Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Australia safari?

Hope AGW and others from Down Under will respond, as will anybody else who might have experience with hunting in Australia.

I read in another thread about action life that many Australian hunters (never mind the cullers) have shot thousands of animals. Is there a such thing as an Australian safari?

Obviously Australian animals are much different than the famed African animals, but it seems like there are a tremendous number of animals that land owners want rid of; thus, it would be theoretically possible to have an inexpensive hunt (on a per animal basis) with a large volume of shooting on large animals. What kind of animals are typically hunted/shot in Australia besides the obvious roos/wallabies and various(?) Asian buffaloes?

I know the plane fare would be expensive to Australia, but it is such a great place to visit, it seems like a three-week trip, with a week hunting and a couple weeks sightseeing would be a great trip (I spent four days in the Cairns area a few years ago - diving at the GBR, a great ecotourism guided tour, Kuranda, etc. - and plan to visit other parts of Australia on another trip someday).

Funny side story, while I was in Cairns, one evening in an area with a lot of restaurants and shops several classic American convertibles and sports cars were driving around with American flags on antennae, etc. blowing their horns (some with custom horns playing American music) and having a great time. Somebody (an Aussie) asked what was going on, and I immediately responded, without thinking, that it was the 4th of July. She kind of looked at me oddly with an expression of "so what," and I quickly realized that outside the States the phrase "4th of July" doesn't automatically bring thoughts of Philadelphia in 1776 with Jefferson, Adams, Franklin, Hancock, et al. When I told her it was American Independence Day, she said, "Oh, that makes sense." That is the only 4th of July I've spent outside the States, and it was definitely an odd feeling.

Hunting in Australia is a little more complicated than it used to be. Most tourist hunters go through a guide or outfitter because they can tidy up the legal requirements for importing a firearm.

Most states outlaw hunting preserves so most hutning is free range. Aussies are very disrespectful towards other hutners that shoot behind wire as it is not hunting in their eyes.

Equally interesting, is that most Aussies call it shooting and not hunting because you go hunting to shoot animals, therefore you go shooting, not hunting.

The "bush" is anywhere outside city limits, whether it is open desert or deep forest.

When Aussies hunt, they simply knock on doors until they get an ok to hunt. The "Cocky" (Property owner) will tell you what you can take and numbers will never be mentioned unless there is a problem and you are asked to thin them a little.

I killed 100 roo's in 3 hours once to get permission to hunt fallow deer on the same property. I have also gone out with cccky's killing pigs where we slaughtered so many that we simply ran over the wounded ones so we could cover more ground and kill more.

When we are culling we often count the misses or second shots made and deduct that from the total rounds fired to determine the number of kills because if you killed 86 or 104, who cares?

The reason Australian hunting is different from anywhere else in the world is that you are generally hunting non indigenous species.

When I was an editor for SCI publications for the South Pacific region, I got lots of stories from hunters that killed 200 pigs in a week, 70 was a bad trip. I also conversed with two brothers that were professional goat cullers and had a tally of 12,000 kills from one singel property in Western Australia. I knew SCI members who loaded 2000 rounds for a weekend hunt.

I have been told that Aussies know more about bullet performancfe than any other country because they can tell you when an unanounced change is made to the bullet simply by observation in the field.

I have changed loads when culling and had hunters with me not only tell me I changed but told me what bullet configuration I changed to. That is a fact.

As to the animals;

6 species of deer, Rusa, Red, Sambar, Fallow. Chital, Hog.
Scrub bulls
pigs
goats
camels
donkeys
banteng
foxes,
rabbits
hares

If you are on a paid hunt, I would expect a trophy fee for the premium animals only and free unlimited culling for the rubbish animals.

Hope this helps,

AGW

Hello, AGW,

Thanks for that great info!

I have relatives in Australia, and may plan a combination visit / hunting trip sometime. How is the water buffalo hunting up north? It's a long way from where my brother-in-law lives, but I've been very curious about it.

Cheers,
Liam

Buffalo are on the increase as there are no natural preditors. The Socialist Federal Governement of the 1980's tried to obliterate them with helicopter gunships (at taxpayer expense instead of making money and opening Crown Land up to safari hunting) under the pretex of having Brucillocis and TB and stating that the US would stop trading with Australia if they did not control the spread.

Now the truth is that that same Federal Government defended itslf against charges from Canada at World Trade Arbitration when pressured to import Canadian pork, as Australia produced 100% of its own requirements.

Australia won that case as Australia is the most disease free continent in earth, also proving that Canadian pork was diseased and that importation by any form would expose Australia to the diseases contained. Canada responded by sending it here to the US.

When I imported 2 dogs from Australia, I was asked to leave the dogs at LAX while I drove the import papers to the Quarantine division. When the saw the country of origin, they simply stamped the papers and sent us on our way. 2 hours later our disease free dogs were legal and free to leave with us.

Now back to Buffalo, the big adjustment most Americans have to make is that Australia is almost the same land mass as the US with only 6% varience. That means travel distances must be budgeted in time and cost.

You need to go with a safari company for Buffalo. The better ones I am familiar with are Graham Williams Safaris and Davidsons Arnhemland Adventures. (Banteng too)(Max Davidson) For feral game and deer, scrub bulls etc, Australian Antlered Adventures (Clark McGhie)

These people are quality outfitters that will not rape your check book and only hunt free range.

AGW

Thanks, AGW. Yes, it's a long way from Melbourne, where my brother-in-law lives, to the Northern Territory!

Thanks so much for the recommendations. That will help a great deal!

All the best,
Liam

Liam.
If you are in Melbourne, try your hand a sambar hunting but do not hunt alone. Apprach the ADA (Australian Deer Association) if your brother in law has no local knowledge. They may have a member who will take you out.

AGW

Thanks so much for all the great info. Sorry for sort of taking over the thread ... I hope the discussion has been of use to the original poster!

Best Regards,
Liam

I've heard that and believe it.

Spent many hours talking with shooters from Oz while living on
Sumatra and Java

My favorite people by the way.

Why does the info on hunting down under rarely make it to the gun mags? It seems many are prone to make an example of one (I plead guilty as charged on occassion) or even a half dozen but to see the results of a single bullet over hundreds of impacts would be interesting.

Personally I found out a lot more about bullet performance culling 20 pigs in one night than I ever did killing the first 20 pigs over a couple year span.

PS the .35Whelen with 250Hornadys is the best pig medicine I have ever seen. One round to the chest and move on to the next target...