Ep 3. Ron Kiehne, Unraveling the Thrills of Fox Hunting with the Silva Fox himself

Accurate Hunts, a life outdoors episode 3

Ron Kiehne joins Dodge from his amazing shed in Glen Innes for an expedition into the world of fox hunting and the intricate art of Fox whistling. Together, we journey back to the days when the fox skin trade was the lifeblood of local economies, discussing the skill required in skinning, and the craftsmanship needed to turn a pelt into a prized possession. Ron's tales from the field bring the past to life, as he blissfully recounts many a nights of remarkable success and shares his wealth of knowledge in the creation of the Silva Fox Whistle. 

Venturing beyond the hunt, we dissect the cunning nature of our vulpine subjects, revealing their habits and the environments they thrive in. The call of a fox whistle is a siren song to these creatures, and Ron recounts the strategies and patience required to outwit them. Rons wife, Lynn's role behind the camera is paramount, capturing the essence of these encounters despite her aversion to the limelight. As we navigate the dance of predator and prey, the episode is rich with the wisdom needed for successful hunts and the understanding that each missed shot is a lesson learned for both hunter and fox.

From the sharp crack of a 17 HMR rifle to the hushed excitement of rabbit hunting by moonlight, this episode brims with the raw thrills of the chase and the enduring tales of country marksmanship. We share family stories of precision shooting that would make Annie Oakley tip her hat, and the ripple effects of environmental activism on wildlife management. As we wrap up with a heart-stopping account of an eagle's forceful dive, the episode stands as a testament to the unpredictable beauty of nature and the primal joy found in the pursuit of wildlife. Join us for an auditory adventure that's as close to the wild as you can get without setting foot outside.

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Transcript

Dodge Keir: 0:05

Third episode of Accurate Hunts:

Ron Kiehne: 0:08

With foxes. They've got two sensors that are absolutely brilliant. You can't beat it and that's the smell and sight. We popped up on a rock and he just popped it and he went that whistle's loud. He said where do you get them? And I said oh, you don't. I said I make them. He said you should make them and sell them. Soon as he goes, puts his nose up like that. You've got to fire within about two seconds or he's gone Sure. Once this goes up, you bust it.

Dodge Keir: 0:36

Welcome back to another episode of Acura Hunts A Life Outdoors. I'm here with Ron Keener. He's already upped me a few times to say his last name wrong. He's a Keener than I am in the fox whistling side of things.

Ron Kiehne: 0:48

Thanks for coming on and having fun. Thank you very much.

Dodge Keir: 0:50

Welcome. You've invited me here to your lovely shed up here in Glen Innes. It's a beautiful part of the world.

Ron Kiehne: 0:56

How long have you?

Dodge Keir: 0:57

been up this way.

Ron Kiehne: 0:58

Very similar to where you come from.

Dodge Keir: 0:59

Yeah, down the southern highlands. Yeah, how long have you lived up this way?

Ron Kiehne: 1:03

A boat was raised in Dundee Deepwater area, which is only like 40Ks north of here.

Ron Kiehne: 1:11

So yeah, born and raised in this area only 40Ks north, I grew up with all my uncles and their friends fox whistling, shooting rows of weekends. A lot of the area out there was supported by shooting rows, skinning rows back when it was legal, sure, and those skins were dried and sold to support the local tennis club, the local hall, all that sort of stuff. So it was a weekend out, a great weekend hunting. It was a real industry back then, so it supported the community. And who was buying them? I'm not sure who they sold it to. One of my great uncles sort of used to handle it all and get all the sales and everything. We'd just take them home and peg them out in the lawn and dry them and at the end of the year we'd have 1500 raw skins to sell off. What sort of money do you remember? I don't remember.

Dodge Keir: 1:59

I was pretty young back then it was back in the 60s.

Ron Kiehne: 2:02

I'm talking about.

Dodge Keir: 2:03

And what about the fox trade? Did the skin trade take off up here?

Ron Kiehne: 2:07

Fox trade was great back in the 70s. I sort of got into it a bit, not like some of the blokes around here. When things were tough on the farms, they just full-time fox shooting. Not so much me. I had a few other hobbies, but yeah, I loved the fox shooting. I only had one real rifle, which is a.2250, which wasn't very favorable for shooting foxes. It made a bit of a mess of them, a little bit tibia-hole. Yeah, we used to try and download it and play around with it, but I actually downloaded that far that I got the projectiles to start to tumble. Yeah, we shoot in targets. One day and a projectile went through sideways, had a long line, yeah he yeah it was a lot of fun.

Ron Kiehne: 2:45

But yeah, back in the 70s we our best night like for around here we don't shoot big numbers of foxes, but I think we shot met from memory 17 in one night and they averaged about 45 of skin. So it was big money back then. That's more than week wages. Oh yeah, it was good money.

Dodge Keir: 3:04

And hard to skin or like what was the process, so shoot and then take home, or yeah, we generally weight-lower.

Ron Kiehne: 3:10

just about cold. I didn't like skin and cold ones, so you know, shoot four or five and then skin them Was that easier than real warm. Oh yeah, no, real warm is good, but yeah, if you get onto a patch where there's a few foxes, you don't want to be skinning while you can be shooting, yeah, and how did you rip them off?

Dodge Keir: 3:25

I was just pulling off like a jumper. No, I don't. Or tube skin or flat skin is more what I was asking. No, flat skin.

Ron Kiehne: 3:31

Yeah, no, that was anyway I knew. So yeah, just cut them out. I could do one in about four and a half minutes.

Dodge Keir: 3:36

You got the tails down pat, because I know it's a bit of a thing people struggle with.

Ron Kiehne: 3:41

Yeah, there's a couple of fingers or two little sticks, two sticks, you can see them, rip them off.

Dodge Keir: 3:45

Yeah, it's one. There's a couple gadgets out now you can get, yeah, so a bit like I liken them to when kids learn how to use chopsticks They've got the elastic band on one side and you can just close the other side and pull. We did a root tail yesterday actually, with an American lady and she was very nervous and I said just pull. Yeah. She said I've never been able to pull an animal's tail off. Yeah, right, it's just skins. Yeah, because we're talking large ruben. Doesn't happen with foxes. It's not often breaks, doesn't it, if you pull wrong. Yeah, so then you got the skin home.

Ron Kiehne: 4:11

What did you? Oh, we just lay them out in the back lawn and used to use pieces of number eight wire about that long and just peg them out in the lawn because there was never enough shed space, just air dried. Yeah, there was never enough shed space on the walls or whatever. You'd always have them on the gratings in the shearing shed or on a wall somewhere, but you'd run out of space inevitably before that all dries. So you'd be pegging them out in the lawn and hope for no rain.

Dodge Keir: 4:32

Yeah, Was there money in rabbit skin still then.

Ron Kiehne: 4:36

I never really shot rabbits as skins Dad and his relations did, but no, it wasn't a thing when I was a kid. It was more meat Right. So we were getting four shillings a pair for rabbits back when I was shooting and trapping. Money was tough when I was young and I remember Mum and Dad saying to me if you wanted anything, you got to earn it. So I used to borrow dad's traps and go and set some traps and sell some rabbits and Dad would always be trapping. So yeah, eventually, after enough trapping, I eventually bought myself a repeater LISCO 22, opens on site. That was the first rifle I bought and, yeah, I loved it and from then on it was no looking back at what shooting and trapping forever.

Dodge Keir: 5:24

How does the trapping work. Obviously, we've got some here behind us. Yeah, they're just old ones and they're not allowed to be used anymore.

Ron Kiehne: 5:29

But these ones you've picked up or personal use or both, no, just picked up over the years. Most of them are branded traps, more valuable traps, yeah. But yeah, I used hundreds and back. Dad and I used to set out probably 100, 150 traps a night and shift them every three or four nights.

Ron Kiehne: 5:46

These start back when they were legal, shift them every three or four nights. You'd leave them set out. The first night you'd set them out, you'd run them on dark because you'd have catch the first night. Yes, so there's always hawks and foxes around, so you run them just on dark or just before dark and then you run them next morning just on daylight, because then a rabbit's in a trap. He's free game for foxes or hawks. Spot on the mile off. So you've got to be out early and run your traps.

Dodge Keir: 6:13

And you're setting it up at the head of the warren.

Ron Kiehne: 6:16

Yeah, and what we used to call pill beds is rabbit will always go in one spot and piss in the one spot. So he's got this little area. You'd always put one there, and yeah little entry holes on the.

Dodge Keir: 6:27

Didn't lose too many fingers.

Ron Kiehne: 6:28

No, dad had one finger that was caught, but no, I never got caught, luckily.

Dodge Keir: 6:32

I don't know why, but A bit smarter, quicker on the fingers Probably should have, but you learn a bit as you go. On the fox side of things, I've spoken about it before. I ate one once, did you, and I'm guessing by your reaction then you never have no not guilty of that one no and.

Ron Kiehne: 6:49

Tried a lot of things but not fox.

Dodge Keir: 6:51

What's the issue? Why not? Does the smell? No, I just never have. It's like. I mean protein's protein, and I didn't like it at the time, but I think it was more to do with my poor handling of it. I just literally we scun it. I still had the smell on my hands, cut the meat off, cooked it, ate it it was all the same, but Smelling hands would be enough to turn you off. Well, yeah, it was just a favorite point that we could, I think, and actually learned a lot in the last couple of days with a lady that specializes in that sort of thing about how non-dangerous meat is. And we all talk about rotting and time frames and things and she's like it doesn't matter, just aging, it's just. Yeah, the smell is just bacteria producing a gas and cook it.

Ron Kiehne: 7:31

Well, my deer legs. When I go and get a deer, I'll put the back straps in my beer fridge. I just wrapped them in a bit of calico or something like that and only lived in there for a couple of days and then they first to be eaten. But the actual legs, I leave the skin on the deer leg and I put it in the beer fridge and it'll stay there for months or six weeks, just in the beer fridge, and when you pull it out, where you've cut it off the body, it'll be black. So I put a bit of bad stuff on it or the good stuff, just shave that off, skin it, and when you skin it under the skin is just like the day you shot it, and then I just segregate all the muscles out and cut them up and just put them in the freezer or bag. Glad, bag, bag.

Dodge Keir: 8:05

So I noticed on the wall here there's a fair few fallow heads around. That's your local species of chasing.

Ron Kiehne: 8:11

Yeah yeah, there's a few reds around, but not many. They're pretty light on.

Dodge Keir: 8:16

Well, obviously you've got a fair few antlers around, but you're chasing meat, or I don't chase both A bit of both.

Ron Kiehne: 8:21

I don't really chase them, but around the rut I'll go out a fair bit. I may need to take people out. I'll take my linear out or grandkids or whatever, because they get excited when they hear them roar and carry on. Yeah, it's all good fun and yeah, I used to sit four or five a year but last year I shot one. The year before I shot one. Yeah, don't shoot many anymore. I shoot a couple of days for meat. Chuck them in the freezer.

Dodge Keir: 8:47

But if you can hear the noise in the background, we had a bit of a storm last night. We're actually going to head out this morning and try and whistle up some foxes, but it was. We got 20mL of rain overnight, so still raining this morning, but a bit of wind whipping the side of the shed. So if you can hear it, that's what that is. But we were going to head out this morning and chase some foxes. The joys of growing up in a local area you've got a little bit of access. It's not something I grew up with. I do have one really good local access to where I live, but it's something I'll earn later in life. Yeah, I'm going to say it's nearly jealous, or it is nice to meet someone who's got local access from growing up around the area. But these properties you've been shooting.

Ron Kiehne: 9:22

I know so many people around over the years and different organisations and businesses I've been involved in. You sort of get to know all the locals and yeah, that's been good.

Dodge Keir: 9:31

Do you think? What's the general agriculture around here, Mainly farming Sorry, grazing Shipping cattle.

Ron Kiehne: 9:38

It changes around. There's quite a bit of with the feedlot. Now there's quite a bit of grain growing For silage, like corn, Because the local feedlot here at Rangers Valley they're running, I think, close to $40,000 now Right. So it's a big set up, a lot of feed?

Dodge Keir: 9:54

Yeah, A lot of silage. If they can get it locally, it's a better thing. Yeah, so it's the grazing and the sheep and things like that. The farmers are probably a little bit appreciative of someone who can shoot foxes.

Ron Kiehne: 10:04

Yeah, mainly the graziers. With the sheep yeah, when the sheep were worth big money they dropped off a bit now, but when they were really good money a couple of years ago the old phone was ringing all the time. I've got a problem fox out here. Can you come out and see if you can get him?

Dodge Keir: 10:17

When they say I've got eight problem foxes, do you quite often find it's multiple, or do they just think it's one, or is it one that gets a bit cheesy?

Ron Kiehne: 10:23

With chooks it's generally multiple foxes, but if you get one, I had one out near Deepwater, a bloke here that was a chef and he rang me and he said I've got a problem fox out here. He said I don't know. He said what it is. He said I'm sure it's not a dog. But he said we're getting big marked lambs bitten around the neck and whatever. And I said I'll come out and have a look. And I whistled two places and did not be lucky. And the third place I went, which I thought looked good. I thought I had a whistle on this little creek and this big dog fox come down. He was out of a hill and he just come like a freight train and he was the leanest dog. No-transcript. He arrived next week with a carton of beer. He said no more problems.

Dodge Keir: 11:08

So he was very happy, mission accomplished. Yeah, you just said. Then you went for a whistle and it looked like a good spot. Can you explain why you'd pick one spot to whistle a fox over another?

Ron Kiehne: 11:20

Foxes Sorry, foxes are basically a creature of habit. They'll travel certain paths at night time or when they're feeding. They love watered areas because frogs, skinks, all that sort of stuff that are easy prey. Little birds at nest in the reeds and blackberries along the banks of the river, they'll clean up a nest real quick. Or young birds, frogs, they love frogs. You'll see them chasing mice along the edges of the water, things like that. Yeah, they love water. So you get creek, it's got blackberries, reeds, all that sort of thing. Then, once you move away from the watered areas, blackberry bushes they love blackberry bushes For shelter and rabbits at all prey.

Ron Kiehne: 12:07

In winter time they'll just lay out in the open country. If you've got grass sort of six or eight, sorry, a metre high, yeah, foxes will just lay in the grass in the sun and you'll often be out in open paddock and you can give a whistle. Next thing you'll see one come bolt in and often you don't even know they're there. But I know what magpies will do and I know what little minor birds do. I can be sitting here and I can whistle and all of a sudden I know there's a fox coming from out there, because the minor birds are going off and I know exactly the call that they make when there's either a fox or a cat coming. So they're alerting their friends that there's a fox and I know the call that they do and they do a lot of calls. But I can just go and I'll just go to Lynn and she'll just spin around and I'll spin around, we'll sit and wait for her and you can't even see them.

Dodge Keir: 12:53

But they're coming and you mentioned Lynn, she's your wife and head cameraman. Yeah, Camera woman. She's caught some pretty cool footage over the years.

Ron Kiehne: 13:00

She has and for some of you who's never done it before, she picked it up really quick. She does a great job.

Dodge Keir: 13:05

Does she interest in blowing the whistle too, or is that a?

Ron Kiehne: 13:07

Yeah, yeah, it's just hard. She has trouble holding. She hasn't done a lot of shearing. She's a terrific shot but hasn't done a lot of shearing because I'm always the one that's sitting at the front and we're always chasing good footage. So, basically, and I'm the one we're sort of trying to promote and get out there, so she gets stuck behind the camera, which she loves, because she hates getting in front of the camera. Yeah, I've had this one of our video clips that we put up on YouTube and there's three or four remarks on it oh, did you two have a blue just before you went out to film that night? No, she just hates being in front of the camera.

Dodge Keir: 13:44

Yeah, yeah. So there's a couple of real popular videos that have done really well. But how have you Like you didn't put yourself in that situation, it just happened. Obviously you were calling Fox and some of them you didn't even have a rifle. You're just having a bit of fun on the side of the road, or? Yeah, I'll often do that.

Ron Kiehne: 13:59

You just get bored and Well, some of the good footage I've got is being I've just been driving along the side of the road and I think, geez, that gully looks nice and yeah, cameras are in the back, let's go back and have a whistle, yeah, and yeah, that's how they come about, and a lot of people would get good footage but they don't realize that Fox is coming in could be the perfect shot, the one that jumps on your chest or botched your foot or whatever, but you've shot it before and got a chance to Sure yeah, and that's what happens.

Dodge Keir: 14:26

It's nice to leave the gun in the car at home, yeah.

Ron Kiehne: 14:30

I've said to quite a few people, I had a Fox right on a netting fence one day and it was Wouldn't have been half a metre from my foot and it was sitting there looking through the grass on the netting fence. It couldn't smell me, pardon me, but I'd moved my foot and every time I moved my foot he'd look and he'd think of what's going on and try and get at it. And when he'd do that, I just looked down the post and said, what are you looking at? And he'd look up and he, and then I'd wiggle my foot and then he'd go. He was there for like 10 minutes, going backwards and forwards between those two things, and had no idea what it was.

Dodge Keir: 15:01

Yeah, just good wind.

Ron Kiehne: 15:02

Yeah, you just got to have a good wind With Fox's. They've got two sensors that are absolutely brilliant. You can't beat it, and that's the smell and sight.

Ron Kiehne: 15:11

And they're hearing. A lot of people don't realise that a Fox can rotate both ears 360 degrees. So if you're actually whistling a Fox in and watch him, he can pinpoint a noise. He'll rotate this ear and he'll rotate that ear and they can bring him right around and he'll pinpoint where that noise is. And once they do that, then I'll say, right, it's there. And they'll pick up that. That sounds there, the wind's coming from there and it's blowing out there. So I'm going to work my way around here and I'll know what it is. When I hit that scent trail, it's out there. Yeah, see, how do you combat that Bullet.

Dodge Keir: 15:42

Yeah, so as long as you can see it moving, then they're in range. Yeah.

Ron Kiehne: 15:45

And when you see a Fox, if he's coming in and you think he's getting close to your scent trail, soon as he goes puts his nose up like that. You've got to fire within about two seconds, or he's gone Soon as that nose goes up. You're busted.

Dodge Keir: 15:57

And the old saying you know, I missed Fox is a learned Fox. Or yeah, exactly, it definitely happens, oh yeah.

Ron Kiehne: 16:04

I educate a lot of Foxes by whistling and getting good footage. Well, I know I'm never going to whistle that Fox again, but I've got the good footage so it doesn't matter, Sure.

Dodge Keir: 16:11

So they just, you just don't think they respond as well the second time, or they're disappointed because they've worked out. There's a noise, but it didn't turn out to be food. Yeah, yeah.

Ron Kiehne: 16:18

I think it just educates them.

Dodge Keir: 16:19

You know more cautious. Yeah Right, and what with the whistles? What sound do they replicate?

Ron Kiehne: 16:27

A rabbit, an injured rabbit. But having said that, I've been into areas, I've been out round Broken Hill and Burke and places like that where there are no rabbits and you know heavy clay soils, and yeah, I've whistled rabbits. We whistled Foxes there. I went out there with my brother and we just were driving along and I said there's got to be Foxes around here. I want to try and whistle some and what I worked out is everywhere I would see an eagle on the road. I know there's fresh food. Eagles love fresh food, so and there'll be a real fresh roo there.

Ron Kiehne: 16:56

Fox in the city and he just dropped me there and he drove 100 metres up the road and I just pulled up and I whistled and we actually straight away and pulled the Fox out, because they're around too chasing fresh food. They don't really care. It's just mimics something that's injured. It's probably not exactly like a rabbit, but it's something similar.

Dodge Keir: 17:12

They're interested. Well, yeah, I shot a rabbit, one of the first well, I think it was the first thing I shot with my bow. The arrow pinned it to the floor and in that 10 seconds or so before it died, it squealed and I was recording. So I had that as an audio clip and I've played that on the car Just out the window, and then you get eyes pop up and things never successfully caught me in, but it was enough to replicate. Oh yeah, it's hard to catch a rabbit and ring it, just to record that noise. Exactly, they never make that noise on cue. When did you first start playing with Fox whistles, like as a using as a kid?

Ron Kiehne: 17:48

Well, the first Fox I ever whistled in, I think from memory I was about seven. It was not long after I bought my first 22, the old Lithgow, and I remember where I shot it and everything else. It was on our property near Rangers Valley just outside of Deepwater. And remember that was the first one.

Ron Kiehne: 18:05

But my great uncle, gilbert Canipe him and dad were great mates. They used to fish together and shit together all the time and had occasional drink and as Blake did back in those days, and yeah, when he was a bit of a kid, he was telling me that they lived up the top end of Dundee and he could hear all these shots being fired with a shotgun. And he said to his father this day, what are they shooting? And he said, oh, he's Fox whistling. It's one of I think it was his elder cousin was shooting next door with a Fox whistle and he said, oh, what's a Fox whistle?

Ron Kiehne: 18:39

Anyway, that night he came over and had two with him and he was showing them what it was and it was just a folded up bit of old tobacco tin with a hole punched in it. And that was back in the 1920s and that's how long it's been. My great uncle was born back in, dad was born in 26. And I think Gilbert was about 10 years old, so mid teens he would have been born, I guess. And yeah, so that's how long it's been in our family.

Dodge Keir: 19:02

Have you done any research as to where it actually came from?

Ron Kiehne: 19:05

I think. From what I can gather, I sent some whistles back to England and they were very keen on promoting it through Fieldsports Britain. Did you tell?

Dodge Keir: 19:13

them. You were keen on.

Ron Kiehne: 19:16

I sent them over and they were very keen to sell them and we sent 50 over and, yeah, the reply was we got back at the best Fox whistle came out of England Straight after. So they just copied it and sent it back. That's a nice compliment, I guess. Yes, but what I can gather, they'd never seen anything like it before. But I think it's very similar to a shepherd's whistle which they used to use, I guess any of the old shepherds that never couldn't whistle. They had a bit of a whistle to call their dogs and one day, I guess the Fox reacted to it and said oh okay, this might work. So it's so been the old Germans. They've built something that worked. Did they use one in Babe?

Dodge Keir: 20:00

No whistling, though I don't know. So they call left and right using whistles. Is that when they're using Could?

Ron Kiehne: 20:05

do yeah.

Dodge Keir: 20:06

As we do with our sheepdog now.

Ron Kiehne: 20:09

Yeah so one of my great uncles, whistles, is still here. When he passed away, I still had this one here, because I borrowed it off him one day and he had a few lying around. That's very crude, as you can see how they made that. One's just had a bit of old collarbone zikanoil.

Dodge Keir: 20:27

Right, so just a fold, a bit of tin. And what's the dynamic of it? The wind is passing over and through Wind goes through the bottom hull.

Ron Kiehne: 20:33

So a tip of your tongue's got to be on that back edge like that and you don't have to do anything else. The wind automatically, once you get it in the right place, the wind goes up through the bottom hull at the top, but you don't have to direct it through. So yeah, that was one of his whistles and this is what our original whistles used to sound like. Oh, got the wrong way up. The reason I did that mine are all got the longer bottom lip, his has got the longer lip on the top. Whistling, whistling. So that's what they sounded like and you're wobbling it side to side.

Ron Kiehne: 21:03

Yeah well, when you're blowing a whistle. I'll just give you a minute. They go on everywhere, don't know what they want most. Anyway, just turn that way a little bit. Yeah, oh, just side on. It's better to show.

Ron Kiehne: 21:16

So with the whistle, two fingers in each side of the lanyard where the knot is, two fingers inside thumb underneath behind where the lanyard enters. So what that does is the noise actually goes out between your two fingers, like that. Out in that direction tends to draw the noise away from your ears a bit. So when you're blowing it, you'll blow first of all, tip your tongue on the back of it, like so that just directs the air up through the bottom. So you don't have to try and direct it, but it automatically happens.

Ron Kiehne: 21:53

Now what I've said to a lot of people I'll blow raspberries, I'll go, and they'll slobber and spit and carry on. It's because you got your mouth too loose and not tense enough. So what I've said to people try and do it as if you're going to whistle, so you'll blow. It makes it a lot easier because you've got your mouth tensed in the right position. So once you do that and you've got your mouth slightly tensed, you're blowing middle puffs like as if you're blowing out of care, it'll just so. Once you do that, then you get a bit of panic in it. You'll actually put a bit of a quiver into it, so you'll. It gives you a bit of an idea what you can do with it.

Dodge Keir: 22:42

That's how you get the noise Right and different sizes, slightly different pitch.

Ron Kiehne: 22:48

Well, this particular whistle my original whistle and my great-uncle Gilbert's this is an old one I used to use back in the 60s. Dad had one that was made out of a bit of brass. It had an old claws-foot bath plug chain and they all had this straight shrill. It never had any raspiness to it. It sounded like this. So back in the 70s, the night I don't think it was the night we shot the 17, but I had a really good night we never put any value on fox whistles. We basically threw them in the back of the year or in the glovebox or somewhere, and then next time we went out we thought, oh, what did we do with that? We'll go and make another one. So there was a continual procession of fox whistles going through. Anyway, this particular night we were going out, I said to my uncle I said you got any fox whistles? He goes no, no, I got done, I can't find mine. What do we do? I said, oh, I'll go and quickly make one. So I went into the shed, just slipped one out and came out and it was real raspy. It had this funny note and I hadn't pruned it up or tidied it up with a file or anything and it just had this. I called it all croaky. Anyway, we went out this night and I whistled up hopes of foxes. They just really showed interest.

Ron Kiehne: 23:58

So, and going back in about 10 years ago, I had a really good mate here. He was a police officer and we got talking about chasing foxes and fishing and whatever. And he said, oh, you love chasing foxes? I said yeah, and he said, oh, we must go out sometime. I said, yeah, I know. So we did.

Ron Kiehne: 24:16

We arranged the time and because we're going out to one of his properties, I just let him take the lead and he did his own thing and I just took my old whistle and anyway, he whistled up three or four foxes and then we got to this real open area and there was a big hill right out in the background, probably half a kilometre away, and there was a few blackberries down the bottom and he had a whistle and nothing. And I said, oh, do you mind if I have a whistle in it? No, so I pulled that mile girl and that rip and within about three or four blasts this fox came down the hill about a million miles an hour and popped up on a rock and he just popped it and he went that whistle's loud. He said where do you get them? And I said, oh, you don't. I said I make them.

Ron Kiehne: 24:53

He said you should make them and sell them. I said, oh, ok, so that was how it started. So then it had to go from jam tins to the Silver Fox. So I thought how can you sell that? There's already the teneffield. Out there there's a button whistle.

Dodge Keir: 25:10

I need something different that I Before we get into the Silver Fox. So you say, teneffield, that's a style, that's a style, yeah, which is the folded with a hole through.

Ron Kiehne: 25:18

Yeah, it was just called the teneffield. It was from this area. So John Cooper up in teneffield used to make them. He's probably similar age to my dad. Every man, his dog around here when I was young Made one in the shed. Made one in the shed, yeah, so they're not from this particular area. You'll talk to people from Cadoble or wherever and they'll say, oh yeah, I remember granddad used to make them, so they were everywhere, but then they just it became a dying art. So just not many people did Fox Whistley anymore.

Ron Kiehne: 25:49

And when my mates said I should make them, I started to put my thinking cap on. I thought, for all it's worth, it probably won't work. And then I started thinking. I thought, well, I'll give it a try. So I thought, well, I need to make it out of something good. So I looked at stainless steel and it's so hard to work with to get the right note and the pitch and be able to bend it and it's flexible and it doesn't crack and there's a lot of things involved, pardon me.

Ron Kiehne: 26:17

And then I had 12 months where I went back to my memory. Well, my memory went back to where this whistle, back in the 60s, where the old one I called Old Crokey, and I thought I wonder if I could get that original shrill of that original whistles and mix it with that. So I don't know how many whistles I made and throw away. And I even made one with two holes in it. So I had two holes side by side and one was a shrill and one was the raspy notes. And it worked.

Ron Kiehne: 26:43

But I thought, no, I just I couldn't get it repetitively enough to get the same, and when you make one whistle you've got to make all the other sounds the same. So it just went on and on and on. So I had 12 months period where I went out every day no, sorry, every week for 12 months period and in that 12 month period I whistled up 360 foxes In a 12 month period. There wasn't a week in that year that I didn't whistle up fox. But mind you, in that week I might have went out three days and whistled three different properties. So you know it was a lot of hard work, but that was the testing, that was all the testing and in that period that's where I come up with the silver fox whistle and I got the redate right.

Dodge Keir: 27:24

Without giving too much away on the little. The script or not script, these are the differences in it. What makes it raspy, is it yeah?

Ron Kiehne: 27:33

Well, I could tell you, but then I'd have to kill you. Yeah, so you'll hear. It's got two distinct notes when you listen to it. It's got the shrill which goes long distance. How far are we talking? Oh?

Dodge Keir: 27:44

well, it's hard to tell because by the time you see it, no, it's not.

Ron Kiehne: 27:46

It's not. I've been out here where we're going this afternoon. I've been on the property where I know I've been at least two kilometers from the house still afternoon in winter and I've whistled, and since I've whistled the dogs have arced up at the house. So I know it goes two kilometers.

Dodge Keir: 28:01

Yeah, how long does it take a fox that's interested to come?

Ron Kiehne: 28:03

two kilometers, I don't know, I wouldn't know that I whistled one that far.

Ron Kiehne: 28:06

I would say I've whistled foxes from a kilometer away, but I wouldn't say two kilometers.

Ron Kiehne: 28:10

Yeah, you don't know, because you sit there for five minutes and some foxes just come in flat out and others will come in, wander pee, wander in and they just laxate as you go. They just do what they want to do, but others will just bolt. And if I get a fox, that if I'm sitting out in the open and I get a fox coming in, I don't want him to spot me. So every time he slows down to think about having to sniff around or whatever, as soon as he slows down and goes to sniff the ground, I'll hit the whistle again and he's on the move again. So I don't give him time to look around, whereas if I'm in tight stuff and I want him to come in slow, then I'll get a lot of footage. I'll change my method of whistling, right? So yeah, pardon me, the two nests. Going back to the two nests, you can hear that really high pitch one and then you can hear that Full volume and you can hear that a lot.

Dodge Keir: 29:07

Yeah, the secondary sound.

Ron Kiehne: 29:09

That's what took all the work. That took me 12 months some guys.

Dodge Keir: 29:13

I've been out with one contract guy and he carried several different whistles and, like you're saying with your mate, you know you try one that wouldn't work, yeah, the next one might work. Is that something that you do or you just have to know?

Ron Kiehne: 29:24

just have the one and I don't even own a whistle. I just walk over there every time I go out. I just go and picking you one out. So there's somebody out there has got one of my old whistles and I've whistle foxes. Then I just clean it up and put it in the box itself. That way I know they all work. Nice, I know you clean it, yeah, yeah, yeah, no, it was clean them up and shove them back in a box and I don't get some anesthetical.

Ron Kiehne: 29:44

Yeah, yeah, no. Well, every whistle's been in my mouth, every whistle, because I tune every one of them. They're all individually handmade, handmade and hand-finished.

Dodge Keir: 29:52

Everyone, so everyone of them been there at some stage you briefly touched on a couple of situations with foxes at your feet and if people want to head over to your YouTube channel, I'm sure they'll see it, but yeah, that's them. I can't even say close call doesn't get any closer. Yeah, I'm talking about the one I'm talking about.

Ron Kiehne: 30:11

The one that jumped on my chest.

Dodge Keir: 30:12

Yeah, how did that come about?

Ron Kiehne: 30:13

Well, I had had some people coming here to do some guided I'm not a guided hunting to do a YouTube clip, and they got to know them pretty well through one of the expos and I said to my son we really should go out and just see, because foxes respond different, different ways at different times a year and I've never been able to predict that. I can't say, look, I'm gonna go out today, I'm gonna whistle foxes, because sometimes they just switch off and they will not. Obviously, when they're mating I think they've got other things on their brain and they just say, no, we're not coming. There's only one thing on my mind and I think it's like a fellow deer in the rut they all they want to do is they don't want to eat. So that's why at the end of the rut you see them, they're all holed up and they haven't eaten. No, they're in his recovery mate and I think foxes are pretty well the same.

Ron Kiehne: 30:59

So I generally July I don't do much at all and June's always pretty good but anyway, this particular time these people were coming, I said to my son I we better just tuck out and see if you know anything's whistling or whatever. So we just ducked out to one of the local reserves here, one of the LP boards, and Just ducked in off the road and I said, oh, we'll have a whistle here. And we whistled up a fox straight away and I said I will go back down there, this gully down, a bit further. Anyway, I'm whistling away and there's one come out to my left. I could see him coming flat out but there was electric fence with electric wires on the bottom to stop roos going backwards and forwards through it and he just came to that and stopped. Anyway, while I'm watching him and you'll actually hear this on my Video we use a little thing. What we do is if I want to notify lean or whoever's on the camera it is fox coming, I'll just go. So if you ever hear that means that's a notification that look at me. Forget what you're looking at. There's something else where.

Ron Kiehne: 31:56

So I'm looking here. All of a sudden I've gone to Brock and he spun around. Luckily he did. There's a fox coming from out here pretty quick. So I thought, oh, yeah, anyway, come along the track. There's a bit of a track coming along and he, he sort of slowed down a little bit and then I thought I'll give him another whistle, see how close you'll come. Well, when I hit that second-last whistle, he just put in the full mode, flat out straight at me. So no, this could be interesting. I'm thinking to myself and I'm still watching through the camera. I'm not thinking about what's gonna happen, I'm watching through the camera. I thought, oh, he's disappeared completely off the screen and actually, oh, and his back legs hit me in the guts and his front legs landed there and his face was there and had a snap in his face, but he actually winded me, just knocked the wind out of me, hit that hard, wow, yeah, and you know it's probably happened to other people, but they've never got it on film.

Dodge Keir: 32:44

Well, unlike you said earlier, it might have happened to other people where they shoot them. Yeah, before they get to that point.

Ron Kiehne: 32:49

I've had a lot of foxes that I've shot like three or four meters away, come and flat out. So you don't know how that was gonna end up. What do you shoot with you shotgun? I used to be always shotgun but now I've gone to the 17 HMR.

Ron Kiehne: 33:01

It was funny when I first started because I always used to ads all hammer gun I. I thought, oh yeah, I've got to be able to film it and my ex-wife wasn't really into hunting so I thought I've got to do it all on my own when I first started doing it. So I got an old Backpack and I stripped it all down, used to use the H frame and the harness and I'm out at a movie camera on the top shoulder and got some really good footage. I thought, oh, this is good, I can pull the hammers back, I can see all that. Actually got some late late afternoon ones where you see the flash out of the barrels, and that was good. With the first fox I shot, any comes, any comes, following beautiful. Oh, don't you see sky? You don't see the fox getting shot because the shoulder goes back up, goes the camera, yeah, so that's not gonna work. So I thought I'm gonna have to go back to a 22 or something like that. Anyway, I'm talking to my another mate.

Ron Kiehne: 33:51

He said oh why don't you give one of those 20 has 17 HMRs a try? He said they're really good. I never even heard on Any. I bought a little. Just show you nothing fancy. Yeah, a little paddle tail, ruga, all synthetic and stainless, so it's Very easy to maintain. Nice and light. Yeah, lightness is the excellent, is the main thing, because all my shooting is either done freehand or just off one knee. I don't shoot with any rests. Scopes, nothing fancy, just three to nine and a camera man on top of the screen, on top of the scope.

Dodge Keir: 34:28

It is a Bushnell High contrast optics.

Ron Kiehne: 34:32

They are Bushnell, all the buddy Yep free plugs You've got over the years, yeah shout out I to Bushnell.

Dodge Keir: 34:38

Was it a three to nine? Yeah, nothing fancy, With some custom-made mounts on top.

Ron Kiehne: 34:43

by the look of that yeah, they just other mounts turned upside down. That's the mount of the camera.

Dodge Keir: 34:48

Yeah, very clever. How many foxes do you think she shot? No idea a lot. How many foxes do you think you shot? Have you ever thought?

Ron Kiehne: 34:55

about it? No idea. Thousands yeah, I've got no idea. That's a lot. In the last 10 years we've sold over 14,000 whistles it facilitated the shooting of a lot of other foxes.

Dodge Keir: 35:07

Yeah, yeah.

Ron Kiehne: 35:09

Saved a lot of native wildlife and feral cats. Have you ever gutted one to see what was in it? No, I haven't. I posted one the other day that somebody had done All the bits inside.

Dodge Keir: 35:19

Yeah, skinks and many birds. I'll just put this back. You touched on cats. You've had a bit of luck on whistling cats as well. Yeah, cats love them.

Ron Kiehne: 35:29

Yeah, they'll come. Cats are so sneaky, though like a fox, the birds will give a cat away too, but a cat. You don't know where they're coming from until they're nearly on top of you. They'll just any little bit of grass, they'll fall around through it, they're just so sneaky One of the videos you showed me this morning.

Dodge Keir: 35:46

that was the cat.

Ron Kiehne: 35:47

Oh, the cat and the fox coming together. Yeah, the cat and the fox. Well, the cat was coming first and the fox came up out of a big heap of logs. Then he came in behind the cat.

Dodge Keir: 35:55

It nearly looked like he was trying to get the cat. Do you think a fox would go a cat?

Ron Kiehne: 36:00

Yes, a small cat, because I've lost one. Okay, mike's wife had a tonk of knees and lost it to a fox. Yeah, mate, he one night left the back door open and I said, oh, the cat will be back in a minute, it'll be right, because it was never loud outside. I hate cats outside at night time. So anyway, I dived out and I would know we've got foxes here and feral cats. Anyway, about 10 minutes later it was a hell of a commotion. My dogs went off and they were out and raced up the driveway and made this commotion and no more cat. So I know where it went.

Dodge Keir: 36:30

Yeah, right, fox got it. But in this video that, like I said, the cat was coming in first, the fox followed it up and then they had a bit of a not an altercation they overstand off. They were doing the sideline and sidewalking. I've had that a couple of times happen With fox and cat. Fox and cat yeah, Okay, that was the first one you got on film yeah, and then the cat bailed off and got yeah, he just left he got mad.

Ron Kiehne: 36:51

I'm bad enough.

Dodge Keir: 36:52

The fox kept coming in. That was cool. Yeah, it looked good. Before we sat down, you showed me through a little trophy room out the back and you've got some really coloured, nice coloured rabbits. Yep. And you mentioned a particular shooting method for rabbits that I've never heard of on purpose, where you actually miss them.

Ron Kiehne: 37:11

Oh yeah, yeah Back. Explain that and how it works Well back when, back when dad and I were shooting Because it sounds like an excuse yeah no.

Dodge Keir: 37:19

Sounds like something I'd use if I miss something yeah, no.

Ron Kiehne: 37:22

Dad and my great uncle. They were just in the droughts in the 60s, both property owners. There was no money to be made out of the farm so they took up rabbits were everywhere, so they took up chasing rabbits and at that time they were getting 40 cents a pair, which was good money. And dad actually bought himself an EK Holden Ute out of shooting rabbits and he could fit 400 pair sorry, 400 rabbits in the back of the EK Holden Ute. Used to put star pickets across and just pair them and hang them in the back and he could fill the back up and get 400 rabbits in there. And yeah, that was good money back then. Yeah and yeah. So what was it?

Dodge Keir: 37:57

And I'll see. You want clean pelts without holes in there. Oh, so clean meat.

Ron Kiehne: 38:01

Yeah, well, you weren't allowed to shoot anywhere behind upper chest, so no bullet holes anywhere down the back. It had to be high chest, neck or head. But their preferred method was well, it just came by accident they used to shoot with open-sided 22s. I never had scopes and we used to use a push bike headlights with a big wooden box on your back which held five of the old telephone batteries. I can't even picture how big that is. Well, I can show you. All. Right, you go and get one, because I'm going to make it, I'm going to make a replica box. Okay, that's roughly what I'm called.

Ron Kiehne: 38:40

This is a spotlight from back in the 60s, roughly Right. So you can imagine five of those on your back in a wooden box. Yeah, it's probably a kilo, yeah, I don't know what weight they. So what we started out with was something like that, which is a push bike headlight. Now Dad was good friends with a local electrician and he said now, if you run five of these, which are 1.5 volts, heavy as all hell I used to power telephones, he said run five of those, I'll give you 7.5 volts. Run a six-volt bulb in this, give you a nice bright light. So what we did then is made a little bracket that ran off here with a bit of strapping running around and that went around the front of your hat and then behind that you had a bit of elastic and you had to have it that tight because it was heavy and if you moved a lot and at the end of the night you always had a headache because it was that tight and we did everything on foot.

Dodge Keir: 39:36

This is the conception of a lead lender.

Ron Kiehne: 39:38

Yeah, so that's the headlights we used to use and what we did that was in a wooden box on your back and that was body heavy.

Ron Kiehne: 39:46

Then we had little bits of timber we'd put through our hand with a hole drilled in it and a hook on the bottom, and with hook that's through the hamstring of the rabbit, you could carry probably 10 or a dozen rabbits in one hand.

Ron Kiehne: 40:00

So you'd carry that along. You'd see a rabbit, you'd just drop that fire shot and because we were so used to shooting, a lot of the times you wouldn't even get the rifle up to you to actually sight down the barrel, you just nearly hip shot, but you'd only get it to your shoulder and go bang and you either tried to head shoot but it only came as an accident head shooting, but we're trying to just shoot over the tops of their ears and it just seems to stun a rabbit and in that next few seconds you can walk up with a small sticker, a bit of poly pipe, and just smack them over the head and that way you get a rabbit that hasn't got any bullet holes, no meat damage, no. But yeah, we got that good in the end we were just going bang. Oh he's dead.

Ron Kiehne: 40:37

Oh he's dead. Oh no, we'll have to hit that one, but you got so good at it because you're just doing it all the time. Do you remember what rifles they were using? Yeah, my dad had a sport coat one of the very early sport coats and I still had my list go. About 22s, yeah, all 22s 22 ammo would have been readily available All walking.

Ron Kiehne: 40:54

So we didn't drive anywhere. You basically went and parked somewhere. He'd go one direction, I'd go another. He'd say oh, when you shoot 50 rabbits or 20 rabbits or whatever, take them over and put them on this fence. We can get the ear to there, we can gut them, hang them there and then around midnight we drive around and pick them up, take them back, put them in the or. We had a limb with just a hashing bag over it. We just slide over it so you can hang them all on this limb on the tree. We'll just pull the bag over to keep any flies away and then daylight next morning you go and pick them up and take them into the chiller. What was your gutting method? Just kneel down back leg under each knee and just rip the gut, go up in the lungs, pull everything out, make sure you get the bladder and the extract.

Dodge Keir: 41:40

I've done it before, I've filmed it and I want to do it again and get a better film of it. But the old just grabbing behind the chest and sort of roll and it pops out and through there. Yeah, but you're shooting.

Ron Kiehne: 41:51

It's not for human consumption. Yeah, when you're doing for the chiller, you've got to have them open, so they can suppose, because when they take them in they'll actually peel them open and check the lungs. So I think you had to leave the lungs in, that's right. So there was no high daddards or anything they used to check for any disease, was that?

Dodge Keir: 42:05

often Did you get many with worms and things.

Ron Kiehne: 42:09

No, not really no, they were all good, yeah, so no, they were a bit old days. My favourite job was dad used to drive me to school and I said you're getting them out of the car and I'm putting them in the chiller, because it was five degrees warmer in the chiller than what I was outside. It'd be minus five or six outside and the chiller was like two degrees.

Dodge Keir: 42:25

So I was like walking into the kitchen, Walking into summer yeah it's pretty cool that you're doing it on the way to school. Yeah, things are a bit different. Back then you just walk around with the firearm on the basal.

Ron Kiehne: 42:35

Well, dad had a 22 that used to live up the backseat of the car all the time. We just sat down the whole year.

Dodge Keir: 42:39

Someone told me a story the other day. Their bus driver used to stop on the way to school and shoot pigs out the window and then keep driving, drop the kids off, come home, pick the pigs up and down it. Yeah, country times were a little bit more fun.

Ron Kiehne: 42:49

Yeah, I used to shoot rabbits on the way home from school and whatever.

Dodge Keir: 42:54

I'll get a photo of it too. But you told me a pretty cool story about your dad was playing with marksmanship, shooting smaller and smaller things, and they got down to something pretty damn small.

Ron Kiehne: 43:04

Yeah, my um, this is still open sites my dad and my great uncle using 22. So he went down to a place called Glenelgen, which is east of Dundee, and they used to camp in a hut down there and they'd shoot all night till they got the back of the youthful and then they'd come to town and get rid of the rabbits and go back. So they'd shoot most of the night and then during the day they'd sleep. So you'd wake up at like till three o'clock in afternoon and nothing to do. So they used to practice shooting. So they started off.

Ron Kiehne: 43:32

They had a little pieces of firebrow and they'd take it and see how far they could shoot it with an open, open sighted 22. And they just kept putting them further and further away and smaller and smaller pieces. Then they said, oh, let's chuck jam tins up into the sky and shoot them. So they were doing that and they could do that pretty good. So then they said, oh, let's get the pieces of firebrow and we'll chuck them up in the air and see if I can shoot them. So they were doing that and then I'm getting smaller and smaller pieces of firebrow.

Ron Kiehne: 43:58

Anyway, they got down to let's chuck the penny up and see if I can shoot a penny. So anyway, I don't know how many times I did it before I hit one, but they had both ended up hitting a penny and I've actually still got my dad's my great uncle, I think hit here's pretty well in the center and they never found it. They heard it hit and they heard a bit of a noise but never found it, and my dad's hit a bit off center and what it did it made just spinning eyes and I and it went into the grass and only very short grass, so they knew where it went. So they just went and looked till I found it. It's crazy, I'm actually still got it yeah, I saw it up there.

Dodge Keir: 44:32

You got a little, a pretty cool little cabinet. There's some memorabilia in it. Yeah, I spotted it and yes, that's the one we're talking. What are they? 25mm or so, yeah, not very big. That's a. That's a trick shot in today's turn. Oh yeah. Yeah, that's right. So we're gonna head out this afternoon and check out a property. Yep, and again, you said there's certain times a year where they're not particularly reactive. What are we now? August? Yeah, so are we. When are they breeding? When are they in the den? And then I often hear so, background, I haven't done a whole lot of fox. You, I've shot some. Actually my arch nemesis I've missed more than I've shot, because I get really nervous about him, because the whole farmer thing, like if you miss a fox you don't come back, and yeah, so you're nearly better than not telling them, but they make me nervous. Deer and things, not an issue, but there's a time of year, so I'm told, when the younger ones start to come out and they're, they're quite reactive. Yep, because they're dumb.

Ron Kiehne: 45:26

They haven't had that education so at the moment we should be looking at the vixens still being in the den. If we do whistle up any, they'll be all bare down the belly. They'll have pups in the den. Normally it's good to find them and where they are. But generally if you shoot a vixen you've got no chance of getting the pups because they'll be right up inside a log or in under a pile of rocks or whatever. So they just die natural death. There's nothing you can do about that unless you can get to them quite easily or good access, which very rarely happens. But if you shoot vixens at this time of year they could be still not have pups. It could be pups on the ground gently. In September you'll start shooting vixens that have got pups on them, so you'll see that they got nada. And yeah, as far as you know, whistling in pups generally January right as when they're around and stupid little bit easier, january, february.

Dodge Keir: 46:22

Yeah, and I saw you got a pile of fox skins in there. You summer foxes different to winter foxes, skin wise, oh yeah years ago, foxes were, um, you know, very popular skin.

Ron Kiehne: 46:33

They were sold overseas and whatever. But the fur and bamboo brigade and the greenies have, you know, seen to, they wrecked all that, which is more detriment to them and and nature. Because what they've done is because it's not economically viable to shoot foxes, they just let breed, and same with feral cats. So it goes exactly against the, to the opposite effect to what the greenies want to do, instead of, you know, little birds and native ground, dwelling birds and mammals. On that, I think, quite a comprehensive, do they? No, it's the same as locking up a mash like a national park and not burning it. You know, it gets that much debris on the ground that eventually it's going to like, it's going to burn and disappear, and then it just kills all the big trees, you know, just because it burns too hot yeah, they can't understand the whole.

Dodge Keir: 47:25

You know not one thing. Out to save others, or that's.

Ron Kiehne: 47:28

They just want to save everything and it makes everything worse well with bushfires years ago who put them out, like 200 years ago, who put a bushfire out every lighting strike, start the bushfire and it burnt to let it water. So that's just natural concept regularly.

Dodge Keir: 47:40

Yeah, so it kept nature in check so you're doing your part for keeping nature in check. I'll try to definitely facilitate it. A lot, of, a lot of fox deaths. How far wide have you seen the silver fox whistle spread? Like you said, you sent some to to England. Oh, we get you sell overseas yeah, yeah, we get calls every.

Ron Kiehne: 48:00

I had to. I got a thing there from a bloke in America the other day. He said he's using me on coyotes and he said they work really good. He's been selling, I'll sell them, getting his mates to buy them. I bring a company in South Australia the other day that does rural outlet store and I said, oh, there's a gun shop in your area that has been selling my whistles but they've closed down. I said would you be interested? I said, oh, you probably don't know of the silver fox whistle, but I'm telling her, given a spiel about it, and she went, no, I'm, I got one. So she said, yeah, I'll take some. Yeah, yeah. So no, they're very wide, like you get 14 thousand around is the amount of people that I come across. Oh, yeah, I got one, or you know, and so how long was 10 years ago?

Dodge Keir: 48:46

roughly about 10 years. Yeah, I remember I was deer expo down in Bendigo that real hot weekend and yeah, I didn't see run. You didn't need to. You could freaking hear him and it wasn't you. I think it was Georgia, yeah, when she come over and started working out how to blow it. So Georgia Ricky's probably listening this Georgia was probably this big back then and now she's as tall as me yeah, studying away, but she worked out how to blow that thing pretty quickly.

Ron Kiehne: 49:13

Yeah, kids, generally they're the ones that work it out a lot better than the adults. Right, adults are setting their ways of what they want to do and how they should blow it right whereas kids don't know any difference, so they just try different things and all of a sudden, yep, they've got it.

Dodge Keir: 49:25

I'm glad we were on the other side of the hall because for your neighbors in the side here they would have. We've got a bit sick of that, yeah it was funny.

Ron Kiehne: 49:30

When I was down there I had these two blokes come in and they asked me all about the whistle and said oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, oh, they guarantee they'll work. Yeah, they're pretty wild sort of blokes. Anyway, the next day that was a Saturday next day they come back, these whistles come up and bang them on the cat we want our money back all right, okay, no worries.

Ron Kiehne: 49:51

But we went home, we bought a cart and a stubby's. We went out in the back shed and we whistled and whistled and not one fox came. I said, oh, that's possible. He said yeah, but then we opened the roller door and every bloody cat was sitting outside yeah, so they worked for cats yeah, I had another old blague.

Ron Kiehne: 50:09

It was funny. I did a you know, an interview with ABC radio and a bloke rang me up from Newcastle. He said could you meet me in Tamworth? And I said yeah, I'll come down. So we sat in the park and we, but he did this thing and he went back three weeks later had this bloke from down the snowy mountains rang me and he said I want to buy one of your whistles. He said they're pretty good. I said oh, yeah. I said he got one. He went no. I said you know something. He's got one. He went no. I said oh, how do you know they're good? He said well, I was listening to ABC radio the other day and he said I'm an old dog, or he said, but he done a lot of dogging.

Ron Kiehne: 50:43

And my baron? He rattled off and he said he said I was sitting in there listening tentatively to that and he said next thing, you started whistling. He said you know, my two dogs come back through the back door, nearly ripped the screen off and they're trying to rip, tear the old radio off the meadlepiece. So he said I know they work. Yeah, yeah, he said it was funny, but I get a lot of good calls. I had another bloke in western Australia said I should put danger warning signs. I said there is. He said not for your ears, bloody owls. He said I got whistler at night time. I get died by my owls. Swooped, mm. Right, never thought about that. I was scariest when I was good at the sweat by an eagle you did yeah, I was out whistling one day and bloody.

Ron Kiehne: 51:22

This eagle came in and he lined me up did you see it coming? No, come in from behind. And the last minute he decided oh no, it's not what I want. He just he felt the wind. It was like a bloody jet plane. Oh Jesus, hear him back up in there. I was up about here, I reckon big wedgie wow inflict some wounds on the head if it took you out.

Ron Kiehne: 51:41

I've had quite a few of them come into the whistle, but they'll generally only come in like 50, 80 meters away and realize what's going on. They'll just sit and look at you.

Dodge Keir: 51:49

I've heard a few people getting their drones taken out of the sky.

Ron Kiehne: 51:51

Yeah, by eagles yep, I wouldn't doubt that inquisitive things.

Dodge Keir: 51:55

They are right. Oh, thanks for sitting down and having a chat. We're gonna have a little play around the shed and you're gonna, yep, show me behind secret doors like you do, and then kill me if I tell anyone. Yeah, but then we're gonna go out and try no worries, sounds good, look forward to it.

Ron Kiehne: 52:09

Thanks for the fire, nice and warm. No worries, yeah, work well, lucky you. The cold weather that's right on the fourth episode of accurate hunts.

Dodge Keir: 52:18

I am sitting in the Liverpool Rangers Hunter Valley area with the man himself, nick Morton, so you could set someone up with a cheat, bow or top of the limbo and if it's not tuned you're wasting your time.

Nick Moreton: 52:31

The old boars are just so tough like you can't hit them through one lung in the back of the living and expect them to run 150 and pull up and lay under a tree and then come and finish them off. They're just going to keep going like you're not going to recover those animals unless you hit them perfectly.