The origin story: Dodge’s Journey from a non hunter to hunting educator with Accurate Hunts

Have you ever wondered what it takes to transition from a rookie shooter to established hunting entrepreneur? Listen in as we flip the script and put Dodge, who typically fires the questions, on the hot seat. Our guest interviewer, Cass, unpacks Dodge's fascinating journey from his farm upbringing to founding Accurate Hunts in Australia. We explore the critical distinctions between hunting and shooting, and how Dodge's amusing first encounter with a firearm paved the way for his adventurous career. This episode captures the essence of representing the hunting community accurately, encouraging public curiosity and engagement.

Join Dodge as he reminisces about his early forays with firearms, from shooting rabbits on a friend’s farm to booking a daring hunting trip in Africa. Experience the evolution from novice shooter to seasoned hunter, where mastering firearm basics and overcoming public land challenges are key lessons. Dodge reveals how these experiences have shaped his perspective on ethical and effective hunting. Learn why developing a comprehensive skill set is crucial for anyone serious about the sport.

Finally, Dodge opens up about the genesis of Accurate Hunts, sharing pivotal moments and client stories that turned his passion into a thriving business. He recounts memorable adventures, like Melissa’s impressive first deer hunt and a challenging early client experience that taught him invaluable lessons. We also venture into the complexities of wildlife management through his unique Rhino green hunt in South Africa. Ending on a lighter note, we discuss the art of podcasting, maintaining authentic conversations, and exciting listener giveaways. Tune in for an episode rich with humor, insights, and the spirit of adventure.

For the latest information, news, giveaways and anything mentioned on the show head over to our 

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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 dodge@thewildorigins.org or via our socials.

Transcript

Speaker 1 0:07

Well, I believe that we're going to have a chat with you, dodge, get to know you a little bit more. You're often the man asking the question and we're flipping that on its head, and I'm going to ask you some questions this evening. For you, what is the difference between hunting and shooting, and how do you define that?

Speaker 2 0:24

And he gave me the gun and I was like, oh, okay, like I'd had a picatinny rail, and I was like, oh, do we just clip on a like a red dot sight?

Speaker 1 0:33

Yeah.

Speaker 2 0:34

He said, oh no, you just line up the barrel with the front yeah. And I was like, are you joking? I'm like going to just side barrel a rhino.

Speaker 1 0:58

Hey Dodge, welcome to your podcast. Accurate Hunts A.

Speaker 2 0:59

Life Outdoors. Good to have you here for a chat this evening. Thank you for having me Feels like I'm on that Ray Munro TV show. Is it, I don't know, the Life of Dodge or something? Can't remember his TV show he used to have.

Speaker 1 1:10

Yeah.

Speaker 2 1:11

That's right. What are we doing here tonight?

Speaker 1 1:15

Well, I believe that we're going to have a chat with you, dodge, get to know you a little bit more. You're often the man asking the questions and we're flipping that on its head, and I'm going to ask you some questions this evening.

Speaker 2 1:24

Yeah, well, back by popular demand, I had a few people reach out and say great interview you did with Cass. But and I think she'd, you know, be good as a podcaster and I thought, well, let's give her a shot. This is your interview.

Speaker 1 1:38

Well, that's very lovely and I'm absolutely happy to be here. It was a really nice experience coming on and having a chat with you Been a really nice experience the whole my whole sort of journey since the ABC story came out. So really happy to continue being involved in this space and really excited to have a chat with you.

Speaker 2 1:56

Oh well, I'm looking forward to it. On the ABC thing, just a little side note. I saw that Wally, like his courses, have like booked out. Yeah, yeah, from interest, which is great, just random interest in these things getting into the sport.

Speaker 1 2:08

And none of it's surprising at all. This is a thing when you actually get to accurately represent the hunting community and what our way of life is all about. A lot of people are very curious to it, so it's really nice that there's actually been this platform to shine a light on the actual reality of hunting and and from that, people are having a closer look and getting involved. So, yeah, really great.

Speaker 2 2:32

I said that I think it's really important that we can articulate what we do well I think so when it's done properly, it comes across exactly the way you and I feel about it.

Speaker 1 2:41

So exactly right. Yep, nothing to do about it, whatsoever.

Speaker 2 2:45

Righto Tonight's in your hands.

Speaker 1 2:47

Thank you very much. Thank you Wow.

Speaker 2 2:49

I can be that annoying guest that never shuts up and doesn't stop when you talk.

Speaker 1 2:55

You do whatever you feel the need to do. Okay, this is your hour Dodge. Okay.

Speaker 2 3:00

Tap the table, click my pen, rustle my ginger nut cookies.

Speaker 1 3:06

Could you please? Yes, this is excellent. Try and throw me off. No, well, I do obviously have some topics I'd like to discuss with you, because you're an interesting man and have undoubtedly had an interesting journey. There's a few highlights, I guess, that I've seen on your social media feeds that I've been particularly interested in.

Speaker 1 3:27

First of all, though, I know that part of your origin story for Accurate Hunts is that you were working as a guide, so you've been hunting yourself and working as a guide overseas, and then, through that experience, you had people approaching you, and rightly so, wanting your expertise back in Australia, and that's sort of part of the origin story for Accurate Hunts, and I have some more questions I'd like to circle back to later, but first I would really like to know what is your origin story. So did young Dodge grow up dreaming of hunting wild animals, or was there ever a time where that was something that was definitely not on the radar? What's? How did you first know that you wanted to hunt, and what was your journey to the to this, to your start?

From Shooting Rabbits to Big Game

Speaker 2 4:16

well, the first answer is no. I definitely never grew up thinking I'd be where I am now. I actually remember thinking, man, I want an inside job. My dad was a fencer. He grew up outdoors Like he was a farmer and we had a bit of acreage. When we grew up we rode horses and things. But even that became a bit of a chore later in life. It was a little bit hard to motivate myself. Just, you know, I didn't really realise that I was a pretty lucky kid at that time to have access to those things. And now I'm a parent, I can see my kids. You know you're always trying to fight for their appreciation of things. But no, I came from a family of non-hunters, that's like, not from any particular hatred of the sport, just no introduction to it.

Speaker 2 5:01

My dad grew up on the farm. He had firearms growing up around him but they were, in his words, just a tool like a shovel. So he would use it to dispatch a lamb that they then cut up and cook or, you know, shoot a rabbit or shoot a fox or an injured horse or a cow. There was no, and it's something he brought up later. He he said, I can't understand why you find joy in hunting, he said. I could never find any joy out of shooting things, or you know the sport itself. But I think the industry back then was a lot different than what it is now too.

Speaker 1 5:35

Yeah.

Speaker 2 5:36

And he's not as extroverted as I am. But so my introduction to shooting came I was 15 or so and I was horse riding pretty competitively at the time and staying with some friends out at Cowra every school holidays cleaning up horse poop and painting their barn and riding horses and just having fun. But they had 300 or so acres and he introduced me to firearms that way and started off with shooting rabbits and moved up to bigger animals and you know, the occasional pig wandered through. But that was not something I'd ever pictured doing. And you know I'm sure my parents were aware that I was doing it but it was never really discussed. Or you know I definitely I don't think mum really enjoyed thinking about it. Yeah, or you know I definitely don't think mum really enjoyed thinking about it. And then I came I think I was 19 or 20 when I finally got my firearms licence maybe 19, by myself, and I didn't tell anyone. And Dad's got a big shed at home and I cleared a corner out, bolted a gun safe in and then put mess back in front of it so he didn't see it. And I went and got my firearms license and then I went to the it was the penrith arms show, which I've always you know I keep going back looking for the leg show, but it's always just the arm show and they had this guy there selling. It was my first introduction to a gun show and I was like, wow, this is amazing. And now in hindsight I'm like, wow, that's a dinky little country show in comparison to what we can get.

Speaker 2 7:10

But I bought a it's a slasinger 22 made by lithgow and a 223. It was a remington 700 223 and a double hammer shotgun, 12 gauge shotgun. I thought they were the coolest things ever. Turns out it's not really. It was a Remington 700 .223 and a double hammer shotgun, 12-gauge shotgun. I thought they were the coolest things ever. It turns out it's not. It really hurts, but that was. And then it changed from there. But early on I definitely didn't see that coming. I really had an enjoyment for just shooting things shooting targets, shooting trees and that sort of thing shooting rabbits. I had one mate in particular Matt Matty D is probably listening things shooting targets, shooting trees and that sort of thing shooting rabbits. And I had a one mate in particular, matt maddie d, he's probably listening we um, he just became my shooting buddy because he was into it, I was into it and we spent every weekend. We could you know shooting everything everything that we could.

Speaker 2 7:58

I don't know if I can't remember what you're. I'm daydreaming now I know your origin story.

Speaker 1 8:02

This is great, this great. This is really nice insights.

Speaker 2 8:05

Now I know it feels like a big guest and go off track. How quickly do you think it?

Speaker 1 8:08

escalated for you from going out and shooting some rabbits yeah, our tangents are great, yeah. So how quickly do you think it escalated from shooting some rabbits in a paddock to going after some really majestic big game, um sort of more, um grand hunting pursuits?

Speaker 2 8:29

I think I was two and a half years into shooting, maybe having my firearms license, and I booked a trip to africa. So that was probably why I ended up on the path I'm on now, on the trophy hunting side of things, and I cannot, for the life of me, remember why Africa like, like, was I reading magazines and I saw it, was it? You know some old Ben Unten stories in Sporting Shooter magazine or something I I really don't know where that come from and I think it's sorry no, no, you're right I was just gonna say I think it's quintessentially hunting in africa.

Speaker 1 9:09

They go together, um, you know, I think a lot of people if they don't understand what hunting is, they think hunting is going to america, going to africa and shooting something over there like it, yeah, whereas people don't always know what's available here.

Speaker 2 9:23

But I'd seen a few movies and things, but I haven't. You know I'm not a reader. I probably read magazines just for the pictures. But you know there's guys that used to write, you know, about hunting in Africa and that was never on my radar. I've only got their books now and I still don't read them. I just own the books. But I don't know what the Allure was. But the way that worked out was I had booked, or tentatively booked, a 10-day safari and I didn't know anyone over there. It was purely just internet connections and I went in very blind and very naive and luckily I ended up with a good outfitter. But I booked a 10-day trip and then my girlfriend at the time got wind because I hadn't told her I was planning on taking her and she ended up coming. We ended up making it a 20-day holiday with only three days hunting allowed.

Speaker 1 10:13

Oh no.

Speaker 2 10:15

So it got pretty well. Oh dear, it got diminished. So that was, yeah, that was a bit disappointing but that was, I reckon, over. I went from. I went from, you know, foxes.

Speaker 2 10:26

My first animal I shot with my own firearm was at mom and dad's place and mom not really wanting me to have firearms a little bit extra backstory. At the time I was actually doing leather work and leather tooling specifically and I was sort of focusing on I was doing a lot of bike seats for bikies, motorbike seats, custom leather seats, and firstly, mum's like I don't want these bikies at our house. And then it was like now you've got firearms here, what if the bikies come and rob you and steal your firearms and shoot you? I said, well, they wouldn't need to steal mine, mum, they've probably got their own. Um, yeah, that they'd turn up with illegally. But you know she was a little bit cautious of those things. And then some time passed, whether it be a month or two, and she says Dodge, go and get your gun. There's a fox in the paddock. We had chickens at the time.

Speaker 1 11:17

Yeah.

Speaker 2 11:17

So I shot a fox in our back paddock, yeah, and that was like the first time that she had asked me to. You know, do something with this thing that I bought, but it was a little bit taboo. So I reckon it was only about two or three years in total from shooting that fox with my own firearm to then going to Africa and shot a wildebeest, a blue wildebeest and two oryx, and that's all. And there's a horrible story about the end of that. Because they never got back, african taxidermy robbed me of those.

Speaker 2 11:47

So, that's a deep and dark story.

Speaker 1 11:49

You have to recreate that holiday.

Speaker 2 11:51

I've been back. Yeah, I've been back, since it wasn't the outfitter's fault.

Speaker 1 11:55

Yeah.

Speaker 2 11:56

That's why I do what. I do now, so that I can organise these things for people and they don't get ripped off.

Speaker 1 12:01

Yep, absolutely Putting all that knowledge that you've acquired to good use. You mentioned before about how your dad shot animals but could never understand the allure of hunting. I think it's one of those things as well where there's a common misconception that hunting and shooting are the same thing, whereas, you know, I guess everyone has a slightly different view on it. But, you know, shooting is pulling a trigger, hunting it involves all the rest of it, all your fair chase and the, the element of having to work for it. And you know I don't judge anyone on their methods. So long as it's legal, I'm all for it.

Speaker 1 12:34

And I think if you want to fill your freezer and that's all you want to do and you have private land you can access to do spotlighting. You know, if that's how you're going to be proficient, go for it. But, um, I think that a lot of hunters do really appreciate the fair chase element of it, the, the hunt itself. Um, is that something I guess I'm sure resonates with you? But what for you? What is the difference between hunting and shooting and how do you just, you know, define that?

Speaker 2 13:02

I think that we all I used to think that we all start as shooters. We all start. I was very naive at the time. I had really good private land access and come through the horse riding things. People own a horse, you have a farm, there's generally a large enough farm you can shoot on, so those two things went hand in hand. So I had some good access and I thought that my journey was standard. Your firearms license bring your dad's mate. Can I come to your farm and shoot some stuff? Okay, turn up, shoot some stuff. And I didn't realize that that wasn't common until later on and I'll circle back to that.

Speaker 2 13:39

But when I first started shooting that's all I wanted to do shoot, shoot Every weekend, shoot, whether it be at the range, go and shoot bunnies, whatever. Some of the farmers had tags for kangaroos and things and we'd jump on that. We did some home kills for one of the farmers and that was just really fun. But I learnt a lot in that timeframe and I learnt that it wasn't that fun. After a while it became nearly a burden to go and do the bit of shooting for the farmer. Just you know he would say oh, can you go and shoot this many roost for me, fill those tags and this many rabbits, and then you can go and try and shoot some of your own stuff. But that became a bit of a burden and then it. And then I didn't even really know that hunting was a thing. That was different like at that time, and it's not. Until you learn about hunting and this comes from I didn't grow up in a shooting or hunting family, so I don't have any passed down knowledge of these things. And Facebook wasn't much of a thing back then. Well, not in the hunting world either, no, so I think I progressed along and I've roughly written this out of six stages of becoming a hunter, but it's like if it's brown, it's down, working your way through to, you know, trying to fill the freezer and then being a little more specific, and maybe you know trophy hunting something and letting other things walk that you probably, earlier stages, would have shot all the way through to hey, I've gone hunting, I didn't see anything, didn't see anything but still had a great time. I'm not at that point yet. I still like being successful and harvesting something. To me, a successful hunt is harvesting something. So the journey for me was probably very short in the shooting side of things and then move very quickly into the hunting side of things.

Speaker 2 15:30

When I started guiding and that's been a long journey in the hunting end of that, that spectrum and I'm not there I and and you say that you think shooting is, you know, just pulling the trigger I think people get stuck in the shooting stage and that's great, that's fine. It's not for me. And I think people I found out recently, as well as circling back to that people have started at the other end and I want to focus on the R licence system where they don't know shooting, they only know hunting because that's all you have to. That's all you can do in a state forest you can't sight your gun in, you can't go and blast everything you see, because you scare everything away and then you don't see that much. So I didn't realise that world existed and that it was hard to get private access until really I started the other podcast I was on Endless Pursuit but now I can't even remember what your question was. I'm too far down the rabbit hole.

Speaker 1 16:31

Your perception of the difference, I guess, between hunting and shooting, which I think you covered up really well.

Speaker 2 16:36

I don't have any negative perception of any of those steps. I just think that there's a lot of skills that are missed if you start at the hunting end and not at the shooting end, and I think that it really pays dividends for people that start in the hunting end to circle back or pick a mentor or do something, but get back to some firearm fundamentals.

Speaker 1 17:02

Yeah.

Speaker 2 17:02

And that's being able to shoot in all positions firearm fundamentals, yeah, and that's being able to shoot in all positions. You know, go and shoot a .22 1,000 times and that'll help you shoot your .308 tenfold yeah. You just need to do muscle memory because I've met people recently that have been hunting for they say hunting, hunting for five years, never shot an animal yet yeah. What I would lose interest so quickly, has he not?

Speaker 1 17:28

had an option to have a shot Public land hunters in New South Wales. Yeah.

Speaker 2 17:33

Our forests are probably a little bit more densely populated with humanoids than yours and the ones close to Sydney anyway.

Speaker 1 17:41

Yeah.

Speaker 2 17:41

And for those that are newish to it, I want to say lessly densely populated with animals. I mean, there's areas where they can be more successful, but they haven't found them yet. But yeah, I think it really pays dividends to circle back to some of the original shooting skills that helped me become a better hunter, because, yes they're focused on their hunting skills, and this happened.

Speaker 2 18:05

Well, you and I spoke about it the other week, but there was a guy on a recent local club hunt that shot a sandbird his first time, but he didn't know what to do with it after he shot it because all his training had been about what to find, how to find it. And then he's like oh, now I've shot it. What do I do? And that's some of the fundamentals that people miss out on.

Speaker 1 18:29

Oh, absolutely. I think all of it's important because you need to know the whole process and being accurate with your shooting. That's part of your proficiency, so you don't want to ignore that part. But I think it's just the point of you know hunting's about more than just the shooting. That is a very important part. If you're wanting to do it ethically, then you absolutely need to spend the time to hone your skills there.

Speaker 2 18:45

There's so many skills I haven't developed in the shooting side of it either, like I've got mates that are right into their reloading Zero interest. I've got mates that are right into long-range shooting A little bit of interest, but I've got no, you know, skill set for it or no need for it right now. So there's definitely lots of factors in each step.

Building Accurate Hunts

Speaker 1 19:13

Yeah, that's good, thank you, you've answered that question wonderfully. Um, so I'll circle back around to so. I now know your origin story as a person, as a hunter, and so, out of the work that you were doing guiding for another business, you at some point decided to start Accurate Hunts. What was that like for you? Going from working for someone else to realising, you know, by popular demand, people seeking your services, actually realising that could be a viable option for you and that sort of journey between going from an employee to a business owner and this is something that you've built, a skill set up and have been able to actually make that a viable business option for yourself?

Speaker 2 19:59

It's definitely not an easy industry to be in. I don't think it was probably until my third trip overseas that I really realized that like hunting something I could really enjoy here. I had a really bad habit I'm gonna call it like undiagnosed adhd but of starting hobbies leather work one of them yeah buying all the gear, the top-notch gear, and she's I'm gonna love this from you, know. And then three months later, you move on to the next one and everything gets put in a corner yeah and my family thought hunting was that to me?

Speaker 2 20:33

yeah, right, and I remember my brother being surprised like saying to me you know, I'm surprised, you really stuck with this and I never thought I could turn it into a business. But the first client that probably stemmed that along for me has actually just come full circle and been with me in Australia with his wife, and that's Ted and Rhonda. And Ted made a cameo in one of my other episodes when I was up in Darwin. He jumped in the background there while we were chatting but and I just had a really good time with them and towards the end of the hunt I said to them you know what's next for you guys? These guys like to travel and hunt and they said well, what are you doing next year? We want to do what you're doing next year and I was like hmm that's

Speaker 2 21:23

nice and then I went back to canada sorry, that was just ted by himself the first year and then the next year he bought ronda with him, you know, had a really good time with me, and then he said to the outfitter who I was working for in canada we want to come back, we want dodge and we want to go back, you know, into that area and want to complete, because he's we didn't shoot a moose on his first trip. He shot this mountain goat, but no moose. We saw some good ones, but not quite legal and then he wanted to complete that journey. So he brought his wife with him and we just had a really good time. You know, that trip alone was special for different reasons, but it really set in my mind that this is something I want to do going forward, and that's where it started. I mean Accurate Hunts.

Speaker 2 22:12

I think I technically registered the business name prior to that, but it was more. I just needed an ABN for what I was doing in Canada and I had to call it something. So that's what I did. But it wasn't until then that I realised that like, hey, these guys actually want to follow me around or, you know, interested in what I've got to say or learn or to teach sorry, and I only just admitted to Rhonda in this last trip that her husband's moose was I think the first moose I'd ever actually seen in person wow that's like the prior year?

Speaker 2 22:43

Yeah, and it was. You know, she was pretty shocked by that. She's like you know, we didn't know that you were so green.

Speaker 1 22:49

You didn't show any of that yeah.

Speaker 2 22:51

Any of that at all.

Speaker 1 22:52

Fake it till, you make it.

Speaker 2 22:53

Apparently I made it and it worked. We ended up shooting one of the biggest moose, we'd pulled off that whole concession.

Speaker 1 22:59

Yeah, amazing.

Speaker 2 23:09

But that Amazing yeah, that cemented it for me. And then coming home, I mean there's not a lot of Australian hunters that really want to, in comparison to how many hunters there are go overseas. That's in the pointy end of the hunting spectrum, whereas I think the majority of Australia is over here in the shooting. Lower-end hunting. I don't mean lower in quality, I just mean lower in quantity of people.

Speaker 1 23:28

Yeah.

Speaker 2 23:28

So the booking agency side of things it's a little market, but it was then. It's grown a little bit now with social media and accessibility and pricing, but I don't know why I got myself into a niche market. But yeah, it did, I did and it worked okay. My one of my strengths is talking. Believe it or not, I don't shut up that often. So one thing I was really interested in was just meeting more people in the industry and it's definitely helped helped me do that and one of my strong points is my good connections with people in industry and that's shown with. You know the good array of guests I get on here. I know a lot of them, or I know of a lot of them, and they might know of me and trust me enough to take the plunge and come and do an episode.

Speaker 1 24:15

Yeah, and that's very evident as well in your interactions that you've had even within the Australian Hunters Club when you've come along there, and the trivia that you prepared.

Speaker 1 24:27

It's pretty evident that you invest in in your network, so not surprising at all that you've been able to build some relationships with other hunters On your website. You mentioned that a shared experience has the ability to enhance each person's individual experience, which I wholeheartedly agree. Can you think of a time where or do you have, I guess, a favorite moment that you could reflect on, or a particular client that had an experience? I mean, you could quite literally be giving them an experience of a lifetime. Are there any that come to memory for you that you'd like to share?

Deer Hunting Surprise Triggers Excitement

Speaker 2 25:09

Yeah, there's lots. There's some really good, funny ones, there's a couple of emotional ones. I think one of the ones that surprised me the most was my now wife, but at the time I don't normally talk this much, I usually just listen. My wife's family had a property. It was 4,000 acres and we were just dating at the time. I don't even think we were, I think it was pre-dating like just when you're hanging out, and we were at the Sydney Royal and she said, oh, my parents are like we're going to go out to the farm. And I said, yes, royal, and she said, oh, my parents are like we're going to go out to the farm. And I said yes, and she said you don't even know what I'm going to ask. I said you're all going to ask if we're going to go out there on Easter weekend. And I said, yes, we are. And that's what happened. That was the first time really meeting all the family. I'd met her parents and things.

Speaker 2 26:05

But this was a really cool property where it was just a super communal gathering point of all cousins and long lost cousins and relatives that weren't cousins would come and holiday at this farm and it had a lot of history for them and they grew up there and had a great time and there was word that there was deer on the property. So that interests me greatly and I said yes, and then we organized and we went and it was the night so we'd been there. We got there late one night, the night before we were to go hunting, as I would call it. They are traditionally shooters. They are not hunters. She has a firearms license but she grew up shooting pigs and rabbits and things.

Speaker 2 26:40

On this property there was was a lot of pigs. This was during the drought and the occasional deer had been seen but not harvested. And I said, all right, we're going to get up at five and we're going to head out before sunup. And her uncle was there and he said what for? And I said, well, I want to be where we think these deer might be. There was a crop planted in one of the back paddocks and I said I want to be in that paddock at Sarr and it was a fair hike. So her and it was my wife, melissa, her friend and her brother came with and we left early.

Speaker 2 27:24

We got to the paddock and it was like 25 pigs just and I had never shot pigs. I was so excited. I was like that's pigs. I just I had an open sight 308 spanish mausler that I just uselessly bought off used guns when I was sitting in canada and wanted to have fun with. And I was so excited to shoot these pigs and, like, we were lined up, there was three of us with firearms licenses her brother didn't have one and he was on the binos and we were lined up on these pigs and we were waiting for them to feed in front of us and I stupidly looked over my shoulder and I come back and I was like, oh, hold on, you saw something.

Speaker 2 27:57

Then I look back and there's a ginormous fallow buck in the middle of the field. Just, this was easter, so rut time. Yeah, he was walking slowly. Just he was so tired from his night of rutting, which I didn't fully understand at the time and he was, you know, just browsing along and I was like, oh, I was disappointed because I wanted to shoot the pigs, but I couldn't let that go. It was a big buck.

Speaker 2 28:25

So I left her brother and a friend there and we made a beeline across the paddock to this deer. There was one tree between us and the deer and the deer was walking so we had to keep like moving as well to keep this tree in line with us. So we couldn't see it. Anyway, turned out he had no idea we were there. She gets to the tree and she shoots this ginormous fellow at you know 100 yards or something. Sorry, I got cough again. Ah, I need a drink of water. And I I knew what she'd shot because I'd shot some deer and seen some things. She knew she shot a deer but she didn't understand and I don't think she fully understood until you know, two or three years later, when we tried to chase more fallow with her, how good of a fallow she shot.

Speaker 1 29:16

Yeah.

Speaker 2 29:17

Like it was not a representative. It was a really good trophy one. It had a cleft palm, which doesn't mean to be explained right now, but you know. So some people would see it as a cull, but it was a ginormous one with this cleft palm, really thick mass, and I was like exuberant, like I was just wow this is amazing.

Speaker 2 29:37

And I'm not that sort of person, I don't get that so excited and I was jumping and high-fiving and hugging and I don't think I was trying to kiss her at the time, I don't think we're at that point yet. But she told me later she's like I don't like what's this guy doing, so excited about shooting a damn deer, what? What is this? And that like. To be there for her initial first experience of that was pretty fun. It was very fun and it made her uncle pretty cranky because I caked this thing out. It's mounted on the wall in there. Now she calls it Mac Daddy and we name most of the animals in the trophy room yeah, so Big Mac's mounted in there, that's cool.

Speaker 1 30:21

Yeah, as in, you give them names. Yeah, that's fine. Yeah, nicknames.

Speaker 2 30:25

So he's mounted in there and the kids know their names. But he said, oh, that's my deer. What do you mean? It's your deer? He said well, I think I saw that one last year and I was going to go out and shoot it this year. I said, what? Like? We were back before they finished baking an egg.

Speaker 1 30:41

Yeah.

Speaker 2 30:46

And they were going to go out after that. So I think they were definitely in the shooting side of of things and they'd shot more pigs than I ever have and ever will probably. But uh, yeah, it was. It was really fun to to do that with her and then see it a few years later when she realized that oh yes like that is really a good one.

Speaker 1 31:00

Yeah, and how nice that it was her that you had that experience with. That. You can now share this story and like have that shared moment. Now you did mention this is when you were just in the hanging out phase, but it was like I'm guessing there was some romantic interest there.

Speaker 2 31:14

Hopefully.

Speaker 1 31:17

Did you? You know, were you already in the stage of just hoping that this was going to be forever? And you're like yes, this is a beautiful moment that we're're like, yes, this is like, this is a beautiful moment that we're sharing together.

Speaker 2 31:28

No, no, probably not. It was the 4,000 acres that really got me over the line, I think. No, I haven't been out of font. I wrote in a diary so we were yeah, that was April, so we didn't let's go technically become a couple until like June or July. It was that we wrote down on paper that we were technically together. Facebook official, I think it was.

Speaker 1 31:53

Oh, that's what seals the deal. That's it Facebook official. I think it was. Oh, that's what seals the deal.

Speaker 2 31:56

That's it. And then there was a shot show in Sydney in June and then, oh sorry, in July. So we got together in June. In July I left to go to Darwin for four weeks and then I was back for two weeks and then I was gone for four months. So we had been together six months and I had seen her six weeks of those six months.

Speaker 1 32:23

There you go.

Speaker 2 32:24

Yeah, I like to remind her of that now when she complains when I go away for one weekend.

Speaker 1 32:28

Yeah, like we've done worse.

Speaker 2 32:31

Yeah, we've definitely done worse. That was obviously pre-kids and lots of other complications in life, but it was, uh, yeah, it was. It was a fun time my life to have her share that and then beautiful, she actually surprised me in that trip again things you can do without kids and home loans but uh, she organized with the people I was staying with just to turn up in texas so I didn't know until the day she was landing that she was coming to Texas, I think.

Speaker 1 32:57

How good is that.

Speaker 2 32:58

I was there for two weeks and she flew over for 10 days. I think of the two weeks or seven days. Just had a good time with the people we were staying with.

Hunting Horror Story and Learning Opportunity

Speaker 1 33:05

Beautiful. That's really nice. I like that story. It is good. No-transcript. Do you have any examples you can think of of experiences other people have had that you've heard of horror stories, I guess, or things that have? Just because I think when you're a rookie hunter, you you show up and you don't know what to expect. So it's absolutely possible that some weird and wonderful and wild things could happen that if you didn't know better, you'd be like oh okay, this is what we're doing. Um, do you have any stories like that that you can share?

Speaker 2 33:57

Yes, yeah, one comes straight to mind and there's two things. There's one story and then there's an analogy that I'll get into. If I remember it, remind me of that. But it wasn't anyone. It was my first booked client for Accurate Hunts and it came through the gun shop at Horsley Park gun shop. I knew a guy who worked there and he said someone had come in looking for a chittle hunt for him and his dad. And I gave them your details and these people rang. His name was Wes. I remember that because I still work for him now fencing-wise and we've become it's come full circle and I'll end with that. But he booked a chittle hunt for himself and his father.

Speaker 2 34:46

Now, in the early days of Accurate Hunts I was new in business and relied on people that I probably didn't know that well to. So I would organise the hunt, take you know, give you the details and everything, take the money, pay the guide, organise the trip. You would go away, fly away, do the trip and then come back don't know how it was, and we'd make a percentage. That's how the booking agency works. So that happened and it was a seven-day chittle hunt for himself and his father up in north queensland. And it doesn't matter if I mention the guy's name or not, because he's no longer in business, because this is pretty much exactly how his business went for everyone. But I made the rookie mistake of not going to the property prior and it's now something that I do. Basically, any hunt you book with accurate hun Hunts. I've been on Okay.

Speaker 1 35:39

You go to Africa.

Speaker 2 35:40

I've been there. You want to go to Canada? I've been there. New Zealand I've been there. I've been to the kitchen, I've been to the toilets. I know what it's all like. I can tell you every detail. And that's on purpose. It cost me money, definitely, to do that Good job, but this trip is the reason why.

Speaker 2 35:58

So they flew up there. He picked them up from the airport. Their car broke down halfway out to the property, which you know, whatever cars are cars, and they finally got out to the property after doing some bush mechanics and getting it through. The farmer had forgot they were coming and left the gate locked and this guy didn't have a key, so they had to cut the lock. Would seem like a first red flag. Um, yeah.

Speaker 2 36:24

Then they went in and they saw some deer on the way in and things females does, and they set up and they saw the side of their rifles in and got, and then they went out on the trip and all they were seeing was females and it was, you know, supposed to be shooting stags, and that's fine, it's hunting, not always around, and there just wasn't many of them either. So they went for, I think, four and a half days and didn't shoot anything. You know four days. And on the fifth day they saw a small little antlered animal and the guide said, no, don't shoot it, we'll see something bigger. And then they saw some wild dogs. They shot the wild dogs. It's fine, you can do that in a private property in North Queensland. Sorry, they could only find one after they shot at two of them and they walked up on it and it was a puppy with a collar on.

Speaker 1 37:25

Oh no.

Speaker 2 37:26

This was the farmer's dog.

Speaker 2 37:28

Oh, no so they had to walk to the farmer's house with this dog in his hand and anyway they got kicked off the property instantly and the guide was never allowed back. So they went to another property and they just never saw any, you know, shooting stags, and they were pretty wrecked emotionally after that situation. The clients were Wes and his dad and that was just horrific. The whole trip was pretty terrible. The food was terrible, the guiding was terrible, the animals were terrible, the car was terrible, the lodging was terrible, the lack of animals was terrible. And then they shoot a puppy.

Speaker 1 38:13

Far out.

Speaker 2 38:14

So it had everything going poorly for it. So he gets home and I ring him hey, wes, welcome back to work, how was your trip? And he lays it all out for me and I said mate, give me your bank details. I'm giving you all your money back, like that is horrible yeah, I felt so bad.

Speaker 2 38:32

So I gave him his complete money back, which I didn't have to give at the time, like I had money, but I had taken my small percentage and paid the guide, and then I had paid him the full amount of the trip back because, you know, bad reviews are worth more than good ones, sort of thing.

Speaker 1 38:50

Yeah.

Speaker 2 38:51

I didn't want to annoy my first proper customer and then I chased the guide and he was, you know, oh, I can't afford to pay you back and all this sort of thing, and anyway I ended up dropping off the radar and going a bit crazy. But it has turned full circle, where Wes actually has now moved close to me down in the Highlands. He owns 500 and something acres with chittle running over it all the time. Amazing and he actually didn't shoot any animals for some years after the traumatising effect of shooting that dog.

Speaker 1 39:24

Oh, that was heartbreaking. He sort of gave up hunting and shooting.

Speaker 2 39:27

And yeah, him and I talk reasonably regularly, I've done some fencing for him and he's sort of come back to shooting the deer. But it's not he really. His wife said it really affected him for some years.

Speaker 1 39:38

Oh yeah.

Speaker 2 39:39

Yep, so that's a pretty horrible horror story.

Speaker 1 39:44

That is absolutely. That is a horror story.

Speaker 2 39:50

And I can't shy away from the fact that it happened under my banner, like it was my first client, but it really taught me a lot. But it's just cemented the fact that, hey, if you want to do this, you'll do it properly. And that means you've got to go and visit these places. You've got to yeah meet the people, see their outfit. Make sure the farmer is actually letting them on yes legally um, and yeah, it was just a mess. Yeah, yeah, it was a mess.

Speaker 1 40:15

Goodness me.

Speaker 2 40:17

But it made me want to do it properly, and here we are.

Speaker 1 40:18

Yeah, absolutely Learning opportunity.

Speaker 2 40:22

Try to.

Speaker 1 40:27

Good way to, I guess, recover from that. I want to talk to you about your rhino green hunt. Now, green hunt was a term that I didn't know about until seeing your experience there, which, for anyone listening that's unaware. That's where you do the hunt. You stalk the animal and shoot with a non-lethal tranquiliser, dart. Is that right? Yeah, and I know that you participated in that so that the rhino could receive an examination and medical care. Can you tell us more about that hunt, because I imagine there's a lot involved there? And then I'd also like to know about the program itself, because I understand you have an ongoing involvement or interest in the program there right.

The Controversial Rhino Hunt

Speaker 2 41:13

So you ruined it by saying green hunt. I usually just say that I shot a rhino last year and then wait for jaw to come up off the ground whoops, sorry. So there's there's a few things happening in that hunt. One of them was that I'm not afraid to stir people and shooting a rhino rhino is pretty up there with stirring people, especially when you, you know, don't really tell the green hunt part of the story. So I just I don't know, before I went over, the offer was there from the, the outfitter, and I never really considered it and it wasn't until we sort of got there. It was like day one. He's like, oh, I'm gonna shoot a rhino today. I was like, okay, right, oh, it's happening. Here we go and the yeah, I would shoot a rhino legally, like proper dead shoot, if I could afford it. But the finances range from 50, you know, I want to say 30 000 us up to four or five hundred thousand us, depending on what you're targeting, okay, yeah so you know you can do it quite cheaply.

Speaker 2 42:26

but what you're shooting on the cheaper end is a captive bred rhino who is past breeding date, been released, and then you harvest that there. There's no difference to shooting basically anything else in South Africa except the cost On the green hunt side of things. This property had set up a breeding program and this was their first female rhino that they had purchased, and they had purchased her under the assumption that she was pregnant. But they weren't sure, and I think they're pregnant for like two years or something. I can't remember the details on it. Yeah right, it's a long time. And I was the first person that was there in the right timeframe, that sort of lined up with when they needed to check how she was progressing in the pregnancy. So they offered me this option to do the hunt. I said great, what a great way to stir people back home is basically what I thought.

Speaker 1 43:22

Yeah.

Speaker 2 43:22

So the vet turns up and the vet's a really nice guy, old South African fellow who probably green hunts 100 rhino a month. Like to him, it's just normal, it's just part of business and he turned up with this.

Speaker 2 43:40

I could never. I was too caught up in the moment. I never really documented what rifle it was, but it was a break action 22 that shot blanks. So I wasn't shooting a round, it was just using that to propel what I would like to describe as my thumb. Basically it was a dart. It's in the other room. It'll take me too long to go and get it. I brought it home with me. Don't tell customs. It was probably 150mm long in total the thickness of maybe my index finger and then just with a flat orange cap on the end that was loaded so they would inject the stuff down in through the needle, and the needle is probably, let's say, five mil wide.

Speaker 2 44:21

So quite a very thick needle yeah and maybe 80 mil long, eight centimeters long or so, with a little barb on the back of it, and they would inject the serum into that and then load it into the gun. The 22 cartridge would go off and the gas would go and then push the dart out the gun Now I think it has the aerodynamics of a brick is probably a fair way to describe that. It was horrible. And he gave me the gun and I was like, oh, okay, like I'd had a Picatinny rail, and I was like, oh, do we just clip on like a red dot sight?

Speaker 1 44:57

Yeah.

Speaker 2 44:58

He said, oh no, you just line up the barrel with the front yeah. And I was like, are you joking? I'm like going to just side barrel a rhino, what, anyway, whatever. So we walked down next to the house, next to the lodge, and we had a archery target set up 30 metres away. And the way you dialed the strength on this thing was like it had a 1, 2, 3, 4, or 5, meaning 10 yards, 20 yards, 30 yards, 40 yards, 50 yards.

Speaker 1 45:28

Yeah right.

Speaker 2 45:29

So it just provided the strength that you needed. I don't really know how that worked, but he put it on 30 because we were at 30 from this target. Then I hold it up and he said just you know, normally a gun with open sights would have a sight at the front and then one at the back that you would line up. This had a sight at the front and then a Picatinny rail which is designed to have something put on it.

Speaker 1 45:53

Yeah.

Speaker 2 45:54

So I'm looking down it and I shot the target and it hit dead centre and he said absolutely brilliant. I didn't have the heart to tell him it's not where I was aiming. Oh, bless you. I was aiming at the target above it. So I shot substantially, like you know 400 mil low.

Speaker 1 46:14

Yeah.

Speaker 2 46:14

Okay, anyway, we did it again and I adjusted. In my eyes I was like, okay, well, I've got to hold a bit higher. Anyway, it went pretty much right next to the other one. He said, brilliant, let's go shoot a rhino. And I was like, oh, like, that's nowhere near. I was like I don't have the heart to tell him, oh, A rhino is pretty big, though, right. Yeah, In saying that he said I have to. So they have a hump, a bit like a Brahman bull.

Speaker 2 46:44

But further up on, the neck, and that's where I had to hit it.

Speaker 1 46:48

Okay, nowhere else. Why is that? Does it intake the solution quicker? It's like a camel's hump. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 46:55

And you could hit them in the side and you could actually puncture into their guts and things. Or if it's in the back in their rump, uh, their muscles are quite tight and it takes longer. So, anyway, so that's a softer muscle and a fattier spot and it was the magic spot. So we jumped on the bucky, which is, uh, south african for ute basically, and it was all hands on deck. We had, I think we had four vehicles going and I think there was about four people in each vehicle. We were all driving all over the property to find her.

Speaker 2 47:24

No one had any idea where she was yeah something like 11 or 12,000 acres, and it was probably an hour or two, probably two hours later.

Speaker 2 47:34

We drove past and we saw her and all we did we kept driving, but someone threw a rag off the back onto the track and we kept driving because we didn't really want to spook her and then we got on the radio and everyone ascended on you know a spot just down the road and we made a plan and we went back to where the rag was and she was gone, nowhere to be seen, but we hopped off there excuse me, I don when guests cough all the time we hopped off the Bucky and I had a cameraman with me and he put up a drone and we flew around for it was a full battery, so 15 or 20 minutes but we found her probably 800 yards away from us and so he flew the drone back, changed the battery over, sent it back out, put it over her and just left it there.

Speaker 2 48:27

And then it was the weirdest hunting experience because I was hunting the drone at that point we were just using the drone as a marker and we were hunting in on that and there's other animals zebra and oryx and things flushing out of places and that was weird too. But we finally got to a point where we could see the drone and we could just kind of make out her 100 yards away. They actually got really small eyes and pretty horrible eyesight, so that worked to our advantage. I ended up getting to about I think it was about 18 metres.

Speaker 1 48:59

Right, yeah.

Speaker 2 49:00

From her and she was broadside with a bush covering her whole body and her head, except the hump.

Speaker 1 49:07

How good.

Speaker 2 49:08

It's perfect. And there's this drone footage from above. Yeah, and I also had the cameraman behind me filming and I just shot this thing and I just watched this bright orange, aimed bright orange butt of the dart just spiral through the air. It's like when you throw a dart.

Speaker 1 49:33

Like a cartoon yeah.

Speaker 2 49:35

Like when you throw a dart, like at a dartboard. But you know when you're a kid and you throw them sideways for fun, and then they straighten out and they wobble all the way around.

Speaker 2 49:42

It's exactly what this did, anyway. It hit exactly where it needed to Brilliant shot, he says, and I thought, all right, that's it, it's done, we're done. And she sort of spun around and didn't really know what happened. And then she jogged off and I was sort of dawdling around getting stuff ready. He goes run, run, oh. And I was sort of dawdling around getting stuff ready. He goes run run. Oh. Okay, I'm not real good at running at the best of times, so we jogged after this thing and then we lost her.

Speaker 1 50:11

Oh no.

Speaker 2 50:12

No one could find her.

Speaker 1 50:15

Do they not put trackers?

Speaker 2 50:16

on, you'd think that would be the smart idea.

Speaker 1 50:18

So they split up.

Speaker 2 50:22

We split up with vehicles again, uh, one of the guys crossed her, like she crossed the track in front of him. So we got on the radio and we all got up there and in the background my guide was getting pretty nervous and I reckon 15 minutes had passed at this point and it was about 20 minutes before she finally laid down. But at that point the vet was following her and grabbing her tail, like she was pretty docile and just stumbling and walking and whatnot, and at the end he actually just like pulled her tail and she sat down, fell over. And it wasn't until later on, after we were doing all the vet stuff, that I kind of asked my guide. I was like what's wrong? Like what am I missing here? You're a bit weird about this. And he said, oh, it's the first time we've used this vet. And he said that usually takes three minutes to knock them out.

Rhino Hunt and Culinary Preferences

Speaker 2 51:17

He said that took nearly 30. So the dose just wasn't enough. Well. So we asked the vet and he said oh no. He said I do this all the time and I use that dose all the time. He used a different concoction because when you say it was funny, at the start you said green hunt like non-lethal. If you shoot one with the other green hunt the other green dart, that takes three minutes to kick in and you lose them. There's a 98% chance they won't wake up.

Speaker 1 51:46

Right, so they need to be revived on that.

Speaker 2 51:48

It's an antidote.

Speaker 1 51:49

Gotcha.

Speaker 2 51:51

Whereas this one, there's a 98% chance. It takes a lot longer to enact, but there's a 98% chance. If you never find them, they will get up and run away eventually.

Speaker 1 52:00

And when you've got what like 1,200 acres, did you say?

Speaker 2 52:03

Yeah, no, no more, 12,000.

Speaker 1 52:05

Oh, 12,000. Yeah, you definitely want to make sure you can find them, yeah. And if you can't, then yeah, tap them. Well, that's when you get the helicopter.

Speaker 2 52:13

So anyway, that's what the nervous was, and my guy was fine after that. He didn't discuss that sort of drug detail earlier. So then she dropped and we got the longest ultrasound out I've ever seen. It was a bit of like basically a pool extender pipe because of the giant uterus, went in there and ultrasounded and turns out she had a baby.

Speaker 2 52:35

So she was pregnant. Excellent, and that was very exciting to be a part of, because the owner of the property and my guide are business partners in the Rhino purchase and you know it was the first time for them to see that and they were pretty exuberant and whatnot. And then on the bottom of her horn, you know when you, you know you cut your fingernail back or something, but a little thread goes up the fingernail and just a tiny little frayed section there was a heap of those on the front of her horn.

Speaker 1 53:04

Okay.

Speaker 2 53:05

From rubbing bushes and things. Yeah, it just threads off. And the guy cut a heap off. I said what are you doing? He said I'll show you later. Anyway, gave her the antidote and she jumped up. Well, he said I'm going to give her the antidote now. Everyone move back. And then he looked back and he said move back. He was serious.

Speaker 1 53:27

Yeah.

Speaker 2 53:27

And he gave her the antidote and she was up in seconds like three or four seconds, yeah and she stood up, took two steps away from us and then turned straight at us and came towards us. She was not happy that we, you know, pinned her to the ground and took photos for half an hour, but that's how that went down and then we got back to camp. Later on I'd forgotten about the little things he took off her horn and he put them in a shot glass. With Jager and a lot of South Africans are German-based and there's a I can't remember what it's called, but there's a song or a chant that the PHs would sing to celebrate the hunt and it ends in because Jaeger means hunt master.

Speaker 2 54:15

I believe Jaeger Meister.

Speaker 1 54:16

Is that right?

Speaker 2 54:17

That's why there's the red stag on the logo.

Speaker 1 54:19

Yeah.

Speaker 2 54:20

Jaeger Meister hunt master.

Speaker 1 54:22

Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 54:24

So they used to drink it to celebrate the hunt. So anyway, he put the phrase of that stuff inside it and then we sculled it. So basically drunk rhino horn.

Speaker 1 54:33

It didn't work as an aphrodisiac.

Speaker 2 54:35

And no, I'm not immortal.

Speaker 1 54:37

I was going to ask.

Speaker 2 54:39

But I don't know. To circle back early on, I think the main reason I shot it was probably initially just to say that I had and to start that conservation conversation based around it. Yeah, I did a talk at our local hunting club at their Christmas in July and that was pretty fun. I'd put a little presentation together and then I read actually read an excerpt from my diary when I was over there and I ended it with this little video of the hunt. So it was good fun to have that conversation. But they actually had, yeah, people not turn up to the dinner because there was a picture of me with the rhino on the paper on the interesting promotion. Yeah, if they came they would have got the full story, but that was my there's always more to the story.

Speaker 1 55:25

Well, that's a really good example, isn't it? About people making assumptions? Now, that's excellent. You did mention that you would hunt a rhino like flat out on an actual hunt.

Speaker 2 55:35

Kill.

Speaker 1 55:35

Is there anything kill? Is there anything that is off the table for you that you go?

Speaker 2 55:40

I will not anything legal, so if it's illegal, you can rule it out. For that reason, that's fine. But is there anything legal that you would not hunt? No, there's not. The only thing I'm not allowed to hunt is an elephant. It's my wife's favorite animal okay, she's a spirit animal.

Speaker 2 55:55

So I'm pretty happy to forgo that just because of cost reasons. At some point in my life it might become a conversation I'll have with her. But it's yeah, no, no, to answer your question. Everything like you said earlier on, if it's legal, I'm all for it, I'll give it a go, excellent.

Speaker 1 56:16

And then you refer to yourself as a solo eater. Solo eater, is there a meal that is your favorite to eat?

Speaker 2 56:26

look, I probably didn't refer to myself as the solo eater. I got called that. Yeah, I just. I did one the other week that I was pretty impressed with and I surprised myself. I actually don't like game meat to be like I don't love it. I shouldn't say that I do like it.

Speaker 2 56:43

I don't love it and a lot of people will say it's probably just because I've never eaten it the right way. But this was venison backstrap over the dodge bachi I'm calling it, but it was just over the coals and it was just super simple and really delicious. But I think if you want me to narrow it down to one meal, it'd be lamb chops, mashed potato and yeah 11 minute chocolate pudding in the microwave and if anyone wants that recipe, I can give it to you.

Speaker 1 57:10

It's a pretty special chocolate pudding self-sourcing chocolate pudding in the microwave amazing yeah, it's pretty I was going to ask if you had any secret recipes, but if you're willing to share, that's probably not, it? Um? Do you have any secret recipes, though?

Speaker 2 57:23

like that you will pass on generation to generation that you're like this is just so good that you need to get no, no, I think my favorite recipes are blue cans of e and a block of dairy milk chocolate, but they're not my recipes. But I will share that knowledge with the children. Um, there's one. We grew up with. A lady Lena was her name was one of mum's friends and she had this thing called Lena's Log and it was basically the poor man's version is the chocolate ripple biscuits stacked together and then covered in cream, and then it soaks the cream up and gets a bit soggy, and then you cut it on the angle and it looks like black stripes. That's the poor man's version. I could never really work out what her version was, but it was so much better. That's the poor man's version. I could never really work out what her version was, but it was so much better. It was called lena's log.

Speaker 2 58:05

She used the ginger nut biscuits or something a little bit different nice and it was a you know, a wog dish that she had grown up cooking and the deal was she would give me the recipe when I got married okay I never got it and oh, she's still around and she's one of mom's friends. But but I'll have to chase mum up.

Speaker 1 58:23

What's her excuse?

Speaker 2 58:25

I don't know. I don't know whether I did get it. I just never did anything with it. I feel like I would have done something with it, but it was the deal she said I'll give it to you when you get married. I didn't invite her, so maybe that was why. Yeah, it was going delicious, oh very good, you know what.

Speaker 1 58:48

You know what my anti-food is. I told you that tonight on the flip side. Oh yes, capsicum, you did say, or and chili? Yeah, stay away from capsicum.

Speaker 2 58:53

There's got to be a sign on my farm gate saying if you enter with capsicum, just stay on the other side. Is that the?

Speaker 1 58:57

ultimate enemy for you. Is there anything else that registers like that's, that's in that family, I mean the old cilantro coriander.

Speaker 2 59:06

I don't mind it. I wouldn't add it, but I'll have it if it's in a pork roll yeah um, no, capsicum is the devil's food, and how interesting. The interesting comment that people say is oh, you can't taste it, just pick it off. And my standard combat is well, if you can't taste it, just pick it off. And my standard combat is well if you can't taste it, don't put it on.

Speaker 1 59:25

I think it's definitely got a taste.

Speaker 2 59:28

It definitely has a taste.

Speaker 1 59:29

Yeah, If you had to, if there was chicken, pork, lamb, beef, one had to go. You could never eat it again. What would you choose? Which would you eliminate?

Speaker 2 59:43

Pork.

Speaker 1 59:45

Pork? Yeah See, I thought that too. But then I was like, oh, but bacon, like the pig has to. Oh, no, bacon can't go.

Speaker 2 59:52

I love bacon. But yeah, I remember that Simpsons episode where Ham is like oh Lisa was, are you a Simpsons fan? Did you grow up watching it? Yeah, oh Lisa was, are you a?

Speaker 1 1:00:04

Simpsons fan. Did you grow up watching it? Yeah, yeah, lisa was listening. The magical animal yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 1:00:07

Ham, bacon, sausages.

Speaker 1 1:00:09

He's like oh yeah, right, lisa, some magical animal, yeah, pig, yeah.

Speaker 2 1:00:16

But no, I think lamb is my favourite of the meats. I'm pretty reluctant to order a steak when I'm out in public because I can cook a pretty good steak. I tend to. If I'm at a pub or a restaurant, I'll order something. I don't normally cook pasta or linguinis and things like that. But if one has to go get some pork on your fork and fork off yeah, fair enough, excellent.

Hunting Podcast Banter and Giveaways

Speaker 1 1:00:46

So I'm looking at the time. It's approaching an hour. Is there sort of generally where you would say things like this has been excellent, dodge, thoroughly enjoyed chatting with you this evening and it's an honour to have you here.

Speaker 2 1:01:01

On my own show. I appreciate that.

Speaker 1 1:01:03

On your own show, Any you know. Finishing remarks, anything that you feel has been missed, or you want to circle back round to no, not particularly.

Speaker 2 1:01:12

I appreciate you coming on and having me as your guest.

Speaker 1 1:01:17

You're very welcome.

Speaker 2 1:01:18

It's just a bit of fun. I said to you before that, like when I was doing Endless with Matt, we had really good banter and it worked really well together and we got into the nitty-gritty of each other's stories on some of the episodes where there wasn't a guest.

Speaker 1 1:01:36

Yeah.

Speaker 2 1:01:37

But when I went out and did my own, a few people have said and I agree with them that there's not that banter when I have guests on because I'm meeting them for the first time or you know, you're talking about a topic but you're not digging into each other and having a bit of fun like I normally had done. I said to someone today was it Julian I was talking about? I said I love throwing matches from the side and just watching them, but you can't do that when you're the own host. No, so it's, yeah, I don't know. Tonight was a good way to share some of my stories and hopefully the listeners get to know a bit more about me.

Speaker 2 1:02:09

It's hard to interview people and then talk about yourself, because one thing I love to do on this thing is just ask a question and then let them talk. That's what.

Speaker 1 1:02:18

I've got them on for See where it goes, yeah.

Speaker 2 1:02:26

See, that's what I've got them on for, see where it goes. Yeah, see how many tangents you can go on. For the people that don't understand, I don't write down any notes. I don't really do much research on purpose, because I like to just tell the guests this is not an interview, this is a conversation. Just have a chat and we'll see where it flows. And if you say something like you did tonight or I did tonight, but your example was you would ask a question based on what I just said, but if I had something written I would fail to miss. I would miss that.

Speaker 1 1:02:51

Yes, and I'd be always looking at the next question when can I start the next question? Yeah.

Speaker 2 1:02:55

So I really try and focus on just letting the guest speak for himself, basically, and then I formulate questions based on what I think listeners are trying to formulate themselves while they're listening to the interview.

Speaker 1 1:03:07

Yes, what would someone be pondering right now hearing this content? Yeah, absolutely.

Speaker 2 1:03:12

With that in mind, if anyone does have questions on the podcast page or tab on my website, accuratehuntscom forward slash podcast, there's a section where you can actually post a question.

Speaker 2 1:03:27

And if anyone has a question for a guest that's been on or for me or anything like that, you can actually post it on there and I'm going to release it soon. But what I want to do is, if anyone gets a question on air so we do get questions sent in and sometimes they go on air we do get questions sent in and sometimes they go on air they will get a hat. I'll send them an Accurate Hunt hat, which I don't have on me, to show you what they look like. No, I don't. And then what I want to do is either the most popular or the best question at the end of the year will win a hunt with me.

Speaker 1 1:04:03

That's a great prize.

Speaker 2 1:04:04

A reasonably large prize. It's just a good way for I mean listeners listen and they send me messages but, send them to the page so that I can ask them on air or whatnot.

Speaker 1 1:04:15

That's particularly great because so often people have questions that other people would benefit from hearing the answer to as well. So you know, one of the things I absolutely love about hunting is the community and people asking questions and giving sharing of their knowledge, so that's a really nice way to incentivise that kind of participation.

Speaker 2 1:04:34

That's what I think too, and I say this to my guests like I've got nothing to give you guys as thanks for coming on, really. So you know, same with the listeners. I appreciate them listening, but I have, other than providing them this content and something to listen to, I have no real way of saying thanks. So that's an option for them to jump on and ask a question but then go in the draw to win something a bit special. That's me being in my position. Giving away hunts is something that's a little bit easier for me to do than others, but it is good fun and I just love meeting new people and I thought that would be a fun way to do it.

Speaker 1 1:05:12

I think that's excellent. Well, you heard it here. Folks Get online, ask some questions on the page, win yourself a hat or a hunt how good, there you go, a hat or a hunt, how?

Speaker 2 1:05:23

good there you go a hat or a hunt.

Speaker 1 1:05:25

No worries, yeah awesome.

Speaker 2 1:05:26

Thanks for jumping on, cass, I appreciate your time. Thank you for having me. What's your sign-off going to be? What's your sign-off going to?

Speaker 1 1:05:35

be. Stay classy, san Diego, I can tell you what your favourite movie is.

Speaker 2 1:05:44

Well, 60% of the time that works every time.

Speaker 1 1:05:46

Yeah.

Speaker 2 1:05:48

Until next time, see you guys.

Speaker 1 1:05:50

Yeah.