As dawn crests over the state forests and farmsteads, the pursuit of the elusive Sambar deer begins, unraveling a tale of respect, tradition, and the hunter's bond with nature. Joined by Haroon, a skillful videographer with a keen eye for the wilderness, we traverse the terrains of hunting ethics and halal practices, sharing tales that blend the thrill of the chase with solemn reverence for our quarry. Whether it's the heart-pumping anticipation of a buck's croak in April's twilight or the meticulous strategies employed on both public and private lands, our conversation is a deep dive into the hunter's psyche and the powerful emotions that accompany the harvest of game.
The intricate dance of tracking, the art of field dressing, and the respect for community and mentorship find their voice in this episode, as we navigate the complexities of sharing hunting locations and the broader implications of hunting regulations. As Haroon and I exchange stories—from the tension of a risky freehand shot to the meditative silence that follows a successful hunt—we also discuss the challenges faced by novice hunters and the ethical dimensions that govern our practices. The nuances of taxidermy, the diversity of fallow deer colors, and the craftsmanship in preserving these majestic trophies round out our exchange, ensuring that every hunter, novice or seasoned, finds a nugget of wisdom in our shared experiences.
Wrapping up our journey, I impart a step-by-step narrative on humane and efficient field dressing, demonstrating a deep-rooted respect for the animals we hunt and the environment we cherish. Beyond the practical advice, we delve into the significance of building a community around hunting—where mentorship and shared knowledge are pillars of a sustainable and ethical pursuit. Haroon's insights and our collective stories culminate in an episode that not only celebrates the diverse emotions evoked by hunting but also underscores our commitment to honor the great outdoors and the creatures within. Join us as we recount the highs and lows that forge a life intertwined with the wild.
For the latest information, news, giveaways and anything mentioned on the show head over to our Facebook, Instagram or website.
If you have a question, comment, topic, gear review suggestion or a guest that you'd like to hear on the show, shoot an email to accuratehunts@gmail.com or via our socials.
As dawn crests over the state forests and farmsteads, the pursuit of the elusive Sambar deer begins, unraveling a tale of respect, tradition, and the hunter's bond with nature. Joined by Haroon, a skillful videographer with a keen eye for the wilderness, we traverse the terrains of hunting ethics and halal practices, sharing tales that blend the thrill of the chase with solemn reverence for our quarry. Whether it's the heart-pumping anticipation of a buck's croak in April's twilight or the meticulous strategies employed on both public and private lands, our conversation is a deep dive into the hunter's psyche and the powerful emotions that accompany the harvest of game.
The intricate dance of tracking, the art of field dressing, and the respect for community and mentorship find their voice in this episode, as we navigate the complexities of sharing hunting locations and the broader implications of hunting regulations. As Haroon and I exchange stories—from the tension of a risky freehand shot to the meditative silence that follows a successful hunt—we also discuss the challenges faced by novice hunters and the ethical dimensions that govern our practices. The nuances of taxidermy, the diversity of fallow deer colors, and the craftsmanship in preserving these majestic trophies round out our exchange, ensuring that every hunter, novice or seasoned, finds a nugget of wisdom in our shared experiences.
Wrapping up our journey, I impart a step-by-step narrative on humane and efficient field dressing, demonstrating a deep-rooted respect for the animals we hunt and the environment we cherish. Beyond the practical advice, we delve into the significance of building a community around hunting—where mentorship and shared knowledge are pillars of a sustainable and ethical pursuit. Haroon's insights and our collective stories culminate in an episode that not only celebrates the diverse emotions evoked by hunting but also underscores our commitment to honor the great outdoors and the creatures within. Join us as we recount the highs and lows that forge a life intertwined with the wild.
For the latest information, news, giveaways and anything mentioned on the show head over to our Facebook, Instagram or website.
If you have a question, comment, topic, gear review suggestion or a guest that you'd like to hear on the show, shoot an email to accuratehunts@gmail.com or via our socials.
Most of the time when I'm hunting in the state forest, I'm navigating, trying to record my hunts, I'm trying to look for sign, I'm trying to look for deer, so I'm doing a lot of things. So it can be a bit stressful at times. And I just turned and there was a Sambar standing on literally on top of me, at about five meters away. Wow, literally five meters away. And she's looking down on me like this. They think that halal is just limited to processing. For me, halal has a much deeper meaning to it. It starts all the way from how you even got the money to to hunt that, if that makes sense. All right.
Speaker 2:Welcome back to another episode of accurate hunts a life outdoors.
Speaker 2:It's a bit chilly in in here. You might be able to see the steam. We've got the fire going behind us, joined today in person by Haroon Yep. Nice to meet you. Nice to meet you again. Thank you, we met this morning and we'll get into that pretty quickly.
Speaker 2:But, haroon, I've been watching your videos pop up out of nowhere seemingly, and you know the video contents are relevant for more. I like the editing style. I envy someone who can edit, because I can't, and I know you said it takes up a bit of time. That's definitely a big part of it, what goes into a video and what doesn't. But it's like we've met out here, we're on a farm, we've been hunting. It's, you know, accurate Hunts. The show's called Life Outdoors. It's what we try and do and I try to do a lot of my episodes outdoors in this sort of setting, and the regular listeners and watchers will know that when we meet out at Accurate Hunts HQ and things like that, it's just a bit. It's a more, less formal setting and a more casual conversation and and that's what we're here to do. And you, uh, you mentioned that you hadn't ever heard a fellow but croak yeah, when we were talking yeah.
Speaker 2:So we, uh. I said well, what are you doing on this weekend?
Speaker 1:and you just happen to be coming through sydney, yeah, yeah, so you live in brisbane, I live in brisbane yes, uh, it was coincidence, pure coincidence, that I have a camp set up, a hunter's camp sort of a thing, for a small group of ours. And then, yeah, we just started talking and then you said, just come over, and then it's literally on the way. I mean, we don't even have to take a left or right, it's literally on the way. So I said I'm not missing this for anything. Even if it would have been out of the way, I would have never missed this opportunity.
Speaker 2:Makes it easier when it's on the way.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's just definitely you know, because I've never when you said, you know there's still a chance, although we were in the tail end of April, and I think there's still a chance to hear some of the croaking, and yeah, we'll get into it.
Speaker 2:But this is exciting. I'm glad you're excited by it. One of the main reasons I brought you out here is your background. I want to say nearly traditionally is and completely is state forest, public land hunting, and I wanted to show you how it's done. On the other side of the coin, yeah, and we experienced a few of those differences today.
Speaker 1:It was a weird feeling. I've always been on the other side of the fence thinking am I on the right side? Am I on the right side or not? But every time I had to remind myself okay, I'm with someone here, I'm not doing anything wrong.
Speaker 2:It feels strange walking around with the cattle. Yeah, true, and we did see. I reckon we saw 15 or so deer, I suppose this morning maybe, yeah, quite a few In total, yeah.
Speaker 2:Some were in an area we couldn't get to and then some obviously were. We'll break into that a little bit later. But one of the things I noticed, and I've seen it before, but when I introduced State forest hunters to private land hunting and you brought it up before I got a chance to mention it and you said there's, there's no sign, like there's not much footprint, there's not much poo. And you're right, it's different. And traditionally I spent a lot of time looking up, looking around yeah, for deer, but not so much looking down. And then it wasn't until I started podcasting and talking to you know, state forest hunters who don't have the private access.
Speaker 1:You guys spend a lot of time focused on sign exactly, exactly that's what uh, uh, that's what I've kind of experienced from a purely from my experience like, uh, you find sign, like you find all sign fine, at least you know that they're there but then you're looking for that fresh sign. And then, once you find that fresh sign, then I'm starting to look, you know, more up rather than down. So, yeah, it was a completely different experience for me to just start off completely with just looking up and even the I don't know if I mentioned this to you even the walking style you were walking you had a brisk walk yep, and this might surprise some people, but I can't walk briskly and you, you constantly, we were constantly trying to keep up with you because you know, uh, you know, in the back of my mind I'm still tuned to that state forest walk, class walk, yeah, and that and admittedly, where we were walking today was quite open too.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I was not. You know, I'm still I'm doing a lot of omar version of glassing omar sitting down here on the side. He doesn't use binoculars, he just sees deer with his bionicle eyes, but I was doing what he did and so I do a lot of scanning and, like I said, I'm looking for inconsistent shape, color and movement, and there is only cattle on this property, so anything smaller than that, yeah, and horizontal is a high chance of it being a deer, yeah, so that's very different to state it is.
Speaker 1:It is, but it's different experience. I've, uh, I've hunted only once, like I said, uh, in a state, in a private property, but it was, it was. It was. I didn't, honestly, I wouldn't say that I did any of the hunting, it was just there was a farmer. He just told us where to go. We just follow the signs, take left, take right, and there'll be a dam. Look across. It showed up, they were there. So that was my experience of private land hunting. But and I think I told you that before we started the hunt and I think you purposely made us walk through some you know gullies up and down but yeah, definitely it was a different experience. I wouldn't say that it was easy, it was. A lot of things were still the same. You, other than this, looking for the sign, you're still looking for the deer and you're still looking, you're still walking, still trying to keep.
Speaker 2:You still got terrain and wind. Terrain and wind Terrible wind this morning and you're trying to keep the sound low.
Speaker 1:Everything else was similar, but and other than that, it was just and I wasn't doing most any of the looking. It was you and Umar with his bionic look you know eyes and stuff I.
Speaker 2:it was kind of a relief to be honest, to sit back a bit.
Speaker 1:To sit back a bit, just relax, just hold my rifle and just move on. Because most of the time I'm when I'm hunting in the state forest, I'm navigating, trying to record my hunts, I'm trying to look for sign, I'm trying to look for deer, so I'm doing a lot of things. It is so it can be a bit stressful at times, so, but this was a bit relaxing experience.
Speaker 2:You look relaxed. Yeah, you've even taken your shoes off, of course. So behind us here we've got the fire going and there's two pairs of boots drying out. That got quite wet this morning. We don't need to name brands.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:But we'll say I'm wearing my lowers and they are pretty dry. I haven't taken them off yet. Yeah, but there's a pile of water on here. You wrung out your socks, or one of you wrung out your socks.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, yeah, we got pretty wet, yeah, but we are completely drenched.
Speaker 2:We were gonna record this outside, but I don't know if you can hear it in the audio. It's raining out there pretty heavily and we had a lot of rain this morning and then it stopped for a bit, but the grass was just soaked. Soaked, yes, and it was knee height in some sense. Oh, leeches, yeah.
Speaker 1:Yes, we pulled. I thought they were only at Nundle, because that's the only place that I have ever experienced leeches and big fat ones, and I hate them.
Speaker 2:I think I've pulled three off me that were stuck on and I've probably found 10 just trying to get on this clothes.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think while you were coming in, there were still some leeches on you, yeah.
Speaker 2:I'll probably find one somewhere when I get home.
Speaker 1:You find your way into the most strangest places sometimes.
Speaker 2:I want to rewind. We'll talk about today as it panned out a bit later. But you immigrated from India.
Speaker 1:Yep.
Speaker 2:Now Indians, the band hunting, yep, and that was before your time. But I want to paint a picture or imagine how that even happens for a country, because I feel like it's probably not that far off that it might trying to happen here. Because I feel like it's probably not that far off that it might trying to happen here, like, how does a country succumb to that? Or it was it just a okay, we'll back down? Or do you know much about the history of why it was banned?
Speaker 1:Look, it's purely political. It was purely political because at that time, because, because India is one majority, the majority of Indians are the religion over there is Hinduism, and most of them are vegetarians. So the majority of Indian population is vegetarian and all the powerful ministers back in those days and leading to here, they're all very they, they're all anti-hunting. Um, and that's why, although india has a very rich history of hunting, if you think about it, you know, during the british rule, india was one of the most the prime, primest land in the world to hunt he used to have all have all those Maharajas and all the English Dukes.
Speaker 1:They all used to come down to hunt over there. Different styles of hunting and it's a very rich, diverse forest. You have a lot of variety of deer species. You have dangerous animal dangerous species, there are tiger, leopard. So it has history.
Speaker 1:But then later on it got mixed up with politics. You know, some few powerful people decided, okay, we're just going to ban hunting altogether, and then that's that was about it and that's how I was, although, yes, during my time hunting was banned, obviously, so we didn't hunt. But I come from a family of generations who used to hunt. So it was, if I remember it correctly, hunting was banned back in 1977 or 74. But then my father, before that he used to pretty much hunt, and my father's elder brother, he was a forest officer and quite a, you know, at a high level so, and he used to use my dad as a, as you know, as a means of culling deer as well and where there is problems of deer in farmland and stuff like that. So he used to use them as a, as a professional color sort of thing and species of deer over there so you have.
Speaker 1:I'll start with the biggest one to the smallest one. So the biggest deer species or actually it's not really a deer species, it's an antelope species. So I don't know, is there?
Speaker 1:I don't know the technicalities it's neil, right, it's an antelope. Yeah, it's an antelope, yeah, so that's the biggest one. And then you have the second one, sambha yeah, they're there. And then the third one is Chitlidir. Fourth one is there's a thing called Chikara, so that's an Indian gazelle. It looks exactly like a gazelle, but it's just Indian and they're small. And then you have Cho Singa, that's a Hindi word for four horns. Cho means four, singa means horns, so that's a four horn deer. So that's a very there I would say like hot the hog deer, just the same size as a hog deer. And then you have a black. You have black buck over there as well. That's the deer species. And then in the big game you have, uh, we have Indian Gore, which is also called bison, g-u-r, g-a-u-r, g-a-u-r, g-a-u-r.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so they've got like a Terminator looking hump on their back. Exactly Alien versus brand new, literally it looks like white socks, very similar to our Bantang.
Speaker 1:Yeah, exactly yeah, but a bit more.
Speaker 2:They have the same curve curve a little bit more ripped, like they've been at the gym, oh, yeah, they're, they're.
Speaker 1:They're big like a band-aid on steroids. Yeah, they're very uh. There have been stories of them, you know, hitting a truck and rolling it over stories. But yeah, they're big, they go. They can go up to a thousand kilos. So that's the. That was the big game back then. Um, elephants were never hunted.
Speaker 2:Sacred, yeah, exactly because of the hinduism, they're one of the gods.
Speaker 1:Elephants were never hunted. They were too sacred. Yeah, exactly because of the Hinduism they're one of the gods. Elephants were never really the targeted species there. And then, yeah, that's pretty much the prey species you can say. And then you have the wild cat family. You have tiger, leopard, leopard, black panther, and in the northern parts of india, near the himalayas and stuff, you have snow leopards over there as well. So, yeah, quite a diverse, you know, species of animal over there, and even the forest itself. You walk for like 200 meters and you will see 100 different types of flora and fauna. So, yeah, it's a pretty beautiful forest in India.
Speaker 2:What about birds Birding shotgun?
Speaker 1:Birding is not really big in India. It's more in Pakistan, the other side of the border there. So yeah, that's pretty big because most of the migrating birds come through that region. So it was quite. It's quite big in pakistan. Yeah, but india was more for this the deer species and then so in australia you've shot chittle yep, samba, yep, fallow yep.
Speaker 2:Is there anything red? Yes, I have. Is that it for the deer? Yeah, that's it for the deer. Do you feel slightly more, I want to say connected to the Samba and the Chittle, like, was there any like? Oh, like, this is like what my grandfather used to hunt. Have you ever considered that? It's a different setting?
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's a look. They look a little different here. I would say that Chittle is definitely bigger over here, probably because of the environment and the feed they have and and whatnot. Uh, different region, but they, uh, they look, exactly they. They look they're slightly bigger, but the pattern, the, the heart and everything is the same. But in terms of feeling, yeah, I do get that, especially with sambar, because, um, in india, sam and and their behaviorism is the same Because Sambhog, you know, they're the favorite prey species for tiger over there, and so they're. What do you call the way? They are not getting the word? What's the word for cagey? Right?
Speaker 1:yeah, yeah, they're on edge they're always on the edge and you know they are, you know they're always alert and they're done. And it's true, they're hard one of the hardest issues to hunt. So they're very shy animal in general. Even in india it was, you know you had to go in the deepest part of the forest to actually see them. So yeah, I mean it's not. Look, I never hunted in India so I don't exactly have that full connection that you're saying. But yeah, I mean it feels nice to you know, have a species that you know my. Now that you tell me it kind of feels like that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you hadn't considered it.
Speaker 1:I never considered that. But my father, yeah, I grew up listening to. Although I never hunted in India, I grew up listening to stories from my dad. You know about how he used to hunt, how his father used to hunt, you know, and their favorite was always cheetledeer and you know they're like 200, 250, cheetledeer and you know they're like 200, 250, uh cheetledeer in a herd. They've seen that, they have seen. So, yeah, now that I did you tell me about.
Speaker 2:It kind of feels special I have a theory about samba, and I haven't spoken about it too loud because it's a crazy one, but you say that their main predator is tigers. Tigers, yeah. What's their color? What color is a tiger? Orange, black, orange and black? What color do you have to wear when you're in?
Speaker 1:public land. Oh, okay, yeah, true.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I have a theory that they possibly might see orange slightly more on the alert spectrum. I'm not saying they see orange.
Speaker 1:That doesn't really help us state forest hunters. No, no, I'm not saying they see orange. That doesn't really help us state forest hunters.
Speaker 2:No, no, I'm pointing that out to you, but I've just and I've never had anyone prove or deny or, like I said, I haven't mentioned it, but it's just a little internal theory where I understand. They might not see orange, but they might notice that color of gray means danger.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:If they see it in shades of gray. No, I've never thought about it, but yeah that's a good point, because they're well, other than chittle, I suppose, the only ones that are hunted by tigers, yeah, traditionally traditionally yes and I know they're well removed now and things, but they still have that instinct. They have a lot of instincts they're born with of course it's in their genetics, so it stays and you mentioned to me today that Sambar are probably your favorite to chase. Well, they have been so far.
Speaker 1:So far, yes, like we've quite recently, have been chasing more of Sambar than Fallows or Reds, because, since I live in Brisbane, so the nearest forest to me, the productive forest to me, are Nundle and Hanging Rocks, which hold a good number of Reds and Fallows, so I wouldn't say I've shot many, but I've shot few. Enough to you know, for me, to you know, focus my attention towards you know, a bit more challenge, you know, in terms of chasing them. So, yes, amber, are currently on top of my list and it's exciting to, it's just really exciting to just chase them because they're so sharp, bloody sharp, because fallow in a, in a state forest setting, I think I I heard in one of your podcasts that you mentioned about they have their circle of influence, correct?
Speaker 2:yeah, that's the word fallows have in state forest. They have their circle of influence, correct?
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's the word Fallows have in state forests. They have a circle of influence of about 150 meters maybe, but approximately 100, 200, 250 meters, depending on circumstances. But then Sambo, on the other hand, I think they are, it's 300 meters, 200, 250, 300 meters because they're big ears. They do their job for what they're meant for, because I've stepped on a small twig and had a samba honking at me at about 300 meters, which is insane if you think about it. Wind's perfect, everything's perfect. So it couldn't have been the wind, it's definitely the twig sound that, you know, alarmed her and then honked at me and then just bolted away in just few seconds.
Speaker 2:And we saw that today with when we ended up down the bottom on that little herd and they were, I think, I said, 55 or 65 meters from us, yep, and we'll break it down a bit more, but the one you shot was 66, I think, but they were not really alert to our presence or not to the point where they weren't running. So that circle influence on private land is closer because they're used to farmers, vehicles, cattle, you know, there's a little bit more happening. So, yeah, it's interesting to hear you say that Sambra's a lot wider.
Speaker 1:Oh, definitely, definitely. I mean, I have a high level of respect for them as well because the way they're a big bodied animal, right, so you would think when they move they would make a lot of noise right in the bush. I have a story about this. I was at one of the state forest in South Coast and we had spotted a sambar about 700 meters away. We were just glassing the area and we spotted a sambar. She came out of a tree line, just followed the tree line for about 40, 50 meters and just went in. So I spotted that area and I and I said, okay, let's come back in the evening and maybe sit over there. She might come out of, come out of there.
Speaker 1:So we went back and, uh, obviously things look really different. You know, when you're looking through your binoculars and when you're actually dead things look really different. Like where the hell was this? So we tried to. It was me and my mate. So we there was a creek flowing, a river actually flowing. So I'm my mate sat on on one side of the river and I and I followed the river line about 100, 150 meters. So in case if anything comes from either direction, you know we both have the wind was blowing on our face at that time, so anything about 100, 150 meters, so in case if anything comes from either direction. You know we both have the wind was blowing on our face at that time, so anything coming from the side we could have still caught it. So I was sitting there next to the just right next to the river. I had a hundred meter view along the river and anything that crosses I can see it right and sitting there for about half an hour and then there's a kangaroo that just comes out, hops out and you know we need.
Speaker 1:I'm not a sit and wait person much. I like to walk in stock. I get restless. So I was just bored and I was just recording the kangaroo and he was. He came about 20 meters away from me and he's doing his thing. He's just eating nicely, has no idea. It was really cold. I had my hoodie on, with my gaiters on, so I was nicely camouflaged and he was doing his own thing.
Speaker 1:I was just recording and then I just heard a small snap. You know behind me, you obviously you know when you're focused on one thing and then suddenly something's behind you. You get it scares you like what the hell is behind me. So I got scared and I just held my rifle on. It was on my right hand side yeah, I was facing that way and it was on my right hand side and I just turned and there was a sambar standing on literally on top of me, at about five meters away. Wow, literally five meters away. And she's looking down on me like this. How did you feel scared? She honked and, and, and you can hear them from about 300 meters away. When they honked Sounds like a freight train horn at a level crossing.
Speaker 1:Oh, it literally blew my ears away and then scared the shit out of me and then just ran into the thick bush. You did or she did. The point I'm trying to make is she came through one of the gnarliest stuff, right she?
Speaker 2:didn't take the easy route.
Speaker 1:She didn't take the easy route right and she did not make a single sound until she's right on you yeah, that's the beauty about it. They're so big, there's such big bodied animals and they can move such stealthily through that gnarly stuff. It's just amazing. That's when I got hooked on to Sambar. You know, this is what I'm after.
Speaker 2:Get stealth to the next level. Exactly Similar situation, different animal it was a moose and it was. We were calling like we were doing, but facing that way, and I was a little bit naive and thinking about it too much. But again, one had appeared next to us at 10 meters, no noise, and these things have got huge five foot antlers and we can't walk through the brush without our backpacks making noise. How did they and they're just you know tilt their head and he looked at us and they tilt their head and he looked and then he just kept walking, cause we were in an area, it was public land, it's.
Speaker 2:Canada, so it's a bit different, but no pressure, yeah, so we weren't really again, we had the wind in our face and what he did sent us later. But he went down the bottom and then sat and a hundred meters broadside for about 10 minutes. I regret I don't know where the footage has gone. I've lost the memory card or whatnot. But it wasn't legal so I have to have a certain amount of points to be legal. And the hunter and I sat there and we're like what can we do to its antlers to make it legal? Like what can we file off? What can we fix this? And I didn't shoot. It got some great footage and that client returned the following year and shot a big one. But it was the sound like you said, it was just silence.
Speaker 1:Yeah, nothing, I would assume. For a fallow, which is a lighter animal, yeah, I would understand them not making a noise, but she was full-size hind right so you would assume that they would have made. She would have made some ones on black, but then she just bolted away and then just a memory, like definitely that's a one of the. That's the point. When I got hooked because that was the first time I I went to a state forest to chase samber and then six since then I've just been obsessed with them, and how many of you harvested um or been there while someone else harvested About six.
Speaker 1:All five hines and then the last one that I went to. I got a stag on that, my first stag.
Speaker 2:Hell of a stag.
Speaker 1:Oh, thank you. Thank you, look, I never actively looked for a stag, I'm more of a meat hunter, so I take whatever I get but at the end of the a stag.
Speaker 1:I'm more of a meat hunter, so I take whatever I get, but at the end of the day, stag is a stag. Excitement level is definitely through the roof. But then this particular guy that I was chasing and we had you had some history with him. Yeah, yeah, yeah, two months of history. The first time we spotted him he was still in velvet and we we knew it was him because he had a big scar on right under his shoulder. So we knew exactly who you know, this tag, who this, who he was did you not have an opportunity or you?
Speaker 1:yeah. So the first time we spotted him it was when we were returning back from the hunt in the afternoon session. It was night. We were going back to the camp and he was standing in the middle of the road, not spooked at all, 20 meters away, just standing there for about five minutes just in the lights, and then we literally had to get off the car and just say shoo, and then that's when he buggered off into back into the state forest and that's when we just noted where, which way, he went, and that was luckily um hunting zone, the green zone. So the next day we came back to that area and started scouting and scouting it hard and then started finding some sign of his like some um rob crees and stuff like that. So we did that for a couple of trips. You know, for for almost a month we hunted that scattered that area but never saw him again.
Speaker 2:How often were you flying back down? Um because it's not a just a drive yeah, no, no, I fly.
Speaker 1:Oh, yeah, I'm, yeah, I, I was crazy back when I started hunting, but then now it's just just a drive for you. Yeah, no, no, I fly off. Yeah, I was crazy back when I started hunting, but then now it's just trying to be practical. But now, yeah, I just fly down to Canberra every two to three weeks and then I have my mate who lives there. It's just two hours away from him, so it's more convenient that way. No gear, nothing, just get my backpack and stuff.
Speaker 2:That's it so you got a glimpse yeah you tracked roughly where he was. You found some sign yeah did you get another glimpse?
Speaker 1:yep, uh, the other glimpse. Again, it was in the night. Uh, we were heading back again, but this time we were heading back home. Um, that's when we spotted him. Uh, we were taking a turn, and sometimes what happens is when you take, when you're going through those clear cuts, you're taking a wide turn and the light goes, your spotties go all it covered the whole ground and he was literally, he was with the hind, he was literally right next to the road, standing over there, and then we just stopped there and then took the biners out and then checked, checked it out. It was the same stack, but this time he was in heart antler.
Speaker 1:So I said probably he's nocturnal. Uh, you know, because obviously he's, he's gotten that big because he's smart, he's not getting out in the open during the day. And I think I read it somewhere that Sambar have a radius of about five kilometers and they can be anywhere within that. So that's the second glimpse that I got, and then we had forgotten about it. We were just doing our own thing. You know, the last trip that I went to, we were just scouting new areas, hunting new new zone, new hunting blocks, and then the last session. You just don't know what I mean. Sometimes, you know, you just get that gut feeling. You can say that let's just go back to that area and let's just sit where we saw him. The second time we're coming out, let's just sit there. If not him, something else might come out, but let's just try.
Speaker 1:And then, uh, we went there about 45, about one hour before sunset, and just set ourselves up and then the wind was. It was coming from the west towards the northwest, towards southeast direction, so it was a bit cross and we were glassing that area. So and about for about 45 minutes we were just glassing the area for where we thought that he might pop out from. But then, for some reason, reason and I was fasting, we were both my mate and I, we were both fasting at that time and it was time for us to. It's a funny story. It was time for us to break our fast, because right at dawn you break up, you break our fast and you know what happens when you're fasting the whole day and you're drawn drinking water, no, no, food, nothing. Your brain starts playing, hallucinating stuff and we were not feeling it.
Speaker 1:We were just tired, we were lethargic. We spent two days not found anything. My mate shot a pig, but then nothing else other than that, so we were just just not in. He was about 15 meters away from me, he was sitting, he was glassing, and then it was time to break our fast and then I had the the dates with me and, uh, he forgot to keep his. So I I ate one and I threw one there, and then I didn't have water on me because we didn't need water, because we were hiking the whole day. He had water, so he's throwing the water bottle at me and we were playing like this and you would think, right, like you're just.
Speaker 2:Making noise.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we're making noise and then creating all sorts of ruckus. We were just, you, nearly given up, given up, yeah, and that's what happened. And then, for some reason, I don't, and because I was throwing stuff at him, so I had to turn towards him and do that. And so I just looked towards my left, on my back, because the wind was doing that, so it was, this area was still clear. Towards my left, on my back, because the wind was doing that, so it was, this area was still clear. And I see him coming, crossing the road, the main road, uh, and then I I tell my, my, my friend, I'm just trying to show it would point him towards that. He, he's just where, where he means it was quite a, it was, uh, it was a clear-cut area with a lot of blackberry in it. So we were sitting in a very awkward position trying to save ourselves from the blackberry. So he couldn't and it was very crunchy. So we were not able to move much and I did not have my rifle on me. It was not even my turn to shoot. He had the rifle with him and I was trying to point it at him, uh, and he, he's not, he's, he wasn't getting it. He, we, I was recording it and then spent like three minutes and and that that guy that that stack was, he was.
Speaker 1:I could see that he was nervous, right. Uh, he, he wasn't completely. He was not just great browsing or grazing and just moving along. He constantly kept looking towards us Because the thing was we were sitting on the top side of the valley and it was coming down and he was crossing the road where there was a creek, a dry bed, so probably he was not able to see us. But then he might have felt there's something wrong because of the way he was moving. And then I said, okay, this is getting too much, because the closer he was getting, the bigger he was getting. But I first thought he was just a spiker or something, you know, when I saw him at about 200 meters and then he started coming close and he started getting bigger and bigger.
Speaker 1:I said oh, man.
Speaker 2:Did you consider it might have been the same stag at that point?
Speaker 1:No not at all. I did not know it until I saw him. You went up on him. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I crawled my way to my friend and then I just told him pass me the rifle, pass me the rifle. And he's like the mistake that I did was I told him it was a stag and he was like oh, can I shoot please? I can't see it. Just tell me where it is. I'm like I've been telling you for the last four minutes you can't see. It's now or never.
Speaker 1:And he was nervous, the similar way to you know the dog that we shot today. He was upright and he was about to bolt. I said it's now or never. So he just gave me the rifle. And then I because if I was lying down I had no view, even prone no view. So I had to stand up and take a freehand shot. There was no tree. It was a clear cut how far I'm really bad at judging the distance stand up and take a freehand shot. There was no tree. It was a clear cut how far Really bad at judging the distance. But I would say under 150 meters, 120 to 150 meters, it's usually a shot that I don't take, but at that point of time it's a big target too.
Speaker 1:It's a big target. Yes, exactly, but that time I did not have a choice. I had to take a call and then, you know, took the first shot, felt good because you could see, when the shot landed on him there was burst of mud, dust coming off him, which was quite apparent. That, yeah, I got him. And then he went about for about 60 meters and he was he still had good visuals on him.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, yeah, clear, very clear. It was all open. So, and then I took the second shot and that was the proper. It landed straight in its heart, didn't go more than 50 meters, it just rolled up. And when I went close to him, and even at that point we did not know how big he was, and and that's the beauty of these, uh, samba deer and many of these big beers, is you really don't know how big they are when you actually, until you actually get close to them, they're big. And when I I got close to them, we saw the same mark on the shoulder and it was the happiest day, happiest day for me, and I literally cried next to it. I didn't put it on the video, but I literally had tears.
Speaker 2:Get that video on the Patreon version.
Speaker 1:I literally had tears in my eyes when know it's, it's, it's such a beautiful thing. You, yeah, you're, you're taking a life, but at the same time there's a purpose for it. You know that right. So it was quite special for me because I had been chasing him for a while. It was not just out of the blue, and then he did turn up out. He just come up out of the blue, no doubt about it, but just finally getting him. And then you know, uh, then see, looking at him, I sat there, we didn't, because it was getting dark, so we decided not to, because I wanted to keep the, keep the shoulder mount and and, and I didn't want to mess it up.
Speaker 1:It, do it in the night, try to, you know, process it. So we left it, for the night was quite a cool night. So we came back in the morning and, you know, sat next to it and cherish the moment you can say, and my a bit, and then took some pictures and then he's got a cape done and it's currently sitting with the taxidermist and it's just a waiting time now.
Speaker 2:Is that your first caping job? Yeah, tough one to start on.
Speaker 1:Luckily we had coverage there.
Speaker 2:So we went on.
Speaker 1:YouTube, and then we started looking at different video, different versions of the one, the easiest one that we could understand. We just followed the steps, we took our time. Obviously, we're not professionals, so we took our time.
Speaker 2:You had plenty of time too, yeah.
Speaker 1:It took us about two and a half hours to do that. I'm sure a person who knows what he's doing he would do it in pretty much an hour or so but that's actually quite quick, I mean, is it? Well, maybe because we were two people, I guess yeah but for a first time, that's and he was big.
Speaker 1:You're trying to roll it would have been easier if he was hanging up, but you know, trying to roll him over on all the sides, uh and so I'm sure you gutted him out and carried him out whole no oh yeah, I, I tried to do that, but this time this year, he was just too big to do that.
Speaker 1:So we, we took as much as we could. Uh, we couldn't take the front portion much because we were trying to keep it and a lot, of, a lot of dirt got into it. So the back portion was complete the back straps, the back portion, everything was good enough to a lot of weight still that's still.
Speaker 1:He was easy over 300 kilos. Easy, if not less. Uh, easy. So that's. There was a lot of meat on him and it was. He was not the taxidermist I'm not. I'm not a professional, I'm not experienced enough to judge but the taxidermist, when he saw it he said, mate, if you would have let him go, he's a trophy hunter he was. He was saying, oh, you shouldn't let him go because if you would have let him go and shot him the next year he would have been 32 plus. I said this is public land you're talking about. Yeah, next year I probably wouldn't have seen him. This is the biggest tag that I've seen in my life I wouldn't, did he go 30?
Speaker 1:well, not quite he was 28 and a half. That, that's in my dictionary. He's big enough.
Speaker 2:I've never shot it. Sorry, I'm going to my leg here. I feel like I'm gonna leech Go, I do.
Speaker 1:Here he is. You can feel them crawling. Got him mate he's.
Speaker 2:Where is he there?
Speaker 1:he is, oh yeah he's dead.
Speaker 2:Oh, he's not dead, he's full.
Speaker 1:He's dead? No, he's not dead, he's full, he's full, he's left you.
Speaker 2:Yes, so if you can see that on the camera, yeah, he's still in the photo.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's one of the best experiences of my life. You can say it's still fresh, it's not very old. Just about three weeks ago now, mm-hmm yeah.
Speaker 2:Beautiful. You'll live off that one for a while.
Speaker 1:Oh, yes, definitely, and I, it's gonna stick with me definitely for a while.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but it keeps the bug going, the Sambra bug.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, oh yeah. It means now it's my. I feel obligated now because I took the rifle away from the poor guy. I feel obligated now because I took the rifle away from the poor guy. I feel obligated now, uh, to you know, uh, get him a stag as well. But then I think you know this is one thing that I, a very wise person, once told me that don't stress about getting a stag, you know it will come, time will come, he will turn up someday. Just do your thing, keep doing the basics consistently, and then he will come to you. Don't worry about it, just have fun, just go out there, just do your own thing, even if you're getting high, you're getting better at it, improve your skills and then they will come to you eventually. So, and it worked, and it worked exactly so, and that's exactly what I'm doing now. It's not like, oh, I've shot a stag and I'm done, but I'm not actively looking for them.
Speaker 2:Tick that one off and move past it. Move past it. With the red you shot. Was it a stag or a hind?
Speaker 1:No, no, they were all hinds. I've shot a spiker, a couple of spikers, but yeah, none of them were trophy size you can say I shot a red in Nandu, yeah, cool.
Speaker 2:I put a post up about it and I said that the fact that I shot it was not important. What annoyed everyone was that I said where I shot it, yeah, and I was like but it's none at all like hunters campfire have whole podcasts related to shooting like they have.
Speaker 1:It's no secret that there's deer in this, or there were 40 50 people coming right now, right now so there's, I don't know.
Speaker 2:It's a weird. I don't quite understand it because I'm not in the state forest side of thing. I didn't quite realize what I was doing by saying that and it definitely ruffled some feathers. Look, I feel with all honesty Pennsylvania is going to book out now, it still gets. That's what everyone said. That was the comment. I put it up and I said Nundle and everyone's like oh, Nundle is going to book out now. I'm like everyone knows nandu and everyone's like oh, nandu is going to book out now.
Speaker 1:I'm like everyone knows everyone.
Speaker 1:Yeah, everyone's always booked out look means uh I understand I understand the sentiment, because it takes hard work for people to, but the point is, I feel, in my humble opinion and without any offense it's it's it's a bit hypocritical to, you know, say on one hand, that we want to promote hunting, right, and we want to get more hunters getting out there, and on the other hand, you're being so secretive about sharing. Not, look, I'm, I'm the one I'm, I don't sit on the fence, but I'm on the side where I don't. I don't share my gps coordinates, but I'm on the side where I don't share my GPS coordinates, sure, but I would say a general area. I would tell people you know how to find a deer habitat, where could they be hanging around? What would they be eating? You know what to look for. And then you go into the hard yards Hiding a state forest and saying, oh, they're not, it's, everyone knows it. There's no point. It's just counterintuitive in my opinion. Uh, but yeah, it uh.
Speaker 1:I do get a lot of uh and and this has happened in my recent video as well that I hunted in when I hunted at nandu. So I kind of mapped out my approach to a particular block. So I got the Google image and then I started drawing some lines as to where I'm going to sit and at what time, or where I know the deer were feeding and at what time they might be coming. And this is all based on my research right experience. It's not guaranteed that the deer are going to be there. I am devising a plan, I'm going with my instincts, I'm doing my homework and I'm going there and I'm sitting. It's no guarantee that the deer will come from there. So I share that and I got quite a bit of a lash back, uh from, uh, from people saying where's the hunting spirit of you know, just doing your thing and you know, and all of that.
Speaker 1:There are a lot of positive people who you know appreciate I'm trying to help people. It's like if I wanted to enjoy hunting, I would have done that. I wouldn't have recorded nothing. But what really makes me happy because I have done that and I have done that, I wouldn't have recorded nothing. But what really makes me happy because I have done that and I have seen that, I've felt that personally is that when I have taken new hunters to a state forest and they have been hunting for over two years and they have never seen deer, and when they lay their eyes on the deer and their eyes just light up, they get so happy, even if they don't shoot.
Speaker 1:And that's what happened with that friend of mine when we spotted that stag, that fellow buck, he was so excited. He has been hunting state forest for over two and a half years. Never found success. Seen some deer running while he's drying out never found success. Seen some deer running, you know, while he's drying out. But then that really that really makes me happy, right, and that's the reason I try to help people and show them my plan. It's not that I'm sharing my spots. Go and shoot there, even if I trust me, even if we share spots with people, if you're not doing the right thing, because there are a lot of things in the state forest that needs to go right, the spot's only one of the factors.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's just one, and I think it's the minimal factor, because there's a lot of things working against you in the state forest. So even if I hand out free spots over the internet, it's going to be the same. It's's going to be the same, it's not going to make us?
Speaker 2:it's not going to make any bit of difference. Yeah, it's a trippy top, tricky topic. Yep, and, like I said, I'm not fully up to date with the nuances of it because I don't focus on the the state forest things we're going to make quite a few people angry with this conversation we're gonna. We're gonna name what. We're gonna name it over the on the wrong side of the fence hunting on the wrong side of the fence Hunting on the wrong side of the fence.
Speaker 2:That's going to be the click bait, but what we're referring to is, you know, he spent his career hunting on the state forest and looking over into private. And then today, the majority of the deer we saw were even though we're on private, we're on private next door, they're on the wrong side of the fence. Everything's always on the wrong side of the fence. Yeah, true, so you've had a substantial amount of success increasing recently. Obviously, you had a bit of a slower start and then and then increasing.
Speaker 2:Yep, I wanted to, uh, some faith-based questions. I'm a pretty faith-based person and comes up pretty regularly in the podcast, but obviously, you know, follow islam. You're a muslim. Yep, I've been wanting to have someone on and ask the questions about how. I even asked omar. I said how come you didn't get the beef pie where it was? A cafe, where we are? And he said I weren't sure whether it was halal meat. So then I my question to you is how does hunting cross over into that? Um, what steps do you guys take? What's what's different to how you've seen other people look?
Speaker 1:um, halal is a the misconception that I have felt. That is there in the western countries. That is there in the western countries. They think that halal is just limited to processing of the mean. Halal has a much deeper meaning to it. It starts all the way from how you even got the money to to hunt that, if that makes sense. So you earn halal way hal. Basically, what halal means is permissible. Non-halal means not permissible. Haram that's an Arabic translation. So I have earned my money in a halal way. I paid my dues in a halal way. I bought my gear in a halal way. I'm following the state forest hunting rules in a halal way. Right, I'm following the state forest hunting rules in a halal way. I'm not hunting on exclusion zones, I'm not spotlighting. So a combination of all of this is halal hunting. It's not just going there insulating the throat and get into the argument about drain the blood, don't drain the blood and all of that stuff. Halal hunting starts from the origin. How you even got to that point? So and obviously, yes, I'm not saying that the beef pie it did not come on that counter in a halal way. It's not been. It's part of it.
Speaker 1:The slaughtering of the animal is part of halal hunting, but then it makes up a big part of it that it needs to be slaughtered. In a certain way. There are differences in opinion about facing it in the direction of the Kaaba, which is towards the west, which is the holy place in our faith, and there are certain procedures. You close the eyes. Different people have different opinions. But that, but the at the end of the day, the important thing is you slit the throat and while you're doing that, you're saying Bismillah Allahu Akbar. So you say that, can you say're saying Bismillah Allahu Akbar? So yes, you said it case I was Bismillah Allahu Akbar. So Bismillah is in the name of God and Allah work, but is God is great.
Speaker 1:You say the prayer and you slit it and and you do it in the most yeah, you can say that it's not you still at the end of the day killing its, do, but do it in the most humane way. So you, you're, you're still at the end of the day killing it, but do it in the most humane way. So you're taking a shot and then you try to go to that animal as soon as you will, try to reach them as soon as possible. Sometimes there are, you know there are exceptions, where you hunt with a bow or you injured an animal and you didn't find them. So, yeah, so even for that you have flexibilities, like when you're putting your cartridges in your magazine, you pray Bismillah, allahu Akbar, and you shoot it. So you have the intention, so you have flexibilities to that as well.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, it has a broader meaning to it, but we are quite particular about it. So, um, we don't consume, and a similar thing in in jewism as well. So they have kosher, kosher, kosher meat. So they are particular about they have their own uh set of ways. So these are all. So, without getting into too much detail of I mean uh, so you have all the three abraham, abrahamic religions that stem out from the same place, so you have similar um practices. You can say and yeah, so we are quite particular about that. So it has to be.
Speaker 1:And I've actually done a podcast with the hunter campfire boys. We did a very thorough and if anyone's interested in that, you know they can watch it on the hunters campfire that we walked through the whole. And my brother is a bit more. He's a learned person, he's a, he's an imam, so he's basically, he has a lot of knowledge, you know which go which, where he links all of this to the authentic history behind it and scientific reasons as well. So, yeah, there's a lot of more information on this, but yeah, that's pretty much an overview of what we believe.
Speaker 2:So today we might as well talk about that hunt and what happened, because we'll talk about the hunt and we'll talk about how it worked. But then you shot one and we didn't slit the throat. So I wanna ask you about that when we get to that. But I appreciate your views on those things. It's like I'm always interested in learning about that. So we'll circle back to that when we, if we talk about that part, we'll skip the whole hunt. But today we met up early. It was 5.30, I think. Yeah, we met up and I was concerned, wet and drizzly. I was concerned about the fog. I had fog here recently, yeah, you did mention that.
Speaker 2:And that just ruins everything until about 8 o'clock when it finally lifts. But today we had rain, which is better, surprisingly, and that was the first time we met. But we geared up at the truck, we had a bit of a chat and then we headed out and, to be honest, I was disappointed we didn't see anything quicker, because I'm sort of used to that on this place.
Speaker 1:I'm still convinced you did that on purpose. It took you the long way.
Speaker 2:There was a point when we're down the bottom of that creek and I said I like no, I think I can hear croaking, yeah, and Omar picked it up too and we just like something. But it wasn't solid enough and there was wind and yeah, so we kept moving and we had the wind was terrible for us. It was at our back, so that's why I dropped down. We circled up and around and we took a few glassing opportunities, which is mostly just to get his breath back. Wasn't used to my fast paced brisk walking, my private land walking. But then he spotted at one point. He was like anyway, it turned out it was a wallaby, but that was a prior with his no binoculars. We moved along, we found some on the other side of the face, and that's when we sort of heard the croak yeah.
Speaker 2:And that was I asked you before we recorded. I said what was your favorite part, and you said that.
Speaker 1:It was exciting and I your favorite part and you said that ah, it was.
Speaker 2:It was exciting and I don't think he was far away, although he was on the other side of the fence. Uh, we were talking, so those ones we could see were 345 and he was less. Yeah, so 250 to 300.
Speaker 1:it was very clear, you know. But as soon as I got my, my camera to at least record it, it's, it's croaking. He was keeping quiet. He was just croaking for like three seconds, maybe three, four seconds, and then, uh, quiet, so what?
Speaker 2:you can even do is you can edit the audio in.
Speaker 1:But then, but then, even those three, four seconds, I just felt something in my stomach. You know, yeah, it's just praying to God that you know, just do it once more, do it once more. Just wanted to keep on hearing that over and over again because it was such a surreal feeling, because I've never experienced that before it creates a different way to hunt them too yeah because you're hunting them vocally.
Speaker 2:You're like, oh, there they are. Yeah, I can't see them, but I'll head down there it's not like like it's mainly.
Speaker 1:I would have probably heard croaking, I would have experienced it before, but what happens is the rut season, which is like the prime time of the year to hunt these bugs, falls right at the time of Ramadan, and then usually we don't hunt during that period, but then because it's hard to do so without drinking water exactly.
Speaker 1:But then this year, I don't know, it's just, I was just being restless, you can say, and I just wanted to get out. I was going through stuff at, at, at work, at my workplace, and even even this, this tag that I shot, like I didn't even want to go to that trip I was. I was really, you know, there was some messed up stuff going on in my work, at my work, and so I just my wife said, just go, just go. And you know, just, uh, chill out. And then, you know, come back fresh and then we'll deal with it.
Speaker 1:So we don't usually hunt during that, because it's a month of sacrificing things that you love and you just devote all your time in prayers and the rut season falls right back in the middle of Ramadan. But then, inshallah, next year probably we're going to get the rut because the Ramadan month keeps on, because it's related to the moon, so it shifts by about 15, 20 days every year. So next year hopefully we're going to be right, you know, perfect, bang on time, and hopefully next year I'm going to try and, you know, get that experience again. I've been a lot colder.
Speaker 2:That was just a taste today, yeah it was just a teaser. It was a morsel.
Speaker 1:I'm hooked now. I'm probably hooked now.
Speaker 2:Before we heard it today we saw there was a spike with three does, yeah, and then we moved forward a little bit further and then we heard it and I said, oh, like, I don't think that's, I'm pretty sure that's not him croaking. It sounded slightly more mature, yep, didn't sound like essentially a two-year-old croaking. And then we, you know, continued hunting and it was very hard to explain to you and a little bit hard to do but to walk away from that croak. Yeah, hard to explain to you and very, a little bit hard to do but to walk away from that croak, yeah, yeah, because in your brains you're like, why is he going that way? But there was one section I wanted to check out, because if we didn't check it out and we went down and then I would have wanted to go back up there and it would have been gaining elevation again.
Speaker 2:So anyway, we went back around and then we eased ourselves around a corner, knowing that those deer were in this area and sure enough they were quite close 70 or so, yeah and then we moved in a bit closer and again it was just this little spike with uh, three or four does and they were on, they knew something was up, but we were like 60 meters away and they moved away and I gave them some calls and they looked and turned back but they weren't yeah, they weren't interested.
Speaker 1:They were like ah, that's not. They were like ah, that's not real.
Speaker 2:We know that's he's faking that, yeah. So then we moved further around and continued along this track and I spotted them. I was in front and I just like I can't remember if I said anything. I just put my hand out or clicked or something and like stopped and everyone stopped and I could just see one doe at that time. But then, yeah, you tell it how you saw it from your angle.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so as soon as you, I was you were quite close or yeah, it was quite close.
Speaker 2:I didn't look back.
Speaker 1:Like always, I was looking down for sign, you know, and then suddenly I hear you click, and then I stopped and then I saw a doe one doe coming down, and then one more came down and I think you asked me what do you wanna do? I said, yeah, I'll take it. And then there was a tree right behind me, on my left hand side, and then I got, because it was a step up Elevated.
Speaker 1:Elevated slightly up so I was getting a better shot. And then there was a third doe who came in and she was looking straight she saw, she looked as you were moving behind the tree, just casually.
Speaker 2:But then she saw you appear between the trees, yeah, and she was like, ah, I don't a branch, yeah that's uh.
Speaker 1:Yes, what's this thing sticking out of the branch is's something, something wrong here shiny skin and so uh, and then yeah, I mean. So I was like, do I shoot or do I not?
Speaker 2:because I really wanted to get a buck uh, the conversation was so I was standing next to him and I said they're looking at us yeah yeah, what do you want to do? Yeah, I said I don't mind if you shoot one, that's fine. It's not on camera, cause I knew Omar was trying to film it.
Speaker 2:but he was a little bit further behind and this doe was looking at us. So if I motioned to him to come forward they would have all run. And I just cause we spoke before the hunt. I said what's more important here, trying to, you know, secure some footage.
Speaker 1:and you said footage, but then, in the heat of the moment, he really wanted to shoot one but and I just said, it doesn't matter which one you shoot, yeah, but honestly I thought umar was getting half of because I maybe at least half of the deer and I was happy with that, but later on we found out that he wasn't getting any reasons from where he was standing and you'll see it in the footage, but he could see the two that were just in front of her, but not the one that we were looking at, correct?
Speaker 2:um? So you'll see if you do see the footage when the video comes out. There's a shot that's taken, yep, but the two, the deer that you see aren't the ones we're shooting, and it's actually just slightly around the tree line a little bit further yeah, cameraman, yeah.
Speaker 1:And then, well, we took the shot and then, um, she just fumbled around for a bit and then, probably just five meters, she rolled up and then, while we were walking towards it, the most gut-wrenching thing is there's a bug appearing from the back. I was like why the hell did I wait? But, like you said, probably if we would have waited she would have ran and the whole herd would have ran.
Speaker 2:And they were right on that crossover between our block and the other block, exactly All they had to do was go uphill and they were untouchable.
Speaker 1:Yeah, they were untouchable.
Speaker 2:Which is exactly where they went.
Speaker 1:Yeah, at the end of the day, yes, they were croaking tick, saw a buck tick.
Speaker 2:I didn't you know other than the state forest buck that I told you about you know, even looking at them, they're such majestic animals, and that was a fleeting glimpse today which you won't see on footage because Omar pointed the camera at it but didn't record Record. Yeah, Although I keep reminding him.
Speaker 2:He's learning, he's learning. So that was a good experience and it all unfolded quite textbook. Took the shot. Like you said, she stumbled four or five meters, she goes uphill and then tumbles downhill into some blackberries. Yeah, and that all went to plan. Yeah.
Speaker 1:So we learned a few tips and tricks from you about.
Speaker 2:Well, we'll get to that. You can explain that in a second, all right. But I want to ask yeah, you can explain that in a second, all right. But I want to ask, yeah, and then I've already asked omar and asked his answer, but so then we went over there and she was obviously very dead, yeah, so there's no benefit in slitting the throat yeah, you can say that because at the end of the day, uh, slitting the throat is when they're alive, you try.
Speaker 1:When you slit the throat, you're taking away its ability to breathe anymore, so it dies quicker. The blood flows and it dies quicker, right, so you're getting it out of its misery. But then at that point of time, by the time we reached because we spotted that buck and then we just started walking towards it trying to get a shot at him by the time we came back she was already dead. So there was no point in slitting the throat. But, like I said, while chambering my ammunition I had already said my prayers.
Speaker 1:So we were all still good there. Yeah, but it's not that this is a backup in case things don't go as planned.
Speaker 2:but the first preference should always be to try to go there as soon as possible, yeah, and try to slit its throat, get it out of its misery as soon as possible yeah, yeah, I've done a fair few home kills, killing sheep and things at home, and it's actually from a RSPCA point of view, it's illegal for another animal to see you kill another animal.
Speaker 1:Yeah, even in Islam.
Speaker 2:yeah, that's exactly the same so you know it should, you know, be out of sight of the others. So I use my method for home cures is I use a .22 and I shoot them in the head at point blank and then cut throat. Yep, so it's a bit of a. I want to say I'm a bit of a girl Like. I don't like cutting throat without shooting in the head, because they squirm a bit and they're a bit jumpy and they make a bit of noise and ah, doesn't it? So? Bullet in the brain, yep, and then cut the throat. So the heart is still pumping, yep. Now I approached a vet friend of mine and I asked how long does the heart pump for after they've been shot in the head? Right? And he said I can't google that and you probably shouldn't, but he, we sort of worked it out at about three minutes, two and a half to three minutes.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:So the heart still pumps? Yeah, I've also been brain shot.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Because my question was I've got four to do, Can I just shoot them all?
Speaker 1:Uh-huh.
Speaker 2:And then cut all four Because it's quite, it's annoying to shoot one, drag it out, cut it, throw it. So from a you know process and workflow point of view, process and workflow point of view, and that's when he pointed out that it's not you're not supposed to let the other ones see what you're doing, but so that's what I do now. I'll shoot two or three and then that's when I can cut throats and the heart is still pumping and then still empties them out. But I do it more. From a I'd say that the bullet to the head is the humane part ended, and then the cutting of the throat is more physically, just bleeding out, pulling the blood out. But when you chest shoot, from a hunting point of view, 90% of shots are neck and chest. They've already done the bleeding out, but it's just the inside in the cavity usually and that comes out once you.
Speaker 1:It's not as efficient as the neck cut, that's for sure, Of course, comes out once you. It's not as efficient as as the neck cut, that's for sure, of course. Yeah, um, so cutting the throat, yeah, like, uh, like you said, means when it's still alive, like, I think, the three minutes that you mentioned, the hearts, this it's dead right, like it's just a muscle, correct, it's a spasm or well, I don't know what's the technical term for it, but it's just the body after, but it's not feeling anything at that point. So, slitting the throat, I think it just drains out, and when the heart's still pumping, so the blood is still trying to move out and it's coming out of the neck.
Speaker 1:So but in terms of shooting, look, there's a prescribed. This is a prescribed way that you know. There is no. Obviously, when you're shooting, there's blood coming out of the cavity anyways, but the ruling is for general, how to slaughter an animal, right generally. So you slit a throat, the blood is gonna just flow out of it, but from a hunting point of view, we still follow the same things, but blood, at the end of the day, is still coming out.
Speaker 2:There's a bit of leeway.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's why I said there's a bit of leeway, because back in those days, back in, you know, I'm talking about 1,000, 1,400 years ago there were no rifles and high-tech bows. Back then, you know, there were spears and basic bow and arrow, so an animal wouldn't have probably died from that instantly. So they had time to do that. But then we're still following the same practice, just to ensure that we're not leaving any room for any ambiguity in that. Because once you start getting into oh, what if this, what if that? Then you start getting into all sorts of arguments about what is right and what is wrong. So just go by the book. What does the book say? Just do that.
Speaker 2:Now, from a trophy point of view, yeah, oh, I knew you would get to that. And you said you told me earlier with your Sambi, you did it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Because when we reached it it was still kicking its legs.
Speaker 2:So what I'm asking is a cut to the throat is a terrible, not the end of the world, but from a taxidermy point of view, that's not where you would normally cut something. Yeah, so they have to hide those stitches, which you can do in a SAMUS DAG, yeah, but with a thinner head, things like fallow you'd really struggle to hide.
Speaker 1:Right, yeah, I mean, look at that time it was in the heat of the moment. Sure, you know the first instinct. Yeah, the first instinct for us was to dispatch it humanely as much as possible. But then later on I realized oh okay, because I knew at that time that you know it's hard to. But this is a new thing that I've just learned from you is, sambo, you can still work out, but fallow it's muchow it's more.
Speaker 2:They just got more hair to cover stitches. Yeah, exactly, it's like you know. Yeah, exactly, coming here, then you'll get a scar, but you cut up in here, your hair covers it. Hmm, if you've got to be, right.
Speaker 1:When I called the taxidermist and I told him goodness I, I did slit the throat he said you just. He said, okay, get it to me and then we'll see what we can do with it. Many saw it. He saw it. He said okay.
Speaker 2:I can. I mean, taxidermists are magicians. Yeah, yeah, they can do some crazy stuff, crazy stuff, yes, yeah.
Speaker 1:But then he said, yeah, don't worry about it, I'll fix it. So I was really relieved by that, but until then I was really stressed.
Speaker 2:So we got a doe on the ground today and you said it was you.
Speaker 1:Oh, yeah, I mean because mostly I chase fallow, mostly at Nundle or Hanging Rocks or Tugalo, and predominantly we get chocolate fallow over there. You know the odd beige golden brown, but this one was this one that we showed. You'll see it in the videos that we call it common, you call it common Common. This is common Common. Okay, it's not very common for me?
Speaker 2:Yeah well, just pure orange with white spots.
Speaker 1:Oh, nice, okay, so that's the real fallow.
Speaker 2:Well, so I? Is there a history? Originally I thought that too, but we had a guest on that. His explanation was there's only one fallow, it's just a. It's not. I always thought there was four colors. He said there's one and it's just a gradient from that to that and anywhere in between. However, the majority of them tend to be grouped in these four colors. There's variants all the way through, so it's all one species. Um, it's just a slightly different color variation. Traditionally in this area we don't get many chocolates. I did shoot a velvet chocolate buck, which is kind of contradictory, because it's one way to get rid of chocolates is to shoot your bucks. But the genetic line is here, but most of them are that common and mantle colored. Okay, yeah, the beautiful, beautiful skins beautiful skins.
Speaker 2:Very nearly like a chittle.
Speaker 1:Yeah, exactly, and I'm not a big fan of chocolate, maybe because I see it so commonly. I love chocolate, not fallow just chocolate in general, yeah, but yeah because we see them so commonly means in nonetheless, just when I see these, such a beautiful coat of the white in the bottom.
Speaker 2:They definitely stand out in the bush very easy to spot, definitely.
Speaker 1:So yeah, I would have kept the skin if I wouldn't be traveling down south.
Speaker 2:You still can.
Speaker 1:Can I? Oh, yeah, we've got a freezer, cause you've got it in the freezer. Yeah, there's nothing wrong with that, yeah.
Speaker 2:Cause the way I cut it. It's the same way you would do it for skinning. All you need to do is just down the arms to join those cuts Might as well.
Speaker 1:just buy some salt on the way.
Speaker 2:Don't just freeze it. Just freeze, it Perfect yeah, drop it off here on the way back and we'll give it to you.
Speaker 1:Why not then? Yeah, why not then? I thought you know, because, the way you asked me, do you want to keep the skin on with the guts as well?
Speaker 2:no, gutted first. All right, like we did. I want you to talk about that. I want you, yeah, because I did it I did it the way I normally do it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but it's different to some people it was not normal in my, in my book. It was definitely very interesting the way, because I've never seen that. I've watched a lot of videos on YouTube of different sizes and different countries, but I've never seen the way you've done it. So basically and please correct me if I'm wrong if I'm going in the right sequence is you started off with the throat just below the? Is you started off with the throat just below the, not exactly at the joint just below the throat, and you would cut it inwards and then you took the windpipe out and then you got back to the backside of the fallow and then you made a hole in its what do you call it? All around the bum Bum, and then you took the whole thing nicely, what do you?
Speaker 2:call it All around the bum, bum.
Speaker 1:And then you took the whole thing nicely, cleanly out and you pushed it in and then you started slitting it from the center all the way and you joined that from the back, from the bum side, to all the way to the throat and you literally just opened it up and it was so. It looked easy while you were doing it, but I'm sure I'll you know, and it's quite effective because and it's a perfect way to even preserve the skin, apparently now, because the way I used to do it, just straight away, just go for the, just make a slit near the tummy and then just take it all the way down to the cavity and just take the guts out. And it was a difficult way because you have, you have to. There are some tight angles that you have to work with holding a knife in there and you can't quite see yeah, and you can't see.
Speaker 1:But with this way, you just open it up and everything was nicely. Uh, we were on flat ground, so it was nicely opened up and then I could see what what we are doing. So the starting part was a bit, probably is a bit tricky, but once you get, maybe once you slid through the whole thing, I think it was, you know, opening up nicely the other thing.
Speaker 2:So I used my axe to, so I opened up the chest cavity. I didn't actually cut the diaphragm yet, but I opened up the chest cavity and then you could get in and that's why I do the throat first. So, um, it frees up the trachea and esophagus so you can pull it back into the chest cavity and, essentially, when you're finished, you can hold up the throat and what you've got is the respiratory system and then the gut system and then everything was still the bum and everything all in one yeah, that was, that was beautiful, one whole piece.
Speaker 1:That was really. You made it look easy like I'll say that again and again, but it was I, I'm sure it's. It's so much, it's much harder.
Speaker 2:It's fun doing in front of people who haven't seen it, because it does it. It is quite it's time efficient.
Speaker 1:I'm going to try it.
Speaker 2:I'm definitely going to an all-size animal, it doesn't change is it?
Speaker 1:uh, do you reckon it's going to be harder with a deer, like sample? Because with this you could just hold it, you could balance it, you know, while you're splitting it?
Speaker 1:yeah, it's slightly harder, but if you have two people and you can get it on its back with its legs up in the air, um, or if you're on the side of a hill you can actually tie its back legs up right to a tree, or and hold it something with the, with antlers, because they get so yeah it's, but but I'm sure you know what it's practice right like if it had antlers and we were caping it right, I would do that first.
Speaker 2:Yep, so I'll do the cape first.
Speaker 1:First and then the gut after all right got it um no, but definitely learn a new technique, which was this is quite unique. But definitely learn a new technique which is quite unique. I'm gonna try it definitely. I'm gonna send you a video of me trying to butcher it up, as you said.
Speaker 2:Butcher it like there do it well or do it poorly. Now, before we wrap up, the reason you're on this journey and heading from Sydney through to Canberra is you're hosting a hunt for groups that you're a part of.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, we have a hunting group of about 300 people, in that it's a closed group, so every I would say, six months we set up this and the whole intention again is that it's a very similar concept that the hunter campfire guys do Get the newbies out there. Try to share knowledge with them as much as you can Pair them up with the more experienced hunters, try to make them understand how to find you, because that's what happens with the new, with the newbie, that they get frustrated. A lot of them, a few, the some proportion of those guys, they start doing the wrong stuff because they're frustrated and some of them they just give up. And you know, the rest of them, they, they still carry on. So we, we want to raise awareness as to and I and I, uh, and I say this that state forest hunting can be.
Speaker 1:It's hard. I'm not taking that, I'm not saying that it's not hard, but once you understand the concept of finding a deer, it gets a bit easier. It's not easy by any means, but it gets easier because you start building up patterns and you, when you understand, when you look at a terrain, when you understand, when you look at the features of the terrain, you start building up a picture what the deer might be doing. If there's a deer, what they, what it might be doing down there, start painting a picture and then you start finding sign, you start building all those patterns. So, and that's what we try to, uh, you know, teach the, the newcomers in in that camp. And that's the main one, one part of it.
Speaker 1:The other part is obviously, uh, you know, uh, getting together, having a bit of community you know community building, you know uh and then uh and just have some good time and you're gonna make new friends. A lot of people make new hunting problem.
Speaker 2:Find their hunting partners over there that's where you found yours from yeah, exactly that's where I found my problem you might need a new one after this one.
Speaker 1:Oh, yes, and I and now I'm going to sell my binoculars. They're useless. When I'm with Omar, he's the bionicle man, yeah so that's what we're doing and that's where I'm heading right now, right after this, going there for about five days. It's going to be fun looking after and looking forward to it.
Speaker 2:Get some fresh meat in camp now.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, thank you. I should really thank you for that. You know, reaching out, you know you don't know me at all, we have no common friends. It means a lot that you just reached out and you just, you know, invited me over to hunt on on this prime land, on this prime land, and I can't thank you enough. It's just a very, very high. I really don't have words to express how thankful I am, because I've never really experienced I usually get trashed, you can say, for some of the videos that I post up and the content, but then looking through that and then contacting me and inviting me over, it really meant a lot and thank you for that. And the meet we've taken, the whole thing. This is going to feed all the 40 people who are coming over there, who are all gonna be very thankful to you. So, you know, thank you, appreciate that, thank you.
Speaker 2:Just on the taking the whole thing out they literally took the whole thing out. I mean we gutted it, yeah, but they got the stick on the shoulder, yeah, and carried it out.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that was yeah, and then, and then Umar would struggle walking in a straight line and I'd have to.
Speaker 2:It's a challenge carrying them out like that, but it's better than one person doing it on their back definitely definitely she was a big, big doe, so plenty of meat to go around plenty of meat, yes, look forward to hearing the stories from that camp. Oh yeah, for the people listening watching, how do they find your videos?
Speaker 1:and you. So I have my YouTube channel called Khan Adventures, so you can find me there, and I'm also on the same with the same name. I'm also on my other socials Instagram and Facebook where I post all you know short snippets of stuff that I do, and on my channel, of course, I have all my hunts and they're on and not just my hunts, but I try to educate in terms of how to hunt on state forest, how to be successful on state forest. So, yeah, that's more of the content that I try to focus on, but at the end of the day, I'm trying to go out there have some fun and share as much knowledge as possible, and share as much knowledge as possible and raise as much awareness as possible.
Speaker 2:I think it's a becoming more of a thing yeah, we were going to wrap up, but one more thing with newer hunters that are appreciative of the help they've received, yeah, so they then pass that on again? Yep, and I think we're moving away from a there's a word for it patriarchal I can't remember what it's called, but hunting used to be passed down through generation, and there's been a big influx of beginners who have come from a background of no pass down, so they're learning from videos, podcasts, social media, whatnot, and then I'm seeing those people be a little bit more willing to share, and it's nice to see no, thank you.
Speaker 1:Thank you. I appreciate that. Like I said, like I, I saw the guy's eyes and I got hooked onto it. I said, okay, this is a feeling that I.
Speaker 2:That's why I got this I want.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's it's true. It's true. Now I know, yeah, and uh, probably. Uh, you know I'm still new at it. I'm by no means I'm, and probably, you know I'm still new at it. By no means, you know, I consider myself an expert or anything. I'm still learning. But I try. Whatever I learn, I try to pass it on so that you know the guys try to do the right thing and be successful at the end and be happy.
Speaker 2:That's it All right, everyone. Thanks for watching. Thanks for listening.
Speaker 1:Until next time. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Thank you Anytime. Thank you, that was good.