An American hunter’s Australian adventure

After hunting in America with my family and managing to bag myself a whitetail buck, my guide over there, Wade, accepted my invitation to hunt over here. As part of the arrangement he would fly my whitetail antlers and tanned skin to Australia and in return I would take him out to hopefully shoot a few ferals.

The arrival rolled around quicker than anticipated and I picked up the Americans from the airport. Wade had brought his girlfriend Kyla with him, stating: “If she doesn’t keep up or carry the bow, she may not be marriage material.” Big call… let’s see if it pays off for him.

The LandCruiser was packed with gear, guns, people and everything else we needed for seven days hunting, so we headed off for the seven-hour road trip to my mate John’s place. When we eventually arrived, John was sitting around an open fire with his beloved pooches. We joined him and discussed our plans. Because this area was in drought it wouldn’t be as easy to find game as we have in the past. We had five properties to check out over the seven days.

The next morning three alarms went off at 4am and we all met in the kitchen with our gear. We had a 40-minute drive ahead of us to the first farmer’s property. As light broke, we made our way along a game trail into the hills and closed in on a dam where John had some trail cameras set up.

When we arrived, John checked the cameras. The other three of us went ahead to seek out any deer, but we had no luck. There were too many sheep in this paddock, which can put the deer off as they are competing for the same food source.

Later, after 30 minutes of walking up a steep incline, we finally made it to the top. Everywhere on the property was dry apart from this one little area, where a shower of rain must have come through causing a burst of green. Surprisingly there were no animals on the grass but there was plenty of sign around which seemed promising.

Jumping back in the car later that afternoon we arrived at a new property. Upon reaching the gate we told Wade to “get his rifle ready in case we see a pig or deer.” Wade, being a hunting guide in America, played it cool and said: “Don’t guide the guide, guys.” Well, he had to eat his words because right then a pig that was bedded under an old tree branch bolted up and started running away from us.

John and I gave Wade hell because of his earlier comments and not listening to us. The pig trotted away without a worry in the world as Wade wasn’t ready and couldn’t find his ammo. After a bit more banter we parked the car and trailer with the Polaris buggy and unloaded everything.

The aim of this afternoon hunt was to contour up the side of a big hill and work towards an area of pine trees where John had some more trail cameras set up to capture red and fallow deer plus any pigs cruising through. It’s a very active area with numerous game trails and deer rubs all around it. We were halfway to the trail cameras when John spotted one of the biggest boars I’ve ever seen. I was at the back end of the group of four so couldn’t shoot safely. John motioned to Wade to shoot and he seemed to become flustered and started looking around for a tree to rest off when the boar was 50m away. The boar escaped without a shot being fired – another pig let off the hook!

While John was checking the cameras, Wade, Kyla and I went for a walk just before the sun set. We found a big clearing and in the low light as we turned around I saw a mob of five pigs walking towards us 50m away. For some reason Wade had unloaded his gun and now he was in a mad struggle to try and reload it. The pigs knew something wasn’t right and froze. I could tell they were about to run at any second but I had my cross-hairs on the closest pig in case they split. At the last second Wade was ready and fired. We both opened up and hit three pigs.

On the way back we heard a couple of shots and upon meeting John learned he had come face to face with a mob of pigs, taking a decent-sized boar at 5m away. We threw some chicken skewers and steak on the hot plate and worked out the plan of attack for the night. After dinner we all piled into the buggy. I managed to whistle up five foxes on one stand, which was surprising because we were using a .308 and .270. We later learned that professional roo shooters had been working this area, which meant the foxes thought the dinner bell was being rung at the sound of the shots.

Arriving at our base late that night we decided to have a sleep-in the next morning and hit some sorghum crops later that afternoon. The hills on the new property were dry with no feed so concentrating on the crops was a no-brainer.

Cruising through the flat, open paddocks we weaved along looking for any creek lines with possible cover for pigs to hide in. A big fox jumped up and stopped in front of the car and I dropped him without a twitch at 150m with my Sauer .270. There was plenty of pig sign about but not many pigs. Our luck was about to change, as we neared the large sorghum crop. The crop had been harvested so out in the middle we could easily see with the naked eye at least 10 pigs.

The wind was in our favour so the hunt was on. Wade was not having much luck with the rifle so decided to switch to the bow. John and I singled out a couple of boars while Wade would hit the main mob up with his bow, as two groups of pigs were around 50m apart.

Wade snuck in closer while we kept our attention on the others. Standing up slowly at full draw he picked a target and released his arrow. A pig squealed but the rest of the mob never spooked. Wade drew back on another arrow and again hit his mark. By now the mob was suspicious and had started to scatter. I had my cross-hairs on a big black boar and John had his on another pig. It was almost instantaneous when we both fired, sending pigs scattering everywhere.

I let fly at the second big spotty boar. John only had a single shot so was out of the action for a bit longer than me. By now the remaining pigs had cleared off, running across the crop. From about 300m the big boar’s game was up. We took some photos and walked back to the ute. As soon as we jumped onto the tray to glass with our binoculars we could see another mob of pigs about 1km further along the track. Game on again! The breeze was still in our faces and this time we used a set of cattle yards to our advantage and eased within 100m of the unsuspecting pigs. Wade had seen the light and switched back to the rifle.

This mob was so relaxed that they had laid down in the open for an afternoon siesta. All three of us formed a line with rifles at the ready and moved forwards until we were 10m away. John yelled to them: “Oi, wake up!” and shot the biggest boar as he jumped. That was when pigs went everywhere but not one escaped the ambush.

We hopped in the car and headed in the direction that the earlier big boar had gone. This area was unofficially named ‘pig hill’, which is pretty self-explanatory. After 30 minutes of cruising along I spotted a mob of pigs at the base of the hill. We all got out and crept into around 100m of the mob.

There was a big pig chewing on a dead animal of some description as I lined up on it thinking it was a big boar. After I head-shot this pig all hell broke loose, with porkers running and falling over everywhere. As luck would have it the three medium-sized boars escaped our bullets. It turned out the ‘big pig’ was a huge sow that was chewing on a dead roo even though there was sorghum not far away – pigs will be pigs.

We continued on and headed up the top of ‘pig hill’ where we didn’t find any pigs but we did see red deer. John looked at me before the red deer were about to step off the crest out of sight. I said “freezer’s empty” and a second later John unleashed with his deadly accurate Sako .308. Job done.

The next afternoon saw us on a property where the farmer’s oat crop was being smashed by fallow and red deer so he asked if we could shoot a few to help out. It was 4pm as we made our way into the valley where the oats had been sowed. We could see deer already on the crop even though the sun was still well up. They were a small bachelor mob not really paying attention but more intent on feeding.

We sat and watched the fallow bucks for a while until we heard a motorbike approaching from behind us. At that sound every deer in the field ran for the hills. It was a farmhand who didn’t know or seem to care we were hunting in this spot. I explained that for safety reasons it would be best to not be cruising around.

We knew this spot was spent so we climbed a hill which was in between two paddocks. The second meadow hadn’t received as much attention and around dusk the deer started making a beeline from the hills to this pasture.

We all edged down to lower elevation to cut off the incoming deer. I sent Wade with the rifle to take a chocolate-coloured fallow buck who was about 200m away. But Wade couldn’t get comfortable. While he was fidgeting around, I spotted five other deer coming into the crop and I made the snap decision to go after them. Dropping our packs, we made our way down a deep washout which protected our movement towards the fallow.

Light was fast fading and it wouldn’t be long before the deer would disappear into the darkness. Wade and I were laid on top of a berm with our rifles at the ready – well, I was. Wade was again fidgeting. Just then he said: “Can we go back and get my pack so I can build a rest?” After all the messing around I replied with a few choice words and I think he got the point. Just before he was to fire I asked him to say “now” so I could open up on my deer. “NOW” was all I heard and I fired. Looking through my scope I reloaded and spotted another deer and shot again, hearing the thud as the bullet hit home.

The final count was three deer on the deck. John brought the car around and we gutted and loaded them all on for the ride home. In the headlights sat a fox thinking all the shots meant dinner time. Another shot sorted him out.

The next day was spent butchering all the deer and some of the pigs to bring the venison and pork back for delicious meals. The Americans flew home shortly after the end of the hunting trip with a new understanding of Australia.