Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Australia Winter time in Vic

Come april , which is still Autumn but right through to the end of October , Sees the hounds and myself head up bush each weekend.
Hunting for sambar deer with hounds has been going on here for nearly a century, I believe.
Getting more and more popular although it's not every bodies cup of tea.
Most of us are the wrong side of fifty but we get out and hunt these deer every sat , some Fridays and often have a week hunt in late august.
Dogs allowed for scent trailing are Beagles , Harriers and Blood hounds.
While trying to get a good stag is a welcome end to a hunt.
Running a deer and hearing the hounds working , for me is the main reason to be up there now.
These dogs , I've raised from pups

Here is one of my beagles, Homer ,top little dog who had many deer taken off him but was lost to a mineshaft full of water a couple years ago

Here's another couple dogs from the past ,Nuts and Gilligan with a sambar stag I took in 2004

Sambar use the water well but if the hounds can stay in touch , they will bail

Usually we travel about 2 hrs away to our normal hunting area, set up camp Friday arvo , have a look around ,a quiet beer or three , a cook up , up and at them at sunrise sat morning ,looking for a fresh deer to hunt.
The day brings what it will and back to camp after we get all the dogs back for a cook up and a few beers
Home sunday

Homer with another of his deer, that little dog ran that stag to a walk, voiced non stop through out

Last weeks effort

Cool pics! Never ran hounds on deer here. Always wondered after all that running, is the meat the same tasting as if you'd have simply been on stand and have one graze past or stalked an unsuspecting one?

Where in Australia are you? The area in those pictures looks a bit like our Pacific Northwest. For some reason I always imagine Australia as the arid Outback but forget that many areas are heavy rain forests.

Jim, I live in Warburton , Victoria. We travel to and Around Woods Point each weekend to hunt, Pm your address and i'll send a memory stick over with a couple bits of footage on it.
Google earth it and have a look around. Most state forest east of the Hume highway and North of Princes highway are open for hound hunting

his footage is worth watching, he sent me some awhile back.....have watched it a few times

ill add Jim, the eastern coast is alot wetter than the rest of the country.....one of the oldest rainforests in the world is on the northeast coast of the continent and actually for being a first world country is relatively little explored, new species are being discovered there every year......Hone is on the southern end of all this which is actually quite similar to our PNW....

Great write up and good pics, cheers

When i first starting hunting with hounds ,it was all about getting in front of the deer and shooting it .
After a couple of years,getting to know the country, the runs , the dogs voices ,i was reasonably good at it.
i started then to raise pups and then took over housing the dogs.
Now i like to get young pups going and get people taking deer over the hounds.
Listening to the dogs work is where i get the main enjoyment, don't get me wrong ,i'll still work to get into a good spot if they get past the other hunters.
We'll go away this weekend and hunt friday ,saturday . Have a couple quiet beers ,maybe drop down to the "Point for a counter meal of an evening

Some days it all comes together and a good stag is taken
This is a good one taken in the Dargo area

This day it was my turn , back around 1997
Some days can be a bit more trying than others

Other days the marks on the ground may give us hope of a good head but when the stag hits the ground can you really know what head gear he is carrying

top report bloke

Nice report.

Dog hunting deer is popular here in the southeastern United States .
Are those Stags good to eat ?

We have the meat pickled , made into sausages, back steaks of course, minced ,yes it goes alright
We got out for 2 days this weekend , chased some deer and a couple dogs went into a vertical mine shaft about 20 feet deep.
Lucky for us the GPS gear got us to the vicinity .After checking the area and many shafts, some that inter connected, We found them alive and well.
Andrew was lowered into the hole and we recovered all.
Had the shaft been a wet one with water in the hole , those dogs would have drowned as I have lost dogs like that before
I promise them when training the pups "you hunt for me , if you get lost i'll hunt for you"
We chased a good stag over the weekend but he got away , that's life but he showed a new run ,we'll have covered next time

Tom & Ellen from last year ,these are the ones that took the tumble.

Nice woofers there Hone........sure beats stalking alone I would thing .....unless you have a tiger - that can do all the work for ya!!

Good stuff

Gus

Whn we spread pout in the morning looking for fresh marks to start ,sometimes we see the deer. We leave it alone as we are there to hunt it with the dogs
Look ,if it was an absolute thumper , i wouldn't mind o if someone hadn't shot a deer , but it is best we leave them be

Here's a photo ofa deer Dick shot , i saw it in the morning further up the creek on the low sie of the road, Broadside on , he was an easy shot. He had done us the previous week s we had a plan to get him.
There is big body of water nearby hat he likes to get to and swim across.
We had already put people in the saddles up higher.
Putting Bobbie ,my blue heeer X on a lead i went around to the road and started jogging around to where i thought the deer had crossed.
Radioing at the same time for the hounds.
I didn't need to look for the marks as bobbie would show me where the deer had crossed.
She pulled me sideways at the crossing point and the marks were just walking up the gully.
The hounds were with me within 5 minutes and they roared as the red hot scent filled their noises. Straight up the gully they went for only a few minutes,Dick ,George and i had spread out to cover his path to the water behind us.
The hounds were roaring and putting on the pressure and he turned.
Running back to the cossing point Dick hit him hard with a couple shots and he went 200 yards before dropping
We had our deer