck.
I'll try to definitelyfacilitate it.
A lot, of, a lot of fox deaths.
How far wide have you seen thesilver fox whistle spread?
Like you said, you sent some toto England.
Oh, we get you sell overseasyeah, yeah, we get calls every.
Ron Kiehne (48:00):
I had to.
I got a thing there from abloke in America the other day.
He said he's using me oncoyotes and he said they work
really good.
He's been selling, I'll sellthem, getting his mates to buy
them.
I bring a company in SouthAustralia the other day that
does rural outlet store and Isaid, oh, there's a gun shop in
(48:22):
your area that has been sellingmy whistles but they've closed
down.
I said would you be interested?
I said, oh, you probably don'tknow of the silver fox whistle,
but I'm telling her, given aspiel about it, and she went, no
, I'm, I got one.
So she said, yeah, I'll takesome.
Yeah, yeah.
So no, they're very wide, likeyou get 14 thousand around is
the amount of people that I comeacross.
(48:42):
Oh, yeah, I got one, or youknow, and so how long was 10
years ago?
Dodge Keir (48:46):
roughly about 10 years.
Yeah, I remember I was deerexpo down in Bendigo that real
hot weekend and yeah, I didn'tsee run.
You didn't need to.
You could freaking hear him andit wasn't you.
I think it was Georgia, yeah,when she come over and started
working out how to blow it.
So Georgia Ricky's probablylistening this Georgia was
(49:06):
probably this big back then andnow she's as tall as me yeah,
studying away, but she workedout how to blow that thing
pretty quickly.
Ron Kiehne (49:13):
Yeah, kids, generally they're the ones that
work it out a lot better thanthe adults.
Right, adults are setting theirways of what they want to do
and how they should blow itright whereas kids don't know
any difference, so they just trydifferent things and all of a
sudden, yep, they've got it.
Dodge Keir (49:25):
I'm glad we were on the other side of the hall
because for your neighbors inthe side here they would have.
We've got a bit sick of that,yeah it was funny.
Ron Kiehne (49:30):
When I was down there I had these two blokes
come in and they asked me allabout the whistle and said oh,
yeah, yeah, yeah, oh, theyguarantee they'll work.
Yeah, they're pretty wild sortof blokes.
Anyway, the next day that was aSaturday next day they come
back, these whistles come up andbang them on the cat we want
our money back all right, okay,no worries.
(49:51):
But we went home, we bought acart and a stubby's.
We went out in the back shedand we whistled and whistled and
not one fox came.
I said, oh, that's possible.
He said yeah, but then weopened the roller door and every
bloody cat was sitting outsideyeah, so they worked for cats
yeah, I had another old blague.
It was funny.
I did a you know, an interviewwith ABC radio and a bloke rang
(50:14):
me up from Newcastle.
He said could you meet me inTamworth?
And I said yeah, I'll come down.
So we sat in the park and we,but he did this thing and he
went back three weeks later hadthis bloke from down the snowy
mountains rang me and he said Iwant to buy one of your whistles
.
He said they're pretty good.
I said oh, yeah.
I said he got one.
He went no.
I said you know something.
He's got one.
He went no.
I said oh, how do you knowthey're good?
(50:35):
He said well, I was listeningto ABC radio the other day and
he said I'm an old dog, or hesaid, but he done a lot of
dogging.
And my baron?
He rattled off and he said hesaid I was sitting in there
listening tentatively to thatand he said next thing, you
started whistling.
He said you know, my two dogscome back through the back door,
nearly ripped the screen offand they're trying to rip, tear
the old radio off themeadlepiece.
(50:56):
So he said I know they work.
Yeah, yeah, he said it wasfunny, but I get a lot of good
calls.
I had another bloke in westernAustralia said I should put
danger warning signs.
I said there is.
He said not for your ears,bloody owls.
He said I got whistler at nighttime.
I get died by my owls.
Swooped, mm.
Right, never thought about that.
(51:16):
I was scariest when I was goodat the sweat by an eagle you did
yeah, I was out whistling oneday and bloody.
This eagle came in and he linedme up did you see it coming?
No, come in from behind.
And the last minute he decidedoh no, it's not what I want.
He just he felt the wind.
It was like a bloody jet plane.
Oh Jesus, hear him back up inthere.
I was up about here, I reckonbig wedgie wow inflict some
(51:39):
wounds on the head if it tookyou out.
I've had quite a few of themcome into the whistle, but
they'll generally only come inlike 50, 80 meters away and
realize what's going on.
They'll just sit and look atyou.
Dodge Keir (51:49):
I've heard a few people getting their drones
taken out of the sky.
Ron Kiehne (51:51):
Yeah, by eagles yep, I wouldn't doubt that
inquisitive things.
Dodge Keir (51:55):
They are right.
Oh, thanks for sitting down andhaving a chat.
We're gonna have a little playaround the shed and you're gonna
, yep, show me behind secretdoors like you do, and then kill
me if I tell anyone.
Yeah, but then we're gonna goout and try no worries, sounds
good, look forward to it.
Ron Kiehne (52:09):
Thanks for the fire, nice and warm.
No worries, yeah, work well,lucky you.
The cold weather that's righton the fourth episode of
accurate hunts.
Dodge Keir (52:18):
I am sitting in the Liverpool Rangers Hunter Valley
area with the man himself, nickMorton, so you could set someone
up with a cheat, bow or top ofthe limbo and if it's not tuned
you're wasting your time.
Nick Moreton (52:31):
The old boars are just so tough like you can't hit
them through one lung in theback of the living and expect
them to run 150 and pull up andlay under a tree and then come
and finish them off.
They're just going to keepgoing like you're not going to
recover those animals unless youhit them perfectly.
Third episode of Accurate Hunts:
Ron Kiehne (00:08):
With foxes.
They've got two sensors thatare absolutely brilliant.
You can't beat it and that'sthe smell and sight.
We popped up on a rock and hejust popped it and he went that
whistle's loud.
He said where do you get them?
And I said oh, you don't.
I said I make them.
He said you should make themand sell them.
Soon as he goes, puts his noseup like that.
You've got to fire within abouttwo seconds or he's gone Sure.
Once this goes up, you bust it.
Dodge Keir (00:36):
Welcome back to another episode of Acura Hunts A
Life Outdoors.
I'm here with Ron Keener.
He's already upped me a fewtimes to say his last name wrong
.
He's a Keener than I am in thefox whistling side of things.
Ron Kiehne (00:48):
Thanks for coming on and having fun.
Thank you very much.
Dodge Keir (00:50):
Welcome.
You've invited me here to yourlovely shed up here in Glen
Innes.
It's a beautiful part of theworld.
Ron Kiehne (00:56):
How long have you?
Dodge Keir (00:57):
been up this way.
Ron Kiehne (00:58):
Very similar to where you come from.
Dodge Keir (00:59):
Yeah, down the southern highlands.
Yeah, how long have you livedup this way?
Ron Kiehne (01:03):
A boat was raised in Dundee Deepwater area, which is
only like 40Ks north of here.
So yeah, born and raised in thisarea only 40Ks north, I grew up
with all my uncles and theirfriends fox whistling, shooting
(01:23):
rows of weekends.
A lot of the area out there wassupported by shooting rows,
skinning rows back when it waslegal, sure, and those skins
were dried and sold to supportthe local tennis club, the local
hall, all that sort of stuff.
So it was a weekend out, agreat weekend hunting.
It was a real industry backthen, so it supported the
community.
(01:43):
And who was buying them?
I'm not sure who they sold itto.
One of my great uncles sort ofused to handle it all and get
all the sales and everything.
We'd just take them home andpeg them out in the lawn and dry
them and at the end of the yearwe'd have 1500 raw skins to
sell off.
What sort of money do youremember?
I don't remember.
Dodge Keir (01:59):
I was pretty young back then it was back in the 60s
.
Ron Kiehne (02:02):
I'm talking about.
Dodge Keir (02:03):
And what about the fox trade?
Did the skin trade take off uphere?
Ron Kiehne (02:07):
Fox trade was great back in the 70s.
I sort of got into it a bit,not like some of the blokes
around here.
When things were tough on thefarms, they just full-time fox
shooting.
Not so much me.
I had a few other hobbies, butyeah, I loved the fox shooting.
I only had one real rifle,which is a.2250, which wasn't
very favorable for shootingfoxes.
(02:28):
It made a bit of a mess of them, a little bit tibia-hole.
Yeah, we used to try anddownload it and play around with
it, but I actually downloadedthat far that I got the
projectiles to start to tumble.
Yeah, we shoot in targets.
One day and a projectile wentthrough sideways, had a long
line, yeah he yeah it was a lotof fun.
But yeah, back in the 70s we ourbest night like for around here
(02:52):
we don't shoot big numbers offoxes, but I think we shot met
from memory 17 in one night andthey averaged about 45 of skin.
So it was big money back then.
That's more than week wages.
Oh yeah, it was good money.
Dodge Keir (03:04):
And hard to skin or like what was the process, so
shoot and then take home, oryeah, we generally weight-lower.
Ron Kiehne (03:10):
just about cold.
I didn't like skin and coldones, so you know, shoot four or
five and then skin them Wasthat easier than real warm.
Oh yeah, no, real warm is good,but yeah, if you get onto a
patch where there's a few foxes,you don't want to be skinning
while you can be shooting, yeah,and how did you rip them off?
Dodge Keir (03:25):
I was just pulling off like a jumper.
No, I don't.
Or tube skin or flat skin ismore what I was asking.
No, flat skin.
Ron Kiehne (03:31):
Yeah, no, that was anyway I knew.
So yeah, just cut them out.
I could do one in about fourand a half minutes.
Dodge Keir (03:36):
You got the tails down pat, because I know it's a
bit of a thing people strugglewith.
Ron Kiehne (03:41):
Yeah, there's a couple of fingers or two little
sticks, two sticks, you can seethem, rip them off.
Dodge Keir (03:45):
Yeah, it's one.
There's a couple gadgets outnow you can get, yeah, so a bit
like I liken them to when kidslearn how to use chopsticks
They've got the elastic band onone side and you can just close
the other side and pull.
We did a root tail yesterdayactually, with an American lady
and she was very nervous and Isaid just pull.
Yeah.
She said I've never been ableto pull an animal's tail off.
Yeah, right, it's just skins.
Yeah, because we're talkinglarge ruben.
(04:06):
Doesn't happen with foxes.
It's not often breaks, doesn'tit, if you pull wrong.
Yeah, so then you got the skinhome.
Ron Kiehne (04:11):
What did you?
Oh, we just lay them out in theback lawn and used to use
pieces of number eight wireabout that long and just peg
them out in the lawn becausethere was never enough shed
space, just air dried.
Yeah, there was never enoughshed space on the walls or
whatever.
You'd always have them on thegratings in the shearing shed or
on a wall somewhere, but you'drun out of space inevitably
before that all dries.
So you'd be pegging them out inthe lawn and hope for no rain.
Dodge Keir (04:32):
Yeah, Was there money in rabbit skin still then.
Ron Kiehne (04:36):
I never really shot rabbits as skins Dad and his
relations did, but no, it wasn'ta thing when I was a kid.
It was more meat Right.
So we were getting fourshillings a pair for rabbits
back when I was shooting andtrapping.
Money was tough when I wasyoung and I remember Mum and Dad
(04:58):
saying to me if you wantedanything, you got to earn it.
So I used to borrow dad's trapsand go and set some traps and
sell some rabbits and Dad wouldalways be trapping.
So yeah, eventually, afterenough trapping, I eventually
bought myself a repeater LISCO22, opens on site.
That was the first rifle Ibought and, yeah, I loved it and
(05:20):
from then on it was no lookingback at what shooting and
trapping forever.
Dodge Keir (05:24):
How does the trapping work.
Obviously, we've got some herebehind us.
Yeah, they're just old ones andthey're not allowed to be used
anymore.
Ron Kiehne (05:29):
But these ones you've picked up or personal use
or both, no, just picked upover the years.
Most of them are branded traps,more valuable traps, yeah.
But yeah, I used hundreds andback.
Dad and I used to set outprobably 100, 150 traps a night
and shift them every three orfour nights.
These start back when they werelegal, shift them every three or
four nights.
You'd leave them set out.
(05:49):
The first night you'd set themout, you'd run them on dark
because you'd have catch thefirst night.
Yes, so there's always hawksand foxes around, so you run
them just on dark or just beforedark and then you run them next
morning just on daylight,because then a rabbit's in a
trap.
He's free game for foxes orhawks.
Spot on the mile off.
(06:09):
So you've got to be out earlyand run your traps.
Dodge Keir (06:13):
And you're setting it up at the head of the warren.
Ron Kiehne (06:16):
Yeah, and what we used to call pill beds is rabbit
will always go in one spot andpiss in the one spot.
So he's got this little area.
You'd always put one there, andyeah little entry holes on the.
Dodge Keir (06:27):
Didn't lose too many fingers.
Ron Kiehne (06:28):
No, dad had one finger that was caught, but no,
I never got caught, luckily.
Dodge Keir (06:32):
I don't know why, but A bit smarter, quicker on
the fingers Probably should have, but you learn a bit as you go.
On the fox side of things, I'vespoken about it before.
I ate one once, did you, andI'm guessing by your reaction
then you never have no notguilty of that one no and.
Ron Kiehne (06:49):
Tried a lot of things but not fox.
Dodge Keir (06:51):
What's the issue?
Why not?
Does the smell?
No, I just never have.
It's like.
I mean protein's protein, and Ididn't like it at the time, but
I think it was more to do withmy poor handling of it.
I just literally we scun it.
I still had the smell on myhands, cut the meat off, cooked
it, ate it it was all the same,but Smelling hands would be
enough to turn you off.
(07:11):
Well, yeah, it was just afavorite point that we could, I
think, and actually learned alot in the last couple of days
with a lady that specializes inthat sort of thing about how
non-dangerous meat is.
And we all talk about rottingand time frames and things and
she's like it doesn't matter,just aging, it's just.
Yeah, the smell is justbacteria producing a gas and
cook it.
Ron Kiehne (07:31):
Well, my deer legs.
When I go and get a deer, I'llput the back straps in my beer
fridge.
I just wrapped them in a bit ofcalico or something like that
and only lived in there for acouple of days and then they
first to be eaten.
But the actual legs, I leavethe skin on the deer leg and I
put it in the beer fridge andit'll stay there for months or
six weeks, just in the beerfridge, and when you pull it out
, where you've cut it off thebody, it'll be black.
So I put a bit of bad stuff onit or the good stuff, just shave
(07:54):
that off, skin it, and when youskin it under the skin is just
like the day you shot it, andthen I just segregate all the
muscles out and cut them up andjust put them in the freezer or
bag.
Glad, bag, bag.
Dodge Keir (08:05):
So I noticed on the wall here there's a fair few
fallow heads around.
That's your local species ofchasing.
Ron Kiehne (08:11):
Yeah yeah, there's a few reds around, but not many.
They're pretty light on.
Dodge Keir (08:16):
Well, obviously you've got a fair few antlers
around, but you're chasing meat,or I don't chase both A bit of
both.
Ron Kiehne (08:21):
I don't really chase them, but around the rut I'll
go out a fair bit.
I may need to take people out.
I'll take my linear out orgrandkids or whatever, because
they get excited when they hearthem roar and carry on.
Yeah, it's all good fun andyeah, I used to sit four or five
a year but last year I shot one.
The year before I shot one.
Yeah, don't shoot many anymore.
(08:42):
I shoot a couple of days formeat.
Chuck them in the freezer.
Dodge Keir (08:47):
But if you can hear the noise in the background, we
had a bit of a storm last night.
We're actually going to headout this morning and try and
whistle up some foxes, but itwas.
We got 20mL of rain overnight,so still raining this morning,
but a bit of wind whipping theside of the shed.
So if you can hear it, that'swhat that is.
But we were going to head outthis morning and chase some
foxes.
The joys of growing up in alocal area you've got a little
bit of access.
It's not something I grew upwith.
(09:08):
I do have one really good localaccess to where I live, but
it's something I'll earn laterin life.
Yeah, I'm going to say it'snearly jealous, or it is nice to
meet someone who's got localaccess from growing up around
the area.
But these properties you'vebeen shooting.
Ron Kiehne (09:22):
I know so many people around over the years and
different organisations andbusinesses I've been involved in
.
You sort of get to know all thelocals and yeah, that's been
good.
Dodge Keir (09:31):
Do you think?
What's the general agriculturearound here, Mainly farming
Sorry, grazing Shipping cattle.
Ron Kiehne (09:38):
It changes around.
There's quite a bit of with thefeedlot.
Now there's quite a bit ofgrain growing For silage, like
corn, Because the local feedlothere at Rangers Valley they're
running, I think, close to$40,000 now Right.
So it's a big set up, a lot offeed?
Dodge Keir (09:54):
Yeah, A lot of silage.
If they can get it locally,it's a better thing.
Yeah, so it's the grazing andthe sheep and things like that.
The farmers are probably alittle bit appreciative of
someone who can shoot foxes.
Ron Kiehne (10:04):
Yeah, mainly the graziers.
With the sheep yeah, when thesheep were worth big money they
dropped off a bit now, but whenthey were really good money a
couple of years ago the oldphone was ringing all the time.
I've got a problem fox out here.
Can you come out and see if youcan get him?
Dodge Keir (10:17):
When they say I've got eight problem foxes, do you
quite often find it's multiple,or do they just think it's one,
or is it one that gets a bitcheesy?
Ron Kiehne (10:23):
With chooks it's generally multiple foxes, but if
you get one, I had one out nearDeepwater, a bloke here that
was a chef and he rang me and hesaid I've got a problem fox out
here.
He said I don't know.
He said what it is.
He said I'm sure it's not a dog.
But he said we're getting bigmarked lambs bitten around the
neck and whatever.
(10:44):
And I said I'll come out andhave a look.
And I whistled two places anddid not be lucky.
And the third place I went,which I thought looked good.
I thought I had a whistle onthis little creek and this big
dog fox come down.
He was out of a hill and hejust come like a freight train
and he was the leanest dog.
No-transcript.
(11:05):
He arrived next week with acarton of beer.
He said no more problems.
Dodge Keir (11:08):
So he was very happy , mission accomplished.
Yeah, you just said.
Then you went for a whistle andit looked like a good spot.
Can you explain why you'd pickone spot to whistle a fox over
another?
Ron Kiehne (11:20):
Foxes Sorry, foxes are basically a creature of
habit.
They'll travel certain paths atnight time or when they're
feeding.
They love watered areas becausefrogs, skinks, all that sort of
stuff that are easy prey.
Little birds at nest in thereeds and blackberries along the
(11:42):
banks of the river, they'llclean up a nest real quick.
Or young birds, frogs, theylove frogs.
You'll see them chasing micealong the edges of the water,
things like that.
Yeah, they love water.
So you get creek, it's gotblackberries, reeds, all that
sort of thing.
Then, once you move away fromthe watered areas, blackberry
bushes they love blackberrybushes For shelter and rabbits
(12:06):
at all prey.
In winter time they'll just layout in the open country.
If you've got grass sort of sixor eight, sorry, a metre high,
yeah, foxes will just lay in thegrass in the sun and you'll
often be out in open paddock andyou can give a whistle.
Next thing you'll see one comebolt in and often you don't even
know they're there.
But I know what magpies will doand I know what little minor
(12:29):
birds do.
I can be sitting here and I canwhistle and all of a sudden I
know there's a fox coming fromout there, because the minor
birds are going off and I knowexactly the call that they make
when there's either a fox or acat coming.
So they're alerting theirfriends that there's a fox and I
know the call that they do andthey do a lot of calls.
But I can just go and I'll justgo to Lynn and she'll just spin
(12:49):
around and I'll spin around,we'll sit and wait for her and
you can't even see them.
Dodge Keir (12:53):
But they're coming and you mentioned Lynn, she's
your wife and head cameraman.
Yeah, Camera woman.
She's caught some pretty coolfootage over the years.
Ron Kiehne (13:00):
She has and for some of you who's never done it
before, she picked it up reallyquick.
She does a great job.
Dodge Keir (13:05):
Does she interest in blowing the whistle too, or is
that a?
Ron Kiehne (13:07):
Yeah, yeah, it's just hard.
She has trouble holding.
She hasn't done a lot ofshearing.
She's a terrific shot buthasn't done a lot of shearing
because I'm always the onethat's sitting at the front and
we're always chasing goodfootage.
So, basically, and I'm the onewe're sort of trying to promote
and get out there, so she getsstuck behind the camera, which
she loves, because she hatesgetting in front of the camera.
(13:28):
Yeah, I've had this one of ourvideo clips that we put up on
YouTube and there's three orfour remarks on it oh, did you
two have a blue just before youwent out to film that night?
No, she just hates being infront of the camera.
Dodge Keir (13:44):
Yeah, yeah.
So there's a couple of realpopular videos that have done
really well.
But how have you Like youdidn't put yourself in that
situation, it just happened.
Obviously you were calling Foxand some of them you didn't even
have a rifle.
You're just having a bit of funon the side of the road, or?
Yeah, I'll often do that.
Ron Kiehne (13:59):
You just get bored and Well, some of the good
footage I've got is being I'vejust been driving along the side
of the road and I think, geez,that gully looks nice and yeah,
cameras are in the back, let'sgo back and have a whistle, yeah
, and yeah, that's how they comeabout, and a lot of people
would get good footage but theydon't realize that Fox is coming
in could be the perfect shot,the one that jumps on your chest
(14:21):
or botched your foot orwhatever, but you've shot it
before and got a chance to Sureyeah, and that's what happens.
Dodge Keir (14:26):
It's nice to leave the gun in the car at home, yeah
.
Ron Kiehne (14:30):
I've said to quite a few people, I had a Fox right
on a netting fence one day andit was Wouldn't have been half a
metre from my foot and it wassitting there looking through
the grass on the netting fence.
It couldn't smell me, pardon me, but I'd moved my foot and
every time I moved my foot he'dlook and he'd think of what's
going on and try and get at it.
And when he'd do that, I justlooked down the post and said,
(14:52):
what are you looking at?
And he'd look up and he, andthen I'd wiggle my foot and then
he'd go.
He was there for like 10minutes, going backwards and
forwards between those twothings, and had no idea what it
was.
Dodge Keir (15:01):
Yeah, just good wind .
Ron Kiehne (15:02):
Yeah, you just got to have a good wind With Fox's.
They've got two sensors thatare absolutely brilliant.
You can't beat it, and that'sthe smell and sight.
And they're hearing.
A lot of people don't realisethat a Fox can rotate both ears
360 degrees.
So if you're actually whistlinga Fox in and watch him, he can
pinpoint a noise.
He'll rotate this ear and he'llrotate that ear and they can
(15:25):
bring him right around and he'llpinpoint where that noise is.
And once they do that, thenI'll say, right, it's there.
And they'll pick up that.
That sounds there, the wind'scoming from there and it's
blowing out there.
So I'm going to work my wayaround here and I'll know what
it is.
When I hit that scent trail,it's out there.
Yeah, see, how do you combatthat Bullet.
Dodge Keir (15:42):
Yeah, so as long as you can see it moving, then
they're in range.
Yeah.
Ron Kiehne (15:45):
And when you see a Fox, if he's coming in and you
think he's getting close to yourscent trail, soon as he goes
puts his nose up like that.
You've got to fire within abouttwo seconds, or he's gone Soon
as that nose goes up.
You're busted.
Dodge Keir (15:57):
And the old saying you know, I missed Fox is a
learned Fox.
Or yeah, exactly, it definitelyhappens, oh yeah.
Ron Kiehne (16:04):
I educate a lot of Foxes by whistling and getting
good footage.
Well, I know I'm never going towhistle that Fox again, but
I've got the good footage so itdoesn't matter, Sure.
Dodge Keir (16:11):
So they just, you just don't think they respond as
well the second time, orthey're disappointed because
they've worked out.
There's a noise, but it didn'tturn out to be food.
Yeah, yeah.
Ron Kiehne (16:18):
I think it just educates them.
Dodge Keir (16:19):
You know more cautious.
Yeah Right, and what with thewhistles?
What sound do they replicate?
Ron Kiehne (16:27):
A rabbit, an injured rabbit.
But having said that, I've beeninto areas, I've been out round
Broken Hill and Burke andplaces like that where there are
no rabbits and you know heavyclay soils, and yeah, I've
whistled rabbits.
We whistled Foxes there.
I went out there with mybrother and we just were driving
along and I said there's got tobe Foxes around here.
I want to try and whistle someand what I worked out is
(16:48):
everywhere I would see an eagleon the road.
I know there's fresh food.
Eagles love fresh food, so andthere'll be a real fresh roo
there.
Fox in the city and he justdropped me there and he drove
100 metres up the road and Ijust pulled up and I whistled
and we actually straight awayand pulled the Fox out, because
they're around too chasing freshfood.
They don't really care.
It's just mimics somethingthat's injured.
It's probably not exactly likea rabbit, but it's something
(17:11):
similar.
Dodge Keir (17:12):
They're interested.
Well, yeah, I shot a rabbit,one of the first well, I think
it was the first thing I shotwith my bow.
The arrow pinned it to thefloor and in that 10 seconds or
so before it died, it squealedand I was recording.
So I had that as an audio clipand I've played that on the car
Just out the window, and thenyou get eyes pop up and things
(17:32):
never successfully caught me in,but it was enough to replicate.
Oh yeah, it's hard to catch arabbit and ring it, just to
record that noise.
Exactly, they never make thatnoise on cue.
When did you first startplaying with Fox whistles, like
as a using as a kid?
Ron Kiehne (17:48):
Well, the first Fox I ever whistled in, I think from
memory I was about seven.
It was not long after I boughtmy first 22, the old Lithgow,
and I remember where I shot itand everything else.
It was on our property nearRangers Valley just outside of
Deepwater.
And remember that was the firstone.
But my great uncle, gilbertCanipe him and dad were great
(18:09):
mates.
They used to fish together andshit together all the time and
had occasional drink and asBlake did back in those days,
and yeah, when he was a bit of akid, he was telling me that
they lived up the top end ofDundee and he could hear all
these shots being fired with ashotgun.
And he said to his father thisday, what are they shooting?
(18:31):
And he said, oh, he's Foxwhistling.
It's one of I think it was hiselder cousin was shooting next
door with a Fox whistle and hesaid, oh, what's a Fox whistle?
Anyway, that night he came overand had two with him and he was
showing them what it was and itwas just a folded up bit of old
tobacco tin with a hole punchedin it.
And that was back in the 1920sand that's how long it's been.
My great uncle was born back in, dad was born in 26.
(18:53):
And I think Gilbert was about10 years old, so mid teens he
would have been born, I guess.
And yeah, so that's how longit's been in our family.
Dodge Keir (19:02):
Have you done any research as to where it actually
came from?
Ron Kiehne (19:05):
I think.
From what I can gather, I sentsome whistles back to England
and they were very keen onpromoting it through Fieldsports
Britain.
Did you tell?
Dodge Keir (19:13):
them.
You were keen on.
Ron Kiehne (19:16):
I sent them over and they were very keen to sell
them and we sent 50 over and,yeah, the reply was we got back
at the best Fox whistle came outof England Straight after.
So they just copied it and sentit back.
That's a nice compliment, Iguess.
Yes, but what I can gather,they'd never seen anything like
(19:38):
it before.
But I think it's very similarto a shepherd's whistle which
they used to use, I guess any ofthe old shepherds that never
couldn't whistle.
They had a bit of a whistle tocall their dogs and one day, I
guess the Fox reacted to it andsaid oh okay, this might work.
So it's so been the old Germans.
They've built something thatworked.
(19:58):
Did they use one in Babe?
Dodge Keir (20:00):
No whistling, though I don't know.
So they call left and rightusing whistles.
Is that when they're usingCould?
Ron Kiehne (20:05):
do yeah.
Dodge Keir (20:06):
As we do with our sheepdog now.
Ron Kiehne (20:09):
Yeah so one of my great uncles, whistles, is still
here.
When he passed away, I stillhad this one here, because I
borrowed it off him one day andhe had a few lying around.
That's very crude, as you cansee how they made that.
One's just had a bit of oldcollarbone zikanoil.
Dodge Keir (20:27):
Right, so just a fold, a bit of tin.
And what's the dynamic of it?
The wind is passing over andthrough Wind goes through the
bottom hull.
Ron Kiehne (20:33):
So a tip of your tongue's got to be on that back
edge like that and you don'thave to do anything else.
The wind automatically, onceyou get it in the right place,
the wind goes up through thebottom hull at the top, but you
don't have to direct it through.
So yeah, that was one of hiswhistles and this is what our
original whistles used to soundlike.
Oh, got the wrong way up.
The reason I did that mine areall got the longer bottom lip,
(20:54):
his has got the longer lip onthe top.
Whistling, whistling.
So that's what they soundedlike and you're wobbling it side
to side.
Yeah well, when you're blowing awhistle.
I'll just give you a minute.
They go on everywhere, don'tknow what they want most.
Anyway, just turn that way alittle bit.
Yeah, oh, just side on.
(21:14):
It's better to show.
So with the whistle, two fingersin each side of the lanyard
where the knot is, two fingersinside thumb underneath behind
where the lanyard enters.
So what that does is the noiseactually goes out between your
two fingers, like that.
Out in that direction tends todraw the noise away from your
(21:35):
ears a bit.
So when you're blowing it,you'll blow first of all, tip
your tongue on the back of it,like so that just directs the
air up through the bottom.
So you don't have to try anddirect it, but it automatically
happens.
Now what I've said to a lot ofpeople I'll blow raspberries,
I'll go, and they'll slobber andspit and carry on.
(21:59):
It's because you got your mouthtoo loose and not tense enough.
So what I've said to people tryand do it as if you're going to
whistle, so you'll blow.
It makes it a lot easierbecause you've got your mouth
tensed in the right position.
So once you do that and you'vegot your mouth slightly tensed,
(22:21):
you're blowing middle puffs likeas if you're blowing out of
care, it'll just so.
Once you do that, then you geta bit of panic in it.
You'll actually put a bit of aquiver into it, so you'll.
It gives you a bit of an ideawhat you can do with it.
Dodge Keir (22:42):
That's how you get the noise Right and different
sizes, slightly different pitch.
Ron Kiehne (22:48):
Well, this particular whistle my original
whistle and my great-uncleGilbert's this is an old one I
used to use back in the 60s.
Dad had one that was made outof a bit of brass.
It had an old claws-foot bathplug chain and they all had this
straight shrill.
It never had any raspiness toit.
(23:08):
It sounded like this.
So back in the 70s, the night Idon't think it was the night we
shot the 17, but I had a reallygood night we never put any
value on fox whistles.
We basically threw them in theback of the year or in the
glovebox or somewhere, and thennext time we went out we thought
, oh, what did we do with that?
(23:29):
We'll go and make another one.
So there was a continualprocession of fox whistles going
through.
Anyway, this particular nightwe were going out, I said to my
uncle I said you got any foxwhistles?
He goes no, no, I got done, Ican't find mine.
What do we do?
I said, oh, I'll go and quicklymake one.
So I went into the shed, justslipped one out and came out and
it was real raspy.
It had this funny note and Ihadn't pruned it up or tidied it
up with a file or anything andit just had this.
(23:50):
I called it all croaky.
Anyway, we went out this nightand I whistled up hopes of foxes
.
They just really showedinterest.
So, and going back in about 10years ago, I had a really good
mate here.
He was a police officer and wegot talking about chasing foxes
and fishing and whatever.
And he said, oh, you lovechasing foxes?
(24:11):
I said yeah, and he said, oh,we must go out sometime.
I said, yeah, I know.
So we did.
We arranged the time and becausewe're going out to one of his
properties, I just let him takethe lead and he did his own
thing and I just took my oldwhistle and anyway, he whistled
up three or four foxes and thenwe got to this real open area
and there was a big hill rightout in the background, probably
(24:31):
half a kilometre away, and therewas a few blackberries down the
bottom and he had a whistle andnothing.
And I said, oh, do you mind ifI have a whistle in it?
No, so I pulled that mile girland that rip and within about
three or four blasts this foxcame down the hill about a
million miles an hour and poppedup on a rock and he just popped
it and he went that whistle'sloud.
He said where do you get them?
And I said, oh, you don't.
(24:52):
I said I make them.
He said you should make them andsell them.
I said, oh, ok, so that was howit started.
So then it had to go from jamtins to the Silver Fox.
So I thought how can you sellthat?
There's already the teneffield.
Out there there's a buttonwhistle.
Dodge Keir (25:10):
I need something different that I Before we get
into the Silver Fox.
So you say, teneffield, that'sa style, that's a style, yeah,
which is the folded with a holethrough.
Ron Kiehne (25:18):
Yeah, it was just called the teneffield.
It was from this area.
So John Cooper up in teneffieldused to make them.
He's probably similar age to mydad.
Every man, his dog around herewhen I was young Made one in the
shed.
Made one in the shed, yeah, sothey're not from this particular
area.
You'll talk to people fromCadoble or wherever and they'll
say, oh yeah, I remembergranddad used to make them, so
(25:40):
they were everywhere, but thenthey just it became a dying art.
So just not many people did FoxWhistley anymore.
And when my mates said I shouldmake them, I started to put my
thinking cap on.
I thought, for all it's worth,it probably won't work.
And then I started thinking.
I thought, well, I'll give it atry.
(26:00):
So I thought, well, I need tomake it out of something good.
So I looked at stainless steeland it's so hard to work with to
get the right note and thepitch and be able to bend it and
it's flexible and it doesn'tcrack and there's a lot of
things involved, pardon me.
And then I had 12 months where Iwent back to my memory.
(26:21):
Well, my memory went back towhere this whistle, back in the
60s, where the old one I calledOld Crokey, and I thought I
wonder if I could get thatoriginal shrill of that original
whistles and mix it with that.
So I don't know how manywhistles I made and throw away.
And I even made one with twoholes in it.
So I had two holes side by sideand one was a shrill and one
(26:42):
was the raspy notes.
And it worked.
But I thought, no, I just Icouldn't get it repetitively
enough to get the same, and whenyou make one whistle you've got
to make all the other soundsthe same.
So it just went on and on andon.
So I had 12 months period whereI went out every day no, sorry,
every week for 12 months periodand in that 12 month period I
whistled up 360 foxes In a 12month period.
(27:04):
There wasn't a week in thatyear that I didn't whistle up
fox.
But mind you, in that week Imight have went out three days
and whistled three differentproperties.
So you know it was a lot ofhard work, but that was the
testing, that was all thetesting and in that period
that's where I come up with thesilver fox whistle and I got the
redate right.
Dodge Keir (27:24):
Without giving too much away on the little.
The script or not script, theseare the differences in it.
What makes it raspy, is it yeah?
Ron Kiehne (27:33):
Well, I could tell you, but then I'd have to kill
you.
Yeah, so you'll hear.
It's got two distinct noteswhen you listen to it.
It's got the shrill which goeslong distance.
How far are we talking?
Oh?
Dodge Keir (27:44):
well, it's hard to tell because by the time you see
it, no, it's not.
Ron Kiehne (27:46):
It's not.
I've been out here where we'regoing this afternoon.
I've been on the property whereI know I've been at least two
kilometers from the house stillafternoon in winter and I've
whistled, and since I'vewhistled the dogs have arced up
at the house.
So I know it goes twokilometers.
Dodge Keir (28:01):
Yeah, how long does it take a fox that's interested
to come?
Ron Kiehne (28:03):
two kilometers, I don't know, I wouldn't know that
I whistled one that far.
I would say I've whistled foxesfrom a kilometer away, but I
wouldn't say two kilometers.
Yeah, you don't know, becauseyou sit there for five minutes
and some foxes just come in flatout and others will come in,
wander pee, wander in and theyjust laxate as you go.
They just do what they want todo, but others will just bolt.
And if I get a fox, that if I'msitting out in the open and I
(28:28):
get a fox coming in, I don'twant him to spot me.
So every time he slows down tothink about having to sniff
around or whatever, as soon ashe slows down and goes to sniff
the ground, I'll hit the whistleagain and he's on the move
again.
So I don't give him time tolook around, whereas if I'm in
tight stuff and I want him tocome in slow, then I'll get a
lot of footage.
I'll change my method ofwhistling, right?
(28:50):
So yeah, pardon me, the twonests.
Going back to the two nests,you can hear that really high
pitch one and then you can hearthat Full volume and you can
hear that a lot.
Dodge Keir (29:07):
Yeah, the secondary sound.
Ron Kiehne (29:09):
That's what took all the work.
That took me 12 months someguys.
Dodge Keir (29:13):
I've been out with one contract guy and he carried
several different whistles and,like you're saying with your
mate, you know you try one thatwouldn't work, yeah, the next
one might work.
Is that something that you door you just have to know?
Ron Kiehne (29:24):
just have the one and I don't even own a whistle.
I just walk over there everytime I go out.
I just go and picking you oneout.
So there's somebody out therehas got one of my old whistles
and I've whistle foxes.
Then I just clean it up and putit in the box itself.
That way I know they all work.
Nice, I know you clean it, yeah, yeah, yeah, no, it was clean
them up and shove them back in abox and I don't get some
anesthetical.
Yeah, yeah, no.
(29:45):
Well, every whistle's been inmy mouth, every whistle, because
I tune every one of them.
They're all individuallyhandmade, handmade and
hand-finished.
Dodge Keir (29:52):
Everyone, so everyone of them been there at
some stage you briefly touchedon a couple of situations with
foxes at your feet and if peoplewant to head over to your
YouTube channel, I'm surethey'll see it, but yeah, that's
them.
I can't even say close calldoesn't get any closer.
Yeah, I'm talking about the oneI'm talking about.
Ron Kiehne (30:11):
The one that jumped on my chest.
Dodge Keir (30:12):
Yeah, how did that come about?
Ron Kiehne (30:13):
Well, I had had some people coming here to do some
guided I'm not a guided huntingto do a YouTube clip, and they
got to know them pretty wellthrough one of the expos and I
said to my son we really shouldgo out and just see, because
foxes respond different,different ways at different
times a year and I've never beenable to predict that.
(30:35):
I can't say, look, I'm gonna goout today, I'm gonna whistle
foxes, because sometimes theyjust switch off and they will
not.
Obviously, when they're matingI think they've got other things
on their brain and they justsay, no, we're not coming.
There's only one thing on mymind and I think it's like a
fellow deer in the rut they allthey want to do is they don't
want to eat.
So that's why at the end of therut you see them, they're all
holed up and they haven't eaten.
(30:55):
No, they're in his recoverymate and I think foxes are
pretty well the same.
So I generally July I don't domuch at all and June's always
pretty good but anyway, thisparticular time these people
were coming, I said to my son Iwe better just tuck out and see
if you know anything's whistlingor whatever.
So we just ducked out to one ofthe local reserves here, one of
the LP boards, and Just duckedin off the road and I said, oh,
(31:18):
we'll have a whistle here.
And we whistled up a foxstraight away and I said I will
go back down there, this gullydown, a bit further.
Anyway, I'm whistling away andthere's one come out to my left.
I could see him coming flat outbut there was electric fence
with electric wires on thebottom to stop roos going
backwards and forwards throughit and he just came to that and
stopped.
Anyway, while I'm watching himand you'll actually hear this on
(31:40):
my Video we use a little thing.
What we do is if I want tonotify lean or whoever's on the
camera it is fox coming, I'lljust go.
So if you ever hear that meansthat's a notification that look
at me.
Forget what you're looking at.
There's something else where.
So I'm looking here.
All of a sudden I've gone toBrock and he spun around.
(32:02):
Luckily he did.
There's a fox coming from outhere pretty quick.
So I thought, oh, yeah, anyway,come along the track.
There's a bit of a track comingalong and he, he sort of slowed
down a little bit and then Ithought I'll give him another
whistle, see how close you'llcome.
Well, when I hit thatsecond-last whistle, he just put
in the full mode, flat outstraight at me.
So no, this could beinteresting.
I'm thinking to myself and I'mstill watching through the
(32:22):
camera.
I'm not thinking about what'sgonna happen, I'm watching
through the camera.
I thought, oh, he's disappearedcompletely off the screen and
actually, oh, and his back legshit me in the guts and his front
legs landed there and his facewas there and had a snap in his
face, but he actually winded me,just knocked the wind out of me
, hit that hard, wow, yeah, andyou know it's probably happened
(32:43):
to other people, but they'venever got it on film.
Dodge Keir (32:44):
Well, unlike you said earlier, it might have
happened to other people wherethey shoot them.
Yeah, before they get to thatpoint.
Ron Kiehne (32:49):
I've had a lot of foxes that I've shot like three
or four meters away, come andflat out.
So you don't know how that wasgonna end up.
What do you shoot with youshotgun?
I used to be always shotgun butnow I've gone to the 17 HMR.
It was funny when I firststarted because I always used to
ads all hammer gun I.
I thought, oh yeah, I've got tobe able to film it and my
(33:10):
ex-wife wasn't really intohunting so I thought I've got to
do it all on my own when Ifirst started doing it.
So I got an old Backpack and Istripped it all down, used to
use the H frame and the harnessand I'm out at a movie camera on
the top shoulder and got somereally good footage.
I thought, oh, this is good, Ican pull the hammers back, I can
see all that.
Actually got some late lateafternoon ones where you see the
(33:32):
flash out of the barrels, andthat was good.
With the first fox I shot, anycomes, any comes, following
beautiful.
Oh, don't you see sky?
You don't see the fox gettingshot because the shoulder goes
back up, goes the camera, yeah,so that's not gonna work.
So I thought I'm gonna have togo back to a 22 or something
like that.
Anyway, I'm talking to myanother mate.
He said oh why don't you giveone of those 20 has 17 HMRs a
(33:54):
try?
He said they're really good.
I never even heard on Any.
I bought a little.
Just show you nothing fancy.
Yeah, a little paddle tail,ruga, all synthetic and
stainless, so it's Very easy tomaintain.
Nice and light.
Yeah, lightness is theexcellent, is the main thing,
(34:15):
because all my shooting iseither done freehand or just off
one knee.
I don't shoot with any rests.
Scopes, nothing fancy, justthree to nine and a camera man
on top of the screen, on top ofthe scope.
Dodge Keir (34:28):
It is a Bushnell High contrast optics.
Ron Kiehne (34:32):
They are Bushnell, all the buddy Yep free plugs
You've got over the years, yeahshout out I to Bushnell.
Dodge Keir (34:38):
Was it a three to nine?
Yeah, nothing fancy, With somecustom-made mounts on top.
Ron Kiehne (34:43):
by the look of that yeah, they just other mounts
turned upside down.
That's the mount of the camera.
Dodge Keir (34:48):
Yeah, very clever.
How many foxes do you think sheshot?
No idea a lot.
How many foxes do you think youshot?
Have you ever thought?
Ron Kiehne (34:55):
about it?
No idea.
Thousands yeah, I've got noidea.
That's a lot.
In the last 10 years we've soldover 14,000 whistles it
facilitated the shooting of alot of other foxes.
Dodge Keir (35:07):
Yeah, yeah.
Ron Kiehne (35:09):
Saved a lot of native wildlife and feral cats.
Have you ever gutted one to seewhat was in it?
No, I haven't.
I posted one the other day thatsomebody had done All the bits
inside.
Dodge Keir (35:19):
Yeah, skinks and many birds.
I'll just put this back.
You touched on cats.
You've had a bit of luck onwhistling cats as well.
Yeah, cats love them.
Ron Kiehne (35:29):
Yeah, they'll come.
Cats are so sneaky, though likea fox, the birds will give a
cat away too, but a cat.
You don't know where they'recoming from until they're nearly
on top of you.
They'll just any little bit ofgrass, they'll fall around
through it, they're just sosneaky One of the videos you
showed me this morning.
Dodge Keir (35:46):
that was the cat.
Ron Kiehne (35:47):
Oh, the cat and the fox coming together.
Yeah, the cat and the fox.
Well, the cat was coming firstand the fox came up out of a big
heap of logs.
Then he came in behind the cat.
Dodge Keir (35:55):
It nearly looked like he was trying to get the
cat.
Do you think a fox would go acat?
Ron Kiehne (36:00):
Yes, a small cat, because I've lost one.
Okay, mike's wife had a tonk ofknees and lost it to a fox.
Yeah, mate, he one night leftthe back door open and I said,
oh, the cat will be back in aminute, it'll be right, because
it was never loud outside.
I hate cats outside at nighttime.
So anyway, I dived out and Iwould know we've got foxes here
and feral cats.
Anyway, about 10 minutes laterit was a hell of a commotion.
(36:21):
My dogs went off and they wereout and raced up the driveway
and made this commotion and nomore cat.
So I know where it went.
Dodge Keir (36:30):
Yeah, right, fox got it.
But in this video that, like Isaid, the cat was coming in
first, the fox followed it upand then they had a bit of a not
an altercation they overstandoff.
They were doing the sidelineand sidewalking.
I've had that a couple of timeshappen With fox and cat.
Fox and cat yeah, Okay, thatwas the first one you got on
film yeah, and then the catbailed off and got yeah, he just
(36:50):
left he got mad.
Ron Kiehne (36:51):
I'm bad enough.
Dodge Keir (36:52):
The fox kept coming in.
That was cool.
Yeah, it looked good.
Before we sat down, you showedme through a little trophy room
out the back and you've got somereally coloured, nice coloured
rabbits.
Yep.
And you mentioned a particularshooting method for rabbits that
I've never heard of on purpose,where you actually miss them.
Ron Kiehne (37:11):
Oh yeah, yeah Back.
Explain that and how it worksWell back when, back when dad
and I were shooting Because itsounds like an excuse yeah no.
Dodge Keir (37:19):
Sounds like something I'd use if I miss
something yeah, no.
Ron Kiehne (37:22):
Dad and my great uncle.
They were just in the droughtsin the 60s, both property owners
.
There was no money to be madeout of the farm so they took up
rabbits were everywhere, so theytook up chasing rabbits and at
that time they were getting 40cents a pair, which was good
money.
And dad actually bought himselfan EK Holden Ute out of
shooting rabbits and he couldfit 400 pair sorry, 400 rabbits
(37:45):
in the back of the EK Holden Ute.
Used to put star pickets acrossand just pair them and hang
them in the back and he couldfill the back up and get 400
rabbits in there.
And yeah, that was good moneyback then.
Yeah and yeah.
So what was it?
Dodge Keir (37:57):
And I'll see.
You want clean pelts withoutholes in there.
Oh, so clean meat.
Ron Kiehne (38:01):
Yeah, well, you weren't allowed to shoot
anywhere behind upper chest, sono bullet holes anywhere down
the back.
It had to be high chest, neckor head.
But their preferred method waswell, it just came by accident
they used to shoot withopen-sided 22s.
I never had scopes and we usedto use a push bike headlights
(38:22):
with a big wooden box on yourback which held five of the old
telephone batteries.
I can't even picture how bigthat is.
Well, I can show you.
All.
Right, you go and get one,because I'm going to make it,
I'm going to make a replica box.
Okay, that's roughly what I'mcalled.
This is a spotlight from back inthe 60s, roughly Right.
(38:46):
So you can imagine five ofthose on your back in a wooden
box.
Yeah, it's probably a kilo,yeah, I don't know what weight
they.
So what we started out with wassomething like that, which is a
push bike headlight.
Now Dad was good friends with alocal electrician and he said
now, if you run five of these,which are 1.5 volts, heavy as
(39:08):
all hell I used to powertelephones, he said run five of
those, I'll give you 7.5 volts.
Run a six-volt bulb in this,give you a nice bright light.
So what we did then is made alittle bracket that ran off here
with a bit of strapping runningaround and that went around the
front of your hat and thenbehind that you had a bit of
elastic and you had to have itthat tight because it was heavy
(39:30):
and if you moved a lot and atthe end of the night you always
had a headache because it wasthat tight and we did everything
on foot.
Dodge Keir (39:36):
This is the conception of a lead lender.
Ron Kiehne (39:38):
Yeah, so that's the headlights we used to use and
what we did that was in a woodenbox on your back and that was
body heavy.
Then we had little bits oftimber we'd put through our hand
with a hole drilled in it and ahook on the bottom, and with
hook that's through thehamstring of the rabbit, you
could carry probably 10 or adozen rabbits in one hand.
(40:00):
So you'd carry that along.
You'd see a rabbit, you'd justdrop that fire shot and because
we were so used to shooting, alot of the times you wouldn't
even get the rifle up to you toactually sight down the barrel,
you just nearly hip shot, butyou'd only get it to your
shoulder and go bang and youeither tried to head shoot but
it only came as an accident headshooting, but we're trying to
(40:20):
just shoot over the tops oftheir ears and it just seems to
stun a rabbit and in that nextfew seconds you can walk up with
a small sticker, a bit of polypipe, and just smack them over
the head and that way you get arabbit that hasn't got any
bullet holes, no meat damage, no.
But yeah, we got that good inthe end we were just going bang.
Oh he's dead.
Oh he's dead.
Oh no, we'll have to hit thatone, but you got so good at it
(40:41):
because you're just doing it allthe time.
Do you remember what riflesthey were using?
Yeah, my dad had a sport coatone of the very early sport
coats and I still had my list go.
About 22s, yeah, all 22s 22ammo would have been readily
available All walking.
So we didn't drive anywhere.
You basically went and parkedsomewhere.
He'd go one direction, I'd goanother.
(41:01):
He'd say oh, when you shoot 50rabbits or 20 rabbits or
whatever, take them over and putthem on this fence.
We can get the ear to there, wecan gut them, hang them there
and then around midnight wedrive around and pick them up,
take them back, put them in theor.
We had a limb with just ahashing bag over it.
We just slide over it so youcan hang them all on this limb
on the tree.
(41:21):
We'll just pull the bag over tokeep any flies away and then
daylight next morning you go andpick them up and take them into
the chiller.
What was your gutting method?
Just kneel down back leg undereach knee and just rip the gut,
go up in the lungs, pulleverything out, make sure you
get the bladder and the extract.
Dodge Keir (41:40):
I've done it before, I've filmed it and I want to do
it again and get a better filmof it.
But the old just grabbingbehind the chest and sort of
roll and it pops out and throughthere.
Yeah, but you're shooting.
Ron Kiehne (41:51):
It's not for human consumption.
Yeah, when you're doing for thechiller, you've got to have
them open, so they can suppose,because when they take them in
they'll actually peel them openand check the lungs.
So I think you had to leave thelungs in, that's right.
So there was no high daddardsor anything they used to check
for any disease, was that?
Dodge Keir (42:05):
often Did you get many with worms and things.
Ron Kiehne (42:09):
No, not really no, they were all good, yeah, so no,
they were a bit old days.
My favourite job was dad usedto drive me to school and I said
you're getting them out of thecar and I'm putting them in the
chiller, because it was fivedegrees warmer in the chiller
than what I was outside.
It'd be minus five or sixoutside and the chiller was like
two degrees.
Dodge Keir (42:25):
So I was like walking into the kitchen,
Walking into summer yeah it'spretty cool that you're doing it
on the way to school.
Yeah, things are a bitdifferent.
Back then you just walk aroundwith the firearm on the basal.
Ron Kiehne (42:35):
Well, dad had a 22 that used to live up the
backseat of the car all the time.
We just sat down the whole year.
Dodge Keir (42:39):
Someone told me a story the other day.
Their bus driver used to stopon the way to school and shoot
pigs out the window and thenkeep driving, drop the kids off,
come home, pick the pigs up anddown it.
Yeah, country times were alittle bit more fun.
Ron Kiehne (42:49):
Yeah, I used to shoot rabbits on the way home
from school and whatever.
Dodge Keir (42:54):
I'll get a photo of it too.
But you told me a pretty coolstory about your dad was playing
with marksmanship, shootingsmaller and smaller things, and
they got down to somethingpretty damn small.
Ron Kiehne (43:04):
Yeah, my um, this is still open sites my dad and my
great uncle using 22.
So he went down to a placecalled Glenelgen, which is east
of Dundee, and they used to campin a hut down there and they'd
shoot all night till they gotthe back of the youthful and
then they'd come to town and getrid of the rabbits and go back.
So they'd shoot most of thenight and then during the day
they'd sleep.
So you'd wake up at like tillthree o'clock in afternoon and
(43:29):
nothing to do.
So they used to practiceshooting.
So they started off.
They had a little pieces offirebrow and they'd take it and
see how far they could shoot itwith an open, open sighted 22.
And they just kept putting themfurther and further away and
smaller and smaller pieces.
Then they said, oh, let's chuckjam tins up into the sky and
shoot them.
So they were doing that andthey could do that pretty good.
So then they said, oh, let'sget the pieces of firebrow and
(43:51):
we'll chuck them up in the airand see if I can shoot them.
So they were doing that andthen I'm getting smaller and
smaller pieces of firebrow.
Anyway, they got down to let'schuck the penny up and see if I
can shoot a penny.
So anyway, I don't know howmany times I did it before I hit
one, but they had both ended uphitting a penny and I've
actually still got my dad's mygreat uncle, I think hit here's
(44:11):
pretty well in the center andthey never found it.
They heard it hit and theyheard a bit of a noise but never
found it, and my dad's hit abit off center and what it did
it made just spinning eyes and Iand it went into the grass and
only very short grass, so theyknew where it went.
So they just went and lookedtill I found it.
It's crazy, I'm actually stillgot it yeah, I saw it up there.
Dodge Keir (44:32):
You got a little, a pretty cool little cabinet.
There's some memorabilia in it.
Yeah, I spotted it and yes,that's the one we're talking.
What are they?
25mm or so, yeah, not very big.
That's a.
That's a trick shot in today'sturn.
Oh yeah.
Yeah, that's right.
So we're gonna head out thisafternoon and check out a
property.
Yep, and again, you saidthere's certain times a year
(44:52):
where they're not particularlyreactive.
What are we now?
August?
Yeah, so are we.
When are they breeding?
When are they in the den?
And then I often hear so,background, I haven't done a
whole lot of fox.
You, I've shot some.
Actually my arch nemesis I'vemissed more than I've shot,
because I get really nervousabout him, because the whole
farmer thing, like if you miss afox you don't come back, and
(45:13):
yeah, so you're nearly betterthan not telling them, but they
make me nervous.
Deer and things, not an issue,but there's a time of year, so
I'm told, when the younger onesstart to come out and they're,
they're quite reactive.
Yep, because they're dumb.
Ron Kiehne (45:26):
They haven't had that education so at the moment
we should be looking at thevixens still being in the den.
If we do whistle up any,they'll be all bare down the
belly.
They'll have pups in the den.
Normally it's good to find themand where they are.
But generally if you shoot avixen you've got no chance of
getting the pups because they'llbe right up inside a log or in
(45:46):
under a pile of rocks orwhatever.
So they just die natural death.
There's nothing you can doabout that unless you can get to
them quite easily or goodaccess, which very rarely
happens.
But if you shoot vixens at thistime of year they could be
still not have pups.
It could be pups on the groundgently.
In September you'll startshooting vixens that have got
(46:09):
pups on them, so you'll see thatthey got nada.
And yeah, as far as you know,whistling in pups generally
January right as when they'rearound and stupid little bit
easier, january, february.
Dodge Keir (46:22):
Yeah, and I saw you got a pile of fox skins in there
.
You summer foxes different towinter foxes, skin wise, oh yeah
years ago, foxes were, um, youknow, very popular skin.
Ron Kiehne (46:33):
They were sold overseas and whatever.
But the fur and bamboo brigadeand the greenies have, you know,
seen to, they wrecked all that,which is more detriment to them
and and nature.
Because what they've done isbecause it's not economically
viable to shoot foxes, they justlet breed, and same with feral
(46:56):
cats.
So it goes exactly against the,to the opposite effect to what
the greenies want to do, insteadof, you know, little birds and
native ground, dwelling birdsand mammals.
On that, I think, quite acomprehensive, do they?
No, it's the same as locking upa mash like a national park and
not burning it.
You know, it gets that muchdebris on the ground that
(47:17):
eventually it's going to like,it's going to burn and disappear
, and then it just kills all thebig trees, you know, just
because it burns too hot yeah,they can't understand the whole.
Dodge Keir (47:25):
You know not one thing.
Out to save others, or that's.
Ron Kiehne (47:28):
They just want to save everything and it makes
everything worse well withbushfires years ago who put them
out, like 200 years ago, whoput a bushfire out every
lighting strike, start thebushfire and it burnt to let it
water.
So that's just natural conceptregularly.
Dodge Keir (47:40):
Yeah, so it kept nature in check so you're doing
your part for keeping nature incheck.
I'll try to definitelyfacilitate it.
A lot, of, a lot of fox deaths.
How far wide have you seen thesilver fox whistle spread?
Like you said, you sent some toto England.
Oh, we get you sell overseasyeah, yeah, we get calls every.
Ron Kiehne (48:00):
I had to.
I got a thing there from abloke in America the other day.
He said he's using me oncoyotes and he said they work
really good.
He's been selling, I'll sellthem, getting his mates to buy
them.
I bring a company in SouthAustralia the other day that
does rural outlet store and Isaid, oh, there's a gun shop in
(48:22):
your area that has been sellingmy whistles but they've closed
down.
I said would you be interested?
I said, oh, you probably don'tknow of the silver fox whistle,
but I'm telling her, given aspiel about it, and she went, no
, I'm, I got one.
So she said, yeah, I'll takesome.
Yeah, yeah.
So no, they're very wide, likeyou get 14 thousand around is
the amount of people that I comeacross.
(48:42):
Oh, yeah, I got one, or youknow, and so how long was 10
years ago?
Dodge Keir (48:46):
roughly about 10 years.
Yeah, I remember I was deerexpo down in Bendigo that real
hot weekend and yeah, I didn'tsee run.
You didn't need to.
You could freaking hear him andit wasn't you.
I think it was Georgia, yeah,when she come over and started
working out how to blow it.
So Georgia Ricky's probablylistening this Georgia was
(49:06):
probably this big back then andnow she's as tall as me yeah,
studying away, but she workedout how to blow that thing
pretty quickly.
Ron Kiehne (49:13):
Yeah, kids, generally they're the ones that
work it out a lot better thanthe adults.
Right, adults are setting theirways of what they want to do
and how they should blow itright whereas kids don't know
any difference, so they just trydifferent things and all of a
sudden, yep, they've got it.
Dodge Keir (49:25):
I'm glad we were on the other side of the hall
because for your neighbors inthe side here they would have.
We've got a bit sick of that,yeah it was funny.
Ron Kiehne (49:30):
When I was down there I had these two blokes
come in and they asked me allabout the whistle and said oh,
yeah, yeah, yeah, oh, theyguarantee they'll work.
Yeah, they're pretty wild sortof blokes.
Anyway, the next day that was aSaturday next day they come
back, these whistles come up andbang them on the cat we want
our money back all right, okay,no worries.
(49:51):
But we went home, we bought acart and a stubby's.
We went out in the back shedand we whistled and whistled and
not one fox came.
I said, oh, that's possible.
He said yeah, but then weopened the roller door and every
bloody cat was sitting outsideyeah, so they worked for cats
yeah, I had another old blague.
It was funny.
I did a you know, an interviewwith ABC radio and a bloke rang
(50:14):
me up from Newcastle.
He said could you meet me inTamworth?
And I said yeah, I'll come down.
So we sat in the park and we,but he did this thing and he
went back three weeks later hadthis bloke from down the snowy
mountains rang me and he said Iwant to buy one of your whistles
.
He said they're pretty good.
I said oh, yeah.
I said he got one.
He went no.
I said you know something.
He's got one.
He went no.
I said oh, how do you knowthey're good?
(50:35):
He said well, I was listeningto ABC radio the other day and
he said I'm an old dog, or hesaid, but he done a lot of
dogging.
And my baron?
He rattled off and he said hesaid I was sitting in there
listening tentatively to thatand he said next thing, you
started whistling.
He said you know, my two dogscome back through the back door,
nearly ripped the screen offand they're trying to rip, tear
the old radio off themeadlepiece.
(50:56):
So he said I know they work.
Yeah, yeah, he said it wasfunny, but I get a lot of good
calls.
I had another bloke in westernAustralia said I should put
danger warning signs.
I said there is.
He said not for your ears,bloody owls.
He said I got whistler at nighttime.
I get died by my owls.
Swooped, mm.
Right, never thought about that.
(51:16):
I was scariest when I was goodat the sweat by an eagle you did
yeah, I was out whistling oneday and bloody.
This eagle came in and he linedme up did you see it coming?
No, come in from behind.
And the last minute he decidedoh no, it's not what I want.
He just he felt the wind.
It was like a bloody jet plane.
Oh Jesus, hear him back up inthere.
I was up about here, I reckonbig wedgie wow inflict some
(51:39):
wounds on the head if it tookyou out.
I've had quite a few of themcome into the whistle, but
they'll generally only come inlike 50, 80 meters away and
realize what's going on.
They'll just sit and look atyou.
Dodge Keir (51:49):
I've heard a few people getting their drones
taken out of the sky.
Ron Kiehne (51:51):
Yeah, by eagles yep, I wouldn't doubt that
inquisitive things.
Dodge Keir (51:55):
They are right.
Oh, thanks for sitting down andhaving a chat.
We're gonna have a little playaround the shed and you're gonna
, yep, show me behind secretdoors like you do, and then kill
me if I tell anyone.
Yeah, but then we're gonna goout and try no worries, sounds
good, look forward to it.
Ron Kiehne (52:09):
Thanks for the fire, nice and warm.
No worries, yeah, work well,lucky you.
The cold weather that's righton the fourth episode of
accurate hunts.
Dodge Keir (52:18):
I am sitting in the Liverpool Rangers Hunter Valley
area with the man himself, nickMorton, so you could set someone
up with a cheat, bow or top ofthe limbo and if it's not tuned
you're wasting your time.
Nick Moreton (52:31):
The old boars are just so tough like you can't hit
them through one lung in theback of the living and expect
them to run 150 and pull up andlay under a tree and then come
and finish them off.
They're just going to keepgoing like you're not going to
recover those animals unless youhit them perfectly.
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