A afternoon with the Toad and no 2 alloy!

[Ramslammer]

G'Day
On Tuesday arvo My mate Toad and I went out shooting Wallaby. He used my new CZ 7.62x39 with a Boyds pro varmint stock and I used my marlin 336ssltd in the mighty 35 remington. They both ran NOE molds, the 314 360 as previously discussed http://castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?256016-Alternative-use-for-NOE-314-640 and the 35 had a clone of the RCBS 200grn 35cal in a rg. It was good to get the Toad out as he cut his trigger finger in half on the Mill six weeks ago. He's now learning to use the middle finger fairly well.
121122

We also shot over 70 Brushtail possums after dark with the 7.62.

Now I just need to get the new NOE 180 grn 35 mold.
Juddy

[richhodg66]

My wife's grandfather used to shoot with his middle finger as he lost his trigger finger early in life. Didn't seem to stop him being a good hunter his whole life.

That looks like a lot of fun, congrats to you and Toad. You just have to like a .35 Remington.

[Ramslammer]

G'Day richhodg66
The Toad hasn't lost it, they sewed it back on but it's that useless he reckons I'll have to trim it for him lol.
Of everything I own the 35 is my deadset favourite. Mine is nice and short and I've just bought a second one for CLAS. The new one is a nice 50's vintage 336A that's sitting in CA awaiting export to me. The 35 seems to get the job done for most of my shooting and if you hit things in the brain box it doesn't matter if the gun is "too big" because there's nothing in there I want to eat.
Juddy

[timspawn]

Looks like great fun. I hope to get to that part of the world one day and do some shooting. I've been to Africa and it was wonderful but I want to hunt Australia too.

[Janoosh]

Congrats on that great haul.

So....., Wallaby,....how is it used.? Meat??, pelt.??

[Ramslammer]

G'Day
Mostly for meat these days and sometimes the farmers just want them shot. The skin prices crashed in the 80's so no one bothers much now. We shoot them a lot under permit with a spotlight and have gotten in excess of 100 on the odd night. But it's a lot of skinning so if we're keeping them I like to get up to 40, which I can skin fairly easy. When I was younger I'd be two minutes each but now I'm twice that. not as strong pulling them off as I was.
Anyway we'll keep hunting them as we can only get two Deer a year unless you have culling tags wallaby is our major game.
Juddy

[gmsharps]

Looks like fun also

gmsharps

[Janoosh]

I have absolutly no knowledge on hunting them, so....if you don't mind:
Are wallaby's skittish or hunter shy.?
Can you get close, or strictly a long range (200 meters+) affair.?
Thanks, and once again, nice haul.!

[Ramslammer]

G'Day
Most shots in the area we hunt are out to 150. There the same as any animal if you don't take care and make a lot of noise you'll hear them thumping through the bush but never see one.
Juddy

[JeffinNZ]

Fantastic effort. The best wallabies are horizontal wallabies. :-P

[taco650]

So they're edible?

[22-250ohio]

I am not familiar with these critters... do they do a lot of crop damage? or destroy pasture ground

[Southern Son]

To picture a wallaby, picture a short, fat kangaroo. There are heaps of different kinds of wallabys on the mainland (don't know about Tazzy). Some get as big as an average grey kangaroo, but some are tiny (really big rat size). The seem to have better road sense than kangaroos, around here anyway.

They are edible (never tried it, but I am told it is better that kangaroo, not as gamey). As to crop damage, not so much up here in Queensland, the Grey Kangaroo are much worse, and they are not nearly as bad as most of our feral pests.

[Ramslammer]

G'Day
Those ones on the ground would eat the same tucker as five sheep. So the farmers get permits to shoot them with a spotlight. Me and another bloke took over 2500 off one property in a year. Ashamed to say I shot them with that passing fad called jacketed bullets.
Juddy