Table of contents for Edition 93 in Australian Hunter

As hunters, we share a deep respect for the land, its wildlife, and the responsibility that comes with both. Whether stalking deer in the Victorian High Country or managing feral pigs in the Top End, you understand that ethical hunting plays a vital role in Australia’s environmental balance. Hosted by the South African Hunters and Game Conservation Association, I recently travelled with our CEO Tom Kenyon to South Africa - a country where hunting isn’t just a pastime, but a fundamental part of its conservation and rural culture. Our trip’s first stop was HuntEx, Africa’s largest hunting and firearms expo. The atmosphere was electric. Families, farmers and outfitters mingled in a celebration of outdoor heritage. Firearms were showcased as essential tools for self-reliance and wildlife management. What struck me most…

My M6 Scout survival rifle has been a trusty companion on my journey as a licenced firearms user. It’s an over-under combination break open firearm combining a .22LR upper barrel with an open choke .410 lower shotgun barrel. The sights are a round aperture peep sight for rifle shooting and a V-notch for shotgun. I’ve been using both to build my competence on the SSAA range. While I’ll happily continue improving my marksmanship this way, I was delighted to receive a ‘ZeroTech Thrive HD Red Dot Reflex Sight 3 MOA High Mount’. As a reflex sight, otherwise known as an ‘open’ red dot sight, the Thrive HD Reflex features an exposed design with the red dot projected onto a curved anti-reflective (AR) lens. To look at, it’s quite different to…

In issue 88 of Australian Hunter, I reviewed the Gerber Spine. It was an emergency purchase of a knife that I would have normally overlooked. While it will never be my favourite knife, I continue to use it. This motivated me to research other affordable and widely available knives out there. The knife had to have a fixed blade design, be compact, widely available and on the lower end of the price scale. One, a bit to my surprise, was another knife by Gerber. It is the ‘Exo Mod’. The knife is similar in length to the ‘Spine’ but has a much narrower grip. The Exo Mod is sold as a hunting knife and forms part of a three-model range. The review knife is listed as the ‘Drop Point', the…

Sometimes opportunities are in your own backyard. It was 3pm on a stinking hot summer afternoon. All I wanted to do was sit on the verandah sipping cold soda water. But our little grandson was visiting and agitating to “do something”. Farm holidays are great for kids. They get to see real world animals and activities. New calves are cute and there’s plenty of tame native animals and birds around the farmhouse too. The neighbouring forestry hosts a lot of wild dogs and at times they take a heavy toll on the little calves. Our grandson loves helping with the dog control aspects. That includes putting up trail cameras and moving dead livestock about. Sometimes it includes placing boned-out deer frames near the trail cams too. A calf was missing,…

I had done all the physical scouting I could do. Mentally I'd run a checklist through possible target areas and ‘plan b’ should the wind not be right or the animals simply not cooperate. I’d also made a checklist of everything I needed for the upcoming trip. It’s about trying to keep it as simple as possible with just a tent/swag, gazebo and anything that can be put in a vehicle. I got to the property and set up at my normal camp spot in the early afternoon: tent, gazebo, buggy and vehicle reversed up a side trail. My camp is three-quarters of the way up a gully head. This way I don’t scent up most of the lower country and I’m out of the predominate wind by being just…

Let’s get something clear right off the bat: Oink’s author, Peter John Booth, is no chef. And Oink is no cookbook. Melbourne-based lawyer Booth is a self-proclaimed foodie, someone with a deep, almost unsettling, passion for meat. His mantra could easily be ‘You don’t win friends with salad,’ made famous by ‘The Simpsons’. But where Booth diverges from the norm is in the world of charcuterie, where he blends his deep love for meat with a macabre sense of humour and a healthy dose of grisly imagery. Oink isn’t just a guide; it’s an eerie journey into the world of butchery, wrapped in dark, almost Hitchcockian visuals. In this hardback offering, over 250 pages of Booth’s eccentricities unfold with hauntingly beautiful photos and advice you won’t find anywhere else. It’s…

Being a keen hunter my whole life, April obviously has its perks for me. With the rutting fallow, roaring reds and the hog deer and duck season all around the same time of year, between work and hunting I’ve got little time left for anything else. Thankfully, this is something my partner of over a decade has come to terms with. Ever since I was a kid visiting a relative in East Gippsland, I’ve been absolutely obsessed with hog deer. He’s got a few bigger models on his wall that I loved looking at and talking about, as well as seeing them in the paddocks close to his house. Once I got older, I started to get increasingly into deer hunting and tried for hoggies on public land with no…

It’s true. Your teacher was right after all. Homework does pay off. That applies to most aspects of our lives, but none more so than in hunting. When I was starting out as a hunter, I expected to shoot my quarry every time I set foot in the bush. Most times that never happened and left me a bit dejected. In time though, I gained an appreciation of the need to do my hunting homework and, more importantly, learned to enjoy that exercise. Pity I never realised that while I was still in school. My hunting focus shifted from what I had shot on my outing to what I had learned. And there is always something to be learned from a walk in the bush. Most times it may be…

Lighting a fire has been an essential part of outdoors survival throughout history. From early humans discovering fire via natural sources like lightning strikes to learning how to harness and control it, fire has been crucial for warmth, cooking, protection and even socialising around the campfire. It has meant the difference between survival and peril, whether used for cooking meals, warding off wildlife or simply staying warm during long nights in the wilderness. Starting a fire, however, wasn’t always an easy feat. Early methods included rubbing sticks together or striking rocks to create sparks. Over time, fire-starting techniques evolved - friction-based methods, fire drills, and tools like flint and steel made it more efficient. These advancements allowed early humans to adapt to harsher environments, ensuring they could keep warm, forge…

The term ‘Tex-Mex’ came into being to describe the Texas-Mexican railway. It eventually morphed to describe Tejanos, who are Texans of Mexican descent. These days it is widely used and accepted to reference Mexican cuisine with a Texan influence. On its own, 'Pico de gallo' (imagine a Mexican-type tabouli) is a sour experience, however as a burger topping, it cuts through the strong mince flavour and absolutely makes this dish. Ingredients Patties • 700g venison mince• ½ teaspoon garlic powder• 1 teaspoon onion powder• ½ teaspoon ground chilli• ½ teaspoon cumin• ½ teaspoon salt and pepper• 2 tablespoons olive oil• 150g sour cream• 2 tablespoons butter or margarine• 6 fresh buns• Cheddar cheese• 1 ripe avocado – mashed. Pico de gallo • 2 small tomatoes (or 3 Roma) finely diced•…

It was a hard life for colonial policemen in the goldrush and bushranger era. They faced their lawless adversaries armed only with a single-shot pistol. Bushrangers were often armed with a six-shot revolver and more than one firearm. The classic example of a gun battle with protagonists armed with these firearms took place at Fogg’s shanty near Bigga in New South Wales on July 16, 1861. William Fogg was harbouring notorious bushranger Frank Gardiner, when two troopers rode up. Sergeant John Middleton entered the building first, with his single-shot Tower percussion pistol. He noticed a man duck into a back room and as he followed, a shot was fired at him. Middleton then re-entered the room and both men fired. The sergeant’s shot missed but Gardiner’s shot caught Middleton in…

The neck section of a deer, which holds a great deal of meat, bone and marrow, is generally discarded as it’s not considered as a choice piece of meat. Some combine it with other cuts, mix in various herbs and spices, and turn it into burgers or sausages. Particularly when considering how difficult it can be for a hunter to bag a deer, you want to make the most of the available meat. Like my own thoughts on meat retrieval, Dean Williams, who guided me on a sambar hunt (see previous story), pointed out that there is nothing wrong with the neck section. This is especially so if it’s a young stag or hind to cook up into a hearty meal. Having successfully harvested a young stag, I tried a…

The mountains around us echoed with the sounds of partridge, or ‘chukar’ as they call them here, and inside our hearts we willed them to relax and not disturb the remarkable flare-horned markhor. It was day one of our trip in the Hindu Kush, the foothills of the Himalayas. We had seen a herd through the spotting scope, breaching a ridge. It was sunrise, and the beguiling horns, long beards and draping capes of these unusual-looking creatures were silhouetted on the skyline, in all their rarified glory. Fortune was favouring us, gifting us a unique spectacle, an incredible introduction to this celestial creature, the national animal of Pakistan. It was late in the season when Steve Hornady and I embarked on this bold adventure and, with spring approaching, the animals…

Promotions suggest that the Swissmade Victorinox Evoke BSH Alox EDC knife is a new generation of gear that is just as at home in your everyday pocket as it is on your outdoor adventure. They are not wrong. Whether you’re slicing vegetables in camp or breaking down a freshly harvested wild goat in the field, the Victorinox Evoke is the tool for the job. As a folding knife, it outperforms most when it comes to precision and reliability, with the black clippoint blade sharp enough to tackle tough field tasks straight out of the box. With an open length of 230mm and a folded length of 136mm, this knife is wellsized for everyday carry (EDC) but also built to manage the more demanding jobs a hunter faces. The 95mm stainless…

I recently got to sight-in my firearm for the first time. It’s a Remington Model 700 with a 20" heavy barrel in .223 Rem on a GRS Hybrid stock. Dad had given it to me as a gift on my 12th birthday and I have my minors’ permit. The firearm is registered to him until I turn 18 and he had used it once on the SSAA range to make sure it was all good on the inside. I wanted my first shot to be when I was out with Pop. When I’d used open sights on the SSAA range with Dad’s Lithgow Slazenger single-shot .22LR, the result was kind of trashy. I couldn’t achieve a consistent shot group smaller than 10cm at 25m. But, when I used a 4x40mm…