Table of contents for Edition 78 in Australian Hunter

There is no need to eat beef at every meal during a hunting trip as fish and crustaceans abound in most rivers, lakes and billabongs, especially in the tropics. “But I am not a fishing person,” some might say. So, what? It’s not hard to catch a feed on the end of a line and baited hook in most streams and billabongs. In fact, a line and hook should be in your survival kit. But I am going off the track here. There are other fishy things in most of our waters, like freshwater lobsters, commonly called crayfish or redclaw, or their close relatives – depending where you hunt. They are easy to catch in pots containing suitable baits. But, in the tropics we have both redclaw in the Gulf…

Ever since reading stories in hunting magazines as a teenager, I had eagerly anticipated the time when I would have the chance to hunt the Himalayan tahr. Some years ago, after seeing a wonderful 14"-plus mounted specimen taken by my good mate Warren McKay, I knew that the majestic bull tahr was an animal that I definitely had to hunt. Tahrs are threatened in their home range in the Himalayas, so there are really only two other places in the world that they can be legally hunted - Texas and the South Island of New Zealand. Several of our mates had hunted tahrs in recent years with Dave Campbell from Outback Hunting New Zealand and had given him the two thumbs up. In NZ, tahrs, like deer, have continued to…

It started over a beer. Looking across the crop, we spoke about hunting in Brisbane Valley. It seemed that we knew a few of the same people and places. A little later came an offer to visit the family property and after a few calls, a date was arranged. When I arrived at the estate, I made my introductions and had a good chat with the owner, a genuinely nice bloke. A little while later I jumped back in the truck and drove over to the block. I. Early days That first visit was really just an armed walk, more habit than expectation. In doing so I began to build a mental picture of the near boundary as well as consider how I would approach it next time. Geographically, it…

When my dad Jim called to discuss his upcoming 70th birthday, it was no surprise when he told me he didn’t want a party. Instead, his wish was to have the whole family together at one location for a spot of hunting. While his needs would be easy for most of us to satisfy due to living in South-East Queensland, I’ve put down roots at the bottom end of the country. Anyway, I’d expected that dad’s preferred hunting location would be near Tenterfield. Here there’s a property where the family has regularly hunted over the years; busting bunnies, targeting foxes before lambing and chasing goats up the hills. The location is also in NSW, so it alleviates some of the tyranny of distance for me. I was surprised when dad…

The Ceska zbrojovka (CZ) 557 stable of rifles encompasses many models in a huge selection of calibres. Differences in fit and finish aside, they all use a modernised mini-Mauser barrelled action with a short extractor and a spring-loaded ejector. The CZ 557 Predator stock is based on that of the CZ 557 Synthetic model, with the main variance being that a soft touch camouflage coating has been applied. It is available in .308 and .30-06. Both have a hinged floorplate-style magazine. In .308 it holds five rounds (including the chamber). The barrel is cold hammer forged with a one in 10" twist rate and factory threaded to M14x1 for attachment of moderators, suppressors or other accessories where legally permitted. Factory specifications list the rifle weight at 3.2kg with a barrel…

When my brother Darcy was 19 years old, he bought a Tikka .243W from the local gunshop and electrical store in the main street of Toogoolawah. The price of a box of 20 bullets was quite expensive. George Rollins, the shop owner, suggested that Darcy should reload his own bullets as it was much cheaper than buying new boxes. He had a reloading jig and a set of gunpowder scales set up in his workroom at the back of the shop. It had all you needed to make them - new bullet cases, large rifle primes, projectiles and gunpowder. The initial outlay is the biggest thing but in the long run it is much cheaper by far to make your own per bullet than buy new ones. At that time,…

To me, duck season means more than shooting ducks. It takes in so much. It involves cooking game meat, photography, taxidermy and working with wood. It is a combination of all these elements which holds my interest. The lead-up to the 2021 Victoria duck season had created a lot of discussion, to say the least. At first, when the truly short 20-day campaign was announced I felt little enthusiasm. Such a short spell seemed a waste of time. Yet I was determined to make the most of it. I saw no value in sitting around feeling sorry for myself. Instead of hunting the bigger swamps I decided to check out a lot of dams to which I had access to locally. I made a few phone calls and all was…

Human beings have some curious habits. We have a tendency to look back a lot, wondering if things in the ‘old days’ were better than what they are today. I tend to doubt that, but it still doesn’t stop me from pondering what earlier times were like. For instance, my grandfather hunted water buffaloes from horseback in the early 1900s. I recall as a 10-year-old listening to his stories about how he would ride up beside a galloping buff and put the rifle barrel practically in the animal’s ear. His firearm at the time was a Winchester .44-40. Most of us today would never consider using such an old cartridge for hunting buffaloes. But back in the ‘old days’ you used what you had available. Later on, a lot of…

I met Dan through a mutual acquaintance a few years ago. It was with a group of friends who are all into four wheel drives, camping, outdoors and firearms. Dan asked if I could help him with building his house and we started chatting about construction. After I grew to know him a bit more, I decided to take him hunting to a property in northern NSW where I had just gained access. The farmer had issues with deer, pigs and goats coming from the surrounding bush and causing problems on his land. They had wrecked fencing and were competing with the livestock for feed he had been putting out. We drove down on a Friday night after work and set up camp in one of the back paddocks. The…

It was more than 30 years ago that I started to outfit myself with trusted gear. It took a lot of saving and self discipline but over time I bought myself some great fitting Italian hiking boots, a top-notch backpack, lightweight tent and sleeping bag, plus a PUMA hunting knife. Most of the kit lasted well. I still have the pack, with the tent and sleeping bag only recently replaced. However, not long after I bought the PUMA knife, it was stolen out of my 4WD ute. I never replaced the PUMA. Now I don’t mean I didn’t buy another knife, it’s just I found something else. Maybe it was nostalgia, perhaps it was just the right moment but recently I decided to revisit PUMA knives. Founded in 1769, PUMA…

I am lucky to live in a game rich area with hunting opportunities right on my doorstep. I take advantage of that and, depending on the weather, I hunt multiple times in any week. It is convenient and easy being able to conduct quick half-hour hunts at dawn or dusk while having the rest of my day clear for other activities. Being in such constant and close contact with my hunting locations, it would be easy to slip into a sense of complacency as to the ever-present risks involved in my undertakings. The most obvious risk, and one that I am well aware of, is snake bites. Our area has an abundance of snakes, both harmless and deadly, and I encounter them regularly. For years now, when out in the…

Years ago, I stumbled across Cold Steel branded knives while I was in search of a more affordable alternative for a custom blade I was looking to replace. Though they are fairly widely available, I had not heard of the brand prior to that. In the end, I did not go with a Cold Steel knife to replace my custom knife, but I took home their medium-sized Finn Bear. These days, I use two Cold Steel models on a regular basis. The Finn Bear, the subject of this review, and a Master Hunter, which is a much larger knife. At some stage, I owned another one of their options, the SRK (Search and Rescue Knife), but it was stolen from my car. Of the three, the Finn Bear is the…

This recipe will turn a rack of pork ribs into a meal to be savoured using the flavours of a Burmese curry. Myanmar (Burma) is bordered by Bangladesh and India to its north-west, China to the north-east, Laos and Thailand to its east and south-east and the Andaman Sea and the Bay of Bengal to the south and south-west. Burmese cuisine encompasses diverse regional culinary traditions developed through longstanding agricultural practices, centuries of socio-political and economic change, plus cross-cultural contact and trade with neighbouring countries. This Burmese curry will add a touch of class to a rack of pork ribs. The predominant flavour comes from generous quantities of garlic and ginger. These spices are used by Burmese to preserve their meat. Vinegar is also added for flavour and preserving but…

A nearby farmer called to say he had begun losing newborn calves. He had just sighted a wild dog in the same paddock and, more than likely, it was the culprit. Additionally, one of his cows had died earlier that morning and, from experience, that would also attract wild dogs and feral pigs. I have been hunting this particular property for about five years and, in that time, I have shot close to 30 marauding dogs. The property is of 1000 acres, approximately rectangular and shares three boundaries with vast areas of dense tropical jungle national park. The tropical rainforest is a haven for wild dogs and feral pigs that emerge to raid the bordering farmland. If these feral predators limited themselves to eating just the afterbirth and occasional dead…

The western winter sun began to fade through the trees of the creek line as I made my way back to the ute, signalling my final moments working away on a remote cattle property. An hour earlier I had discovered a myriad of pig and wild dog prints in the sandy creek bed that caught my attention. I had reached the property boundary and although my sense of adventure was yanking on my shirt tails to continue in a different direction, I listened to the ‘little man’ sitting on my shoulder and returned to camp before being stranded in unfamiliar territory. The smell of a rotting beast carcass killed by wild dogs in the creek bed hit my nose before it came into view. I had crossed paths with it…

Most of my mates chuckle as they see me pull out my hammock when we go camping. While we all spend a good part of our time in the bush, I know of few others who use a hammock as their preferred shelter for overnight or longer trips. Some hunters sleep in a simple swag with a tarp, others use stretchers, tents or doze in their ute while the younger ones take pride in ‘roughing it’, just sleeping on the ground. And I will be honest - I’ve done all, except sleep in the car because I am growing older and it was just never comfortable. After going through all sorts of sleeping arrangements out bush, I have settled on a hammock as my go-to shelter. I have a light…

Garmin have long been a leading and trusted player in the GPS market, both for professional and recreational users. In late 2020 Garmin released their next generation – the 700/750 series which gave the opportunity for Australian Hunter to review the Montana 700i GPS. GPS technology has been readily available for more than 30 years. So now GPS location tracking is built into many everyday devices, like your smartphone, or camera (if you don’t simply use the camera in your phone). But anyway, in brief, GPS stands for Global Positioning System, which is a swarm of satellites in near-Earth orbit. These satellites, which are all synchronised to a super-precise atomic clock, each broadcast a signal. Your GPS receiver picks up the available satellites that it can see and, once it…

It was a warm summer afternoon in the hills of Central West NSW. I had climbed two-thirds up the last rise towards the summit with my long heavy-barrelled Remington 700 chambered in .270 Dakota, hoping to put in some shots at mountain pigs. I was thinking of the previous day, when I had shot two goats on the opposite face of a hill across a wide gully in which a creek flowed through the middle. Suddenly there was an explosion of pigs just in front of me. They had been resting, well-camouflaged underneath a low tree and I had unknowingly disturbed them, on my way up the incline. My thoughts returned to the present and soon I had a round chambered with the rifle aiming at a fleeing pig and…

Magpie goose, either fresh from the field or out of the freezer, was consumed almost weekly while my family enjoyed living in the Top End. Admittedly my first attempts at cooking with the waterfowl were more miss than hit, and the meals received pretty dim reviews. Things took a turn for the better when I started treating the meat more like beef or lamb and less like poultry. This particular dish, inspired by the smells and flavours of the many Asian food stalls at the Mindil Beach Markets, became a firm favourite. This recipe should yield sufficient quantity to satisfy 4-6 people, especially if served with rice or noodles and some Asian greens, but it’s honestly that good there are rarely any leftovers when served to only four. I can…