AS I was well aware that Oz is in the southern hemishere therefore it would be their winter so I asked Mick what I should expect for weather conditions , his response was that it was a little cool and would get cooler so bring a couple of light jackets ,( I thought for maybe layering) . I was in for a shock . I left our typical Jersey June summer of 80 degrees and entered the frigid cold Ozzie winter of 90 degrees . I never sweated so much in my life . Equiped with long pants and long sleeve t-shirts , including 2 jackets which never saw the light of day , we proceeded to walk about 2-4 miles every morning and afternoon , frequently more , in search of the ever elusive Buff. There were two other hunters in camp , great guys even though they shot compounds , both Austrailians Shel and Alex . The first afternoon I got into camp Alex shot a 90" Buff and the next day Shel got his second Buff a young male with tight horns . That day all I could find were cows with young so didn't get to stalk anything except for a couple wily scrub bulls which didn't pan out . For the next 4 days the weather cooled ? down to the mid 80's and the wind went calm . Dry grass and parched ground don't make for good stalking conditions when cover is almost non-existent . We saw good Buff every day and had more stalks than I could keep track of but couldn't close the distancwe less than 70-80 yards before being discovered . With the dry ground and a few river crossings a day I decided to hunt barefoot and carry my boots over my shoulder . I have found out that there are few thorns in this country but the grass has needle sharp seeds which make walking difficult . Two days of that nonsense and I went back to my boots . My feet were so sore it actually helped as I couldn't walk fast if I wanted to so my stalking was very slow . We had seen several good scrub bulls but they are more nervous then the Buffalo . I was hoping for some change in weather and possibly some more wind to hide any noise made on the stalks but it wasn't meant to be . The next to last day we tried to sit on a good trail leading to feeding areas , a method we had tried without much luck already , when I seen a scrub bull feeding along a dry riverbed . At this point I'm trigger happy so we set off on a stalk . I tried to get ahead of him so he would pass broadside to me but when he was about 40 yards he changed course and headed away from me . I followed him with determination and at about 20-25 yards he turned broadside with the only tall bush for a hundred yards between us . I moved a little to my right and he started to turn quartering away and I shot . He made that welcome little crow-hop like you see in the videos and walked off about 30 more yards and scanned the area . Needless to say I froze in my tracks not wanting to give him a target , Mick was about 50 yards behind me .After about 20 minutes the bull walked off another 50 yards and lay down .Good deal ! I hit him a little further back of the rib cage then I would have liked but it was still angling forward . Mick has one he shot on video that charged him and he was lucky to get behind a good-sized tree and even then the bull knocked the bow out of his hands , they seem to always be in a bad mood and shooting them doesn't seem to improve their disposition .While looking him over a group of Buffaloes come up behind us and run off , so close . Let me try to post pics ,. Fred
Topic: back from the Outback (Read 1518 times)
