Accurate Hunts, a life outdoors.
Accurate Hunts is back bigger than ever. Join Dodge Keir, experienced hunter, hunting guide and former host of the top Australian outdoor and hunting podcast, The Endless Pursuit as he goes solo.
Follow along as he sits down with many of the industry leaders in the Australian outdoor and hunting world. He also hosts a few key international guests along the way, discussing all things conservation and education. Having spent years in the industry, Dodge shares genuine and authentic hunting stories based on actual experiences in the bush.
You can catch up with all the Accurate Hunts trips, guided hunts, education courses, merchandise plus more at https://www.accuratehunts.com/
So get geared up, it's GO time!
Accurate Hunts, a life outdoors.
Ep. 21 Zeb Jones on hunting Sambar Deer. The Secrets, Misconceptions and Thermal Hunting. PART 1
Ever wondered what it takes to hunt Sambar deer successfully? This episode features the highly knowledgeable Zeb Jones, who reveals the secrets of tracking these elusive creatures and shares the best days to hunt them. We also clear up some historical misconceptions about Jägermeister, thanks to a fascinating story from Kyle. Get ready to immerse yourself in the mystique of Sambar deer and learn how they masterfully blend into their surroundings, making them the ultimate challenge for hunters.
Join us as we dive into the hotly debated topic of hunting with thermals versus tradition. We explore the use of thermal imaging devices and the divided opinions within the hunting community on what constitutes fair chase. Our discussion uncovers how technological advancements have always stirred controversy before becoming accepted norms. Personal experiences and historical parallels highlight the ongoing evolution of hunting practices, providing food for thought for both traditionalists and tech enthusiasts.
Lastly, we celebrate a family's multi-generational passion for deer hunting, from a father's early adventures to the strategic tactics that lead to success in challenging terrains. We share insights on navigating heavily burnt-out areas post-bushfire, the impact of moon phases on hunting success, and the demanding yet rewarding nature of guiding clients through swap hunts. Whether you're a seasoned hunter or just starting out, this episode is brimming with valuable tips, unforgettable stories, and inspiring lessons that will captivate you from start to finish.
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.
I wish I had known that, trying to hunt over where other hunters have hunted already. So the worst day to hunt of the week is Monday, because everyone's hunted Saturday, sunday. The second worst is Sunday. You know, and progressively you get better until you get to about where I reckon the ideal day to hunt is Wednesday, thursday. So Samba have had for a long time a mystique about them that they ghost the high country right, so they can ghost in and ghost out just as quickly. You can be looking at a Samba and then it can vanish and you think it's just there, but it's not. They have that ability. Can vanish and you think it's just there, but it's not. They have that ability. Um, they blend into their environment so well for such a big animal, they can be so quiet. They can just vanish righty.
Speaker 2:welcome back accurate hunts. Hunt to Life Outdoors Indoors again tonight, unfortunately, but I'm coming to you with someone I've been actually not just me, but one of our more requested guests. When people write in and send little emails and tidbits and oh, you should get this person on, you should get that person on, and one of those, zeb Jones, welcome to the show, mate.
Speaker 1:Thank you, nice day, good to be here, it's good to hear that people are trying to get me on, so hopefully I can answer Well all the other people were busy, so I just asked you instead. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:That's all right. Sorry, no, seriously Answer a few questions.
Speaker 2:No, I look forward to it. It's one of the names that definitely does pop up regularly and I just want to rewind a little bit. I did an episode a few weeks ago with Cass Fleming was her name, and I think it was the one where she actually interviewed me and I've been pulled up on something I said and I was talking about Jägermeister, meaning hunt master, and I can't quite remember the reference. But a friend of the show, previous guest Kyle, has sent in an audio response and I'm going to play it, so he gets his minute of fame or two minutes, this one, but this is his response to me, referring about the Jäger, so I'm going to play it in the speaker and we'll see how it comes across.
Speaker 3:G'day Dodge, just thought I'd give you a bit more info on the Jägermeister you were talking about in a recent episode. You referred to the stag on the bottle and if you actually look closely at the stag on a bottle of Jägermeister, it's got a crucifix between the antlers, and this is actually a reference to St Hubertus, who was a. He became a saint. He was originally some sort of nobility who lived sort of in the area that we now call Belgium in the Middle Ages, and his wife and son died in childbirth and then he turned. He was always a keen hunter and he turned to hunting as his sole pursuit in life. And one day he's pursuing this stag and it turns to him and appears with the crucifix between the antlers and God speaks to him and says you have to go and seek out this local priest. And so he does that and ends up working for the church, doing great things for the people of the area.
Speaker 3:I think he went back into the ardennes forest and converted a lot of the people that live there to christianity. But he's actually kind of a controversial figure because he actually stopped hunting once he went into the clergy. So while he's held up as a patron saint of hunters. It's also kind of controversial because he stopped hunting, but we actually think that maybe a lot of our sort of like fair chase laws that we now have about, you know, ensuring a quick, clean kill, not killing female animals with young at foot, that sort of stuff actually goes back to rules that he sort of instituted. I think it sort of depends what version of history you look into, but anyway, any time you have that shot of Jägermeister, that's where the iconography comes from. It's from old St Hubertus. So there's your history lesson for the week, enjoy.
Speaker 2:Did you know any of that?
Speaker 1:No, no, enjoy. Yeah, did you know any of that. No, I know none of that, but it's awesome, and if it's true, it's a great story, isn't it? And if it's not, who cares?
Speaker 2:wow, that's right. It wouldn't ruin a good story with the truth, would we? But uh, no, that came from our resident in-house historian, it seems, kyle. Uh, so we'll. We'll see if he can pull out some facts in the future and come back to me. But he sent me that the other week and he sent it to me like in a conversation. I said, no, I send that as a, as a proper audio clip so we can play it. But uh, there you go every time you're 18 and drinking red bull and jaegers at the pub you're actually actually bowing down to Christianity and enjoying hunting.
Speaker 2:So for all you anti-hunters out there, every time you enjoy Jaeger, it's on us.
Speaker 1:Thank you. I didn't even know they were supporting us.
Speaker 2:But in that he spoke about fair chase rules and things like that. Is that something you see? I mean you're based down victoria way and, to be honest, a lot of the negative hunting stuff we see from gma because they post a lot of it is always stings and things they're doing down your way and those people are probably not following those fair chase rules. Um, I've got a bazooing questions for you and one of them is what do you do and where you're from? But the one that's bugging me right now is the thermal hunting thing in Victoria and especially it seems to be stirring up some SAMBA-related people. What are your thoughts on that and what's your understanding of it?
Speaker 1:So my understanding is that the regulations that they're proposing will allow the use of handheld thermal imaging devices. The ADA have tried to stipulate in the regulations that it can't be clipped onto a rifle to become part of the scope so that it could only be used as a scanning device, I suppose, not as a shooting device. Yeah, so apparently it's coming through, but I haven't seen it in writing yet that it has been made legal. I know they have returned the lead banning. That's definitely come through in the email from ADA, but I haven't seen anything official about the thermal. But yeah, it does stir a fair bit of the fair chase sort of thing, purely because of technology advancements, just giving the Hummer what a lot of people think is an unfair advantage. So I suppose it just depends on where everyone draws the line on what is unfair. And even with the ADA their stance is they want their members and they want to project for their members people to uphold the law and hunt within the regulations and the law, but they don't want to tell their members how to hunt, which is a little bit controversial on its own, I suppose. So the fair chase side of anything is individual as far as from one person to the next, that can mean different things. So that's where the grey line or the muddy water is, I suppose, is what is fair chase, and does it involve the use of this sort of technology? Now, my experience with it is that it's gone past what we should be considered fair chase, purely for the reason that you can see animals behind foliage that you would never normally see. So you know, it basically illuminates them, daylight or at night. So the idea is that these will be allowed to be used during daylight hours only, sort of the same as the half an hour after sunset, half an hour before, and all the rest of it for legal shooting times and all the rest of it for legal shooting times.
Speaker 1:But yeah, it's sort of dividing the community, I think the hunting community With ADA. I think the percentage was 57% against 43.4% or very similar to that. It was very close. It's practically 50-50, strongly opposed as to strongly agree to it. So I suppose a lot of that might come from different demographic age groups. You know like the younger ones might be like, ah, come on, we've got the technology, let's just use it. And then the older ones are like, ah, we never it back in the, the old days, um just learned to hunt and on.
Speaker 1:So it depends on what camp you come from topic there.
Speaker 2:Oh, talking about the olden days and I actually think it was kyle that had this discussion with me and I hadn't fully considered it but obviously you know at the moment where thermals are, the night vision thermal, whatever, that's the rage, that's the new technology. You know, 30 years ago I'm just going to draw some numbers here 30 years ago it was range finders, 100 years ago it was scopes like, and then you keep going back and it was, you know it. At all these stages, through you know timeframe of shooting and hunting, there's always been a new development and there would have always been people that said, oh, you should shoot open sites, don't use that technology. And then it would have been a thing. And then it's oh, you should be able to do it without a range finder. And now it's just a thing. And, oh, you know, you should be able to do it with this sort of bullet, and now it's a thing. And now it's at, you know, and binoculars are the same, but now it's at thermals. And I think, yes, I understand why people are up in arms about it, for want for a better word, but I think come 10 years', years time, it'll be something else and it won't be this. People will move on.
Speaker 2:I've actually I use them. I've got thermal. I've got thermal binocular. I'm pretty happy with it, but it's not the be all and end all it. I I actually I use it for certain purposes. If I'm doing a meat run, absolutely I want to be home as quick as I can. I'll go out. I went out the other night with two mates from the hunting club. We literally pulled up on the side of the road. There was some in the paddock we've got access to. We jumped the fence, we shot it, we're out of there within half an hour and that was all. We didn't use one torch at all. It was all thermal but I thermal, but I don't use it when I'm hunting. So to me, hunting remains what, what I would consider a little bit more pure. I'm still using a scope, I'm still using shooting sticks. You know these are all advancements in technology.
Speaker 2:So I don't know I I when you said the demographic and which group you come from. I'd like to see the demographic of those voting numbers, because I think it's exactly what you just said. Um, there'll be a. You know the traditional older landscape of members that would prefer it stay the way it is, because that's just the way it is. And then the younger guys are a little bit more open-minded to technology and also they probably want. The problem with society these days is we want things now, we want things quickly. So if they can use a thermal and shoot a Samba in their first hunting trip, well, does it carry the same weight as stalking one for a year and a half, two years and not getting one and then finally getting one? Maybe not.
Speaker 1:Anyway, yeah, it's going to be interesting if it does come in Sensitive topic, so yeah, so the thing is, once it's in, it's in and then you're just going to have to be either in the camp or not in the camp.
Speaker 1:But you can't get upset about what other people are doing. I suppose and I've tried to be you know, I quite often get spun up in a lot of things and you know, sometimes you get worked up about things. But I've learnt with hunting that you've just got to be happy with what you're doing, because there's so many other people out there doing something that you wouldn't consider to be the right thing that if you concentrate on that, you're just not going to enjoy your experience. So I've learnt and it's taken me a long time to learn this is to basically gloss over what other people are doing and basically ignore the bad noise and try to promote the good stuff and hopefully that runs through in whatever content that I'm making and what people are following that. You know I don't like to try and dwell on what's wrong with hunting and more try to do what I think is right and then have people follow in suit because, yeah, like nearly every weekend, or every week I go out.
Speaker 1:Yeah, lead from the front, lead by example. You know I've sort of had a hunting career that's spanned since I was, you know, old enough to walk around with Dad and I've seen the advancements in different things. We never had binoculars. When we first started we didn't even know about range finders, dial-up scopes. You know they're all things that I carry now. But yeah, I don't know If it comes in. It comes in but it's going to. I see it as it'll be abused, unfortunately, like it already is, to a bigger extent probably.
Speaker 2:And I think they're already being used too.
Speaker 1:Yeah, 100%.
Speaker 2:They're out there. We already know people are using them.
Speaker 1:Yeah, They've been out there for what a good five, six, seven years, probably six, seven years probably. But I will say that since then I'm starting to notice what I believe is the consequences of it, especially with Samba. It's getting increasingly difficult to find a mature stag in any sort of open country that's susceptible to thermal and long-range those two combinations thermal with a long range weapon, is very detrimental to the Samba population, Not so much vines, but definitely stags of any sort of size. They're not safe anymore at 600 plus yards. They're in big trouble, especially in a big country where it's a little bit more open.
Speaker 2:So there, you think their patterns are changing.
Speaker 1:I think they're dying, they're not surviving, basically.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's hard to change a pattern when you're dead.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, yeah. Look, I've hunted one spot for about 20 odd years and it used to always hold mature deer, and it's got to the point now where I don't even look for them on it because they're just not there.
Speaker 2:Yeah, two things you said earlier on. Uh, you talked about your content and I want to get into that, but when miles will start? At the start? You said you've been shooting from when you could walk around with dad or hunting at least. I'm pretty interested in that because I didn't grow up in that sort of family with any hunting relatives, so I'm pretty intrigued by people who have, and I think that the problem with our sport at the moment is most people that are learning how to hunt are doing so via, you know, the internet or whatnot, and not having someone as a mentor in the family. So I feel like they're skipping some of the basics that you know you would have learned as a child or yeah and things like that hence what you do now trying, trying
Speaker 1:to impart that so yeah, so basically, yeah, my story is dad. Dad was the one that started, so he, he was one of quite a few kids. I think there were six kids in his family. Um, he was one of quite a few kids. I think there were six kids in his family. He was one of the younger ones. He had some older brothers that were into sort of more fox, rabbits, a little bit of bow hunting. But Dad sort of must have sparked some sort of interest there along the lines and at around 19 years old, you know, took up duck shooting.
Speaker 1:Quail had a hunting dog, he had a Weimaraner, did a lot of fox shooting back when the skins were worth a bit of money. So then I think somewhere along the lines and I'll have to ask him exactly what sparked his interest with deer. But I think a few of the circles that he sort of roamed in did a bit of hunting with deer and yeah, away he went. He brought himself an old ex-military 308, full wood sort of thing, did a bit of a sporterizing to it, cut the barrel down and shortened up the stuff a bit, I think, and welded on or screwed on some side mount scape, because it was a top of deck sort of jobby the way he went, I think he wounded or shot at and missed more deer than the gun was worth and eventually went and brought himself a decent rifle which was a 7mm Remnag and a Ruger Mark I, which mum was unaware of him buying at the time Apparently it's scum of milk, yeah. So he started to hunt. So his father wasn't a hunter or even a firearm owner, but his older brother sort of started in that archery, a little bit of shooting. His older brother had gone to war so he had ex-military rifles and that sort of thing. Yeah. And then I think sort of dad had this interest but never did very well, never had anyone to learn off, just sort of was on his own. And then I was only young, so 18 months old or something, so dad would have been his early 30s.
Speaker 1:We moved to the northern territory for five years and, um, he did a bit of culling up there on some donkeys and you know, scrub bulls, that kind of thing, but not really hunting, just more shooting from the bull catcher and that sort of thing. We were mum and dad were sort of working for contract musterers to inoculate against tuberculosis, I think it was. And so we did five years up there. But when we come back home I think dad's interest peaked again, back on the Samba and I was probably about five or six, so I still wasn't quite into it. I didn't have long enough legs to keep up.
Speaker 1:But I remember him shooting his first stag and he shot it late in the evening on a solo hunt. And he came back home and he was telling the story about how he'd seen this stag at last light and he took a shot. An actual bullet had ricocheted off a tree before it hit stay. But he had a good blood trail but couldn't find it and I begged him to. That must have been a Sunday afternoon. I begged him to let me have the day off school. It would have only been kinder. But he wouldn't and I still remember it. I haven't forgiven him for it.
Speaker 1:But I went back the next day, him and his mate with a couple of Kelpie dogs and basically rounded him up and finished him off. He was still alive but he was quite ill. But I remember him coming home with the little antlers, only 16 inches or something. But that was my first experience of a Samba and I think I was hooked from then, just dad's sheer excitement that night before and, you know, hoping to find it the next day. And then he did. Yeah, it really must have stirred something up in me, but it wasn't probably until I was about eight and you've got young kids yourself too.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so nine and 11, two little boys, One the younger ones really keen, were they out when they were five in kindy.
Speaker 1:Yeah, they were actually. I think I shot a stag with my eldest that he was five, yeah. But it's funny when you take kids hunting that young, they're just not ready for it. You know like I tried to get him out of bed in the morning and he's like nah, it's too cold, I want to go home to mum, sort of thing. So I ended up shooting that deer at like 9 o'clock in the morning. I was going to go cut a load of wood before we went home and I thought, oh, we'll just walk into this gully before we start the chainsaw up, I'll be back. There was a couple of deer in there and a big mongrel walked out and I snagged him. But yeah, it was like then it was exciting and he was like yeah, dad, let's go shoot another one. I'm like it doesn't happen like that. We've got to deal with this one now. It's like a 300-kilo.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we've got lots of work to do. Yeah, yeah, so that was boring again and yeah, anyway, yeah. So Dad started me off. Eight years old I started following along and we, like I said, dad wasn't very successful. So we did a lot of walking, we got barked at, we saw flashes of deer, but never really had an opportunity at a deer until, oh shit, I think I was about 14. Um, yeah, I shot my first one at 14. And from then we really started to achieve a bit more.
Speaker 1:We also were lucky enough to get onto some private land, which made it a little bit easier, and then, yeah, basically I was away after that. I couldn't get enough content into me, and back in those days it was only magazines and books. So you know, I've got the.
Speaker 1:Walking About book. I've got the Lou Servi book. I've got you know, peter Burke's book and you name it. I've got it. Reading, reading, reading Any magazine that had a Samba article in it, I'd read it. And some people probably just read a story and just go. That was a good story. But I took the information out of the story and learnt from the story and then we'd go up in the bush and try and implement what I thought why they were successful in that story. I think that was the difference between me and Dad. Dad just bumbled around in the bush looking for deer and I had strategic plans. Dad just bumbled around in the bush looking for deer, I had strategic plans and eventually, you know, dad always pushed me in front. From probably 14 onwards, I was the gun in the front, you know.
Speaker 2:If you could circle back to yourself at that point in your life now and just give yourself one bit of information about hunting, like not life and money and those sorts of things, because we'd all talk about that. But let's just say, you know, little zeb turns up on zeb's shoulder and little angel on his shoulder and just whispers in his ear. You know, look on the north face, like what, what? What's one little bit that you would have told yourself or you wish you knew back then I've got a good one for you actually.
Speaker 1:So at the start it was all public land hunting, um, and we didn't have a four wheel drive so we're limited on access to where we can go um. So a lot of our areas that we hunted were very close to home, which home was stratford, so we were hunting the likes of, you know, valencia Creek, bryagalong, stockdale. This is all low country scrub sort of hunting, heavily hound hunted, heavily spotlighted, poached in every other way, and that's where we spent our time. And I've got a mate that did a lot of hunting in the low country as a young fella and then when we started hunting together, you know, sort of 10 years ago, he'd go oh, do you want to go for hunting at, you know, just the back of home? And I'm like, no, not really.
Speaker 1:So my thing is I'd rather drive for an hour and hunt for 10 minutes than drive for 10 minutes and hunt for an hour, because when you're close to a population, like, say, for instance, melbourne, if you're close to 5 million people where there's X amount of hunters, then you're going to be hunting areas that are just absolutely hammered. And if that's all you've got access to and that's all the time you've got, then just be happy with being in the bush and hopefully you can find some sign and maybe bump a deer or shoot one if you're really lucky. But the extra effort to drive that bit further to get away from the population of hunters always seems to be worth it.
Speaker 2:We're going to get to a story at some point in the future about your heading overseas in a couple of days, but when I was over in Canada specifically, we called it the two-ridge rule and it was usually you would drive to the base of the first ridge, because that's where the road stopped, and then we would unload the horses and mules and whatnot, load up and then we would go over the first ridge camp. That'd usually take you a day to get over that one down to the bottom of the next one, set up camp there and the next day you'd ride over the second one and at that point you were at a depth that 99% of community would never get to.
Speaker 2:So the base of the first ridge, where the road was, the locals would road hunt that on quad bikes and shoot any moose that were in a kilometer of that yeah and then you had the locals that had a horse just one or were keen on walking, and they'd do the first ridge and we shared camp with a fair few of those, but then we would, you know, continue on for one more ridge. It was all public land, yeah, so anyone could have went in where we were. Right? Yeah, we were the only outfitter in there, but any residents could go in there.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And it dramatically, dramatically increases your. Well, yes, it is, and we did the maths on horseback. The maths we did was in Montana. Canada was a little bit different, but if you're on top of a mountain and you could see another mountain, we reckon we could get there in about eight hours on horseback.
Speaker 1:Yeah right.
Speaker 2:And just the way the terrain was there. It wasn't super flat, so it was hilly enough that to get to the top of that one was eight hours down and up. If it was a long flat in between, obviously that's different, but it just generally worked between, you know, six to eight hours so we'd work on one day I'll get you over one and then the next day. You know might take you 10 hours to ride in each day. But it's a uh, yeah, get you, get you, the people gets you to the highest success.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:So that's a good one. So you wish you learned that earlier.
Speaker 1:I wish I had known that, trying to hunt over where other hunters had hunted already. So the worst day to hunt of the week is Monday, because everyone's hunted Saturday, sunday, the second worst is Sunday. You know, and progressively you get better until you get to about where I reckon the ideal day to hunt is Wednesday, thursday, because people usually have RDOs Monday or Friday or will attach days off to the weekend, but generally that Wednesday, thursday, you have had a couple of days to quieten down and they just know um, and I've seen it too often to think there's a coincidence that you don't know deer quiet down within a couple of days of not being hunted and they just relax, um, and that makes for better hunting that's an interesting point.
Speaker 2:I want to um and have you finished your your origin story? Are we?
Speaker 1:I suppose I have.
Speaker 2:No, that's fine, I got. I got a thousand more things running around in my head. So the other one was, there was content, and I suppose that's why you're here tonight is because I've seen your content. Other people have seen your content and what you're producing and what you're doing. Can you fast forward a little bit to you know away from you, know you growing up and learning to sort of where your business started, what is it and how did it start and where?
Speaker 1:is it headed? Yeah, so it's a non-typical start to any business. I suppose it's a non-typical start to any business. I suppose Most people might have a passion and a plan to strive for something or start a business.
Speaker 1:I started the YouTube channel purely to show my dad, who had stopped hunting with me at the time because he was a bit older but I was still hunting areas that we hunted together. So he stopped hunting with me about 55 years old and I was just sort of peaking. So I would have been some 30 years younger than him, so I was 25, you know. So I was just starting to really get into backpack hunting, hard backpack hunting, and he just couldn't handle it anymore. He was back and you know he had a wife who was manual labour basically, so it became very difficult for him so he just couldn't keep up.
Speaker 1:But after that, you know, I continued hunting with a friend of mine, mark Young, and we were sort of he was a bit older than me, he was 15 years older than me but mad, keen fit. He was a bit older than me, he was 15 years older than me but made keen fit, and we were just getting into some big country and Dad was like, oh, I wish I could be there. And I said, oh, I've got this bit of footage, you know, and I'd taken some video on my phone or on my camera, but it was all just little screen sort of stuff. And you know 55, he's putting his glasses on to try and look at this little screen and I'm trying to zoom it in, but then it's getting all pixelated. He goes, oh, I wish there was a way you could put it on TV. And I said, oh well, I can actually.
Speaker 1:I could sort of put it on YouTube, and I already had a YouTube channel purely for storing GoPro footage off my helmet camera from motorbike riding days. I literally had it for storage, not for making a channel or anything. So what I decided to do is I had some content that I could put together basically in a slideshow wasn't really much video, it was more photos and I made a couple little shitty videos out of those photos and put it up on the youtube so he could watch it. One of them was the weekend I shot that big mangle with the young fella and, yeah, from there then I sort of I had a mate that was making a few long range videos and I like watching them, and I said to him hey, next time I do a hunt, can you, can I give you all the content? You make it for me? And he goes hell, no, I'm not doing that for you, but here's the app I use on my phone. And I said, oh yeah, cool, and so he helped me a little bit on you know how to edit and all the. But here's the app I use on my phone. I said, oh yeah, cool, and so he helped me a little bit on, you know how to edit and all this, but basically off I went on my own. I made a.
Speaker 1:So we had a pretty cool hunt planned with a mate with his horses. We were going to ride the horses deep into the Alpine and that was going to be our way to get into some real good country. I figured that everyone would be interested, especially my family that are all horse mad to see me on a horse, because my parents made me ride a horse when I was a kid. They made me learn to ride a horse before they'd let me get a motorbike. So I had to go through pony club and all the rest of it. You know, I learnt to ride a horse and I won some event and mum says when I come back with that blue ribbon she goes. The first thing that come out of your mouth was can I get a motorbike now? And so it was quite funny to me yeah, job done. Yeah, later on in life to be actually choosing to ride a horse, because I basically not that I hated them, I just didn't. I wanted to ride motorbikes, To be choosing to ride a horse whilst hunting. And, yes, I met a mate.
Speaker 1:We rode horses in and I video. I tried to video the whole you know riding the horses and you know crossing the rivers and all that sort of stuff. There was hardly any hunting content on there at all. I didn't get any live deer footage or anything like that A little bit of deer sign, you know wallows and whatnot and rubs. But the funny thing is when I uploaded that to basically you know show mum and dad what I'd been up to, I started getting comments and the comments were oh, when's the next video coming out? I like your content but you need more of this in it. What sort of camera are you using and all this sort of stuff? And I'm like who are these people? I didn't really realise that I'd made it public and that anyone could make a comment on it, but it sort of sparked a little bit of a oh, people want to watch what I'm doing. So the next time I went hunting I tried to film a little bit more purposefully, trying to get deer on camera and all the rest of it.
Speaker 1:But literally I was using my binoculars with my camera shoved onto the lens, just holding it and shaking it, and if you go back through my content, you will find those videos where the live deer footage is really shaky and it's purely because I'm holding my phone to a pair of binoculars to try and zoom in on the deer. And then, yeah, a lot of people just said, oh, mate, you need a better camera. So I actually went, oh well, oh stuff, this, I'll go buy a decent camera. And that's where the youtube started. Um, and then, persistently, once I started putting up some good content, I constantly was getting requests to take people hunting and for years I just said, no, no, it's not what I do. No, I hunt with my mates. I'm not doing that because I did have a bad experience as a guide which might be a story for you actually as being a guide, unpaid.
Speaker 3:Do it now.
Speaker 1:But yeah, so I just got to the point where I couldn't keep saying no to all these requests and I thought, well, I should try and start a business on the side, you know. But when I looked into it the insurance of it all and the setting up was quite expensive I just went oh, I don't think there's that much interest. So I actually made a video and at the end of the video I sat against a tree in the rain I reckon it was and I said hey, everyone, I'm thinking about doing this, but I need support. As in, are you guys going to actually pay money to come with me, or is it just the odd person here and there that sort of talks about it but never puts their hand in the pocket? The response was pretty overwhelming just the odd person here and there that sort of talks about it but never puts their hand in the pocket. The response was pretty overwhelming.
Speaker 1:So it was a pretty easy decision to start the business on the side as a weekender, which quickly turned into out of control. Here we are, three years along, pretty much full time. Yeah, so I didn't intend to start the business, I didn't intend to start a youtube channel. It happened sort of what you would call organically, I suppose I I didn't have any preconceived ideas of where I was heading, it just happened I wrote down three things where you're talking then, and none of them matter, because you want to hear your dirty guide story.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, you want to hear your dirty guide story.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you want to hear the dirty guide story. As long as the person's probably not listening. No, I'm pretty sure, I'm pretty safe there.
Speaker 2:Oh, they just interest me, because I've done my thing, so here we go, so strap in.
Speaker 1:So this was an idea of a bloke I was hunting with at the time. He was just mad into swap hunts, like he just wanted to hunt all over the world, but he didn't really want to pay, so he was. He's his. His skills in finding people to swap hunts with is quite amazing. Actually he had the gift of the gab, I suppose, anyway. So he sucked a lot of people in. So Christoph from Germany was our editor for a hunting magazine over there. He spoke broken English. He was probably about early 30s, a little bit overweight, probably about five foot six tall. He came over to Australia to do a little bit of hunting as a swap for for this bloke that I was hunting with at the time. So the bloke organized, uh, some hunting for in queensland, I think, pigs, chittle don't know if he did reds, but I know he did pigs and chittle. And then he came down to victoria to experience victoria's Samba High Country backpack style, and I was arranged to take them in because I had a really good backpacking spot at the time where we could pretty much confidently guarantee a stag of some description. So here we are.
Speaker 1:Day one we drive up really early in the morning I was trying to remember if she was in the car with me or not. I think I was. So we took two vehicles. My mate and his wife came and Kristoff, I think they went in the one car and then I just drove up on my own for some reason and anyway. So we start fighting in the dark, so headlamping it in. We've got a big long descent into camp and we'd been walking for probably half an hour before it started to crack daylight. So clearly Christoph had no idea past 30 metres or 20 metres from his headlight being where he was heading. And we start to be able to sort of see a bit because it's cracking daylight. He pulls up and he goes. So where are we going? And he spoke in English and I'm like can you see the river way down there? And he goes yeah, I said so we've got to go to the river and then we've got to go along the river a bit and then we've got to go over one hill and camp's up there. And he just laughed and went yeah, whatever sort of thing. He obviously thought I was joking. So we kept walking down the ridge. Another hour went by and he's like now, seriously, where are we going? I said, oh, you can see it a bit better now. So see where the river is. That's that hill there. We've got to go over that hill. And he goes no, seriously, where are we going? I said that's where we're going, mate, he goes today. I said, yeah, today, you know, we had five days of honey Anyway, so that was all good.
Speaker 1:But we get down to the river flats and it's easy going along the river flats, so we're just poking along the river. But we get to this hill right and we're talking about it's a pretty good grade hill, you know, 35, 40 degrees up, but it's not a long climb. But he doesn't know that. So you know, it's my spot. I know the challenges that we've got. He's just along for the ride. But going up the hill he starts sort of huffing and puffing and whinging a bit. So we haven't had a bit of a break. And he goes oh, how much further. You know, like the typical, how much further questions that you get when someone's sort of had enough. Oh, I said, mate, sandy, we've got to go to the top of this hill and then we've got to cut across the gully and we're there, you know, and anyway.
Speaker 1:So we take off back up the hill and meanwhile my mate and his wife had sort of dropped back and gone to glass from a different reach and I was taking Christoph in the camp and they were just going to sort of do a bit of scouting for us. So I've got Christoph on my own anyway. So I take off up the hill and sort of you know, went for a few minutes and I went, oh, I can't hear him. So I stopped and turned around and he's not there. I'm like, oh shit, where is he?
Speaker 1:So I'm sort of walked back down the hill a little bit and I'm sort of listening and I'm going, oh, I can hear him walk through the bush over there. So I called out a couple of times. Anyway, he sort of called out but didn't come to me. So I went down to him and said Christoph, we've got to go up this way, mate. He goes no, we can't do that. Like, this gets really thick and steep and nasty. We've got to go up and around it. It's the only way. And he's like, oh, all right, and so off, I go back up the hill 30 seconds. I turn back around and I can see him walking off the same way that he was walking before. So I go back down. I said, christoph, yeah, yeah, yeah, he goes. What I said hill mate.
Speaker 1:So at this stage he's not listening to me at all. Basically he's just off on his own little path, which he doesn't even know where he's going. So anyway, I eventually convince him to go up the hill again, anyway. So I'm going up the hill and I know that I can hear him turn off, he's just gone and he's gone contouring the hill again Anyway. So I pulled up for a bit and he'd gone in this real nasty spot and actually fallen over, sort of rolled down the hill a little bit and got himself stuck against a tree like a turtle on his back sort of thing, and I could hear him sort of scream out a bit. So I went down there and pulled the backpack off him and got him up on his feet again and he's like I can't go up the hill anymore. And I'm like all right, give me your rifle, I'll take that bit of weight off you, that'll get you going. So I've got my backpack, my rifle, his rifle.
Speaker 1:We start back up the hill again and he just basically lays down on me. He goes, I can't do it. I said what, righto? I said what do you got in that pack? I said just give me that pack.
Speaker 1:By this stage I'd lost it, right. But I was trying to keep my calm. So I took his backpack off and I put it on the front of me like a front bum bag, right. So I've got my backpack on his backpack, on back to front. His gun, my gun. He's got nothing. I said come on, christoph, we're just going to go up the hill here, cut across the galley and we'll be into camp. We're like 500 metres away from camp and he still couldn't keep up with me and like I had I don't know what 40 or 50 kilos of gear on and he had nothing Anyway.
Speaker 1:So eventually, long story short, I get him in the camp and he just lays down in the fetal position in the campsite while I set up the tents and the tarps and get out all the, because I had barrels stashed in there. And then I started weighing and thinking oh, he must be dehydrated. So I said to him you've got to sit up, I need to get some water in here. He goes, I'm not thirsty. I said you just need to drink, mate. And I said I want you to eat this Mars bar. So eventually I convinced him to have a big drink and a Mars bar. He was complaining about a big headache, so I give him some Panadol. I said I want you to go and lay down in the tent and just have a good rest. It was early afternoon. I said no, I'm going to go down and have a look for a deer. You just have a couple of hours of sleep.
Speaker 1:So I go down the end and I'll be buggered if I didn't spot this nice stag across the river. You know a fair distance off, but you know. So. You know a fair distance off, but you know somewhere where we could go. So I'd run all the way back to the camp, get him out of the tent like, wake up, christoph, wake up, get your stuff, let's go. And he'd probably had an hour's sleep so he was actually primed up. So you know, the Mars bar's kicked in the headache's gone because of the Panadol. He's grabbed his gun and he's run down with me and we get down to the spot and I don't know if you've ever had people where you glass up an animal but you can't for the life of you get them to see it. You tell them it's next to that gum tree that's leaning to the right, it's up from the black stump. You do all the little jogs to try and get someone to see it and he could see this deer.
Speaker 1:I said just forget about the deer, the deer's a good one, I can see it, let's go. He goes. So where is it? I said so, across the river. See where that big rock bluff is. I said he's below that, there. He goes Across there. I said, yeah, yeah, he goes, I'm not going over there. I'm not going over there. I'm like, well, what are you here for? He goes nah, not doing it and starts walking back to camp. So I'm like, yeah, right, so we walk back to camp and we're just sitting there and he's just sort of sulking and I'm just thinking, well, how am I going to get this bloke a deer? I said, righto, it's right at deer o'clock, we've just got to go for a walk somewhere. I said, come on, I'll take you up here. It's nice and gentle, there's no big hills. So we go around, cut through three or four little gully heads and we get to this rock bluff and I said we'll just sit here and we'll just look across there and I'll be buggered if a hind doesn't walk straight out and with this little stag just following her, like a little dummy, he's like a little four-point, about 14 inches long. I said, christoph, there you go, that's your stag, shoot him. And he looks at me, he goes. Not very big. I said, it's bigger than the one you've got. And he's like you want me to shoot it. I said, shoot this one. He goes. What if we see a bigger one. I said you can shoot a bigger one, shoot this one, you've got one. Then you see, you see a bigger one, you shoot it as well. So anyway, I've got my rifle, he's got his rifle, he lines up.
Speaker 1:Luckily, I was sort of on the ball and ready to go, because his shot was about second last rib on a perfectly broadside deer. It spun around to take off and I just went whack and actually hit it in the hips and dropped him and so I yelled out shoot him again. And so he shot him in the chest. The second shot dropped it. It was all good. I was going yeah, good shot, and he goes. No, no, you, good shot me, good shot me, bad shot. I'm going, ah, it doesn't matter, you shot at first, it's all good.
Speaker 1:So we go over there and um did the happy video photos for the magazine and the story, you know, and all the rest of it, carved him up, took back straps and the little tiny head, you know. So he's carrying it out, um, you know, over his shoulders like you do. But by this stage you know it's twilight, you don't need a headlamp. But you know we need to get going so that we can get back to camp before it gets dark. So I was sort of pushing a bit and I've got long legs and he doesn't. And anyway, I sort of pushed out pretty quick and I turned around and he's cutting around the top of the hill.
Speaker 1:He's not following me down the ridge. I said, hey, christoph, you need to come down here, mate, and follow me. And he goes no, no, camp's this way. I'm like mate, I've been hunting this spot for 10 years. I'm pretty sure I know where camp is. You need to come down here, anyway. So he comes down to me and the is going up there.
Speaker 1:Every time I took off he went his own way and so I had to chase after him and bring him back. Like, like a, like a mongrel dog, really like didn't want to follow me anyway. Oh, just just horrendous. Anyway, now I've got the shits on with him again. So I've just taken off and I've just thought he'll either follow me or he won't. Anyway, he was following me this time.
Speaker 1:Anyway, I'm smashing down this ridge and then we get to these little. There's about three gully heads that have been eroded with some heavy rain, so they're about maybe a metre wide, but they're also like a metre and a half deep and I didn't think. I just walked and just took one long step and went over it right and kept going and I just hear this almighty thud and then this death scream and I've gone. Oh no, he's gone in that crevice and he's broken a leg. He's done something, you know. So I race back and it's right on dark. So I'm like shit, where is he? And right in the bottom of this washed out gully, here's Christoph, ass up that. He had literally not seen it. So he had taken a mid-air step into a metre and a half deep crevice and he was just the right side the right angle to headbutt the other side of the.
Speaker 1:Yeah, just headbutted it because he had his hands on the antlers. So he's basically headbutted the bank on the other side, fallen into the crevice. The antler has scraped his cheek and he's put a hand out on a rock and he's got this huge flap of skin just flapping in the wind on the palm of his hand, probably twice the size of a 50 cent piece or something. And I'm like you know, can you stand up? Have you got broken arms, legs? And I'm sort of just feeling around on him. I'm like, no, I think you're all good. I said, but that flap of skin mate just got to grab it right now because it only had about 10 mil of skin holding on. I'm like just grab it and just, well, right now, just rip it off. And he's like no, no, no. I'm like, yeah, just grab it and just rip it off. That's the best thing to do. He's like no. So I grabbed his hand to do it for him because I just figured if I do it real quick he won't feel a thing. And he pulled his hand back as quick as he could. You know he was like no, not doing that. And I said, roddy, we'll have to just get back to camp and we'll bandage you up. So we put the headlamps on, we get back into camp. Luckily, our mate's missus was a training nurse at the time, so she's got out her first aid kit, she's in her element, she's got the betadine and there's, you know, she's sterilized it all, she's patched him up. That was all good basically. You know that was the end of that night, basically a feed into bed, and he was pretty sad and sore about it.
Speaker 1:You know, the next day, so we're in there for five days, that's day one. Right next day I'm like I said to me mate, he's yours, I'm out of here. So daylight I just took off across the river, smashed up this massive big hill and went way upstream like I was just gone right. And then we used to sort of call in on the uhf radio every couple of hours or something. About lunchtime I get this call and say hey, zed, where are you? I'm like, oh, mate, I'm way upstream. I'm this big bluff miles away. He goes oh, christoph wants to go home. I said, oh yeah, no worries, well, we'll pack out in the morning. And he goes no, no, he wants to go now I said, well, it's like a five-hour hike out of here.
Speaker 1:It's lunchtime and I said I'm at least an hour and a half, two hours hike away. He's like, yeah, well, he said he's not staying another night and he's walking out. I said, yep, righto, all right. I said, well, you start packing up camp now. I'm going to smash off this hill and like back in those days I would have been like mid-20s could fly in the bush. So I'll come off this hill from probably elevation of 1200 down to like 400 in about 45 minutes, just flying off the hill, didn't even take my boots off across the river, just smashed across the river straight up the hill to camp.
Speaker 1:I get into camp and they're all just sitting on a log eating lunch and so I just full flipped out, didn't say nothing because it was all my gear. I just destroyed the tent, just shoved it in the barrel, got the tart, rolled it up as rough as I could, packed up all the stuff and you know they sort of cottoned on that. I wasn't really impressed. I said, right, let's go. And Christophe got his pack and I grabbed his pack off him before he put it on his shoulder and I turned it upside down and I emptied it and so he had like a camel pack in there with about a litre of water and he had all his camping gear and all that.
Speaker 1:I got his puffer jacket and shoved it back in there and gave him the backpack. I said that's yours. I got all his camping gear. I shoved it all in my backpack. I got his rifle and so I had a I think they said an herbal stock with the gunslinger. So I shoved his gun in the gunslinger, had my gun over the shoulder. We're out of here. We've got from this spot. We've got like four and a half hour hike back to the car at my pace, right, and we've got Christoph. So back down off the hill along the flats and then we've got this two-hour climb up this hill and I honestly think we can still see the river flats. When he said how much further we got to go, I said yeah, we got a fair bit further to go, mate.
Speaker 1:We'd go another 20 metres and he'd go. How much further have we got to go? And I put up with it four or five times. And then I just turned around and I said to him Christoph, can you see my, can you? And he's like no. I said well, we're not there yet. Are we Like? If you can't see me, we're not there yet. Are we like, if you can't see me, you, we're not there yet? Yes, and it didn't stop. How much further? I kept laying down, sitting down.
Speaker 1:Anyway, we're halfway up this hill and I look down the valley and the weather comes from from below the valley usually, and I look and I can see this snowstorm coming and I'm like, fuck, we were trying to get up the hill, I'm all sweaty. So I stopped and I put my rain jacket on, getting gloves out, and they're all like what are you doing? I said have a look at what's coming. It's going to be here in 10 minutes. Better to put your gear on now so you don't get wet and freezing cold. Anyway, christoph's like now I'm hot, I don't want to put my jacket on, and I couldn't convince him to put it on anyway. So we start walking up the hill and it starts. Sleep first, just and wind straight in your face or hitting your face, hurting your face. I turned around and said you need to put that jacket on, mate, you're gonna get hypothermia. And he's like no, no, no. I said I explained to him. You know, hypothermia, you'll die. He goes what is this hypothermia that you speak of? This is how he's talking to me and I'm like mate, what's going to happen is you're going to get really, really warm, then you're going to take off all your clothes, then you're going to run off into the bush and you're going to die nude in the bush somewhere. So then, all of a sudden, he's got his puff jacket on.
Speaker 1:Anyway, we're going up the hill and he's still doing this. You know how much further, how much further? And I just turned around and looked at me, mate, and I went see you, he's yours. And so I turned and I went up the hill and I just put my head down, had my hood over, it was starting to go dark, so I had my headlamp on, kept going and it's snowing on us and I just thought I just can't deal with him anymore. I'm walking out on my own anyway. So I put my head down by my and I'm punching up this hill and I probably went for three quarters of an hour with not even a single stop, like just pumping it up this big hill like this.
Speaker 1:And I eventually popped up off the ridge and it jumped onto a 4b track and I got to one of the run-offs there, where they divert the water off the track, and I just stopped for a second and something bumped into me and I went bloody hell, what's that? I turned around and it was old mate's missus and I said oh, what are you doing? And she goes to me. Oh, I couldn't stand another minute with that bloke and when I saw you take off I just thought I'm going to stick on your ass and go with you.
Speaker 1:So that whole time she'd just been hammering along behind me. I didn't even know she was there For 45 minutes. She was one step behind me the whole time and I said where's Christophe? And old mate she goes. I don't know, I don't know, I don't care, let's keep going. So we end up back at the vehicle and we end up just cranking the vehicle up because of the snow, had the heater on and we were having a few beers while we waited for him to come up and it took him an hour and a half to catch up to us. That was my guiding story from hell that I remember walking out of there going. I'll never be a hunting guide in my life because of that one time. Anyway, here I am, probably 15, 20 years later. Luckily, I haven't had any clients like that since You've probably learned a lot since then.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I've learned how to deal with people Right at the start of that story you said something and you said long story short. Yeah, we're 56 minutes in yet we haven't covered any Samba topics. That was a long story short. I'd love to hear the long version one day, with a couple of beers, I'm sure there was some more. I'd like to read Christoph's story to see how he spun that into a decent hunting story, maybe.
Speaker 2:I think that, well, I know the title of the story would have been Kristoff was pissed off or something, but I'm sure it would have.
Speaker 1:I don't think he planned on telling that to Samba no.
Speaker 2:No, no, but he got his stag and look, he's shot more Samba than I have yeah well, there you go.
Speaker 2:A couple of things for people listening yeah, yeah, you did your job as a guide. Swap hunts are dangerous. I highly advise people don't go down that path, and the reason is there's always someone who feels like they got a better deal absolutely and there's always the other person who feels like they got, they got shorted and my. This is off topic, but my theory in business is if you sell a hunt for three thousand dollars and I sell one for three,000 and you want to swap me, well, you swap me, you give me $3,000 and then when I come to do yours, I'll give you $3,000.
Speaker 2:It's the same thing. But what happens is, if no money has transacted and changed hands, you'll come on your part of the deal and then COVID hits and it's three or four years later and I want to come on my part of the deal and your hunt's worth more yeah, oh yeah, you know you don't have access anymore and I'm like well, you know, I did my part. Where's you know? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's very so. Anyway, side topic, but guiding sucks.
Speaker 2:Uh, I've said this before one of the last clients I had. He taught me this years ago. He said guiding without clients is just a walk in the bush like a walk in the park. And you know he meant it, you know proverbially speaking and you know metaphorically, whatever and factually. But if you don't have a client you're literally just walking around in the bush. But guiding, it takes a special. Everyone thinks they can be a hunting guide, but it's dealing takes a special. Everyone thinks they can be a hunting guide, but it's dealing with those situations that sort of cut the wheat from the chaff and it's more.
Speaker 2:I'm a pretty good people person, but when I was working overseas, that the bosses and things I was working for definitely it's. Um, when I was working overseas, the bosses knew my personality and they paired me with clients that suited them Ah yeah, Because I wasn't suited so well to the high maintenance, really needy guys, Whereas I seemed to get paired with the guys who were maybe high value as far as financial value whatnot worth something but they were pretty keen to get in and wash dishes and have a good time.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they weren't expecting to be waited on hand and foot. Yeah, and they were some of the. They were some of the best trips. But uh, I want to. We'll get back to the guiding and where you're heading in the next couple of days in a little bit. But you're on here to talk about samba. I have never hunted samba. Just then, you've spoken about more samba than I've ever seen in my life in one trip with pissed, pissed off christoph. But you know I'm a flatland hunter. We hunt fallow up here, uh, goats pretty regularly and whatnot. I've done, obviously, done overseas things and whatnot. But the samba, why are they? Why do they hold this esteem at the top of the triangle, here, at the top of the peak in Australia, as such a coveted species? What is the attraction? Why are they premier game and all? Keep it short.
Speaker 1:We've got a thousand questions for you. This will probably touch a little bit on why thermals erode this. So samba have had for a long time like a mystique about them that they ghost the high country right, so they can ghost in and ghost out just as quickly. You can be looking at a samba and then it can vanish and you think it's just there, but it's not. They have that ability. Um, they blend into their environment so well for such a big animal. They can be so quiet. They can just vanish. Um, and that's why, with the thermal, that that takes that away from them. So what, what they have as a premier game animal is removed by the technology. That's all I'm going to say on that. But, samba, so when you compare to other deer species, so what we've got available to us here?
Speaker 1:So fallow deer, red deer so fallow deer to me are sheep, red deer are cattle. That's how you hunt them. They congregate in groups. They are vocal. During their rut or their roar. They really tend to like open country. Now, farm fringe samba deer are exactly the same as those groups of deer, so you can put them in the same pile.
Speaker 1:Samba deer on farm fringe, congregating groups. They're not vocal, but they concentrate on those food sources open paddocks, clover, improved pasture so private land, farm fringe Samba. I put them in the same bracket as fallow and red deer in their natural habitat. But when you go public land, forest deer is what I've sort of been calling them recently as an explanation as to what they are. So deer that don't have access to any improved pasture or you know, basically anything man-made, they're just a deer that do not over populate.
Speaker 1:Uh, I hunt an area that most people would probably consider to be one of the highest population river systems in victoria, potentially, but even still, over 20 odd years of hunting that that river system, their population, has never exploded. It's never got to a point where it's like, oh my god, this is so easy. It's always a challenge. Even though you might see, um, good numbers of deer over x amount of days, uh, it it's never got to a point where it's like they're a feral animal that have just gone out of control.
Speaker 1:Because what I find with salmon is they have this natural ability and it's probably a lot to do with how they've dispersed from Melbourne Kooriwrap swamps all the way to the Queensland border is they have this natural dispersion about them, where when Dad and I, when I was younger, dad used to talk about back in the 90s and the 80s or the 90s when I was started hunting, and the early 2000s there were areas that you could still go and hunt where there was no deer. There was no Samba deer there. Yet All those areas are filled with deer now, but back then you could go and hunt areas around Burnambra and sort of further east of naturally, where everyone sort of was going to hunt them. You can go and find areas, big, big areas, with no sand to be in them. So they tend to have this three-year push where the numbers tend to build to a point and then they just disperse. So another way I used to sort of look up, do you think?
Speaker 2:that's the stags dispersing.
Speaker 1:No, that's everything. So, young stags, definitely because of new territory. Sorry, I cut you off there mid-question. No, you're right. So yeah, that dispersion is a natural thing for sandbar and that's why they've been able to inhabit all of the great dividing range, all the way up the coast, you know, and they're starting to mingle with, you know, rusa and everything up on the south coast of new south wales and all the rest of it, all through kosciuszko. Whereas other deer species hog deer, they haven't, fallow deer, only through farm releases. Red deer, the same Chittle deer, have not moved within, you know, 100 kilometres of their home range for 100 years. You know what I mean, whereas samba have moved thousands of kilometres from their original release sites.
Speaker 2:So with the forest deer, Are you any in your studies and things? Have you found that that is something that's happened in their home range, being in deer as well, or is that just something they've adapted to here in Australia because they've been plonked and then had the ability to spread?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'll be honest with you, I'm not a. I don't ever look into the scientific side of things. I'm a hunter. I'm interested in hunting. I don't go into specifics of you know like I don't try to work out genetics. I'm sort of interested in deer habitat and how to kill them. And if it doesn't end up, if the information I'm trying to learn isn't about how to kill them, I'm not interested. I'm not someone.
Speaker 1:I don't a lot of people say, oh, you learn more from a live deer. Well, if you don't kill enough deer, then you don't know how to kill them. You've got to kill a lot of deer before you learn what you can and can't do. You know. It's easy for someone to say, oh, you learn a lot of data before you learn what you can and can't do, you know. It's easy for someone to say, oh, you learn a lot more from a lot of data.
Speaker 2:Oh no, I want to. Uh, I want to ask you a question. We we started this thing a couple of weeks ago on the podcast, where we're calling it a hat or a hunt. Basically, people send in questions uh, they can be for specific guests of the past, because people don't know what I've got coming up, or specific topics. Uh, send in a question through the website and ask a couple. I was going to ask a couple per episode, but I've had that many come in this. I think 45 or so over a two-week period.
Speaker 2:I'm just gonna have to do an episode with someone answering questions just to get through them, otherwise I won't get that many asked, but I've pulled out two well, pulled out two samba related questions for you tonight and then another one that have come through, uh, hunting related, and I'll cover those. And at the end of it you get to pick the best question and the the person who you think had the best question wins a hat. And at the end of the year I haven't decided whether that's going to be fiscal year or because I've only just started this thing or um calendar year you go in the draw to win a hat, I win a hunt, and that's that comes out of everyone, not just the questions that are asked. So send through your questions. And on the topic of what you just spoke about, then this comes in from Tom D I would like to know more about specific browsing plant species that Samba like in a forest, other than improved pasture and fringe country, which you just spoke about, them being like cattle.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:So what are they browsing on, and does it matter?
Speaker 1:So yeah, so to be honest with you, I don't know the scientific botanical names of any of the plants. They eat Dogwood I know they eat, but that's just like a common one. Look, they're a browser. So, depending on what's available to them. As to you know, have you ever heard that a goat will eat anything? Well, only if you stake it to the ground it'll eat everything that it can get to. But if you let a goat roam it'll eat the clover first, and if it eats the clover it'll only eat clover. It won't go eating branches when it has access to good stuff Sambar are the same. So if they have access to improved pasture, bulk of their food is going to come from there. But they also have the ability to browse. So the forest deer are constantly browsing, you know, at head height, or sometimes I've seen them reaching to pull branches down. They're quite clever at even using their antlers to sort of snap willow branches off to bring them down to eat the new fresh shoots of willow branch blackberry bushes. They don't so much eat the fruit but they eat the fresh growth of the blackberry bush. But like I sort of said to you earlier, I could take you through the bush and show you all the plants that have been browsed by Samba. I could not tell you hardly any of their names, because to me it's unimportant. It's probably interesting to a lot of people to know the names of these bushes. It might make you feel smart when you're teaching a young person, but I normally just go to kids that I'm you know, my kids or people that I've got guiding with me. I'm like see this, this has been eaten by a deer. And they usually ask me straight away what's the name of that plant? And I go I've got no idea because it doesn't help me kill deer. It's interesting to know that the deer has browsed it, but what does it tell you? So you got to look at deer sign, as it's a um, it's a past record of what's happened in that area. So, yes, a deer walked along here once upon a time and it chewed the top off this bush. What does that tell you? To me, it tells me there was a deer here once. All right, so I know there's a deer here.
Speaker 1:What do I do now? I stop looking at the browse sign. I start looking for a deer. I need to find the deer. That's what I'm there for. I'm not there to find the rubs. I'm not there to find the wallows. I'm not there to find the footprints. I'm there to find a deer. Deer sign in general tells you has happened and how recently it's happened. But, in all honesty, once you've gathered enough information from that sign, now your job is to find the deer. And unless you're going to track it footstep by footstep which no one does anymore, by the way um, then the sign on the ground or the browse sign or the rub tree or the wallow is irrelevant. You know the deer are there because you found all that. Now you need to find the deer.
Speaker 1:So, binoculars, looking slow, stalking, training your eyes in to find deer. So, to answer the question, deer will eat nearly anything. In a drought, I've seen them eat the moss off rocks. I have seen them eat sticks and bark, and in a drought their've seen them eat the moss off rocks. I have seen them eat sticks and bark and in a drought, their poo changes from green to brown because of how much bark and sticks they're eating. So they survive through eating anything they can. But in a good time they eat good stuff.
Speaker 2:I hope that answers that question.
Speaker 2:No, I think that was a great answer and it reminds me me something that happened to me a little while ago. I've spent majority of my life hunting private in australia and I was, you know, hanging around with some people that I probably shouldn't anymore because they just like hunting. You know our license hunting I'm, I'm, you know, I'll stick to my private land friends. But they, they wanted me to go out on this public land hunt and they're all looking for sign. And I don't look for sign because I know I have deer on my property.
Speaker 2:I'm looking for the deer and I think, like I don't want to discount the public land system in New South Wales and the R license stuff, but a lot of the forests we have up here there's deer in them, them, but there's large sections of that where there is no deer or just because of the forestry operations and things like that. So it's definitely useful to say, hey, um, that none of those footprints are fresh within the last month because forestry operations are happening right here. Let's move to another area because, like you're saying, there's no, all you're doing is saying, yeah, that's a, that's some history, but it's old history, so get out of this area, let's go somewhere relevant?
Speaker 1:is it? Yeah?
Speaker 2:yeah, it's, uh, so no, I think that was a. That was a good answer. Second question come from bow w. And what do we got here? There's a lot of. I'm just going to read it word for word and we'll see what happens. There's a lot of sand, but country has been burnt from bushfires over the last few years. What are some tips or tricks for being successful in a heavily burnt out area? Now, I've been in some past burnt out areas and I think what Beau's referencing is unfortunately, the undergrowth disappears and the side of trees grow out and you can hardly see a thing. Yep, that's common.
Speaker 1:So you get what's called epicormic growth. So I do know some scientific stuff.
Speaker 2:I was going to say don't discount yourself.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so my dad worked in the bush all his life and had become an arborist later on in life, so I did learn a few little things about trees and become an arborist later on in life. So I did learn a few little things about trees. So when a bushfire comes through, obviously it devastates the bush, depending on the burn, I suppose. But that 2019 fire did a pretty good job of clearing out all the scrub and whatnot, and so then you're left with a lot of just burnt sticks, but quite quickly the Australian bush goes into survival mode, which is epicormic growth out of the trunks to give the tree time to regrow its canopy. If it hasn't died in the fire itself, it can survive through that epicormic growth.
Speaker 1:For that period of time it takes to get the canopy back in the heads, through that epicormic growth, for that period of time it takes to get the canopy back in the heads. So to answer the question with the burnt country is, unfortunately and he's not going to like this answer probably. You have a very short window from when a fire goes through to when it's unhuntable, and it's usually about 18 months, two years, but that period is usually exceptional hunting because of the growth because of the feed they've got and because the trees, yeah, they sprout out from the base. But generally you can sort of see in between until the undergrowth sort of grows up, and then you get to a point where you just can't see them at all.
Speaker 2:So I've hunted country.
Speaker 1:Would you suggest that?
Speaker 2:Sorry, would you suggest that those areas are still heavily populated, but we can't see them and maybe if we find in that burn zone maybe a pocket or a hillside that didn't get burnt and still has some natural unburnt that it'd be worth focusing on.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So basically what I try to teach people in any sort of mentoring that I do, or hunter education, is don't hunt the deer, hunt the terrain. So you know, when you're looking for a new spot or you know an area to hunt A, you've got to look for that browse sign, the footprints, the rubs, the wallows to determine whether there's deer there or not and if they're in numbers that are worthwhile pursuing, right. So you walk into an area and you're determined yep, we've got wallows, we've got rubs, we've got browse sign, we've got footprints. We've got droppings good, we've got deer T rubs. We've got browse sign. We've got footprints. We've got droppings good, we've got deer. Tick, right, this is a good spot, yeah, well, how is it thick? Can you? Can you hunt it? Is it huntable? Uh, no, oh, is there heaps of deer here? Yes, well, it's not a place I'd waste my time on. So I hunt.
Speaker 1:I hunt the terrain more than I hunt the deer, because if you just go hunting areas that have big populations of deer but the terrain is what I call unhuntable or it's not to your advantage to hunt it, you'll waste a lot of time. You can get lucky If there's an exceptional amount of deer in there you can get lucky. But say the bush is thick like this regrowth, you really limit your possibilities of seeing a deer. So then you've got to. Maybe, if you have to hunt those areas, think outside the box, so more ambush style, so really close range sort of picking a spot where the deer are moving through. Maybe you could find that one gully or one, one face that has some semi-open stuff on it that you can look onto. Concentrate on that.
Speaker 1:Tree stand. Honey in thick country actually opens up a fair bit of view. If you can find somewhere to crawl up a tree 20, 30 feet, you can actually look down into it. I've had personal experience with tree stand hunting so that's helped. But basically I just continue looking for areas that the terrain is huntable with a number of deer in it. That makes it worthwhile hunting there, because when you get an opportunity you're going to be able to do it. You're going to be able to kill that deer. 15 years the bush takes before it'll open up again.
Speaker 2:The second part of that question. I think you already covered it there was. So this is coming from a guy in New South Wales. For the guys travelling five hours from Sydney to Sambo country, what would be a useful tip and you've covered it to avoid wasting precious time on the weekend when getting away chasing sambo? Your first point would be hunt on wednesdays and thursdays. Yeah, and I think you know doing proper scouting there and not wasting your time in the thick, the thick burn country. Yeah, it's another one. Do you use any online mapping system that is up to date, like can, uh, like with the burn and things, because Google Earth and things is not always up to date with what's been?
Speaker 1:done so. I do use Google Earth, but I use it as more of a reference. So I usually throw it into 3D mode so I can see the steepness of the terrain. I use it for measuring routes in and out so I can go all right. It's going to take me four hours to get to that gully. Um, because you know a rough, a rough estimate on walk times. If it's really hard walking it's an hour an hour per one and a half kilometers. If it's easy going, you know you can push it out to two.5 to 4 kilometres an hour If it's exceptionally good, going 5km an hour.
Speaker 1:So I use Google Maps to look at the terrain, the steepness, that kind of thing, but the vegetation side of it it's not accurate enough. You have to physically go into the area to find out whether the vegetation is thick, thin or otherwise. There's no shortcuts with that one. But I've found unless there's some sort of other satellite imaging that I don't know about that's way more accurate and clear. I don't know, some sort of military thing might be out there or some sort of paid thing, but I get constantly asked about e-scouting or some sort of paid thing. But I get constantly asked about e-scouting.
Speaker 2:I think some of the yeah, some of the paid ones Six Maps is one of them. Okay, yeah, so it's a business-related one mostly for city.
Speaker 1:So I don't. A lot of people and this stems to today's society is people don't have time, right? So our mate from Sydney. He's thinking I've got to drive for five hours, I've only got the weekend. I don't want to waste and that's the word right, waste any time. So he wants to. Maybe he's looking for an answer that doesn't exist, because to find good areas to hunt takes lots of time, like it's taken me 20 years to have five good spots. I've hunted hundreds of spots that I'd never go back to ever again, and I think the only way to really find the good spots is to be on the ground.
Speaker 1:But you wouldn't call it a waste. No well, that's all part of the journey. You know, I like to take my clients into good spots, but every now and again I don't mind throwing them through a shit galley, just so they realise that. You know, it's not all beer and Skittles, you know all open nice country, but every now and again you throw them through a thick galley. That's steep and rugged. That's what it's really about.
Speaker 2:The third question for tonight, third question from other people, and I've still got 1,000 to go. But this comes from Bill F. It says I've got a lot of friends who only hunt certain times through the day, like first light until 10 am or last light until 4 pm, whereas I will hunt all day with the same success. My question is in your opinion, does hunting certain times of day increase your success?
Speaker 1:So that's a good question. So I've killed a lot of my beach stags at midday. Why is that? It's because I've got to where they are by then. So obviously first light and last light are fairly active times for deer. So the people that only hunt the first few hours of the morning and then come back to camp and then go and hunt the last hour of light, they're going to be hunting at the times when deer are most active. So it's a good strategy.
Speaker 1:But if you're trying to optimise your time in the bush, then think about hunting the morning until lunchtime, where maybe you can sit down in the bush at that depth that you've finished hunting, have lunch, have a siesta if you have to, whatever maybe spend a couple of hours just glassing your face. You'll be surprised how many deer you find at lunchtime and I'll explain why. And then be somewhere that you normally have to walk into for the afternoon and you're already there. So you've spent the day in the bush. But you haven't been unproductive, sitting at camp eating biggies and cheese and drinking a beer or two, because sometimes that turns into knockdowning out in the afternoon. You know what I mean.
Speaker 2:That's right.
Speaker 1:So one of the reasons why you can shoot deer at lunchtime, especially samba deer, is when they do bed down, which can vary between bedding down at daylight. If they're heavily pressured to not bedding down until 11 or 12 o'clock in the afternoon or in the late morning, right is when they sit down, especially if they're in steep terrain. They'll sit down, you know, laying one particular weight, and then after an hour or two they get stiff and they stand up and sometimes they just spin around and they sit the other way. It's like you're in bed, you know, you get sick of sleeping on this side, you roll over onto that side, roll onto the other. Deer are the same. So if you find a bed of deer at lunchtime, there's a really, really high chance that it will stand up around about two o'clock, have a small feed, maybe for 10 or 15 minutes, and then sit down either in the same bed or sometimes, depending on the time of the year, it might switch beds because of the temperature change. So it might have been looking for sun early in the morning, so it's sat down somewhere where it can get the sun and then by two o'clock it's like you know what? I wouldn't mind some shade. So it moves around just a little bit and finds another bed in the shade. So it's a really good time to catch a deer movie when you'd normally be sitting back in camp.
Speaker 1:So I think hunting all day is productive. It's more productive in the morning and in the afternoon as far as seeing deer goes. But I tell you what, if you spot a stag and he's bedded, you know he's going to be bedded for the next few hours. It gives you time to get in on him and get a shot off, whereas if you see one late in the afternoon, you've got minutes. So late afternoon can sometimes be a bit of a catch-22.
Speaker 1:You might see a deer at 500 yards and you've only got 10 minutes of light left and you're not prepared to take that shot. Well, guess what? You're going back to camp empty-handed because you couldn't get there. And the same could be true in the morning. You might see a deer just right at first light and it might sneak off into some thick gully that you've got no chance at. So if you find that deer in the middle part of the day bedded down, there's a really good chance. And I've killed quite a lot of deer just by finding them in their beds, because every step you take, even if you don't know they're there but you know you're hunting into a bedding area you're one step closer each time. You know what I mean.
Speaker 2:Yeah, in the right place at the right time. I talk. When I do my education courses I usually draw a diagram when I'm just explaining a very similar situation, being X being camp and if you do a morning hunt loop and come back and then you're back by 11 o'clock and then you hang out during the day and then you do another loop over here in the afternoon aiming to be back at nighttime, versus that one loop where you come up here and there's your lunch spot and then you hunt your way back into the afternoon and evening. I sort of refrain from saying one's better than the other because it depends on situation and temperature and comfort levels and things, but they're the options basically.
Speaker 1:They are yeah.
Speaker 2:And I personally talking about cheese and bickies to me. I learned this when I was samba hunting, unsuccessfully. The guy I was with, dan was his name, but he had. What did he have in his backpack? Cheese and salami cheese and caponossi, that's all. He had cube cheese and salami caponossi, and that was enough to. You know, he'd have a good breakfast and then he'd have a couple of bits of fruit on the way we sat down. When we got to X, yeah, I had, I had lunch and he had cheese and salami. And then, you know, we hunted our way back, yeah and whatnot, so back into out of those three. Well, you can pick out of those three questions which one was the better one or the, uh, the most interesting before I go on, otherwise I'll forget I'm going to recap them, do?
Speaker 2:you remember what?
Speaker 1:they were. So we had the bushfire one and the browse one. They're all good actually.
Speaker 2:The browsing one, bushfire one and time of hunt.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, I think for viewers, the browsing one, because a lot of people probably I know a lot of new hunters get hung up on deer sign. So just probably hearing that you know once you've found the sign it's time to give up looking for sign and start looking for deer, is probably one of the little birdie moments that I would have liked to have heard when I was younger, too, obsessed with looking at each rub tree that I went past, tom.
Speaker 2:D, you'll be. I was younger Too, obsessed with looking at each rub tree that I went past. Tom D, you'll be getting a hat headed your way. But back to my questions. Full moon, hunting after a full moon Do you care about the moon? I do, and if you do, do you think it makes a difference?
Speaker 1:So this is the difference it makes. If you're a retired hunter where you can hunt whenever you want, the moon makes a massive difference. If you're the average Joe Blow, you can't worry about the moon because you've got to hunt when you can. So I've hunted the moon, biggest moon, I've hunted the dark moon, no moon and every other moon phase in between. I've shot deer on every phase of the moon. I've seen deer on every phase of the moon. But in saying that, if I could choose to hunt a moon, it would be the new moon, the no moon at all. And the reasons for that are deer are more active during daylight hours purely because they have night vision, but they can't see without some form of light moon or stars. So if you can get a dark night with no moon, those deer will be much more active during daylight hours than any any deer that you hunt when it's a full moon. They just act differently.
Speaker 2:So what I've discovered here is we've got Wednesdays and Thursdays at the no-moon phase is the peak the pinnacle of salmon hunting.
Speaker 1:Do you want the third one?
Speaker 2:So talk to me, yeah, go.
Speaker 1:What's the trifecta? We'll get the cloverleaf out. Well, the trifecta and this is the most important one cold fronts. So if you can get up the bush after a cold front has come through, the best honey you'll ever have.
Speaker 3:I suppose I should say why so?
Speaker 1:basically, what we've got is the deer will hunker down when you've got high winds, cold weather, rain, driving rain, snow, right. So they go and hide and what happens is they get hungry, tired and cold and when that weather breaks, they just come out and they feed head down feed and they're more likely to come out in the open to get the sun.