Upcoming Trip
 

Just got a call from my F-I-L, a hunting trip has been organised for late next month! It's been a few months now since I've had access to my rifles and let me tell you, my trigger finger has been VERY itchy!:D

The place that we are going to is a 180,000 acre wheat and cotton farm and has an abundance of game, especially goats, pigs and roos. In exchange for a BBQ and a carton of beer we get the run of the place and an open invitation to take the property's bag limit of kangaroos (the Govt issues some properties that have severe problems with roos a certain amount of tags, which means you can hunt them legally), as well as any other vermin we can shoot. These pests literally cost the property owner tens of thousands of dollars in damaged and destroyed crops, so he relishes the opportunity for us to thin the herd a little.

The drive will be pretty hefty (about 6hrs from home + 4 to get back up to the Gold Coast where I'm at uni:() however it's going to be a great weekend away to go for a shot and catch up with some guys that I haven't seen since last year when we went. Our modus operandi by day is to drive around on 4x4's until we spot a mob, then dismount and stalk on foot within range. There is only ever two people with rifles at one time and all of us are experienced with hunting and guns, so safety is kept to a maximum. In the middle of nowhere there is enough to worry about even without adding guns to the mix. By night, we use a different method and 'spot and snipe' under lights.

I would've loved to have had a new gun for the trip but my Weatherby .223 will certainly do the job, especially with the roos and goats. There'll also be a range of other guns; a brand-spanking .25-06 Ruger V/T, another Weatherby in .22-250, a Savage .308 and a 12 gauge Rizzini shotgun. For rabbits, hares and foxes we'll also have a CZ in .17HMR.

I've got a couple of weeks and six exams left before I'm finished Uni for the year so this trip will be a good release for me before I start working full-time until February when I start Uni again.

In case you can't tell, I really can't wait!:p

Sounds like good fun ahead! What does roo meat taste like?

Bear, roo meat is very gamey and extremely lean. The only way I can eat it is marinated and grilled rare. The best way I can describe it is kind of like venison but stronger.

The trip however will be more of a cull than a meat harvesting exercise, and we'll probably only dress one or two smaller ones for the BBQ.

Oh, man!!!! I want to come!

Have a great time, and remember to take a LOT of pics for us.

Qantas - flights from America to Australia Get here by the 15th and you're more than welcome! ;):D

I can't wait to get out there, I went and bought a case of ammuntion today for the .223, and was pleasantly surprised at the price - $144 for 200rds of Federal Powershok. Usually we'd be paying over $200, but our Aussie dollar is pretty strong at the moment compared to the USD so that must've bought the price down a bit. Remember that we don't have access to anything mil-surp so our prices are usually substantually higher than yours.

P.S. This probably should be in the bunker lol but there's another thing I'm looking forward to... It's quite a sight to see an emu hit by a 12 gauge slug at 20 feet :eek:

Nothing but sh!t and feathers!

This had better not end up in the Freudian Slips thread!

But you know it will!

One of these days I will darken your doorstep and we will burn some powder. I have a friend in AU who blows stuff up for a living (explosives) and knows all kinds of great places to go. :D

Is it legal to plow down Emus? Are they edible?

Good to hear!

No to your first question and yes to your second. Now don't get me wrong, I'm definitely not going to go out and hunt an endangered animal or anything like that, but if the Govt. could see the damage that both roos and emus do to the wheat and cotton crops, I'm sure they'd change their tune:mad:

Both animals cause tens of thousands of dollars in damage to both crops, and are in plague proportions after a very good winter season down here. It's not so much that they eat the crops, but rather they knock down acres at a time when bedding, mating and fighting. I'm sure that no matter how many we manage to harvest won't even be 5% of the animals in the area at that time.

Oh, are they endangered? The roos are like rats though, right?