Hunt
Australia – Season Newsletter
November
2010
'A season
of mixed fortunes'
Well this
is about the latest end-of-season newsletter ever!! It sure has been a very
long, busy and overall very successful season ... it's difficult to believe
that Christmas is almost upon us.
In the
Northern Territory our main hunting season kicked off in late May and our early
arrival hunters were greeted with extremely wet conditions. A cyclone in April
had dumped inches and feet of water on all of our hunting grounds and
especially caused major flooding at our Gan Gan concession in Arnhem Land. That camp was so badly
affected that it took several weeks to replace the damaged materials and
equipment and several more months to clear all the hunting trails. Cyclone Paul
sure wrecked some havoc – as it parked itself right over the buffalo concession
for a full seven days!!
That said
we still had very good hunting from Day One. This year we took some massive
trophies, including the biggest taken on this concession to date - more about
that later. In this area, as the hunting season progresses, the conditions
change considerably; in June it is generally wet and boggy and then by the end
of the season the country is burnt, dry and dusty. Each week presents its own
difficulties and we can only strive to make the best use of the hunting area at
any given time - such are the vagaries of true free-range, wilderness hunting.
In all we
conducted thirty-some hunts in this area; mostly trophy buffalo hunts and also
a few buffalo culls hunts and some fishing and wing-shooting. Incidentally, the
fishing at the buff camp this year was excellent, with barra and saratoga being taken just about
every day we ventured out for a few casts. Some years we catch a lot of fish,
other years we don’t – there’s often no rhyme or reason to it either – that’s
just the way it is!!
Another
upshot was the recent growth of the scrub bull (wild ox) herd in the area. Each
year we have been seeing more and more ‘scrubbers’ and this season we took our
first two trophy bulls off the concession. The first of these was taken by
lucky hunter and the US Verney-Carron double rifle
importer, Ken Busch. Ken took this beaut ‘red bull’ with his custom V-C
450/400NE, which performed a very admirable job. The second scrubber for the
season was taken by another double-rifle shooter and repeat client Josh Gaffen
from California.
Caption: Josh Gaffen and his own red
bull. A formidable opponent matched well to a 500NE double rifle.
Hopefully
the scrub bull population continues to grow in that area and we can harvest
more and more trophies each year. At the moment they really are just a target
of opportunity... some people just get lucky! Down at our regular boar hunting
concession there are a lot more scrub bulls and hunters venturing there can go
out looking for one with the real expectation of getting their hands on a
trophy ‘scrubber’.
As
mentioned before, among the many super trophies we took this year at the main
Arnhem Land buffalo concession, was a true monster 117 SCI bull that was taken
in early August. This XOS bull was taken by young Ohio hunter Joe Wehinger – a
quality young man who thoroughly deserves and appreciates the beautiful animal
that he took. Joe was accompanied by head-guide Peter Harding and his
benevolent ‘Uncle Mark’. What a great Uncle to give his nephew first shot!!
Congratulations Joe!!
Caption: Joe Wehinger and guide Peter
Harding with Joe’s freakish, huge buffalo bull.
Click here to see our 2010
Trophy Gallery!!
Boar
Hunting
At our
main boar hunting/culling concession the vagaries of the season were even more
evident. Following the late ‘wet season’ and cyclone the subsequent, generally
reliable, ‘dry season’ almost never happened at all and the weather was
characterised as hot, wet and humid for almost the whole season. This pattern
made the hunting much more difficult than normal, where we would typically have
several months of cool dry weather, much better conditions for hunting! That
said the hunters at that camp still had some great results with the boars but
it did vary greatly from week-to-week.
Other
highlights at this camp was the excellent scrub bull hunting that was had there
this season (especially with the greatly increased concession area) and some
really exceptional trophy buffalo bulls were taken off this concession as well.
Generally we do not run specialised buffalo hunts at this location because of
the smaller herd size – but if you are just looking for a short good value hunt
and not necessarily huge trophies – a buffalo/scrub bull/wild boar hunt at this
concession would be a good deal to get onto.
This year
the boys at that camp also experienced some really good quality fishing for
much of the season, in between busy hunting days... it really is a super
‘mixed’ hunt to experience!!
Travel to
Australia
For US clients air travel to Australia has never been better (disregarding TSA
hassles in the States) with five airlines servicing the USA/AUST Pacific route;
Qantas, Virgin, Delta, Air New Zealand and United. This is especially good for
most of our hunters as all of these airlines have great deals during the middle
of the year – our main hunting season!! Once inside Australia the airports are
very trouble-free, even when travelling with firearms.
Deer
Hunting – 2011
This past
season one of our good friends and clients took the option to revisit one of
our past ‘stomping grounds’ – Watervalley – a massive multi-specie deer hunting
ranch in South Australia. Wes was pleased with his choice and took a really
nice sambar stag and reported excellent hunting conditions and game numbers for
the sambar and other species present – namely red stag, fallow buck, axis deer
and rusa deer.
Three
years ago we quit hunting at Watervalley because that region was suffering a
terrible drought and the hunting was badly affected. Now the seasons have
turned around thankfully and the reports from this fabulous hunting concession
are many times better – so we will be back there ‘with bells on’. If anyone is
interested in a first-class deer hunt in Australia just email us and ask for
‘Watervalley’ hunt details.
2011 Buff
Hunts
Right now
we are absolutely flat-out in the office doing our convention program and
bookings for next season. A great many of our hunts are full for 2011 but we
still have quite a few premium buffalo hunts available and some buffalo culling
as well. If you think an Aussie Buff hunt might be an option for 2011, just
shoot us an email reply and we'll give you a great quote.
So that
is all for now – stay tuned for our Christmas/ Conventions Update that will be
sent in a couple weeks. For the record we will be attending Dallas SC, Houston
SC and SCI-Reno as usual.
Caption: The Graham boys, Harry &
Lewis enjoyed some barra fishing on their end-of-season visit to Gan Gan
concession.
Take care
and Happy Thanksgiving to our American friends
From all
the team at Hunt Australia