A NEW SEASON AWAITS

Last year was a pretty good one for our crew, with deer taken most weekends, no broken vehicles and we picked up a few new hunters. One of the ‘new’ hunters managed a small stag on one of our last hunts and Midget was over the moon. Midget has a long history with sambar and hounds and after a long break has made her way back to it. She may have even infected one of her daughters with the bug as well.

One low point we had was the day Buddy (the dog) ran out luck. Buddy was picked up a couple of years ago and was a bit of a star in his own right. He did all the right things apart from being a bit hard to catch sometimes, but he was pretty handy. Buddy and a couple of other bigger hounds had gone downstream and the signal from his collar kept dropping in and out. Dodge and Lilly were hanging around the same area and we weren’t having any problems picking them up. While they were moving slowly downstream, Cobloaf and I headed off to try and catch up with them. A bit of a slog down along the river and we were pretty close to where we had signal from Buddy…the other two had gone further down the river. While we were standing looking around Cobloaf says “there he is” and the outcome wasn’t good. There were no obvious reasons for what had happened and carrying the collars back wasn’t hard. Dodge and Lilly came back up the river and headed upstream on the marks they had followed down. Cobloaf was pretty upset and it put a real dampener on the day. It was a pretty quiet walk back to the car and then back to camp. But that’s hunting, some days are diamonds and some are rough.

One of the things that needs to happen during the year to make these reports happen is that I need to take lots of photos and 2024 will nearly go down in history as the least hunting photos I’ve ever taken. There is not enough quality ones to share so I’ve gone back into the archives and asked others from the crew to share a few to go along with this. So have a look at a few pictures from a different perspective.

Captain Kaos and Hawk have taken on some of the day to day running of the crew, which has meant that I don’t have to do as much running around and organising everyone. I hope that keeps rolling along and they stay enthusiastic. Both of them have acquired a couple of pups and it will be interesting to watch the progress. I don’t know about Merv and Mavis as dog names though. Hawk got married in October last year so we are just hopeful that he is still allowed to hunt every weekend in the future.

So, the future and what does it hold for us? How good would it be to have a crystal ball and look forward to see what was going to happen for the day. Theres lots of talk about additions to National Parks and hunters potentially being shut out of areas. What can we do that’s proactive as we move forward? Well, we can look back at the past and see what bush users have been making noises about for a long time. Rubbish left around campsites, tracks torn up, road closures being disregarded, cans and bottles in fires…in reality it’s a pretty long list and most bush users don’t seem to care. But one beer manufacturer says they are going to contribute funds to buy land to enlarge National Parks and everyone is up in arms about it. There were calls to boycott the brand, and any others associated with it, and then the company backs down. How bloody good would it be if people did the same about the issues I mentioned? History tells me that it won’t happen and that not much will change. You can make a difference. Theres still plenty of cans and bottles appearing along roadsides so the offer of 10 cents per item didn’t last long.

Anyhow on to positive stuff. Garmin have made a few additions to the tracking range with new devices and phone apps, so do yourself a favour and have a look at what’s on offer. I’m keen for extra large 10” inch screen to look at and it doesn’t require a connection to a GPS. I’m not sure the Treasurer is going to agree though. Maybe a bit later. Looking at the Garmin Australia page it looks like the only new options available for purchase are the 300 and 300i GPS units, TT25 and T5 collars and the Alpha XL. I’m sure there will still be a few older models around but it looks like that’s the way forward.

The option to use a handheld thermal device is available also. There are countless options out there for one of those and they do work in daylight. Just remember it is a handheld device and is not a thermal scope attached to a rifle. But here’s my crystal ball: someone will get caught with one of those.

Anyhow hope to see you up the bush somewhere when I’m not working.

Field Marshall.