Hi team.
I'm back from my hunt and thoroughly glad I went. My mission was to get my friend Mike onto his first wallaby ('roo) and we did this and some.
The property was new to us and the game holding area quite small but really nice. A river bed along a step, scrubby face. On arrival at the farm we availed ourselves of the clay throwing trap and used up the bucket of clays I had loaded. My 12 gauge handloads (with home dropped shot) went well as did my faithful old side by side. Mike is a bit of a natural on clays and after about 80-90 rounds we prepared to chase furry things.
As Mike has only a pair of .22RFs I set him up with my suppressed .32-20 Martini shooting ACWW Lyman 31133 HP's with poly wad over a full charge of H4227 producing 1850fps. I carried my Husqvarna .30-30 bolt rifle pushing a CBE 309 162 in 40-1 alloy over 22gr of Benchmark for 1700fps. The farmer's son dropped us off down the road so we could walk back and initially we saw only 3 bunnies but elected to leave them and look for bigger game. On a bit we had seen no 'roos but got onto a pair of hares that were sitting in the river bed below us about 80-90m away. I encouraged Mike to have a shot and from prone he leveled his hare and I quickly lined up on the other and took that. This was Mike's first ever hunting kill; here he is:
And me with the Husky and hare:
On we went and came to a grass laneway between the hill and scrub in the river. Mike immediately spotted a face and ears looking at us and called 'roo! I couldn't positively identify over the iron sights and the animal moved out of sight before he could line up. We moved forward slightly to find it again in the open scrub. Buck fever got Mike and he missed at 20m but as the 'roo turned to depart I hit it with the .30-30 on the run. I solid female:
Further on Mike lead the way and walked past a shot on the hill he thought was a hare. I lined and and dropped a small 'roo then went to recover it only to spring it's friend who was sitting nearby. The second animal launched to my left and I dropped it inside 10m again on the trot:
Approaching the homestead in failing light we entered a large, flat area I didn't think would hold game. That was until a very large male 'roo went sailing by. It stopped and at about 50m Mike got his first wallaby:
The farm boys had rigged up the truck with a bench seat on the back for some spotlighting. I am not a huge fan of night shooting but away we went and what a hoot. Mike and I on the back, he with the .32-20 and me carrying my 12 gauge with some BB loads I had put together. Another 10 'roos fell before midnight. Tally for the weekend, 14 wallabies, 3 hares, 4 bunnies. AND we saw a nice fallow deer in the spotlight that I will look for next time.
Great weekend and a joy to help someone else into the sport. Now he has to come round and reload all the brass he created!
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Originally Posted by btroj
