havgunwilltravel
Active member
It is always fun to mix up a few different hunts other then the deer species we chase year round and last weekend we pointed the 4wd into the desert for a ten hour drive to meet up with mates and get into the outback.
I love the change of pace from city life and its certainly great to go without a shower for a few nights and kick dust around the campfire under some very impressive stars having a beer after a long day in the field. The purpose of this hunt was to try to find a few old curly billies.
We made it to our destination around 2:00am, had a few hours sleep and woke up to head on in to the station and meet the guys at sunrise. We didn't mess around and went straight into the bush. A couple of hours later we found a good campsite and unpacked.
This location was very thick with scrub and we concentrated our efforts around the waterholes that were spread out on the million acre property.
At some of the well used waterholes we set up homebrew trail cameras we had made.
It is always fun to mix up a few different hunts other then the deer species we chase year round and last weekend we pointed the 4wd into the desert for a ten hour drive to meet up with mates and get into the outback.
I love the change of pace from city life and its certainly great to go without a shower for a few nights and kick dust around the campfire under some very impressive stars having a beer after a long day in the field. The purpose of this hunt was to try to find a few old curly billies.
We made it to our destination around 2:00am, had a few hours sleep and woke up to head on in to the station and meet the guys at sunrise. We didn't mess around and went straight into the bush. A couple of hours later we found a good campsite and unpacked.
This location was very thick with scrub and we concentrated our efforts around the waterholes that were spread out on the million acre property.
At some of the well used waterholes we set up homebrew trail cameras we had made.
Typically when the boys were setting tc's i was doing a couple of km loop in the scrub around the dam incase a herd of bachelor billies were bedded up or feeding out of view. Normally i would see goats doing this, but nothing worth shooting. A few nice young nannies were at one of the dams and we took a couple for meat.
Towards evening we walked up to another dam and i glassed a scrawny bodied billy with nice sweeping horns heading back to the scrub. He was the better billy we had seen for the day and a shoulder shot sorted him out.
With a couple of hours left we all split up to cover more ground and my mate and i headed into fresh country. A lot of goats were looked over, some decent billies and finally at sunset we found a shooter as he headed back into his bedding grounds on a timbered ridge.
A few beers back at camp around the fire in the bush out west is hard to beat in summer.
Next morning we all decided to split up and sit water until mid afternoon. I had a great time from the get go. Bird and wildlife continually came in and i almost made triple figures with goats looked over before the quietened down in the heat of the day.
Plenty of billies were checked out, but nothing of the age/size i wanted to shoot. This billy in the middle had a great cape and i thought of rolling him but left him alone incase a big boy was around the corner.
Come 2:00pm my mate swung past to get me and we took a drive to look over some more open areas on the edge of our hunting location. A convenient place to rest and warm up was found by this desert dweller.
Feral cats are a big problem to our native wildlife and i make every effort to shoot them on sight when i can. This one was sitting on a rabbit warren and the .223 took him out.
Next morning we all split up and sat over water again, i went to another location but didn't have much action at all. Still it was good to be on the hunt and that is most important of all. At this stage we decided to move camp and go north to another location as we weren't finding the quality of billies we were hoping. This was due to the fact it wasn't that hot and the old billies weren't forced to come drink every day.
Typically aussies like to play a few jokes on each other and again we split up to go pick up a few tc's and meet later in the day. We rounded a bend in the road at one dam where a tc was and soon discovered a pair of bruiser billies asleep in the shade of the tree. We didn't have much time and i put the crosshairs on the left animal and shot, he rolled over a little. My mate got a bit excited and sent three at his monster twister. Second hit but the billy didn't move much, i thought maybe the horn was resting on the dirt and using a .30 cal on animals this size it tends to work well. This is them after the little shoot out.
Heading over to the billies we couldn't believe it when we walked up and realised the young lads had just played a pearler of a joke on us and using some billies they had shot that morning they had added some extra length to the horns by putting an extra horn on each end and they had propped them up superbly with sticks. I admit i had never been done over like that before and we both broke out in laughter that we had swallowed hook, line, sinker and boat all in the one moment.
Goats and billies were everywhere at the next property we went to and whilst we looked over a couple thousand trying to find that extra large billy we just never put the binoculars on what we were hoping for. The two best goats we took up there was this fella.
And after the shot.
And then i shot this black billy late in the morning after a big hike into scrubby country.
Heading home and packing up is never easy and it was quite hard this trip to say good bye to our mates and the station owner and get back to 'normal' life. Certainly a great break and hopefully it gives a few Hunt Talk members a look at hunting in the outback of Oz.
I love the change of pace from city life and its certainly great to go without a shower for a few nights and kick dust around the campfire under some very impressive stars having a beer after a long day in the field. The purpose of this hunt was to try to find a few old curly billies.
We made it to our destination around 2:00am, had a few hours sleep and woke up to head on in to the station and meet the guys at sunrise. We didn't mess around and went straight into the bush. A couple of hours later we found a good campsite and unpacked.
This location was very thick with scrub and we concentrated our efforts around the waterholes that were spread out on the million acre property.
At some of the well used waterholes we set up homebrew trail cameras we had made.
It is always fun to mix up a few different hunts other then the deer species we chase year round and last weekend we pointed the 4wd into the desert for a ten hour drive to meet up with mates and get into the outback.
I love the change of pace from city life and its certainly great to go without a shower for a few nights and kick dust around the campfire under some very impressive stars having a beer after a long day in the field. The purpose of this hunt was to try to find a few old curly billies.
We made it to our destination around 2:00am, had a few hours sleep and woke up to head on in to the station and meet the guys at sunrise. We didn't mess around and went straight into the bush. A couple of hours later we found a good campsite and unpacked.
This location was very thick with scrub and we concentrated our efforts around the waterholes that were spread out on the million acre property.
At some of the well used waterholes we set up homebrew trail cameras we had made.
Typically when the boys were setting tc's i was doing a couple of km loop in the scrub around the dam incase a herd of bachelor billies were bedded up or feeding out of view. Normally i would see goats doing this, but nothing worth shooting. A few nice young nannies were at one of the dams and we took a couple for meat.
Towards evening we walked up to another dam and i glassed a scrawny bodied billy with nice sweeping horns heading back to the scrub. He was the better billy we had seen for the day and a shoulder shot sorted him out.
With a couple of hours left we all split up to cover more ground and my mate and i headed into fresh country. A lot of goats were looked over, some decent billies and finally at sunset we found a shooter as he headed back into his bedding grounds on a timbered ridge.
A few beers back at camp around the fire in the bush out west is hard to beat in summer.
Next morning we all decided to split up and sit water until mid afternoon. I had a great time from the get go. Bird and wildlife continually came in and i almost made triple figures with goats looked over before the quietened down in the heat of the day.
Plenty of billies were checked out, but nothing of the age/size i wanted to shoot. This billy in the middle had a great cape and i thought of rolling him but left him alone incase a big boy was around the corner.
Come 2:00pm my mate swung past to get me and we took a drive to look over some more open areas on the edge of our hunting location. A convenient place to rest and warm up was found by this desert dweller.
Feral cats are a big problem to our native wildlife and i make every effort to shoot them on sight when i can. This one was sitting on a rabbit warren and the .223 took him out.
Next morning we all split up and sat over water again, i went to another location but didn't have much action at all. Still it was good to be on the hunt and that is most important of all. At this stage we decided to move camp and go north to another location as we weren't finding the quality of billies we were hoping. This was due to the fact it wasn't that hot and the old billies weren't forced to come drink every day.
Typically aussies like to play a few jokes on each other and again we split up to go pick up a few tc's and meet later in the day. We rounded a bend in the road at one dam where a tc was and soon discovered a pair of bruiser billies asleep in the shade of the tree. We didn't have much time and i put the crosshairs on the left animal and shot, he rolled over a little. My mate got a bit excited and sent three at his monster twister. Second hit but the billy didn't move much, i thought maybe the horn was resting on the dirt and using a .30 cal on animals this size it tends to work well. This is them after the little shoot out.
Heading over to the billies we couldn't believe it when we walked up and realised the young lads had just played a pearler of a joke on us and using some billies they had shot that morning they had added some extra length to the horns by putting an extra horn on each end and they had propped them up superbly with sticks. I admit i had never been done over like that before and we both broke out in laughter that we had swallowed hook, line, sinker and boat all in the one moment.
Goats and billies were everywhere at the next property we went to and whilst we looked over a couple thousand trying to find that extra large billy we just never put the binoculars on what we were hoping for. The two best goats we took up there was this fella.
And after the shot.
And then i shot this black billy late in the morning after a big hike into scrubby country.
Heading home and packing up is never easy and it was quite hard this trip to say good bye to our mates and the station owner and get back to 'normal' life. Certainly a great break and hopefully it gives a few Hunt Talk members a look at hunting in the outback of Oz.
