Innehållsförteckning för Edition 64 från Australian Hunter

Sometimes an unplanned trip can turn out to be the best one, especially during the later parts of the dry season. It was hot as only the end of the dry season in the lower Cape York area can be. Temperatures were hovering over the 40C mark, more so where the hot winds roasted the bare plains. The station dams were drying out and surrounded by hungry Brahma cattle, bellowing pitifully and literally dying on their feet. They were poor and skinny with only Stocklick, a food and mineral supplement, to sustain them. It keeps them alive until welcome rains blanket the land and green the grasses. My old mate Wayne and I had made a spur-of-the-moment decision to go pig hunting, even though commonsense dictated otherwise. Still, it was…

There would be more than a few readers of this page who, like me, have had close calls with vision impairment. I have always been a safety glasses nut whether shooting, riding motorbikes or using tools. What you can’t shield against though is age and I had a fast onset of cataracts in the left eye which within six months rendered me blind in that eye and with cataracts growing in the right eye, it was panic stations! Modern technology and top-tier health funds are wonderful things and when you lift the bandages post-op, you have a renewed respect for what 20/20 vision means and how close you just came to being house-bound. For 30 years I have always had good camera lenses; I would spend double the dollars on…

In August 2017, I had the pleasure of returning to the Northern Territory’s Arnhem Land for a buffalo stalk, which culminated in the successful hunt of a buffalo cow with an impressive 176cm horn spread (see Australian Hunter 63 magazine). What follows are a few other interesting outings from that same trip. Pity the poor bustard There were two bustards on the road and as we approached, they casually shifted themselves away from the track into the skinny cover of some sparse grass that the dry-season fires had somehow spared. We pulled up and I photographed the closest bird, making the most of a rare opportunity. The birds are never seen in the southern part of Australia where I live but remain fairly common in parts of the Territory. We…

While tucked comfortably into the natural cover surrounding the harvested barley field, each of us settled back in our Final Approach Pro-Guide layout blind to await the coming flights of huge Canada geese. Before the sun had peaked over the treetops, we had carefully placed our geese and duck decoys in the field in front of us then worked quickly to further camouflage our blinds by interlacing clumps of the natural grasses growing in the area. The honking we could now hear coming from behind us conveyed the message that the geese were becoming restless and soon would be moving from their watery night-time resting areas to feed in the adjacent agricultural fields, hopefully one of which would be the very grassland we were now watching. Our Stoeger M3500 self-loading…

Before you read Lynn Bain’s goat curry recipe on page 97 and leap into trying it at home, a quick refresher on the different cuts of meat is in order, so you too can learn how to trim goat foreshanks into cubes of ‘gravy meat’ for all manner of delicious recipes. In our main photo we present a comparison of different cuts, including a goat foreleg with the hock removed, a goat foreshank (aka shin) and a leg bone still attached to the shoulder blade (aka scapula). The meat has been trimmed from the leg bone and the shoulder blade. The plan is to trim the meat from the shanks and prepare the meat for cooking. In the following, I am using an Outdoor Edge 5½" boning/fillet knife from the…

By the time duck opening was with us, I had pretty much everything under control and was ready for a busy season. By all accounts, if conditions held, it was going to be a good one and, possibly, for the next few years as well. I have a nice quiet little spot tucked away in the bush that very few know of, even locals, and I have been patronising this location for a number of years. The tail end of a long billabong, it is favoured by most species of legal game birds and the perfect space to put out a few decoys and work the dog over. However, this year, as with a lot of other places, we had received plenty of rain during the winter months, with the…

I will be the first to admit I have a special fondness for gun stocks which have been expertly crafted from a piece of highly figured walnut. The natural beauty inherent in a fine Claro, Bastogne or Turkish walnut simply sets my heart pounding much like a teenage boy’s ticker does as he is about to escort his favourite girlfriend to their school dance. But as beautiful and impressive as walnut can be, there are some major issues with wood stocks that can have a negative impact on your shooting performance. They do not resist the effects of nature as well as a composite or synthetic stock. When subjected to moisture, wood can warp and distort, resulting in changing the impact point of the bullets. And also wood is more…

It’s amazing how much control we can have over the weather with just our choice of what to pack for our trip into the bush. For example, if it’s cold, drizzly hunting weather you would prefer, simply leave your fleecy jumpers sitting on the coffee table. Furthermore, for torrential rain, have your partner forget to pack the waterproof jackets and extra socks. It’s Murphy’s Law. While at university, where all pointless theories and ideas are invented, my best mate and I contemplated helping out the struggling farmers by planning an epic trip through drought-stricken areas of NSW, with a freshly washed ute packed with fishing and hunting gear but no wet-weather kit. A perfect recipe for rain. It seems that the more you pack, the less you will need. Which…

Ever since man’s ancestors began to hunt and kill other animals for food, he has needed tools to assist him in breaking apart the carcass. It would be a long time before man invented metal implements to assist with this chore, so with necessity being the mother of invention, our ancestors fashioned crude cutting implements from flaky chips of stone, to become the first knives. The initial metal implements were honed from bronze, a mixture of molten copper and tin, around the Middle East about 3700BC and I will wager that it didn’t take long before some enterprising young metalworker created the first bronze knives and swords. Of course, bronze held a better edge than stone, was a lot stronger and lasted much longer so by about 1200BC bronze had…

There surely is not a person in Australia who is unaware of the havoc foxes inflict on our native wildlife. Then there is the carnage they create for our sheep farmers, especially during lambing season, which in turn costs every Australian. Foxes therefore deserve to be on everyone’s most wanted list. Back in the 1970s and 80s the fashion industry utilised fox skins for garments. This opened up a lucrative market for hunters as fox pelts brought good money, making them financially viable to shoot. Indeed, many hunters derived their primary income from harvesting fox skins. But well-intentioned, uninformed people protested against the killing of foxes and the use of pelts for fashion. They persuaded many companies and governments to stop the commercialisation and harvesting of fox skins. In turn,…

Once upon a time, shanks were a discarded cut of meat. However these days, shin meat is held in high regard for its lovely flavour profile. The secret, well it’s no secret anymore, is to slow cook it. It is also no secret that camp ovens and wood fires are perfect for slow cooking. When cut from different animals, the shin meat goes by many names. When referred to as a ‘shank’, as in lamb shank, it is a given that this cut of meat is cooked and served while attached to the bone (shin bone). Meanwhile, when it’s called osso bucco, the veal meat is still attached to the bone, but the shank bones are cut crossways. Moving right along the nomenclature chart and going closer to how the…

Since its introduction in the early1990s, there have been a number of variations of the Browning A-Bolt marque-perhaps the best known being the A-Bolt II BOSS (Ballistic Optimising Shooting System). This rifle had a muzzle attachment that acted not only as a brake but could also be adjusted to optimise barrel vibrations to achieve the best possible accuracy with any given load. It worked well enough but increased the felt muzzle blast and these days very little is heard about the system. In 2014 Browning introduced the A-Bolt 3 rifle as another step in the evolution of the marque. The rifle under review here is the Hunter in 6.5 Creedmoor, a simple but handsome walnut-stocked rifle with a practical matte blued barrel and action that appeals to old-fashioned hunters like…

Formed in 1973, the Gamebore Cartridge Company based at Hull in England has established itself as a force in the cartridge market with ties to Baschieri & Pellagri, Alliant, Nobel Sport and Vectan to produce some of the finest shotshell loads available. Just ask multiple World Champion FITASC shooter George Digweed MBE, an icon when it comes to Sporting Clays and a shooter exclusively of Gamebore premium shotshell products. Digweed’s endorsement of these shells must go a long way as his favourite loads are reported to be Black Gold and White Gold. I would imagine the premium Black Gold loads are used as a second barrel loading for distant targets while the White Gold loads are used for all other targets that can be offered on a Sporting Clays ground…

Pausing for a moment to unlock the entry gate of the expansive Tassie grazing property, I took a deep breath of the crisp, pure air and refreshed my memories of the unfolding landscape. Nine stag seasons had passed since my last pursuit of the wild fallow here. I was now as keen as mustard to scour the turf once again for a big gnarly-antlered veteran. According to the locals, the deer were more plentiful than ever, so my chances were good. A big stag was my main priority, but not to the exclusion of opportunities for nice meat animals. Since I also had tags for cull males and two does, I could not pass up too many chances waiting for stags. On our drive from the entrance to the hut…