OK, just home from another whole week in the bush hunting and generally trying to pretend the world didn’t exist. Drove the five hours to the same place I was last month and to which I have been going for 28years now… <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/laugh.gif" alt="" /> To top it off my birthday fell midweek.

Since I was here last month (when it had record rainfall) the grass is VERY high (sitting on my bike it was at my shoulder in places) and a week after I left there was a bloody big windstorm that took out a number of bloody big trees (as the ground was still soaked when it hit) and also totaled a windmill….



The next few are of one of the monster gum trees that got smashed, you can see this one was also split in two. Now, the interesting this here was that there was a deer pad that ran under it, the deer have continued to use the pad (which now runs THROUGH it and have in fact been drinking from the water filled hole at the base…!!!

In the next one you can see a small root arching out of the ground in the foreground, this had actually been rubbed by a buck not long before I snapped the pics..

My Sako in the broken bit…. :rofl:



This next tree is interesting, you can see where the local Kooris cut a canoe from the trunk many many moons ago, the bark has twice started growing back over the cut but at some point the season have stopped it at least once….





On another part of the property there is a spot where corroborees were held (none in at least 50 or more years (probably many more). The ground has been packed down so hard by the number of feet passing over even now the circles are clearly visible and grass still does not grow them over…!!!

The Zombie Express in its present guise, this trip it and I developed some new scars thanks perhaps to it’s over gearing and my over ambition and under ability…. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" /> I have some killer bruises to show for it… !!!!



While nominally hunting deer (it was the start of the Fallow Rut) I did in fact shoot a number of hogs (which do inspire a somewhat homicidal urge in me :rofl: ) …

Three with three shots, two in the noggin, on the trot at about 60yds…..

This one contributed to my best (well worst) bike prang of the week, as the grass was so long the tracks were almost impossible to find especially close to dark. I rode down off the mountain and while looking for a track off a plateau spotted this guy down on the creek flats, it was a +/- 200yd shot. Looked over the edge of the plateau and said to myself “Andy, you are the man, you can just ride down there for the picture”…. *broom, OH….shyte…. crunch….ohhhhhhhh……brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr splutter…..cough……. silence* Well maybe I couldn’t…. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" /> What was worse was that the bike (and I) feel “down hill” so while trying to right it (after laying there a few moments doing a physical stock take) I was working against gravity, needless to say there was lots of huffing and puffing, swearing, some frustration and such before we were upright again. Then of course I had to finish the ride down….!!!! So with that in mind, I make no apology for the lack of skill or creativity involved in this picture of said dead hog…. I was hurting and stuffed….!!!!!!



This last one (that I took pics of, there were several more that I didn’t) was shot about 200yds from the cabin….. he was in piss poor condition and had two vertical slashes just behind his left shoulder (covered by my rifle). They were right down into the fatty tissue and I am guessing came from a larger boar he irritated….



I tried to take the good camera out with me more this trip and snapped off a few more deer pics….

A fawn in the grass..



Playing hide and seek with a spiker just before dark (ISO screwed up to 1600 to try and get the pic) …

A doe trying to figure out what the “lump” was there at the base of the tree….



Some does just feeding away blissfully unaware…



A doe with some small hogs feeding around her… (rarely see this!!) …



A couple of does with a larger sow ….

The fawns all bunched up and nervous after the does took off running (because of the shot that killed that larger sow <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" /> )…



OK… here are a few of a couple of young bucks I took, what is interesting is that I had set up in a spot I always see deer, I pretty much know where they will walk through. I was using the log in the back of the first picture to adjust the camera on as I though it may be a good spot to get a pic, as I snapped off some pics and made some adjustments the first buck walked into my viewfinder…!!!!!!!! I didn’t really expect this as there were two other bucks fighting further up the hill behind me and I didn’t expect another couple to show up just then… !!



Another of the same guy….

And the other one that was wandering along behind him…



A little Spiker that almost fell over me….



A couple more little hogs wandering around…



A bloody big ant that was thinking of me as a meal I suspect…

One from the end of my favourite plateau just as the sun was dropping…..



And a little about the speed at which nature works up here….this jaw..



…is from this sow I shot in February…



….the jaw and a few small scattered bones was all that I could find of her, there was a boar I shot about 20yds away at the same time, all I found of him was a dead patch of grass and some small bones…!!! Eagles, other hogs, crows, foxes and bugs all make short work of the dead….!!!!

All I can say is it was a great way to spend some time away from work…!!!!!!!!!

Not as happy as I would like with some of the game pics. I only just started using a new (80-400) lens and I am still working it out <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/frown.gif" alt="" />

Cool pictures thanks for sharing

What bullets you using in your Sako Andy ?