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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.
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So get geared up, it's GO time!
Accurate Hunts, a life outdoors.
Ep. 22 Zeb Jones PART 2 on hunting Sambar Deer. Weather patterns, The moon and the 90-10 rule
Part two of our chat with Zeb jones. Renowned hunting expert Zeb Jones joins us for an insightful journey into the world of deer hunting. Uncover the secrets of Sambar and chital deer behavior, as Zeb delves into the impact of environmental changes and alarm calls on these elusive creatures. Learn how weather patterns and moon phases can influence deer activity, offering parallels that even seasoned hunters will find enlightening. Whether you're battling the elements or syncing your hunting schedule with deer movements, Zeb's wisdom reinforces the importance of time in the bush.
Explore the intricate dynamics of the Sambar deer rutting season, where Zeb reveals the 90-10 rule of breeding cycles. Discover how environmental shifts like drought can alter these patterns, and why understanding them is crucial for successful hunting. We debunk myths surrounding antler casting and highlight survival tactics like synchronized birthing among deer species. By understanding these behaviors, hunters can tailor their strategies and anticipate deer movements with greater accuracy.
Venture into the realm of ethical hunting and deer management as Zeb addresses the challenges of maintaining balanced populations. From discussing potential solutions like incentivising hunters to control deer numbers, to examining the role of mentorship and educational resources, Zeb offers a comprehensive perspective on ethical practices. Plus, gain insights into the importance of mentorship and resources available for both novice and intermediate hunters. Whether through personal guidance or structured courses, Zeb’s expertise paves the way for a deeper understanding of deer behavior and hunting strategies.
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Welcome back. This is part two of this chat with Zeb Jones. If you are just tuning in now for the first time, please go back and listen to part one, Otherwise you may struggle to make sense of the first half of this. But listen together makes perfect sense. It was a really enjoyable chat, Went for three hours and I got a lot out of it and I really hope you guys do so. Here's part two, Enjoy.
Speaker 2:So Samba are funny, right, like if you've hunted chittle and I've hunted chittle, but only with the bow, right, if one chittle out of a mob sees you and does its little bark, the whole mob runs without question. I saw it with a spiky, right, you know it's a full Samba hunter. I was stalking in on this mob of chittle and this one spike, he pinned me right Of 30 deer. He pinned me and I've just gone. They won't pay any attention to him. So I kept doing what I was doing, because I was hunting samba that had white dots, right, and he went and they all just didn't even think for a split second. They all took off hunting on it. Every animal has some sort of alarm call. Right, samba is the honk. It is not a communication as in I'm over here. It's huh, what are you? Something's there come out wherever you are, so they've seen you. And there's different honks.
Speaker 1:It's always fun talking about killing stuff. We just had some technical difficulties. Zeb is back, the joys of long-distance podcasting, but we were talking about the cloverleaf, the three things we had midweek hunting, we had no moon or lack of moon, and then a cold front trying to get out just after that, and you said I want to tell you why.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so basically what happens with a cold front is the deer go into survival mode. You know they don't like being wet and cold and the rest of it.
Speaker 2:So they they generally hide in the thicker gullies, they'll bunker down sort of thing. And if it's an extended period of time, so it might, you know, like two or three days where a cold front just hangs around and it's windy and it's raining and it's just really miserable, it'll just put so much pressure on those deer that when that weather breaks and it comes out clear that they just have this overwhelming desire to go and get sun, if they can get some sun, so they'll be out in the clearings and also to feed, which, coincidentally, usually is better in the clearer areas because the sun can penetrate the canopy and it allows that um, different you know bushes and that to grow. Um, so yeah, that that cold front is is a massive thing. And if you've done any uh, like when I say I don't do study of deer, I watch what the americans do, because there's such a big population of people and there's so many smart people and a lot of them are hunters.
Speaker 2:I read up on whitetail hunting after cold fronts and I've applied that to Samba and it's 100% relatable.
Speaker 2:And also with the moon, they've actually got little wheels that they use to time the moon with rut activity and best times of day to hunt.
Speaker 2:I can't remember the name of the wheel, but you can sort of basically buy it for the year and you spin it around to the date that you've got to go hunting and it can tell you whether you should be hunting morning, afternoon or whatever, or don't bother. So I did a bit of study into that and I've applied that to Samba. But the biggest problem with all of this is people don't have the time to implement it. You can't go hunting on a Thursday because you've got to go to that board meeting or you've got to run that small business or you've got to drop the kids off at school. You can't go after that cold front because you know, for whatever reason, you know you've got commitments. But if you could time all those three things together and do that consistently, I'd nearly hazard you know, I could bet a house on it that you would be more successful hunting in those conditions than just hunting whenever you possibly could.
Speaker 1:And trying to line it all up. What's that song? Two out of three ain't bad. I mean, if you can tick a couple of those boxes, you're still. The other thing is I always say to people is just yes, obviously we're talking about ideal situations, but the flip side is you're not going to shoot them from your couch, so get out there. Time in the bush, time in the bush, number four yeah, eventually we'll have top 10, the 10 commandments. Obviously you talk about the rut. Now I know Samba don't have like a fallow-like specific rut where it's, you know, 21-day period, pushing out a little bit longer with an extra second rut and another estrus and things. Can you explain how the Samba rut works? And I also want you to throw in there like another estrus and things. Can you explain, uh, how the samba rut works? And I also want to want you to throw in there like wattle bushes and things, because I know that a lot of guys say that when the wattles are flowering and so yeah, run me through that yep.
Speaker 2:So the wattle thing is is purely it's it's timing of the year. So at the moment we're in full wattle bloom, so it's just a really good time to be in the bush. It coincides with early spring or late winter, and it's just in general. Because what we've got to talk about with Samba is in general, and I like to call it the 90-10 rule 90% of the Samba will be doing this and 10% will be doing that. So we don't want to worry about the 10% too much, we want to worry about the 90%. So area-specific sand, the rut, roughly at the same time every year. That's what I've found. So depending on your area. So if you can find an area and find rut activity, pay note to when that is because in general, conditions allowing so I'll explain that in a bit conditions allowing it will happen at the same time the following year as well.
Speaker 2:Right now, what can change? That is weather. So I talked to a deer farmer years ago that explained about when he was siring hinds. Was the hinds that were, you know, yearling and hadn't bred yet, had to hit a certain weight of their growth before they'd actually cycled for their first time. So that's related to how much feed they have in that time between being born and when they hit that weight. So in a good year they hit the weight early, so they might be getting bred at 12 months old, whereas if it's a drier year it might take a few extra months for them to hit that target weight. For their body to say you're big enough now to cycle and to breed weight for their body to say you're big enough now to cycle and to breed.
Speaker 2:So a rut can be determined by the season. But generally in in an area of samba, uh, it will happen roughly at the same time every year. So pay attention when you're hunting an area. If all the scrapes are active the wallows are really active you're smelling ruddy st. Chances are that will happen again the following year.
Speaker 1:Just pause on that for a second, talking about that one deer or that group of deer in a bad season, that let's just okay. Full circle-y. Tell me a rough rut date August, okay. So if we're working on August, they're rutting in August, and then the hinds are pregnant. For how long?
Speaker 2:Nine or 10 months. They're very similar to a cow.
Speaker 1:Yep. So then nine or 10 months they have their baby and then we go into drought. You would assume the next rut would be August, but that mum would be an Easterist in August again and ready. But those yearlings, or 18 months old, the two-year-olds and things, if they've had that drought, are they then getting a staggered rut because they're not hitting it in August? They're underweight, so they're coming in again in, let's say, October by the time they hit that weight or November, in late spring, yeah, so that's probably the 10%.
Speaker 1:Okay, but then that's a flow-on for their whole life. Unless they miss a season, they might get bought in to oesterous with their mums.
Speaker 2:Anyway, that's just a weird theory.
Speaker 2:It is. But what you find is and if you have done any study on mule deer specifically, they tend to carve in a very short period and what it is, it's called, it's got a special name can't remember what it is because I don't pay attention to this sort of stuff but basically what happens is they drop all their calves at the same time, relatively, you know, so that the cougars and the wolves and the coyotes don't kill all their calves spread out over the year. It's a known thing for prey animals to drop all their calves at once so that the predators can't possibly kill them all, and Samba do the same. But, like we talked about with the 10%, there's going to be 10% that are going to be outside of the normal breeding cycle 10. There's going to be 10 that are going to be outside of the normal breeding cycle. But what you will notice is when you, when you're hunting an area, you will find most hinds will either be pregnant or have a calf of similar size to the next cow or hind and calf that you find.
Speaker 2:It's they to find. You know it's pretty well, right, you know what I mean. But then every now and again there's obviously an odd one, but they're the 10% Right, so I hunt the 90% yeah.
Speaker 1:And do you think would you find the 10% in that same group? Or do they find their own mother's club and hang around with their other 10%?
Speaker 2:I think they intermingle, it's just yeah, they're just not getting. It's probably a survival trait of Samba, because you know clearly people have talked in the past that Samba can hold their antlers for more than one year, which is complete BS. It doesn't happen. I don't think there's any antlered animal that holds their antlers longer than 12 months.
Speaker 1:Not on purpose, I mean, it does happen by accident sometimes if there's some damage. Yeah, yeah, but there's usually something wrong with it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's not a norm, but with Samba and the reason why they thought Samba did that was because at any time of the year you could find a hard antlered stag yeah, but what that is is there's a variation in when they cast by quite a fair bit. That's the same with tuna.
Speaker 2:I know a bloke messaged me the other day saying he found a fresh cast on the track, because he'd walked along the track to get honey and when he came back it was laying there. He clearly would have stepped over it, so it had just been cast. And that's what. September, and now you quite regularly find deer casting into January, but then you'll find some stags that are rutting in January.
Speaker 1:I saw the. It was only yesterday. Was it? Corinne Davissa, I think her name is? And their hog deer? Hi, corey Corey. They got a hog deer place and whatnot in Sambra and whatnot, but they just shot one the other day and it cast after they shot it like as they shot it. Yeah, Yep, so, like you said, that's the anomaly. Coming back to rutting activity, and we we touched on it earlier where they're? They're a non-vocal species generally. Generally, do the stags make any noise? And um, hinds honk. And then so a couple of questions. The stag noises, hind noises, and using that to your advantage in a being honked at situation, but also using some callers I know there's a couple of mouth callers. I've got one just here somewhere. Do you use them? How do they work? Rip into some noise stuff for me.
Speaker 2:Rightio, so let's go with the first one. Do samba make noise? They all make noise. Do Samba make noise? They all make noise. They don't sort of call in a rut, speaking like as in a fallow buck or a red. I have heard stags call three times in my life of hunting them since I was eight. I'm 42. Um, two of those times I like witnessed the, the deer's mouth moving and and the sound coming out, so I could tell it was that that particular deer. It wasn't, it wasn't. You know, I was looking at deer and heard this noise. It was like I saw it do it in a world exclusive.
Speaker 1:Zeb is going to give us an indication of what the sound is like.
Speaker 2:Have you ever heard a potty calf? So it's a moo. It's a moo like that and it's only stag, so I've heard make that noise.
Speaker 1:Is it layout?
Speaker 2:Yeah, you could hear it probably from within 100 yards quite clearly. The two times that I've heard that particular call, the stags have been really rutty and quite aggressive. I believe it's something they talk to each other about, as in stags it's always been where stags have been together that I've heard that noise, where stags have been together, that I've heard that noise. And I've heard a stag make more of a squeaky sort of a noise which sort of simulates an elk cow paw, and I have not ever witnessed a hind making or a calf making a squeaky noise. But I've seen enough footage that other people have shown me of calves making that almost squeak from the. What's that? That samba call? I can't remember what they call it Flexmark yeah, so that squeak. I've never physically heard it in person, but I've seen video footage of little deer making that noise. Um and so then, going into using it, yes, I've, I've played with the flex mark a fair bit. I've got a hoochie mama now, which is another elk caller but it's a hand operated one. I use that primarily so I can video and do it at the same time. It's a lot harder to to video and mouth call because there's actually a bit of effort in squeezing and biting and all the rest of it. But what I've found with the flex mark and the hoochie mama is it attracts females predominantly, in my experience, that are either heavily pregnant or have a calf somewhere.
Speaker 2:Now I don't know if you know that Samba stash their calves.
Speaker 2:They don't actually physically bed with them.
Speaker 2:So when they've got young calves you'll quite often walk in on a river flat and you'll bump out a calf and you'll go where's the mum?
Speaker 2:Mum is usually a couple of hundred yards away, bedded away from it, and that's a predatory survival thing, because calves don't actually have much scent for the first couple of months of their life, believe it or not. And that is so that predators like dogs and tigers can't actively sniff them out while they're curled up and the mother beds away from them purely so that she can divert danger, because she has a scent. There's no point in her bedding next to her calf, because if a predator comes in and they have to make an escape, she might be quick enough to get away, but the calf isn't, so she beds away from her calves. So when you use that flex mark and you bring in a hind, she's probably coming in looking for her calf because she believes that it's calling to her. So I've always sort of cautioned on the side of if you're calling to shoot a deer, be mindful that you're probably going to orphan a calf that's not going to survive if you're going to shoot that animal when it comes in.
Speaker 1:Circles right back to our first conversation about Jagermeister and you know, stewardship and ethical hunting things, and that's a tricky one, that one.
Speaker 2:It is. So, yeah, this is the hunting ethics that can mean one thing to someone and to someone else. I've always struggled to shoot hinds. Dad never installed in me shoot the hinds. His theory was the hinds were the breeders. We shoot the stags. So I've always had this stag mentality and I find it really difficult to shoot hinds, just purely of my own. It's not even ethics, it's more. I don't know. I just like them, I like seeing them, I don't like killing them that much.
Speaker 2:But when I want to eat one, I'll pick the perfect one.
Speaker 1:We'll get back to Sam in a second. I want to pause on that because it's a conversation that I've been having recently with a few people and someone has coined a phrase and I'm going to steal it off him. Shane's his name and he listens to all the podcasts. Shout out shane and it's uh. I started the first half of the sentence and he finished it, but it's um, you know, let him go, let him grow, but shoot a doe and it's the.
Speaker 1:The topic on that is and I welcome your opinion we have too many deer in australia and we are not doing anything about, we are not doing enough about it, and because we're not, the government is trying to do what they think is best, which we all obviously agree is not the best option and things, but baiting and aerials and whatnot. But I think it's nearly our fault and I know that's a controversial topic and I'm guilty of it. You've just admitted you've done it too. We are selective. We want to, you know. Oh, it's nice to see them, but I want to shoot a stag, so let them. But what we're actually doing is allowing numbers to just I know you say that, samba, you know are not explosive in numbers, but I think they, they're our I want to say nearly our largest population of deer.
Speaker 1:I heard across australia and and that that's partly due to your dispersion model, saying that. I know you said the queensland border. I mean technically they do go all the way up to coburg peninsula, but that's a whole different herd yeah, technically, yeah, there's a bit of a gap, yeah they are there, but they were placed there.
Speaker 1:And then there's theories about why they are along the Great Dividing Range, being that hunters have taken said calf home and helped dispersion, whatever, but in theory they disperse other than others. So I don't know. I've gone off topic and it's just hot on my mind at the moment. This and I nearly wanted to. Uh, we're toying with a conversation of and I think it was tennessee or something, but um, robbie kroger, from blood origins pointed out to me we're discussing this and he said there's a, there's a model over there where it's um, shoot a doe to earn a buck and you so you can't go and get your buck tag until you've shot a doe or two, just to keep numbers in balance, and that's great. Anyway, we've turned off topic and please talk about it if you want to.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no. Also, the ADA a little while ago had an initiative for shooting a doe Let the young stag grow, shoot the doe and it was basically a badge that you could get. If you shot two hinds within a year, you could get this badge right, so it was some sort of silly incentive to shoot some more hinds. I don't think it's silly.
Speaker 2:Well, what I mean by is you know who really wants a badge, you know what are you going to do with it, but you know you've got this little trophy badge that you know what value is it?
Speaker 1:It's for the guys who can't shoot stags, you know.
Speaker 2:Let's tell it what it is Well whatever, I'm not going to go down that road. Yeah, I do see we have no management of our herd. So if we want to include Samba as a herd, we do not manage it at all. The only real management that I see that we do do is to allow hound hunting, because hound hunting reduces numbers indiscriminately. From calves all the way through to mature stags, they all get shot. You know, when a deer runs out in front of a hunter, they are shooting them. They're not going. Oh, that's not big enough. You know what I mean. So hound hunting definitely is our really only management of numbers that we have in Victoria for Samba deer, because stalking alone doesn't affect the numbers in any great meaningful way.
Speaker 2:So what is the answer? I suppose it would be good to be able to manage our herd so that we did have better trophies, like in Europe, where they don't shoot stags until they're at the back end of their um growth period. Basically, like they shoot 10 and 12 year old animals I don't shoot eight and nine year old animals that have got these beautiful big antlers. They let them get on on the backside of that and then they start shooting them and that's purely to improve the herd. We've got no way of implementing that in Victoria. So the only way we could possibly help manage the deer is to incentivise people to shoot them. Which what would you want to do? You could put a bounty on them and then all of a sudden people are just out there killing willy-nilly.
Speaker 2:I'm happy for the government to do what they're doing. I don't believe it's 100% necessary where they're doing it. I believe it's necessary in areas, but I think they're sort of a little ill-advised on what is out in the forest. So I'd love to take some of these officials that think that there's 2 million or 1 million salmon deer in the high country, because I'd like them to show me where they are, because I do a lot of hunting and they're not there. I can take you into country where there is very few to, if any, samba deer for kilometres and kilometres and kilometres in the bush, and then you can come out to where it's better hunting hunting as in. There's more deer there, but there's still not deer in every gully. There's still not deer two kilometres past where the main group of deer are. So I think the numbers are massively inflated and, yeah, maybe we could do more to control the numbers, but it hasn't been asked of us either.
Speaker 1:No, it's something we're facing here in New South Wales, it's you know, know.
Speaker 1:We've got the local land service going around parading as you know, the answer getting into farmers pockets and, you know, just getting access and thermally culling deer and things like that. I, uh, I posted a thing you might have seen. I posted on the accurate hunts page the other day and it's a picture of a guy laying in bed on the phone. He's ringing reception at the hotel and he says hello, I'd like a wake-up call please. And she says if you stop shooting the small bucks, you may just get to shoot a big buck. And that causes stir too, because people are like no, no, if it's brown, it's down, or if I don't shoot it, someone else will, and all those things are 100% true. But if you don't shoot it because and again this comes this is not early on in your hunting career, this is later on, when you've shot a few things. If you leave it, there's a high chance that someone else actually won't shoot it, just because no one shot it to the point where you're at when you've seen it. So deer are clever. Obviously you're pointing out that by going thermal we're going to remove like part of their camouflage, which I can see.
Speaker 1:The issue is, I don't know the. The management model and things in australia is a tricky one, because I can definitely see both sides of the coin. And one thing we push for here in new south wales access to national parks, which you guys have a little bit better access than we do, um so, but I actually don't think it's going to yield the results that people think it will. I don't think it's going to be the amen that that we want it to be, and it's for exactly what you said there. Selective hunting and stalking is not a productive, it's a, it's a component, but it's not a overly productive way of no. So the reason we would get access to a national park is to control feral animal numbers. If I'm going into a national park that has rusa in it, I'm thinking of one particular. I'm not shooting a pig or a fox not happening not happening like and I'm not, we'll see.
Speaker 2:we're not allowed to in our national parks there you go.
Speaker 1:I'm not shooting a hind or a doe or whatever. I'm holding out for the big rusa stag, because that's what I'm in this forest for. So I am the problem where they want us in there to shoot feral animals and it's just not going to happen. Anyway, I want to get back to Sam, because that's what we're here for oh, yeah, yeah. That's what we're here for.
Speaker 2:Something will have to be done eventually because I think hunting organisations will need to step up and maybe try to be a bit more of the answer. And so I think last year the numbers stated that public land hunting killed 100,000 Samba last year in Victoria. So maybe if we could double that we might see a significant difference in the numbers. But what we've got to do is educate the people that are counting the numbers, because we don't want them counting them on farm fringe or in areas where they're not hunted. Sure, Because those numbers are inflated Perspective. I'm fully happy for thermal crews to go through and absolutely slay deer where we're not allowed to hunt, to the point where there's no deer there. I don't care because we're not allowed to hunt there. It's going to upset a lot of poachers that poach it. But you know what I mean. I don't care. There's no loss to the stories of the community.
Speaker 1:There's no loss to the ethical legitimate hunter, and if that makes the government think that they're winning, well let them have it.
Speaker 2:Let them have it, that's right, and then add on to the farm fringe stuff. So I know a lot of farmers now have transitioned from oh I like seeing the deer to kill every deer that you see. So the farmers are on board now Kill all the deer within that farm fringe. Do it, get it done, or at least get it to a point where the farmers are happy with the numbers that are there, because they used to be happy with them 20 years ago they were happy. Do you have regulations?
Speaker 2:on thermal usage on private land, that's fine no, so private land, is it's legal for destruction of deer? Yeah, yeah, um so spotlight okay, I want to.
Speaker 1:I want to go back to the the verbal thing, because I've been honked at, uh, and you know, numerous times and I've seen the result. Or you know a flash of a deer running away. But for those that are listening that maybe not have experienced it or don't understand it, the only way I can explain it is an air horn, when you're not expecting it, right behind you, yeah. Or you know a train at a level crossing that's blowing its horn, like it is a bone-tingling loud noise that comes out of a tiny little voice box on an animal and it often perplexes me and you know we'll get there eventually. I know we've been going for 17 hours, but you're going overseas and you're going to hear some animals make some noises over there that are incredible and amazing to hear. And then you hear a big samper just go bah. And that was quite loud for everyone listening in their car and I apologise, I was a little- girl on that one too, by the way.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, well, I'm a juvenile, I'm a juvenile.
Speaker 1:All right too, by the way. Oh yeah, well, I'm a juvenile, I'm a juvenile, all right. Um, uh, yeah, just haven't reached my first estrus. Um, but um, it's an incredible sound. And then you know, comparatively, to like a moose who is bigger, again, uh, male and female, and they make a weirder, smaller sound, like I don't understand how animal vocabulary works.
Speaker 2:Let's dive into it a little bit. So you've got moose and elk right, that are your main vocal ones in America, whereas your whitetail and your muleys are less vocal, like especially a mule deer. So think of mule deer and Samba as probably very similar. So the sounds that you're hearing those honks are alarm sounds. So fallow deer have a bit of a grunt bark, so do red deer, and then obviously every animal has some sort of alarm call.
Speaker 2:Right, samba is the honk. It is not a communication as in I'm over here, it's huh, what are you? Huh, something's there. Huh, come out wherever you are. So they've seen you and there's different honks.
Speaker 2:So on the last trip we got the honk. You're there, I'm telling everyone that you're there, honk, I can still see you. I can see you, I don't know what you are. Honk, honk, honk, and it goes on and on and on and they don't move. But then we also had the honk. Oh shit, a hunter, and that was a stag that we put up unexpectedly and he give us the full volume, full noise, honk. That is designed to almost intimidate you a little bit, to make you think twice about oh shit, what? No, is that something I want to chase and grab a hold of because you're a tiger, and it gives him that split-second advantage to get two or three big strides on you, because a tiger needs to be within 30 yards of its prey to launch an attack that could be successful. If it's 50 yards away, a Sambadier is going to outrun it. It's got faster leak speed. It can't do it.
Speaker 1:Remember that time when you said you didn't study things that didn't help you kill deer. I think you've actually proved that you have done some studies over there.
Speaker 2:I've done some study, but I don't scientifically.
Speaker 1:Yeah right, a Tigus Uranus, or whatever its technical name is, it doesn't matter. So the staghonk. You can probably. Is it easy to tell the difference between a stag and hind if you can't visually see the result?
Speaker 2:yep, a big stag and a hind. Definitely, because usually big stags are very quiet and quite happy to slip away without making any noise. That's because they've been educated right. So you're talking about eight or ten year old stag. He've been educated right. So you're talking about eight or a 10-year-old stag? He's been educated by hunters to get to that age. So he knows what you are. So he doesn't have to and he doesn't like letting everyone know. He's happy to let his hinds take the brunt, right? Or the young stag. It's been clearly demonstrated with hound hunting that stags will run hounds back through a group of hinds so that the dogs drop off him and onto the hinds. Stags have been doing it for decades, right? So stags sacrifice everyone else so they can survive, whereas hinds they're natural mothers. They've got that nature about them, so they protect the herd. Right so they're. They're likely to stand there and honk at you up to a hundred times.
Speaker 1:I've heard over a hundred honks from the one deer that just will not go away because it's obviously got a calf or something nearby hey guys, dodge button in middle of a podcast here, but I just wanted to ask you a favor If you can head over to the Accurate Hunts YouTube channel, subscribe, like, leave a comment on your favorite video, anything like that, it really helps. Youtube's burying us at the moment and anything like that helps. If you can jump on our socials Accurate Hunts on Facebook. Accurate Hunts on Instagram. Accurate Hunts on Instagram nothing special, we're on there. All our reels are on there short form videos, long form content, regular engaging posts Just jump on, give us a like, give us a share. It all helps and it all keeps this podcast running and at the top of everyone's list. So I do appreciate it.
Speaker 1:Again, thanks for listening and hope you enjoy the rest of the show. Catch you. I know you're not hunting hinds, but is that useful If someone was to hunt a hind? Or just hunting Sanbury General? If it's Brownstown and you got honked at and you were trying to hunt that deer, are you standing still to then try and locate it and then maybe take a step sideways to get it to respond and then take a shot? Or is it better to sit down and let it? You know, go back, they're not going to calm down very quickly, are they?
Speaker 2:They can. So Sambur are funny right, like if you've hunted chittle and I've hunted chittle, but only with the bow right, if one chittle out of a mob sees you and does its little bark, the whole mob runs without question. I saw it with a spiky, right, you know it's a full Samba hunter. I was stalking in on this mob of chittle and this one spiky pinned me right Of 30 deer. He pinned me and I've just gone. They won't pay any attention to him. So I kept doing what I was doing, because I was hunting Samba that had white dots right, and he went and they all just didn't even think for a split second. They all took off hunting them all. Now Samba, don't do that. Samba can quite often hear a honk and not even lift their head from feeding, depending on what animal does the honk or what style of honk it might be Style of honk, but also who did the honk?
Speaker 2:If it's a young deer, they're more than likely might pay a little bit of attention, but not much attention. But if it's a matriarch hind, then they're going to all pay attention or a big stay. But so the honk? Yeah, if you hear a honk then it's obviously a way of locating a deer If you can tell what kind of honk it is. So there's the honk, shit. It's a hunter.
Speaker 2:I'm out of here, usually followed by a 300-kilogram deer crashing through the bush with no regard to eye safety. You know, they just must squint and just go for it because they don't worry about bushes or shrubs or anything. They just go beelining. That deer is gone, wave goodbye, go find another deer. But if you get that inquisitive honk I've seen something, what was that then there's a really good chance.
Speaker 2:If you stay still or get low to the ground and reduce your human figure and even make a bit of a call with a flex mark or I've. I've tried rubbing trees with sticks and stamping my foot and grunting and doing all sorts of funny little noises. They can. They're quite inquisitive, they will come in for a look or they'll step out just, and they do a lot of this sort of stuff right where their head's bobbing, trying to get a different angle on you, because they've seen something they haven't smelt you. If they smell you, they're gone right. They don't ever second guess their nose, they second guess their eyes and their ears. So, yeah, a honk can allow you to get that location and I've shot a few deer that have been honking at me and you can move around a fair bit if you reduce your height down to an animal, because they've obviously not really worked out what you are.
Speaker 1:You could be a kangaroo, or yeah, it could be another deer.
Speaker 2:I've done the old you know bend down and sort of try to give myself a back line and basically ran at them and they don't run away until you stand up. Um, I've tried all sorts of funny things. I've been the wallaby in the paddock and that works. Uh, sandbag, like I talked about earlier. Have that. They have a natural um safety zone around them which I reckon is about 30 yards in thick country and it might be out to 50, 60 meters in more open country, and the more open it gets, the bigger it gets. But what it is is that that same 30 meter zone that a tiger needs to be within. So if that tiger, if you are the tiger and you're inside that zone, you'll get a honk. That is, oh shit, hunter, I'm out of here. You won't get the honk, what are you sort of thing. But outside that zone you can quite regularly get that honk. What are you zone? Because you're outside of that natural zone.
Speaker 1:I call it the zone of influence. Yeah, two things scent you spoke about and you said it's unavoidable. It's unusual that they will second-guess their ears considering the size of their ears From a caping point of view and taxidermy their ears are actually quite enjoying it. Yeah, they're huge, they're easier to do than a small one. Yeah, and so you're saying they're easier to do than a small one? Yeah, and so you're saying their scent is unavoidable? Oh, sorry, they don't second guess their scent. Do you do anything to mask yours other than wind direction?
Speaker 2:No, okay, so you're not one. I wash all my clothes in Domino or whatever the hell. It is that the wife has White or white is brighter colours? I don't believe in any of that.
Speaker 1:What about camouflage?
Speaker 2:It's all scented. I definitely use camouflage, but that's to hide from hunters, gotcha.
Speaker 1:And on the camouflage topic, one that I ask every Samba person I know, and they all have a different answer orange. Now, obviously, state forest, you've got to wear orange and things. What colour are tigers? Orange. So in my mind, originally I used to think that what a dumb choice. You'd think that they would be coded to see that colour of grey as a threat. What are your thoughts on that?
Speaker 2:Well, you're thinking the wrong way. You're thinking from the prey side. Think of the predator. Why would he be ironed if a deer could see?
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's what got corrected when I asked everyone. Yeah.
Speaker 2:So basically it's a colour they can't see. Apparently, if you read anything about deer's vision, they can't see that colour. It blends in with greens or browns or something. I've hunted with blaze orange since I was 17. I've hunted with blaze orange when I was bow hunting. I don't believe that it glows or it shows up, usually solid colours. So if I have a blaze cap, if I could get mine, it's got black, you know through it. So if you go black and white then it just looks like anything else. But yeah, I honestly don't think they see it. They can't see it because otherwise we'd never get that close otherwise we wouldn't be able to shoot them.
Speaker 1:One of the other ones was that I learnt early on in my non-samba hunting career was positioning yourself. So you're looking at what I would call the north face, which. Can you explain that and I haven't looked into it too much and I don't use this in my normal hunting career but wouldn't you, you know the sun rises in the east? Wouldn't you be not looking for a face that faces the sun directly as it's rising? Like why a north face?
Speaker 2:So I don't subscribe to the North Face theory. There's a few things that have been a common thing that people have said. It's like, sam, do you bed three-quarters of the way up a hill? Well, yes, they do, but they also bed everywhere in between, all the way to the river flats. So there's rules. People have talked about things for so long that people just think that that's so.
Speaker 2:The North Face thing, right, don't forget North Face and think where does the sun impact? At the first chance it can. So when it comes up over the hill in the morning, where does that sun hit? I don't look at my compass and go, oh, it's not a north face, I'm not looking at that. If it's got sun on it, it's got sun on it. It could be, you know, like a different. It's going to have some sort of northerly aspect to it, but it could be a northeast, it could be a northwest, depending on where the hill is. It could almost be a south aspect as well, because just the way the sun works, depending on the terrain you know what I mean the flatter it is. If it's a flat, well, what aspect is a flat? Is it northeast, southwest, what is it? It's all all of the above isn't it?
Speaker 2:And the theory is that Samba are looking for the sun, and that's true for the very coldest months of the year, but it's totally the opposite. In December and January, when it's really hot, they're not looking for the north face at all, they're looking for shade, and the temperature where they start looking for shade is very similar to when we start looking for it. So the way I look, what I try to teach is if you're uncomfortable sitting in the sun and looking to sit in the shade, so are the deer. If you are sitting in the shade and you're uncomfortable and you want to sit in the sun because it's nice and warm, they are doing the same. So don't worry about what temperature it is, just go. What do I want to do? Comfort level. I want to sit in the shade. The deer are sitting in the shade. I want to sit in the sun. That's what the deer are doing. But there's always 90 and 10, right? So 90% will be following that and 10% will be doing something completely different Sitting on a sunny hillside in a 30-degree day.
Speaker 2:What are some other misconceptions of Samba? Yeah, here's a good one. Have you ever heard that Samba deer bed up behind trees to hide from hunters? I have. They put a tree there. So I just had the client last week not this last one, but the one before and he was talking to me about how he'd been on a hunter education course and they talked about how the samba put put the tree in over their vital sign, vital zones and all this sort of thing. And I said, all right, well, when we find a deer bed today, I'll explain to you why the deer bed is there. Can I guess?
Speaker 1:Can I guess?
Speaker 2:All right, yeah, have a guess.
Speaker 1:Just because it's a slightly flatter spot, because the dirt goes up towards the tree.
Speaker 2:Well, 50% of the way there, yeah, right. So why is the tree there? Did the deer pick that? The tree was there? No, no. So, right, we need to draw a picture in our minds, right? So we've got a slope and then we've got a tree growing out of the slope, right straight up. When we get heavy rain, what happens with the dirt and the twigs and the leaves? We get erosion that runs downhill. What does it hit when it gets to the tree? The stump, right, the butt of the tree. So, naturally, over time and usually the bigger the tree, the more time the tree has been there, right? So over 10, 15, 20, 30, 40, 100 years, that tree has grown there.
Speaker 2:That debris has built up at the base of that tree and it forms a natural flat spot and it's soft. And guess what? The deer walks along and goes there's a natural flat spot, I'm going to sit there, it's going to be comfortable. It doesn't think shit. There's a tree. Oh, I know old mate sitting over there with his 300 prc and his Swarovski scope and he's going to shoot me from 780 yards away. He doesn't know that. He hasn't adapted to hiding from modern hunters, he's adapted to hiding from tigers. Right, he's still got that instinct. He doesn't have the instinct to hide from 300 PRCs at 780 yards, right, but that tree has created that flat spot.
Speaker 2:Another one was the hide behind stumps. Well, naturally when a tree falls over it drags out a bit of soil and then over time that erosion once again naturally fills up that hollow. Sometimes they turn into wallows, but sometimes they turn into the best flat spot you've ever seen. And then what happens is a bushfire comes through, burns that log completely. So you don't even know that the log was there and you go wow, look at this awesome spot. And that was formed from a tree falling over the roots pulling the dirt out.
Speaker 2:The erosion coming down fills in the flat spot. The deer comes along and goes that's a cool flat spot. I'm sitting there because I don't want to sit on a hill like this. I want to sit on a flat spot. That's why stags love ridges, because naturally ridges have these little ups and downs and when you get that little steep up and then the little flat out, that's where they'll have beds up there. The stags particularly love bedding on ridges. That's why they love rock, those big rock bluffs that everyone wants to find. There's natural flat spots at the top of them, and especially at the bottom of it, and that's purely through natural erosion of the soil. It's not because of any other feature. It is that there is a flat spot there and the deer know it.
Speaker 1:You know what it's like to walk across a hill with crooked ankles. You're looking for a flat spot to rest on.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's why they form game trails right, so they walk the same way regularly enough to form a flat walking surface. Where do we?
Speaker 1:walk when we're in the bush? We're just dumbos, aren't we Just trying to make sense of what they're doing? Yeah, where do we walk when we're in?
Speaker 2:the bush. We're just dumbos, aren't we Just trying to make sense of what they're doing. Yeah, well, I think what's happened over the years is some people have been very intelligent and have made deer hunting into something right, whereas I dumb it down a bit right. So I don't want to know the scientific botanical names of the plants. I don't want to think that the deer has comprehension of I'm going to stand behind this tree so the hunter can't shoot me. It's pure coincidence that Samba stand behind a tree, because there's so many bloody trees for him to stand behind. You know, when they live in that open country, they don't run to a tree and stand behind it, they go oh shit, you got me.
Speaker 2:So a lot of what has been said in the past is it's not misinformation, but it's. You know you're making it out to be something more than it is. Deer react to their environment, their habitat, hunting, pressure, the weather, that sort of thing, nothing more they don't have conscious thought of. I'm going to. You know they don't dig out beds, right. Why don't they use their feet to dig out a bed? They don't do that. They naturally find flat spots. I've never found a bed where I could physically see scrape marks, where they've been trying to flatten it out or even move a stick. That was there. So quite often and I find myself doing this and I laugh at myself is if I see a deer bed and it's got a rock in the middle of it and I think shit, that would be uncomfortable, I kick it off from it and I think maybe one day that'll be good karma and a big stag will be sitting there one day because he's more comfortable sitting there without the rock.
Speaker 2:Make it better for him. That's my silly brain.
Speaker 1:So in that silly brain of yours, we're going to head towards wrapping up. We've still got a little bit to get to, but everything we've covered tonight, and more, is available through a hunting course that you do it is.
Speaker 2:How does the?
Speaker 1:course operate? How do people find you Sure?
Speaker 2:So I've got a couple of different ways we can do this. Basically, I like to educate people. I like to see people enjoying hunting right, because I believe if we can promote people into enjoying it, we'll have more people doing it. It makes it harder for the greenies and the lefties to get rid of us, right? So the more people doing it, the better, but we want people doing it the right way, ethically, all the rest of it. But also to do that, you need to enjoy it, right? So bumbling around in the bush for 15 years trying to work it out for yourself isn't always the best way to do it. So, trying to get onto someone like a mentor, if you can get a mentor, a personal mentor, that's key, right? So don't worry about me. If you can find someone to show you the ropes, that's done it. They're the ones that you want to cotton on to because they're just going to shorten up your learning. Right, because they've done it before.
Speaker 2:But if you haven't got that person in your circle of hunting friends or whatever, check out my website, so wwwzebrashuntingcom, and there you will find a link to my online course. So, basically, the online course is 16 modules, goes through a heap of different lessons, from sign to navigation, the gear you need shot placement, field butchering, caping, how to find an area, all the rest of it. So everything in there, for the new hunter up to the intermediate hunter to get to a point where you can be successful on your own right. Now it's interactive so it has an online forum where you can post questions and they come notification straight to me. So you might do the course and you might be doing a navigation module and something might make sense to you. Post it up on the forum and then I'll get the notification and I'll answer your question. So that's a cool kind of way, sort of interactive online course that's a great course.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I'm going to expand on that hopefully next year and make it more interactive, where I might actually do sell it as sort of a separate thing to that online course. But it will run very similar, where a group of people will join up and then, over four or five months, I'm going to take you from zero to get in your first deer right. That's going to be the mission. So if you've literally gone and decided I've looked at a wild deer magazine, that's it. I'm hooked. I'm going to do this. I'm going to help you get your firearms license, game license, all the gear you need how to find a spot, how to shoot. I'm thinking about doing a range day and then going through to a weekend away as a group with me so that we can go and have a hunt and hopefully that's at the end of that we can get a deer each.
Speaker 1:And you're not going to take them to where you took Christoph? Obviously no.
Speaker 2:But so I'm going to be working on that one over the summer actually. But I've also within Patreon. So if you haven't heard of Patreon, it's just another. It's a paid platform that it was created to support content creators and artists and all the rest of it. A lot of YouTubers have got onto it to make some income. Basically is what it is. So, because my channel is so small in size, the views that you get from YouTube and the ad revenue that you make is minimal. It's a couple of thousand dollars a year kind of thing. So, to sort of build it into something, patreon's just become a way of having your supporters and your followers donate to you so that you can continue to do what you're doing. And, to be honest with you, without the support that I've got on Patreon, I wouldn't be doing anything of what I am doing now, because it is actually allowing me financially to remove myself from my trade of 25 years and follow this path that I'm on. But within Patreon I have a mentor tier, so it's $250 a month, but what that does is it gives you access to me.
Speaker 2:Phone, you know, zoom calls. Computer screens you know. We talk about where you're hunting, strategies to hunt your areas or any question you've got. You know you can ring me, email me, message me, whatever, and over that month you've got my attention. Now there's only three people per month that can get onto that tier, just so that I don't spread myself out too thin, because quite often you get a couple of blokes that are just full-on. They just want to know everything and it takes up a lot of time. But that's why I've sort of cut it off at three, just so I can give you that time that you deserve. You know, um, so that's that has been really successful. I've had numerous people take their first year or their first day or their best day after a month or two of mentoring basically just phone calls, messages. You know, a few Google links shared between each other.
Speaker 2:This is how I'd hunt that spot, or I might even actually have knowledge of that area where I'll say you're wasting your time there, go around the corner, drop into there. Then you're gonna be on the deer. But yeah, at the moment that's sort of what I've got going on. I've got some bigger plans for the next year with some drop hunts, which will be self-guided style hunts, where I'll take you into areas, drop you off with, with, obviously, some knowledge and GPS with some waypoints on it of interest, so that that way you know the question about the guy coming from Sydney might be worth contacting me.
Speaker 2:You pay me a, you get dropped off into a productive area. At least that way you know you're not wasting your time driving to and from and having to do heaps of scouting. I'm putting you into areas that I have knowledge on and I know that there's going to be trophy deer or you know deer that you want to harvest for me in that area, all you've got to do is piece it all together. Where you know deer that you want to harvest for meat in that area, all you've got to do is piece it all together. Where you know where the person that can't afford to or I'm booked out for a guided hunt might enjoy doing the self-guided style hunt but being placed into the hotspot, if you want to say it like that, and these are on public land.
Speaker 2:Yeah, all public land. So I am the only one that I know of I was getting there.
Speaker 2:So correct me if I'm wrong, give me a message. If you are a business running a hunting business that's running in Victoria on public land that has Parks Victoria tour guide licence, I'd like to hear from you. You can look me up on their website, parksvictoriacom and go to tool guides. Click on hunting as an activity and you will see all the tool guides that are licensed to hunt on public land. So state forest and national park in Victoria. You'll see all the tool guides there listed. It's a pretty long list.
Speaker 2:Just Seb, it's me, just Seb, just me, yeah. So I have weekly interactions with Parks Victoria, a fair bit with GMA as well too, because I'm always in the bush. They're actually quite interested to know what I'm observing, which is, you know, it's all part of it, I suppose. Yeah, but I've got a pretty good relationship with Parks Victoria through being the first licensed tour guide operating a hunting business. They're actually quite intrigued to what I wanted to do and where I wanted to do it and all the rest of it. So it's been quite good dealing with it.
Speaker 1:Congratulations for heading down that path. You get to the pointy end of the game when you're the only ones. I mean like not in the same scope at all, but in my fencing business in my local area here and this came up tonight on a Facebook post I'm pretty sure I am the only licensed fencer in my area and the license carries not a whole lot of weight. It's just a fair Department of Fair Trading. You know I'm a licensed trades person but you know regularly I get comments on Facebook.
Speaker 1:You know my fence blew down and there's just like 30 tags of like handyman and I can fix it and Jim's this and whatnot. And I don't actually usually comment my own business, I just say something like I don't care who you go with, like just ask for their licence details or their insurance details or anything. And it's the same in our gig on the guiding thing. There used to be an Australian Guides Association and there isn't at the moment. There is a little bit of push for one in return, but the first place it will appear will be in the Northern Territory because it's highly like the money up there is incredible for American clients.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and then hopefully it filters down because I think isn't a rising tide lifts all boats Like, I think, if we can increase the quality and standard across the board and I say this a lot, there's a lot of guides out there. There's very few outfitters that do it well, anyone can be a guide. You can take people hunting and make two or 300 bucks or whatever, but it's when you get to that next level, like you have, it's yeah, that's the pointy end of the triangles. Now, before before we wrap up, uh, I've said it 97 times, you're heading somewhere in the next couple of days. That's why I nabbed you just before you fly out. But by the time this episode comes, uh to air and I'm probably going to split it in two because it's been a pretty long one, but we'll see how it goes you will already be over there or maybe on your way back. But where are you headed?
Speaker 2:What are you doing? So I'm heading to Montana, yeah, so Montana, flying into Bozeman and then driving out towards Gardner. I believe it is to go and catch up with some friends that are already over there now actually they flew out a week ago. Um, he does a bit of taxidermy back home and every year he goes over and does like a week taxidermy sort of course to try and improve and learn different techniques and whatnot. But then he also catches up with a friend that has an outfitting business called Specimen Creek Outfitters and basically they've got a bit of a plan to try and set up an outfitting business to take Aussies over to Montana and start guiding there. So my mate's got a guide licence and everything already, so he's been doing that for a couple of years, which is pretty cool.
Speaker 2:But if he did set up a business, I said that I'd be interested in maybe jumping on board to be a guide for maybe a couple of hunts a year, but also to organise bookings for Aussies for my viewers, for anyone in Australia that might be looking to go over, like bookings for Aussies for my viewers, you know, for anyone in Australia that might be looking to go over and chase an elk, or they also did goats, bighorn sheep, mule deer, I believe. So you know, and that's kind of part of what I did in Africa as well is set up that base for people to be able to contact someone that they trust to organize a hunt internationally, so that you don't get caught out on some sort of dud trip, um, and like what we talked about prior to the podcast, with what you're doing is, you know, you can't really recommend something unless you've been there and you've experienced it. So part of this trip is getting over there, is learning how the ranch runs.
Speaker 1:This is your recce.
Speaker 2:This is my reconnaissance. So when I come back, if I'm going to sell a hunt to Montana, I can say, well, this is what the accommodation's like, the food's like this, the guides that are there are awesome people, the hunting is like this. The guides that are there are, you know, awesome people, the hunting is like this, et cetera, et cetera. Exactly like what I've done in Africa and that's only a new thing for me.
Speaker 2:But I kind of build off my reputation. I think everyone that sort of follows me can sort of see that you know I'm not full of hot wind and bullshit. So hopefully you know, if you are intending to hunt overseas, internationally, somewhere, that you can take my word that you know what I'm saying is true and I can alleviate a lot of the issues that you can have when you go on an international hunt which I've done myself, you would have done before where you get over there and it's not what you're expecting and it can be a quite disappointing experience if you've paid a lot of money to get there, taken a lot of time off, work, et cetera.
Speaker 1:I think we've come full circle to Christoph again, and it comes down to managing expectations, and that's what we're trying to do. I mean, you know I'm not going to send someone to africa, that you know he's not into that style of hunting, and I can tell them that before I go there. Or you know we send them somewhere else in africa.
Speaker 1:That's not, you know, the yeah, different style high fence stuff, estate stuff, but it's, but it's a whole other. It's not what people imagine as high fence, but that's a topic for another night. But it's funny you talk about, you know, familiarities. I mean Zeb and I only spoke on the phone the other day for the first time really, and you know he starts mentioning this place. He's going to Specimen Creek. I said, oh, that's a pretty nice place, and I don't know whether he fully clicked on straight away, but like I, I have hunted that area and uh, the outfit I was with was right next door. Um, I've spent many nights drinking too many cheap coronas and gardener and they do a really good prime rib down there. It's. It's a great little town but and I believe the outfit you're working for is actually brothers of the outfit that I- was working for yes, so you must have went with Hells of Roran.
Speaker 2:It's an amazing.
Speaker 1:That's it. Hells of Roran, it's an amazing place, just that whole area. Gardner Airport's an amazing airport. That town is, you know, just full of Bozeman. Sorry Bozeman Airport, bozeman, sorry Bozeman Airport, bozeman. Yeah, it's just full of like old-school country and it's actually I think it's the home of. I think they're in Bozeman?
Speaker 2:Yeah, it is, I saw that today. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so yeah, they're in Bozeman, so you know, definitely worth going to check out. I think First Lights headquarters are there too, maybe.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Stone Glacier Just some interesting stuff.
Speaker 1:But, yeah, it's a small world. When you yeah, I've been to the Stone, glacier place, schnee's as well is there another boot sort of company. Once you get into the gold and the booking agency side of things, it's a small world.
Speaker 2:I had a mate call in the other day and we're organising a trip to New Zealand next year. Anyway, he's going where are you going again? And I'm sort of explaining it to him and he goes I've been there somewhere and I said what was the name of the outfit? And he goes, oh, hell Something. And I go not Hell's aurora, because yeah, that's where I went. So my, my mate that I hunt with all the time has has been on a hunt with hell's aurora and I'm going with the brother next door, basically.
Speaker 1:So yeah, it is a small world yeah, well then, the reason there is a there is a fair few guys that have been over at hell's aurora, and it's because a lot of the guys he had working over there were australians. So there's a couple that have been over there. Jamie Bell is one, jamie.
Speaker 2:Bell yeah.
Speaker 1:He's been in the industry for a long time and he guided there for many years and then his daughter has been over there and worked there and then friends of his have gone and worked there. I'm trying to think of all their names right now. And that's know, and that's how I got my start was through, like a third person removed down from Jamie Bell had gone over and then gave me my you know, connection and start. So it's just one of those places that you'll be walking around Shot Show and you're talking about elk hunting and they're like oh, I've been over there and that's the same place. Yeah, it's a crazy place on the side of yellowstone. So, man, I look forward to hearing your stories when you get back. Um, we'll catch up. We'll catch up in person at shot show also just on the shot show.
Speaker 1:Thing if anyone has never heard of shot show, this is not zeb related, but or shot expo, I think they're calling it. It is an amazing place to visit and I was talking to the organizers down there today about something and like he said, oh what does Shot Show mean to you? And I'm like I just I cannot explain it. It's like like I love chocolate and it'd be like me at the Cadbury factory it's just full of everything I love the people, the industry, the new products, the old products.
Speaker 1:You know, just this hub of hive like this buzz of excitement, and we haven't had one for a few years, so it's even going to be extra special this year. It's in Melbourne. I think it's the 18th and 19th of October, october, yep. Highly recommend anyone grabs a ticket October, october, yep, highly recommend anyone grabs a ticket. It's only I want to say it's like $40, $28 a day or something, $30 a day. It's not crazy money. I think it was, yeah, $50 for the two-day pass or something.
Speaker 2:So yeah, anyway that's a side note. There's been a few in this episode Highly recommend.
Speaker 2:You'll be down there with. Yeah, I'll be down there with Pulver Safaris from South Africa. I'll be in their stand promoting their business. But, yeah, drop in and have a chat about it really. Also, I've been invited to be the guest speaker at the ADA dinner. So if anyone's in Melbourne I think on the 5th of October they do have limited tickets jump on board there. I'll be talking there. I think I've got two half hour slots there, so I think they do like a four course dinner and they give away, or the presentation for the Arthur Bentley biggest Samba of the year is given that night and a few other different things. So it should be a good night. If anyone's interested in hearing what I've got to say a bit more, if you're in town, have a look at buying a ticket.
Speaker 1:That's a pretty good invite to get there, mate.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm pretty proud of that one actually. Yeah, so in front of all the peers, which is good, yeah, I'm sort of getting a little bit humble there.
Speaker 1:I do feel sorry for the organisers trying to keep you to a half an hour time slot.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I know, yeah, I know it's a struggle.
Speaker 1:I think I don't even know how far we've gone in tonight because we've broken down halfway there.
Speaker 2:But, mate, I really appreciate it. We were at 90 minutes and now we're at 60 minutes.
Speaker 1:I hope they head across yeah, I know, but I hope for anyone listening head over and check out Zeb's channel, check out the YouTube stuff, check out the Patreon, Send him a message and say hello, and for 250 bucks a month you get unlimited samba knowledge. Uh, which is it's like. I understand that people will balk at that and say, god, it's a lot of money for nothing.
Speaker 1:But it's you know, you think about if you want to book a specialist appointment for your kid to go and see a doctor. It's $250 to $450 for one appointment for an hour for a specialist in an industry. What you're getting here is a specialist. That's right. You're getting a specialist in an industry for a month to you know, basically to yourself. You've got to share him with his wife, kids and two other people, but you know that's a small price to pay, I think.
Speaker 2:And I'm not overly, I know you know Errol's got his books and whatnot.
Speaker 1:And I technically well, true, but I technically own Errol's books I think they're in the corner over here in my bookshelf but I don't read them. I'm more of this sort of person of conversation. So you know, I'd love to come and do your course, come and do his course and just learn more about Sambra in general.
Speaker 1:But I look forward to catching up with you down at Chacho, that's for sure. Yeah, we'll be good. Any final words before we wrap up. I shouldn't say that because it'll be 25 minutes I'm going to cut you off.
Speaker 2:We're done, we're calling it. I do so. Just, everyone just enjoy hunting for what it is. Try to stay on the right side of the line and everyone can continue to enjoy what we've got, especially in Victoria, we've got almost unlimited access to a whole heap of public land and we don't want to stuff that up for the next generation. So just think about your impact on what could happen in the future.
Speaker 1:Well said, zeb, and we'll leave it there. Thanks for now and for everyone. I'll talk to you soon. Thanks for listening. Just wanted to remind you of a competition we've got going at the moment Hunt or Hat. Now head over to wwwaccuratehuntscom forward slash podcast. On that page you'll find a submission form. Send us in a question Now.
Speaker 1:Topic-specific, generalized question, beginner question, advanced question, question for me, question for a guest, whatever you want it to be, send it through and if we read it on air as one of the questions we roll through with our guests, you get a chance to win a hat. So either myself or the guest will pick a winner, best question and that person wins a hat. Now, to compliment that, everyone that sends a question in goes in the draw to win a hunt with me. So not just those that win the hat and get on air, everyone who sends a question. So send them in. I've loved reading and there's been some pearlers and I look forward to cracking through some of them a lot more than I expected, to be honest. So we're up to nearly 100 or so, but we're getting through. So please send them in, keep in touch, let me know what you think and good luck to all those people who send in entries.