Wild Takes
A Wild Origins Australia Podcast.
Wild Takes brings you raw, unfiltered conversations with the people working at the front line of conservation and hunting. From scientists and traditional knowledge holders to adventurers and land managers — we explore the big ideas, tough decisions, and wild stories shaping the future of our natural world.
Hosted in partnership with Wild Origins Australia & the Origins Foundation.
Wild Takes
Mongrels And Show Dogs
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Anthony Santoro is the owner of Little Ax outdoors. Producing the best Aussie made bow bags and duffles on the international market. Today on the show we talk about the mongrels in the high country and the show dogs in parliament.
If you want the strongest shafts with the best penetration from the nicest guys, it's got to be jabsticks. Arrows you can rely on.
SPEAKER_06Hi, I'm Anthony Santoro. And this is Wild Takes.
SPEAKER_02Today on the show, we have the man behind Little Axe Outdoors, it's Tony Toro. Today's Wild Take is they're not all dingos, some are just wild mongrels. So Tony Toro, it's been too long. It's been too too long. My friend and soon to be yours. How's it been? Uh it's been good.
SPEAKER_06Life's been busy. It's been probably it's probably the busiest uh twelve months of I reckon my life, actually. Just in general, with work, uh hunting, um design, you know, for little acts. It's uh it's been an adventure.
SPEAKER_02That's quite a bold statement. The busiest twelve months of your life. That's that's pretty cool.
SPEAKER_06It's cool in some ways because well you think busy means money, but sometimes uh in between making money uh in business, you're just busy.
SPEAKER_02So You need some time for life as well.
SPEAKER_06Yeah, exactly. And then you've got family as well. So, you know, you've like I coach hockey, so that season's just started. There was a you know, I was coaching a couple of teams last year in hockey and and playing as well, so that was just busy every week, every weekend, something was going on. And then you're trying to put hunting and you're trying to really squeeze those trips in. So I got a couple of trips away uh throughout the year. Um But like that's life, you know? Is there some some phrase that goes, you know, life happens in between something.
SPEAKER_02Life is what happens while you're busy making plans.
SPEAKER_06Yeah, there you go. And sometimes you notice it, sometimes you don't. But I'm trying to notice that you know the things that I do, like really consciously trying to go, what did I do today? Like every night before I go to bed, I'm like, well, what did I do today? Otherwise you just go to sleep. You have dreams that you wake up, you trying to grasp them before you forget them. I don't know about you, but that's sort of what happens to me. I'm like, oh, I had a dream about and then it goes. But during the daytime, you sometimes you go to bed and you just forget life like that as well. So I really try and pay attention now.
SPEAKER_02It's like trying to hold on to wet cake, you know, it just filters through your fingers. There's something about I think it's like we're trying to download a terabyte of data onto Windows 97. You know, you just you can't hold the information.
SPEAKER_06Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, it's a good way to put it. And and that's life. So but I enjoy life as Topsy Turvy. Life's full of losses, uh, it's full of successes, it's full of failures, it's full of embarrassments, it's like it's just this, you know. But if you're watching your life as a viewer, it'd be a funny story, uh, full of you know, uh moments of sadness, joy, and mostly you're gonna be laughing at yourself. Let's hope. I like to think my life is a comedy, just not a tragedy.
SPEAKER_02Seriously. You can't know. Now, for those of you who don't know, for those of you listening, um Ant is probably most famous for being the owner CEO of Little Axe Outdoors.
SPEAKER_06Yes. Well, famous, yeah. I appreciate that uh introduction. Um, well, uh yeah, I am. I started it back in 2019 and uh just doing bags uh for archery equipment, and then that grew into you know other various forms of archery bags effectively. That's what I make, I make bags for bows.
SPEAKER_02And what was it that inspired you to get into the archery bag business?
SPEAKER_06Well, so if you go back to when I was a kid, um my dad was a hunter. Uh, but by the time I was born and got into uh a part of my life where I wanted to engage in that, he didn't want to go hunting anymore. He'd he'd had a change of heart. But uh archery was something that I'd I happened to do it at school one day and I was like, oh, you don't need a license for this, you don't need permission. I can make one of these out of stuff in my backyard and I can go hunting. So I started making bows in my backyard and got into hunting that way.
SPEAKER_02Was your father, a bow hunter, or a rifle hunter?
SPEAKER_06He was a purely a rifle hunter. I don't even think he'd ever shot a bow, but he's an he was a natural hunter. So he was He's one of these guys that he never he'd never shot anything with a bow, but the first time he aimed at something with a bow, he was able to just drill it. He's just a it was a natural with anything, any kind of projectile product, he was very good at. So he took the archery very quickly.
SPEAKER_02Did he play any sports that involved hand eye coordination? I mean like baseball or squash. Squash.
SPEAKER_06Yeah. According to his friends, he was one of these guys that anything he did he was really good at. So he played a little bit of footy, he didn't really play cricket, but any kind of thing that was um active, like he was an avid runner, cyclist, so he's super fit. Uh but squash he was a gun at. Like, you know, I was never able to beat him until I was, I think, in my 30s. He was that good. Uh and I was pretty good myself, too. So he um he was just good at it. So, but not being a hunter, I just started him as in him not being a hunter and me wanting to do it. I we always fished as well. So it wasn't that much of a leap to go from fishing to hunting.
SPEAKER_02What kind of fishing are you referring to?
SPEAKER_06Uh freshwater, purely freshwater fishing we do.
SPEAKER_02So um like course fishing off the fly?
SPEAKER_06Uh we never did fly. It was always just uh, you know, sinkers, that kind of I'm not too sure what you'd call it, what the technical name is course fishing, yeah. Course fishing, okay, cool. So that that's basically what we do. So um and we'd fish pretty much every holiday, you know, a lot of weekends in trips we do, you know, even if it was just for the morning to go fishing. Um so then we got into um I got uh moving along, I got into archery, but I just was making my own bows, and then gradually I was making these bows more and more heavy. And, you know, I was uh getting a stick, you know, from the backyard, and then I was p uh putting PVC over the stick to give it extra poundage.
SPEAKER_02Just to clarify, when you say heavy, are you talking about the overall weight of the bow or are you talking about the poundage of the poundage, yeah. So for those who don't uh aren't aware, so a bow is measured in its poundage, its draw weight. So the the force it takes you to pull back the string on a traditional bow, then transfers into the string, and that's uh yeah, so that's the weight of the bow.
SPEAKER_06Yeah, that's it, yeah. So I started manufacturing those myself, and my dad had one of these garages that was like a kid's dream, you know, boy, a young boy's dream. It had every kind of piece of equipment that you wanted. It had grinders, it had, you know, uh drop drills, uh, it had you know all kinds of saws, I had a Triton workbench, which you know you could basically cut anything of. He had miters, it was great.
SPEAKER_02So I was fortunate enough to have the same thing as well.
SPEAKER_06Yeah, it was so cool. So you go in there, I could make a knife, I could literally just find a piece of steel, spring steel off the you know, some leaf uh suspension and turn it into a knife in a couple of hours, and it was great. So I built my bows in there. Then I started um dad worked at uh an airline, so he'd have access to all of these really cool things like cams and carbon fibre products and stuff like that. So he'd bring me home cams and I started making compound bows. Wow. Yeah, they weren't really good because I very uh they just obviously the PBC on you know backyard wood, it was you know, I had to I needed a bit more technology.
SPEAKER_01That's still very cool, so give it a go.
SPEAKER_06Yeah, that's well, it was just fun. So and then um we made then I ended up uh getting a bow for Christmas, which was a like a 1959 Black Widow 60 pound bow, which was too much for a 12-year-old, but I made use of that.
SPEAKER_02Black widows back in the day as well, that was uh quite the bow.
SPEAKER_06Yeah, yeah, yeah. I didn't really appreciate how good it was because I didn't know like I was the only bow hunter that I knew.
SPEAKER_02How much was a black widow out of interest, Mac then, yeah?
SPEAKER_06I don't know, because they bought it secondhand. They bought it off someone at my dad's work, and um I'm not too sure even if they knew what they had or even if the guy knew what he had, because it's probably like oh I got this bow, yeah, you can have it, or you know, give me 50 bucks for it, who knows? But um, we also had uh a sewing machine at home. So I was I was probably about a two-hour train ride from the closest archery shop, which is in the eastern suburbs. I was in the northern suburbs. So um it was like a special day trip to go to uh the bow hunt it was called. The bow hut.
SPEAKER_02That sounds like a cool name for a bow shop.
SPEAKER_06It was, it was such a cool place. It had um it was like you know, it was like uh a dream for a kid that is into archery. You'd walk in and there's bows everywhere, and I'd only seen my bow. That's all I'd have the only bow I'd ever seen is you know, like a quality bow was the bow that I had, and you go into this shop and there's bows hanging up on the walls and you know, there's arrows all over the place. I'm still like I was going to, you know, McEwen's, which was the old version of Bunnings buying dowel and, you know, turning um making my own arrows for my Black Widow bow, not knowing anything about spine, about, you know, grain. I had no idea. Um so we ended up going there and then he suggested that we join an archery club, and um which we did, and then but everything was so expensive. So I I said we had a sewing machine at home and it was an old singer, knee-operated sewing machine.
SPEAKER_02I know the ones that my mum used to collect.
SPEAKER_06Yeah, there you go. So we um so but I also knew how to sew, weirdly, because it was just something that I just knew how to do. It wasn't very hard, especially on those old singers that just were like this omnidirectional or unidirectional um needles. So I would sew up uh bow uh quivers and um uh various hunting types of products like you know, gators. I was making my own gaiters and I just started doing that kind of stuff, and then I started making bags for um out of old jeans and stuff like that, I'd make bags for my bows, you know. So like you get an old pair of jeans and each leg becomes and you know, you sort of sew it, you make this bag for it. But um so I started doing that, and then what I didn't do like I did archery and hunting until I was about maybe twenty-one. And then, you know, life interceded and uh or interjected rather and said, no, now you've got to go to work and in Korea and uni and all this stuff like that. So I sort of dropped it until I was about uh in my 30s and then bought a a bow and uh realised I didn't have a bag to put it in. So I bought a uh a camera, uh a photographer's bag for like those big lenses, and it was a three-piece bow, and I'd folded it up, put it in there, and I started thinking, oh, I'll buy someone's gotta make these, you know. And there weren't really that product on the market that I wanted, like I wanted like a military-looking sort of cool tough product.
SPEAKER_02I was gonna say, it's I never noticed really when we met and I knew what you did, that the market's almost non-existent for a good quality bow back for traditional bows, particularly.
SPEAKER_06Yeah, yeah. I mean, look, I've got to give a shout-out to uh um like Safari Tough make a pretty good product. Um, and I know I've seen them, they're really good quality products, but they're they're just different to what I've got. Um But that was the closest thing, and I'd never seen one of those too. So like I didn't really, I still didn't know a lot of people that I don't know back in 2018, 2019. So I just started um coming up with something and thinking, oh well, like I'll make it for myself. And I went to an archery uh club out in Albury with this bag, and people started looking at it, going, Oh, you know what, that's really cool. Are you gonna sell these? And I was like, Yeah. And well, I'll buy one. Well, but you know, you've got to change it. And they gave me some suggestions, and that became the R1.
SPEAKER_02Right.
SPEAKER_06So that was uh back in 2018, 2019, something like that.
SPEAKER_02And what iteration are you on now? So the R1 is your flagship, you still Yeah, yeah, still got those ones.
SPEAKER_06Um I've just uh so then the R1, then R2 came out, um, which was actually a suggestion from um came from a suggestion from Aaron Snyder, who texted me one day out of the blue. Really?
SPEAKER_01From Kefaru.
SPEAKER_06Yeah, yeah, back when it and I looked at him like I got up in the morning and I'm Aaron Snyder, direct message? What the hell? And then he said, Oh, hey mate, uh do you make one of these for a bow with uh that to take around strung? And I'm like, No, I don't. He goes, Can you? And I went, Yeah. So I I the only guy I knew that had a black widow that's same as what um Snyder used was uh Jack Spinks, who was a mate. So I went and traced uh one up of his bow and then that became the R2, and then I had the R1C, which is like the backpack takedown product, and that I've I've just redesigned. So that's gonna be that's coming out probably in I reckon later this year. That takes a little while to do the R and D on it, but that's gonna be a really cool, cool product.
SPEAKER_02I do love like the R2, you can actually have a full quiver of arrows and slide it through. That's the idea, yeah. Covered in Molly, military grade canvas, is that right?
SPEAKER_06Yeah, that's it. So I wanted it, it's all like a thousand denier can uh canvas um uh nylon uh what's it cordra, it's all cordura. So it's but it's super heavy duty. It's probably a little bit overspec, but knowing how much you chuck your bag around.
SPEAKER_02There's no such thing. I've got one of your duffels.
SPEAKER_06Oh yeah.
SPEAKER_02And that duffel bag is just my go-to travel bag.
SPEAKER_06Ah, cool. That's good to know.
SPEAKER_02It's been across the Kimberley, has been up to the north, it's been into the centre, it's been to the desert, has been into the jungle, it's been everywhere. It looks exactly the same as it did the day I bought it.
SPEAKER_06Well, that's that's what I I figured. Like, I I bought like so that duffel bag that came from uh a Samsonite duffel bag. I wouldn't say it's not a copy or anything like that, but I had this Samsonite duffel bag, similar design, you know, that whole open out flat, and I'd not seen anything like that. But I had that duffel bag for I got it for my 21st, and I used that thing, like I took it to the States, I took it to, you know, every trip that I went on locally hunting, that duffel bag came with me, and it's still in, it still works, like it's such a good product, but they don't make it anymore. So I'm like, this is crazy. Like I went to buy a new one, I'm like, oh, it looks like I've got to make one of these now. So that's how that duffel bag came about. But like that, that's um that's 500 denia just to make it a little bit lighter for you know for travel. But um, like I love that duffel bag. I'm like you, like it's my favourite thing. I don't have anything else.
SPEAKER_02I've got Patagonia ones. I've we are uh we're a bag family. Yeah, a lot of bags, a lot of backpags, a lot of duffel bags. There's a bag for every occasion. Yeah, like uh I think it's the one thing that and camouflage is the only thing that a man can really accessorise with and get compliments from his friends. Very nice camo. Well, wow, what what uh is that? What's nice? They're good with this bag.
SPEAKER_06That bag in that camo look amazing on you.
SPEAKER_02Any accessorising you can get away with. Um so yeah, we love a bag. And I've got tons of bags, but it's just my go-to, the zips as well. Yeah. I don't know where you get your zips from.
SPEAKER_06Yeah, YKK zippers, so Oh yeah. Yeah, everything's like I figured if they use it on military stuff, then it's gonna it'll outlast, you know, a lifetime. Yeah, it can be passed down to, you know, from father to son sort of thing, which I thought that's really cool.
SPEAKER_02So I've actually I've got one of your bags that carries a a takedown bow on my page. Oh, though I want to see, yeah. Uh I took that to Africa.
SPEAKER_06Oh, yeah. Great stuff. Really cool. Well, that's the one that I'm redesigning.
SPEAKER_02You're redesigning. I know I got the, I think when I because it was given to me as a gift, and I was told when they were ordering it that you literally didn't have any left.
SPEAKER_06You got the last one. That's cool. Because I was talking to Kai about it, your partner, and I was like, I don't know if I've got one, and I just happened to find one. And then she'd already ordered it, and uh I was lucky enough to just have that one there. But um that that was that was my favourite bag. That was the the one that I took the longest to make. And then so when I ran out of stock, I'm like, I did that on purpose because I wanted to redesign it just um so you know the C1 compound bow case and it you got that molly inside that you can use to fit. Yeah. So I was never happy with the way I just had those straps inside the C the R1C for because I thought it's it doesn't really give you much play to put a bow where you want it to go. And it was a little bit too just wasn't firm enough. So I've done the um the molly inside the new R it's got the R2C, and I've got it's got moly inside, so you can put that any like your bow exactly where you want it to go. You can probably it's a little bit wider too, so you can comfortably fit two bows in there as well.
SPEAKER_02I think I might have the medium, I don't know what size Yeah, you probably got the medium, yeah. So it fits my riser and my limbs in there pretty perfectly. Slings over your shoulder, and is ready to go. It's got pockets. And what it is perfect for is that I can get it inside of my check luggage. Yeah, really well with it being padded, and I don't have to pay for extra. Yeah. Oh, that's good to know. So it goes great for that, and you've always got it there. You can chuck it on your bag, you take it with you. It's nice that like I shoot, I've I've gone to the dark side, so I'm shooting a lot of compound at the moment. And it's just nice to have as well. You know, it's just an extra bag. Yeah. So it's really cool to be able to have that option.
SPEAKER_06Yeah, well, the new one's got a um detachable shoulder strap. So it's uh it's a stabilizer strap. It's gonna be pretty cool actually. So I'm excited about it coming out.
SPEAKER_02Uh are you looking at any other designs, any other things? There's a couple of things like I've got recommendations.
SPEAKER_06Yeah, yeah, well, I'm all ears. I'll tell you what my design plans are. So I s I've always wanted to do a a backpack, like a uh like a a uh backpack hunt type backpack.
SPEAKER_01You mean a large one?
SPEAKER_06Yeah, a large one with a detachable frame. So I multi-day. Yeah. I've got a design where you've got a detachable like everything's detachable, including the straps. So right now, like you can get a day pack, but the day pack has to like there's various products on the market. You've got like zip-on day packs onto a main pack.
SPEAKER_02Like a Gemini, like the Mac pack do one?
SPEAKER_06Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And actually, um uh a good Kiwi brand like makes super tough stuff is um uh K2 Antarctic. Okay. They're really good products, but they're really heavy. They're super heavy duty, but they don't detach. But they've got a detachable backpack, but the backpack has already the straps built in. Maroke do something similar, they've got a super light backpack.
SPEAKER_02They we've got one, yeah. They're pretty pretty good. So that's the thing as well. Like these companies, they want to put loads of add-ons on and they end up with a really heavy pack.
SPEAKER_05Yeah.
SPEAKER_02And then you're weighing your food and not taking a spare knife or something because you're trying to keep the grams down when there's all these straps and all this craziness that you'll never use.
SPEAKER_06Yeah, exactly. And you know, I like I like modulation too. So, you know, I d I like um like uh side pockets that you can take off, you can put onto your day pack. So I've got something designed, but it's like a backpack, you really appreciate how much, say, a Maroka or a Kaffaru. They go through a lot to create these products, and they're so good at it. So, you know, here's me coming in with, you know, a new product. It's it's really it's taken years. Actually, in in fairness, that's actually how I started Little Axe, is I had a backpack design uh at the very, very beginning that I was shopping around. At the same time, I was doing archery, but I never put two and two together. And um the company that uh they're out in Cranburn, I was sitting with her and we're doing these designs because I don't have the sewing machine, my singer sewing machine anymore. I needed some professional help to make the products that I make. Um but she was uh you know going, look, if you want to make this, you're gonna have to provide um the um the carbon fibre framing. And I go, You don't do that? She goes, No, we're we're seamstresses. Like, I'm not doing carbon fiber framing. I'm like, oh okay. So I started designing this carbon fiber framing, and I got a designer in, and I'm like, oh man, this is this is hard work. So during this process, I said to her, go, hey, um, you know, maybe we'll do something simpler, like this bag. And that's then we started just doing the R1. But um, it's there are that's one of the things that I'm working on. Plus, um I I do want to make it like a day pack.
SPEAKER_02It's interesting. So, firstly, I was just something I was gonna say it's just to interject what you're saying about how technical the bags are and how much effort. Goes into them, I would say probably 99.999% of people do not know what their bags are capable of. I recommend anybody who's got one goes, if you've got a backpack of any kind, even your um chest harness, go and watch the video where they describe how they work. Because even I've got bags that I've only recently did some deep diving and I didn't realise there was an additional aspect of it.
SPEAKER_06Yeah, how cool is it though when you figure out like, oh look what this does. You know, I got the that Moroka 30 pack, right? That's a really cool pack. I actually just replaced my K2, which I'd had for oh gosh, like eight years or something. Um and I thought I went this Moroka, and that thing's really cool, comes apart, does everything that you want it to do. And then I I was um talking to the guy uh at the shop, and I was just having a chat asking him about how to set it up properly, and he goes, Oh yeah, yeah. Um uh some people have used it to uh we just sold a bunch of frames to some uh uh a film team who were walking through doing some film on the um Cocoa track, and I'm like, Oh, you can like what what you can put other things to it. He goes, Oh yeah, yeah, and he showed me some stuff and I'm like, oh cool. So I at the moment it's got weights on it. Construct all these weights on it, and I'm like, oh, this is really easy. Like you can just do so many cool things with it, and one of the things you can do is you can add all this, you can just like literally tie things around it. It's got all these little loops and stuff.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, so Molly, people don't use their Molly or their pal ever.
SPEAKER_06They don't know how to. So, I mean that's actually a real thing, is people don't understand that those Molly things. Like it stands for mmm, oh gosh, I can't remember what it says for you. No, but it's basically it's an acronym that means Yeah, that's the one.
SPEAKER_04L L E.
SPEAKER_02I am cheating by checking by looking it up.
SPEAKER_06I won't tell anyone, you just I can just see your thing. I'll edit this out. It's like modular lightweight load carrying equipment. That's it, yeah. So um yeah, but people don't realise that there's so many different ways to use it. You can use it for compression, um, you can use it for uh you can just hook things on it. Um you can use it to strap other bags to it. You can uh like you can uh you can use it to strap meat bags too, you can flip it around sometimes, you can do some other things with it. So it's such a cool product, but the whole purpose of it is is to extend one bag into to modulate it so you can it can be like a larger bag.
SPEAKER_02First aid kits, water bottles, the amount of things I had a friend go on a hunting trip, lose his keys, and he was in a in a in a really big, really bad way, as far as another friend had to drive a long time talking about Zach, and he um he had he went through all that trouble and just yeah, a carabiner, little one, quiet one, attaches to your molly, it's not a big deal.
SPEAKER_06Yeah, that's uh yeah, that's what what we um that's why I put that stuff on it is to a lot of it's carabine, because I love carabina clips. I love I love um mucking around with stuff like Frankenstein-y products. Like even my K2 Antarctic, like I sewed side pockets onto it. I sewed extra um compression straps onto it. I sewed more molly onto it to take more because I love I love going into the bush and you know, like your toiletries and stuff, I like it to be external so you can just pop it off and keep it with you. You don't have to take it out for the day, you just leave it at camp.
SPEAKER_02Just the little bag that has calls in it. Because you can be out the amount of times you're out and you've got a target animal, and then all of a sudden there's a fox in the distance. A little silver would have made all the difference, you know?
SPEAKER_06Yeah, yeah, 100%. So yeah, Molly is such a cool product. It doesn't I think the problem with Molly is that it looks cool. It makes stuff look cool and and military. Yeah, it makes it look military. So people buy it and they're like, oh now it looks really cool. I want that. I'll never use it, but you know, like if uh Zach had used that to, you know, cook his car keys on, it would have been, you know.
SPEAKER_02It wouldn't be a legendary story that it's gonna get mocked about and this type of thing. What were you saying about your day pack?
SPEAKER_06Oh my so my day pack is yeah, the one that I'm do uh thinking of is uh so when you go on a hunt during the day, you know, let's say you backpack into a place, you take your backpack off, and then you've got this little day pack. You go out and you shoot like a 300 kilo animal, and you're five kilometres from camp, and all you've got is your day pack to carry this little thing. So you've got two options, right? You can phone a friend, that's if you've got a friend at camp, you can text him and say, Hey mate, uh, I'm here, here's my drop pin. Can you come and get me? That's if you can get that kind of reception, which is difficult, or you'll trek all the way back to camp, get your mate, come back, or you trek all the way camp if you're solo, you get your backpack, and this is what I've had to do get my backpack and head back out. Or one time actually I had another mate, Dylan, he went back to camp, uh picked him up, then we both went out with our main packs and brought all this meat back. But what if that day pack that I had that just, you know, you got your water bottle, a couple of muesley bars and just enough for that morning, what if that could carry most of that product, that animal back, or even all of it? Like that's the that's the um That's the dream. Yeah, that's the dream. So that's something that I'm sort of thinking about, you know. And I've been uh I mean you suggested something similar too, but it's funny that I was like just trying to figure out what's going on.
SPEAKER_02You had all the doodle, the all the uh sorry, the schematics, yeah, the the technical the technical drawings. Um yeah, so this actually was born of we were talking about today because we were he was due to come on the podcast, and I am a big fan, I've mentioned it before, I'm a big, big fan of Eberly stock. Turns out, for some reason, unbeknownst to the general public, they're moving away from a lot of their hunting lines, their more tactical apparel. Oh, yeah, yeah. I think what they're finding is is that their market are utilizing their tactical apparel for their hunting needs. A lot of people that are hunting mountains and barren terrain, they're shoot there are a lot of rifle hunters, they're shooting at distance, and in America they've got the kind of culture and the the knowledge that they they don't need camo when you're too at a drug three, not generally. You know, so they're not bothering. It makes their clothes multifunctional as well. Yeah. You just don't have a set of clothes that you can only wear when you're out in the field. So they don't do camo clothes anymore, apart from a couple of coats. They don't do any of their uh double gang of camo, which I truly I love and I'm unf it's I it's unfortunate. One of the bags they've discontinued is their Mini Me. Which I love that name. So we got one and I my partner used it initially. Yeah. And I think that's why they don't do them anymore, is because it looks a bit like the small bag that you know, like uh some teenage girl takes, it's what kind of holds a lip balm, and people think it's not gonna contain or not gonna hold enough, it's not manly enough, I need a big bag, big bag to hold my my big testicles, it's gotta be gotta be tough. And um I suppose they just didn't do very well. Yeah. I took it out, and I didn't know why the whole experience for me was so much better. I went on a big hunt, I was like, God, I've done probably 30 kilometers today. I've had, and I was really nice. What was it that made the difference? And I did it didn't click at first. It was not lugging around my bag, even a medium-sized backpack, not having a massive backpack with you. It's essentially a hydro flask, a hydro flask, uh pack that has some other pockets in it, and I've just decided I'm going super lightweight from now on. Not like I think basically speaking, what you need really is a super small pack, or you're doing a multi-day and you need a massive pack. Yeah. The in the middles, for me personally, I understand why some people might go for it, you know, you've got a bit more you're not needing half of, if not probably two-thirds of the stuff that you carry with you. Now, between my Barno harness and my small holder bladder backpack, I've managed to get in my chest harness. I've got a replaceable blade knife, I have a lot. I've got a headlight, I use the NU-20 by Nightcore, which is the smallest with with uh, you know, with decent output that you can get. It fits inside of a little small pouch that goes on my harness. I've got some 550 power cord and some nano, some super strength nano cord, just in case. I've got cools, I can get ferrarod in there, I don't have one at the moment. And that's all just in my chest harness, I've got my rangefinder on one side, and I've got a small GPS. Uh no, not GPS, the the small accessories pouches, not even the large accessories pouch. Oh, okay.
SPEAKER_06Is that and that's a marsupial?
SPEAKER_02That is the marsupial. I've got the fully enclosed one. Oh, okay. Um, I actually kind of prefer the flagship normal one for it's like flexible, it's lightweight, but I just got the enclosed one and it does stop the moisture in some morning sometimes, so I do prefer it for that. I don't know about the dust, I don't know if there's that much of an effect. I've been in the dustiest places in the country, and I still don't think you get that much dust on your lenses, but that's arguable. I'm sure some people will complain about that and say they get it all the time. Um and then just in the hydro bag, I've got the the the bladder. Uh it's a a source hydration. They're like the military ones, Eberly Stock run them, they're great. They've got antibacterial, they're like true military ones. Um a butcher knife, which I just I've actually got a a dick master grip.
SPEAKER_06That just sounds odd by that just for the name.
SPEAKER_02It the it's the dick master grip. So it's uh the handle isn't as kind of controlled with the ergonomics. It could it gives you a bit more range of motion and it does really well forward cutting because it's like a just like a vitrinox, basically. Yeah, yeah. Um snake white bandage, gotta have it. A few meds, talked about before, turn a some snacks and mosquito repellent, as well as a micro USD reader that attaches to my phone.
SPEAKER_06What do you use that for?
SPEAKER_02So I've got game coaches, so if I've got cameras.
SPEAKER_06Oh yeah, yeah, of course, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_02It's just a little thing that goes straight into my phone and you put the micro USD card straight into there rather than because I always go back and take it back and look at it in my on my laptop when I'm at base cam. But this way I can just look at it in the field. It goes straight into your phone. They're cheap as chips. Yeah. And apart from like a sharpener, you know, that's I I defy anyone who's going on a day hunt that needs any more than that and the tool they're gonna use. No pretty much.
SPEAKER_06That's pretty thorough. I mean, I couldn't tell you. I mean, I definitely got the snake bite kit that I don't go I really don't go anywhere without that. Um and some sort of medical kit. Um uh knife sharpener and stuff like that. But um my I think the ideal pack, like you know, you notice actually one thing you go on that hunt for the day, you've got your small pack on the back and you've got your bino harness. I'd love to have a harness, a bino harness that connects direct to your backpack. Uh and I'd I'd love to make a product like that.
SPEAKER_02Do you think you might move into that range?
SPEAKER_06Maybe. There's a lot of things. There's like I tend to and I've always been like this, even in like just general business, like you know, I'd walk into uh, you know, a a shop as an example of, you know, uh let's say a KFC, and I see something wrong, I'll write a letter with a business proposal to KFC saying, hey, listen, I was just in your shop. This is what I noticed, here's a better way to do it, and here's a price.
SPEAKER_02See, now that is the mentality of a true businessman. And it's it's the entrepreneurial mind is a rare one.
SPEAKER_06Yeah, well that's I've always been like that. Like that's I'm I mean, I did years and years ago when I was really young, I used to go to the city a lot, and uh I was really frustrated with how taxi drivers would just basically swarm that don't exist anymore, really, but they'd swarm car park spaces. So, you know, I had to go and get a car park space because I was uh I'd always have late meetings um in certain parts of the city and I could never get one, so I'd have to park miles away or you know, you know, pay stupid money for a car park. So I wrote a letter to Melbourne City Council with a proposal on how to how to fix all this. And um I ended up actually nearly got a start there with my proposal, but I've always had that mind. Like there's always a solution to a problem, and sometimes the people that um are in charge of solving the problems, they just haven't gotten around to it or they can't think of what it is, it's too hard.
SPEAKER_02Do you know? I really don't think it's the case. I think it takes a certain kind of mindset. I'd like to think I've got a similar mindset. I have like a kind of a natural problem-solving mindset, but you have to have an inquisitive brain that wants to change the situation. A lot of people, it's natural for us to accept the circumstances we're in. If you were to have been born in the Roman era and you went every weekend you go to the Coliseum and watch people being killed by animals, you would see that as normal. If you lived in any time in history where whatever happened happened, chances are 99% of us wouldn't be going against the grain. You just accept the way the world is.
SPEAKER_06Yeah, that's true. Look, I probably that's probably a pretty generous uh explanation for the people that are in charge that I was, you know, like they see these things and I'm like, well, you know, you guys just haven't got around to it. But look, and I I suppose my point of view was like, let's be, you know, maybe they haven't, but here's a solution. But look, you know what, you're actually right. A lot of those people that do find themselves particularly in government type positions, that they just can't think of it.
SPEAKER_02And also, things there's no such thing as really an easy or a hard question. You just know the answer or you don't generally. You know, and if you for instance, 99 cents, you know, everything's like 99 cents, because to the brain, it seems like less than a dollar. Less than a dollar seems less than that. Someone made that up. That didn't exist until one person was like, this is a thing.
SPEAKER_06Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, that's true.
SPEAKER_06Yeah. Um, well, you know, as an exam to your point, I go into the the council offices, and this was the uh Melbourne City Council, uh, this is with my car, my, you know, how to handle the the uh to solve the problem for car parking and um create harmony with taxi drivers in the city. Here's what you guys need to do. So I got a I got a meeting, walked in there, and it was like going into Fort Knox, because um car parking inspectors are among the most hated people in Melbourne, so they've got like all of these security regulations in order to get in. I go on McGetin, I meet this head honcho who's in charge of you know all of the traffic in Melbourne, and I show him my proposal, and he's like, Oh, interesting. Uh but it won't work. And I'll go, yeah, it will. And he goes, Nah, it won't work. Um, we're trying to get rid of cars in the city anyway.
SPEAKER_02And that was the this was probably about 20 years ago because that was a path that they went on to I think what they saw really is it's I know it's something that's limiting for a lot of people in their lives generally, is when you propose something, all they see is the steps, the bureaucracy, and what it takes to get there, and they just rather not bother. I'm having I've got a conservation effort that I am dealing with at the moment, and I've put a proposal together to fix an issue for free because the financial problem was a roadblock, to do it all through the Origins Foundation. And it's it's in a funny space, it's actually a talking point for another show. I've had technically been told categorically that I don't have consent to talk about it, which is crazy that some ranger thinks that they can tell me that I can't talk about something which is government accountability and conservation. It's crazy. Um, but yeah, basically, they have a massive rabbit problem. And the area is a place of place of uh aboriginal significance. You can't even put a peg in the ground, but there's rabbits decimating the entire landscape. So I brought it up and they said they understand that this is kind of funny that you know you can't put a peg in the ground, but they have this massive issue. They can't gas because of the it's an area of aboriginal significance. They can't poison for the same reason. They also have flying foxes there, which are of super importance. So I propose the idea of using ferrets and nets, going in. I've got a team ready to stand by. I gave them an action plan, how we can do it, what what parts of the area we'd have to close, the time to do it. We're doing it all for free. Yeah. Then they come back. Oh, we they need special permits. I'll pay the permits. Then they come back. Oh, you know, because there's this and that and that problem. Anyway, so I said, Look, I just want your official statement. I'm gonna be talking about this on the podcast. And then that was the first time the actual I was just speaking to their like some employee, like an underling of the some like you know, just a supervisor or whatever. No, sorry, not a supervisor, the opposite, just a a normal, lovely lady. And then her boss, she then contacted me just to tell me pretty much that I'm not allowed to talk about it. Well I am right now. Um so yeah, I think the problem is quite often that people just it get they just think about the work involved and they can't be bothered.
SPEAKER_06Yeah, you know what? Yeah, that's 100% true. Interesting story, totally not hunting related, but my brother and I years ago, we wanted to create a hockey scholarship for um Aboriginal kids. And we thought it would be like a fantastic idea. We'd, you know, spoken to our friends about it, and it'd be like great, spoke to the uh club about it. They're like, really, really that's a great idea, you know, get let's like get some indigenous um involvement in our club. Um we don't have any indigenous players. And uh this is some time back, I don't know if things have changed now, but this is some probably 10, 15 years ago thereabouts. So, but we couldn't get onto uh anyone that would allow us to access anyone that was indigenous. It's like I wasn't allowed to put up a poster or something like how do we find some kids that are like this that you know would be interested? We ended up getting onto a a local person who put us onto another group, and basically the checks and balances that you had to do to even just send a letter was too hard, and we're like, well, let's not do it. Like, what's let's not do it. It's too hard. And it was a good idea, it was, you know, but what do you do?
SPEAKER_02It's there's so much money that goes into it's billions, I think around exactly how many billions a year goes into trying to bridge the gap, try and get Aboriginal people from community into a better flow with the general like society population, but the the gatekeeping and the red tape that surrounds it is unbelievable. I was working with a company that does venture travel, and they were looking to employ Aboriginal people for their program, and I would went through all the channels with my connections with Aboriginal communities after all the work I've done. Working with remote indigenous communities, and I it's so hard to actually get from one person to another. It's just a real complicated tapestry, and that's what happens when you fund different areas and they don't communicate and they do, or they don't like it, oh whatever's going on, I don't know. I can't really comment exactly to exactly what's going on, but it's made way harder than it needs to be.
SPEAKER_06It's yeah, it is frustrating, it's discouraging, and funnily enough, the gatekeepers aren't Aboriginal people.
SPEAKER_02No, never, never, almost never.
SPEAKER_06Yeah. Never. I didn't talk to one Aboriginal person, it was all uh, you know, white or just you know, non-Indigenous Australians. And like, well, okay. Too hard. I'll just uh either I'll bump into one of you guys and have a chat with you on the street, otherwise I'll just do this for another time.
SPEAKER_02So I find it interesting as well. They they always like to tell you how they feel about things as well. It's like they're they now they won't be interested. Oh, can I can I ask? Yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_06Actually, you know, you hit on this is something actually I wanted to talk about uh to someone uh of your level of intellect, just to get your opinion. So I'm I was born in this country. I had this conversation with my dad years ago because I was talking about not being able to hunt in National Park. And I was saying how dumb it was. And my dad was one of these guys that he was he would have these moods where he was like he just couldn't be stuffed. It was too like, that's just too hard of a problem, Anthony. Don't worry about it. Look at all the other places you can go hunting. Don't worry about it. I'm like, yeah, but like you know how many sandbell would be or deer of any species would be in some of that national park that you just can't get to. And I go, the problem that we have is is um national parks become like a corner of your house that you never go to. And what happens in that corner of the house that you never go to is gradually it falls apart.
SPEAKER_02Of course.
SPEAKER_06You know, it's never looked after, there gets cracks, there's you know bugs and spiders and all sorts of stuff get in there, it deteriorates, and then things dry up and die. And my dad's like, you know, whatever. This is just too much of a hard conversation, son. So uh, but I was like, I was in that conversation, I say to my dad, like, I feel like I I this is the only country that I have any kind of connection to. I was born here, I'll never get another passport. Like, I could get a British passport, I could get an Italian passport, but I don't know if you ever tried to get onto the Italian consulate, but that's not the easiest passport in the world to get.
SPEAKER_02It's easier trying to employ an Aboriginal person. Exactly.
SPEAKER_06So, like, I'm not doing that. My brother's fighting with the Control at the moment, trying to get his. But like, I I'm an Australian and I feel like I should be able to go anywhere in this country that I like to do something that's within the law. And but I can't go into national parks. And then I see, you know, like you get forest fires in national parks, you get other problems in national parks because they're just so blocked off. Where, you know, you do I I mean, aside from the comparison to state forests, I I was I I'm more talking about my connection to the land. And I feel like that I can't say that I have a certain connection to this land, even though I was born here, I'm gonna die here because I don't have an ancestral connection to this land.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_06And if you look at my ancestors, my ancestors come from all over the world. I don't have an ancestral connection to I do have an ancestral connection to southern Italy and parts of India, or even England, but I don't have a spiritual connection to those lands. Yeah. So the point I'm trying to I suppose I'm not trying to make a point. I'm just trying to raise a a question, like, where do I belong as a as an Australian hunter? Am I just a guest here forever?
SPEAKER_02Well, you belong here, obviously. The the problem is that the government perpetuates it, but society at large kind of suggests that you have no rights because of the negative things that happened when European settlers came here. And that there were a lot of, you know, bad things that happened, but we're also judging the past based on current politics and the way the world runs now. The past was generally quite bad, but we focus on some negative aspects. What people forget is the first admiral that came here, he tried his best to have good reputa uh good relations with the Aboriginal people. And actually, he was given an Aboriginal name. I can't remember his Aboriginal name. He worked well and closely with the Aboriginal people of the region. There was a lot of tribal conflict that happened. And with the West, they are it's probably the only place in the world that has such a deep empathy and sense of guilt about the way things had transpired in the past. If you look at the um Mongolians, they still bow to a statue of Genghis Khan, who was probably the worst dictator to have ever lived. Um Korea, for instance, had the longest unbroken chain of slavery in the world. Yet you wouldn't even know that because they don't dwell on their past. Everywhere in the world, everywhere in the world, apart from if you look at Africa, things that have transpired there, it's just the Western world that has this remorse. So therefore, you're supposed to carry that to this day.
SPEAKER_06It is funny because like in Italy, they don't have that sense of guilt. You know, like if I just look at them, they're not looking at their past going, you know, like we did some shit stuff. Really, really bad stuff in the past.
SPEAKER_02I don't I think Europe generally under the the umbrella of the EU is doing that with their own.
SPEAKER_06That I that I agree, yeah. Italian people, you mean. Yeah, the Italian people. Like they're you know, and uh ironically, like we have that problem with um, you know, white settlers uh although, you know, there's not that many white settlers anymore uh in Australia or European settlement in Australia and this whole Western culture that's developed here, where and you know, w we gotta um you know, we always pay respects, uh often correctly, to the people who were here before us.
SPEAKER_02But yet in England Who are the indigenous people there? Well the Picks, the Beaker people.
SPEAKER_06So you'd have to go back and the Anglos and the Saxons and the Picts and the Picts were there when the Romans uh went there and then But the but Picts dug it from the Beaker people.
SPEAKER_02I mean it go you can go back to the. But are there any Picts around now? No, but I mean there's the that chain that goes back for instance, even with Aboriginal people. So the Aboriginal people of Central Australia, yeah, the um the Mala people, which is what we're referring to really, but the uh the original people from original stories from then, the the Mala story, which is complicated, I won't go into it for reasons, but um, there was a group which is part of the story, and they're from they are the Aboriginal people of King's Canyon. And their name, the name for their community, it uh or their tribe, should I say, or the tribe that was there, was referred to as the strangers, because that wasn't their land, they conquered it. So I mean it's just human nature that you know we we are all humans, we all covet resources and we conquer lands, and that happens, it goes backwards and forwards. Yeah. You just have to look at things with a a wider scope than current politics and history, yeah.
SPEAKER_06I suppose the that I totally agree. I think the reason that I bring this up is that this is an idea that I've been thinking about for a bit is like who who are the current custodians of this country?
SPEAKER_02Well, this is a very interesting question. So this is what I was also gonna lean into is you're talking about not being allowed in that and the parks and why that is why don't you feel connected to country in that regard? Well, it's badly managed, and it's the problem is it's an almost impossible task that has been given to people who aren't really capable of executing the the task. So they usually get someone in as a CEO who's like or who's head of the operation who looks good on paper, and then they outsource jobs and roles to people who you generally aren't greatly qualified. I can't speak on everyone's behalf, or my experience of a few people. So um you have 50%, 50% of Australia, not the you know, you're not gonna go in, it's not parts of Sydney or Melbourne, but 50% of Australia actually technically belongs to Aboriginal people, and they are the traditional custodians. The way that they were custodians of the land is performing burn-offs, dealing with predator species, sometimes they, you know, they managed it in their own way. They weren't dealing with massive influxes of pest species. And when I say pest species, I'm talking obviously about introduced ones, but also the amount of kangaroos that we have because of the water sources that we have around here. They didn't have to deal with those issues because the land kind of self-regulated because we weren't creating these oases. So it could create so many issues that are insurmountable when you're talking about a small community of a couple hundred people who've got five million hectares of land to look after.
SPEAKER_06That's true, it's different. I mean, we've collect uh create a lot of extra water sources. Those water sources create life. I mean, like you're talking deer species, uh kangaroo species. I don't know how many kangaroos there were back in, you know, 500 years ago, but I would I would be surprised if it was less uh more sorry, more than it than it is now.
SPEAKER_02Well, here's the thing I was thinking about, and it's an interesting uh thing to think about. So I wonder what kangaroo species and numbers were like pre-introduction of the dingo. Because that would have been when was the dingo introduced? So it's several thousand years, they think about four or five thousand years, it's actually split between two different groups of dingo. So there were the dingo that were introduced through the north, they all came over over the Bering Strait, so there was a bit a big mass of land that linked Papua New Guinea to Australia and thereon and so forth. So you had there, there were some that were introduced, and then you've got they're in through the north and they came into the south, and then you've got the group that were introduced on the eastern coast, and they split from the other group because of the dividing strait, and they're mostly related to supposedly related to the Papua New Guinean singing dog. Uh okay.
SPEAKER_06So I mean, I had an interesting encounter with some wild dogs, potentially dingoes, recently. What happened there? Well, that was uh that was funny, but it's I'll tell you something funny about it, is as I've been talking about it more, I must have like I'm getting video after video after video suggestion on my Facebook and Instagram about dingoes. I haven't really searched it up, but just obviously it's picking up on my conversation. But um, so I was out uh uh in Kuitong, which I think pretty badly devastated by the fires recently, but I was uh going through there uh and I was just more more having a wander around just to see with the bow. Um I saw some um fellow does that were running across. I was on one hill, there was a little valley, and maybe about a hundred metres away, there were these does running across this um uh this other side of the hill in front of me, and I could hear a a um snag croaking. So I'm like, oh great. The does didn't pick me up, they were just wandering around. So I snuck down and I was on one side and I thought I'll croak him in and then when he gets he's coming up this hill, I'll have a shot. I really was I thought I'll get one this morning because he was he literally sounded like maybe it was 120, 130 metres just on the other side of this hill. So I started croaking, got a couple of croaks back, and then it was quiet, and then I heard rustling. And I'm like, oh, this thing's running in. Like I must be doing I must be a master croaker, because this thing's like coming charging in, and then it stopped. Sorry, one second. Can I just Yeah. Okay, we're back. Okay, so uh So you were croaking in. Yeah, I was croaking and this uh thing was croaking back, and then um I it stopped and I heard some rustling and I thought this thing's coming in really hard. And then I looked up and I realized I just saw this motion. And then when um it stopped, I realized it was a dog. And it was uh like a the the traditional looking dingo dog. Was it like a traditional looking, was it colour shape? Yeah, it was a like a yellowy sort of colour. And I'm like, oh, that's but it looked like because it moves so fast, for a second I thought it was the a a stag running in, but then I saw the tail. And it had a bit of white on it too, so I sort of that sort of caught me. Also, the land's quite um over there, it's been really badly burnt, so everything's charcoal, mostly black with green, just black and green everywhere. So you see this thing, it sticks out pretty obviously. So it ran across, I caught it, it stopped, and I'm like, oh that's that's a d a dingo. I'd never I've been up there a lot, I've been into high country a lot, I've never seen a dingo up there ever, in I don't know, 15 years or whatever of uh hunting up back in the backcountry, in the high country. I've heard wild dogs barking, but never, never seen a dingo. Anyway, so this thing stops and then it moves, it moves behind some brush, and then I see something else flicker and I look and it's like a black-looking dog. So I'm fumbling for my phone because I want to get a photo or video or something. And it I'm thinking that's a really weird-looking dog. It sort of looked like a it had the coat like a a tabby cat, you know, those grey and black.
SPEAKER_02I it uh I think you sent me the video, it's it looked like a collie, almost like the pied black and white.
SPEAKER_06Yeah, it had like it had the the more I look at the photo, the more I said, but at the time I'm like, it looks like a stripey, it had these stripes on it, but in the video, in the photo you can't quite see. But yeah, then in the video in the photos you can see sort of like patches on it. Really weird.
SPEAKER_02Black, almost feathered tail on it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Really odd. So I've got a problem with this, because what you would hear is that every single dog that lives out in the bush is a dingo. They reckon that almost every dog that's tested, it's 99.9% pure, and all of those brindles and black and white pied and those weird shaped and stuff.
SPEAKER_06Alpine. The alpine.
SPEAKER_02The alpine. So that's supposed to be the species that was cut with the dividing range and came down the east coast. And that's why you don't find many different coloured dogs in the centre, because natural selection has gotten rid of that coloration. But here's the interesting thing. The interesting thing is that almost every single dog, if not every single dog, it's tested, are tested by two entities. There's the University of New South Wales, which is Professor Bill Bollard and his team. They now the usual test is only 23 markers that they look for to test for the dingo. Now it's like almost 200,000, 195,000 markers. So he is testing them, but mainly it is Kylie Caynes out of the University of Sydney. And almost every single dog they test is perfect, but they're also big advocates for not hunting the dingo. They don't they're anti-dingo hunting. Yeah. Now, the gene that they look at, which is the gene that creates the brindle, for instance, it does not appear in the Papua New Guinean singing dog. They don't get brindle dogs. You don't get them in the sense, you don't get them in the noir. In areas that have a lot of dogs and stray dogs, is where you tend to find these brindles, these large black and white pieds. Yeah. And I'm just not buying it.
SPEAKER_06No, I reckon that if I sent her a couple of hairs of my brother's uh spoodal rookie, she'd find that it was 99% dingo.
SPEAKER_02I think it's worth trying because I just think, and I'm I'm not suggesting that for an instance that universities would lie to push an agenda, because I've never heard of that.
SPEAKER_06No, that went, that's not their thing. No way.
SPEAKER_02But I feel like between those two institutions that seem to do 99.9, if not 100%, of the testing, they're finding that all of these wild dogs are in fact dingoes because they want to stop the hunting and killing of dingos.
SPEAKER_06Yeah, so why not for just a laugh, send the uh samples to a uh university in Texas uh, you know, that has you know, just to check just to side check. You know? They've done some they've failed to do some side-checking in some pretty serious criminal cases in Queensland recently, and um it turned out to be a big problem. So I I would not it would not surprise me if there was some uh bias or even just ineptness or something like that that causes this. I think it's probably bias. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, the uh the K-Locus KBR Alele Brindle gene is not found in Papua New Guinean dogs yet. They're supposed to be direct descendants of those dogs that we've got in the Alpine region. Yeah.
SPEAKER_06So these dogs that I saw, one of them was flanking me. Like, and I was like, immediately I got I get nervous because if they're they got to within 40 metres, fifty metres, and one of them starts flanking me. And so I move over because I got my back against a hill, and I'm thinking, I've got to run to my car, or what am I gonna do? Because I'm by myself.
SPEAKER_01You have a gun?
SPEAKER_06No, I was with the bow.
SPEAKER_01You had a bow?
SPEAKER_06Yeah. So this one starts flanking me, so I moved over and then he stopped, and then this um brindle-looking one stayed still, and then this other one went around the other way and started to flank me the other side, they're coming right around. So I moved over there, and then I stood up. And then uh he stopped. Then this one, they both started trotting forward. I got some of the video of the moving around, but they started trotting forward, just and I'm like, they're coming to check me out. Yeah, they're just seeing what I'll do. I let him to get about 30 metres, and I thought they're moving a lot faster than I'll be able to move away. So I thought, I don't want to turn my back on these things, I'd rather that they scatter. So I sent an arrow near them.
SPEAKER_02Just to what not how far away were they?
SPEAKER_06Oh, they probably got about 35, 40 metres, something like that.
SPEAKER_02You didn't just go for a didn't try and chuck one in the bread basket then.
SPEAKER_06No, um I'll explain in a second um why, but I shot it it made quite a clang. So it it actually was a good shot. It was like 40 sorry, it was about a foot away from it when it hit, and it hit some sticks, and they just they made a racket and they shot themselves. And then I made a bit of a noise, waved my hands around, and they took off.
SPEAKER_02I mean, they're just looking to to see your reaction. Are you food fun or fight? If you run, you're food of fun, and if you run at them, then you probably fight. Yeah.
SPEAKER_06So then I was just, I was like, but they actually got a bit nervous. I'm like, I'm by myself, you know, what if they get me? I've never encountered these things before. So anyway, they took off. Just like you know, you'd expect you always hear the story as you make noise at a dingo and it buggers off. That's exactly what happened. I came back and I was like, what if I had a shot one? Because I shot at the Brindle one because he seemed like the boss man. And uh I thought, what if what if I had a shot one? And I shot it in self-defense, and I was like, I really don't know the rules. So I went back and I Googled it. I'm like, if I it's illegal uh to shoot a dingo or a wild dog in the bush, unless you're a ranger in a state forest. And I'm like, what? But um so you can't just shoot so if if I saw a completely wild non-dingo looking German shepherd running through the bush and I shot it, that's illegal, unless I was a ranger. I'm like, that's odd. I thought that would have just been fair gain. If I shot it in self-defense, then there'd be a uh investigation to you know see what happened and everything like that. So I'm like, well, if I shot it in self-defense, I came back and Googled it. Like, I don't want to be investigated. Like, what would I really want to do? I'd probably just, you know, dig a hole and bury it and just pretend I didn't know. I don't know. But you know, I'm not a I'm a law-abiding citizen, so I'd want to do the right thing.
SPEAKER_02The old shovel and shut up probably happens more than people would but you know, I mean I'm sure it does. Um, not that I'm ever representing the city. And private property it's different too, by the way.
SPEAKER_06Private property, you can it's you know, if they're on your land, um you can shoot them. But yeah, in in state forest, national park, anything like that, it's you can't do it.
SPEAKER_02It's funny. I mean, because also people aren't allowed to take their dogs into national parks. So there's no excuse why it would be anything other than a feral dog.
SPEAKER_06Um I think it's what you were uh talking about earlier is that they um consider things to be dingoes. And um, you know, like some of the dogs that I've seen shot are definitely not dingoes. They look like either kelpies or they look like like tradition just a kelpie, you know, or a German shepherd or some really weird-looking abominations of dogs.
SPEAKER_02Like, dogs go rogue, and and in Aboriginal communities, they have uh the same policy they used to back in the day, which is the dogs are they live with them, but they're not like they're cust they're not really the custodians of the dogs in the sense of keeping them in, locking them up. And when I was out in the bush, I was out with an Aboriginal community. We took the dogs out hunting, talking about picking. We were a two hour drive into the bush, and they took the dog, one of the dogs home, or the dogs home, and one of them came back two days later, and he was just there. He managed to find us. It was a two-hour solid drive into the bush, and he just worked his way there, and everyone was just like, Yeah, what's going on? Don't do that. And I'm like, that what? Where did the dog come from? Because we'd actually gone back to look for him the next day and they couldn't find him. And I was like, Oh, so we just go and find the dog. And they're like, No, no, he's probably just in someone else's house, it's cool, or he's just out. Yeah, he just eats pigs, drinks in the river, and the freest life, but that does mean that they're gonna go rogue.
SPEAKER_06I hear that about dogs on farms. So like I was at uh my business partner's property, and he was saying uh his missus was saying uh they had some visitors over and they wouldn't lock their dog up at night time, and she's like, No, you've got to lock the dog up at night time. And they're like, Oh, it's a um uh uh what was it, a golden retreater. They're like, golden retreaters, uh big dog, it's gonna be fine. No, you have to lock it up because they will get out and they'll you're here for a little bit of time, they're gonna start going wild. I know big dogs.
SPEAKER_02Oh, in a couple of days, yeah, in a couple of days. Farm dogs that do it, if you do not reinforce the domestic, the wild will take back over. And I wonder, you know, how if a if a marema or a kangle doesn't take to the flock and he's just out there hundreds, if not thousands of acres, how long until he just decides this is life now? I'm just gonna wander off. And then they do they do. Yeah, look what happens to pigs.
SPEAKER_06You know, you get a domestic pig, uh, you know, it wanders off, and then it'd be that same pig will look like a wild pig within, I don't know, it's a short period of time.
SPEAKER_02Slicks a switch. And you know what? I think it happens more in the problem is is that neglect usually has a price bracket. And I live in a quite an affluent area, and there are some wild stories like dogs running onto the golf course and killing swans and stuff. Like so these people though, they they have acreage. You know, they've they've got a house, they've got a dog, they bought a dog for the kids. Dog can go out and play. Yeah. You put food out, you barely interact with that dog. That dog is going to be jumping the fence and living out wild in no time at all.
SPEAKER_06It just reminded me of your conversation with Zach about the um you know dog taking two weeks to eat you, but a cat only taking two days.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_06Because I'm a cat owner.
SPEAKER_02Oh, really? Mate.
SPEAKER_06And uh I was laughing because uh like we're just saying how I like I was I was saying, like, you know, that's really interesting. Cats, I mean, I think cats just um they just mourn faster, really.
SPEAKER_02That's it. That's it.
SPEAKER_06They're like, okay, we've done our two days mourning. Yeah, we're hungry.
SPEAKER_02They were way more distraught for those 48 hours than your dog was in two weeks. They're more pragmatic.
SPEAKER_06The dog's gonna be like, is it two weeks yet? Surely it's been two weeks. There's a formal grieving. Period, and that's it. So, but hey, one question, just back on that um custodian stuff we're talking about. So who like we are the custodians. We have to be the custodians of at least the land.
SPEAKER_02It's what's official. So officially speaking, um a lot of it is done by the AWC, the Australian Wildlife Conservancy, particularly in the North. Um, farmers are obviously expected to be the custodians of the land. And that can be anything from a few hundred acres, and when you as you get further towards the centre, they get bigger and bigger and bigger. Yeah. So um I spend a lot of time up in SA, that's 36,000 acres, that farm. And that is small.
SPEAKER_06That family is the custodian of that station, yeah, right? For sure.
SPEAKER_02And it's fine when you've got farm that links the farm that links the farm. They actually do have great policies, they've got great dealing with ferals, they're good. You know, it can't be great, it can't be perfect, but it is good. But then you've got a lot of patches of land that's managed by other entities, by national parks. I'm actually uh in discussions with talking to someone who's head of parks for South Australia, but the bureaucracy behind them even coming onto the show. That's given like I never do pre-approved questions, we just talk. Um, I've got a list that I have like as uh as navigation questions, but they actually need to know what I'm going to ask, so hopefully that'll that'll go ahead. Um, but they're in charge, and actually when you really look at it when it boils down to it, when you are in the know, being a part of uh Wild Origins Australia, we've we've got connections and links and we do learn a lot of stuff, and really what you've got is a few generally scientists, academics, people who've got the piece of paper who aren't actually connected to the land at all, that are making these policies, and I think that they get a bit too well, it's a Dion Kruger effect. They don't know enough to know that they don't know enough, and they're making all of these policies that are broad sweeping policies and action plans that don't actually do much. It's a lot of money spent on aerial culling when it's not effective, not executed properly. Yeah. And yeah, like just in Victoria is one of the best states in the country for us being able to go on to stateland and shoot and hunt. There are some areas that ha are broken up. You can hunt on some areas that will have there'll be a campsite there, and there's a little bit of scrub, but there's actually toilets and infrastructure that you're allowed to technically hunt on, yet there's vast amounts of bush that are also national parkland that aren't part of the This is like in New South Wales. This is in Victoria. In Victoria. This is in Victoria. Yeah, yeah. In New South Wales it's slightly different. The hunting ground is about the same kind of division where there's a lot you can't go on for seemingly no reason, but you need an R-class license and it's slightly different the way it's regulated. But I mean, my friends in New South Wales, I have some coming on who have lots of strong opinions. I don't know enough.
SPEAKER_06But can you hunt in state farm in Victoria? We can go on to m a lot of state land to go hunting, but we can't I as far as I know, it's you can in New South Wales, but it's like a booking system or something to do.
SPEAKER_02It's it's more regulated. In fact, in Victoria, you can go on to a lot of state land and there's a lot of farmland that's been added. So the Mortal Explorer on your phone, which is the one that most people use, is the app where you go onto the Vic more to explore app, and then you press hunting, and it comes up with the purple. What people don't realize is if you've got the laptop version, there is also a lot of land that you can't find on your phone, but also a lot of farmland, which is instead of it being purple, it's got purple lines going through it diagonally. That's also area that farmland has added that you can use that doesn't come up on your phone, but it does come up on your laptop. So I urge everyone to use the laptop version is much more detailed. You're missing out on permission. You definitely, definitely are.
SPEAKER_06Yeah, no, I haven't um that's really cool. Yeah, that's really cool. Look, I find that out the hunting. You can say what you want, and I do say what I want about the government and various other things about this state. But um, one of the reasons why I love living here is the hunting. You know, like Queensland uh has great weather and blah blah blah blah blah, but the hunting's a little bit harder to do where here it's easy.
SPEAKER_02It's easy. The best state in the world. My favourite's probably San Pedro, as far as wanting to get a big set on the on that's like the ultimate as far as hunting goes. The some of the most meat you'll get without shooting a bow. Yeah, they're just well just the how hard it is to get on them, you know, with a bow.
SPEAKER_06Yeah.
SPEAKER_02They're so elusive.
SPEAKER_06That's my thing. That's what I want to do. Like for the next, you know, couple of years. I just really want to refine my bow hunting. Like, uh, I mean, I'm not a I'm not the greatest hunter in the world, but it's one thing that I want to get really good at. That sort of like Masashi uh mindset, you know, like just do that one thing and do it to the best of your ability. You s I think people everyone's innately good at something, right? I'm innately good as a salesman, but I don't want to compare salesmanship to swordsmanship. Like if if someone came to me and said, Which would you prefer to be better at? I'd prefer to be better as a swordsman, although I'm not a swordsman. But um you know, like it's it's uh a corporal um art or a martial art, sorry. It's something that I think to be able to do something so great, like uh wrestling, um jujitsu. To do something and just to want to be as as not the best at it, but the best that you can be at it, I think would be enough for me.
SPEAKER_02There needs to be a low level of obsession. Like the the one Miyamoto Masashi quote that I love is uh once you understand the way you see it in all things.
SPEAKER_06Yeah, that's that's a great quote.
SPEAKER_02I think when you're five five. So when you're in a position where you're trying to be the best hunter you can be, and it starts to get into your brain, like if uh it seems a bit twisted, but obviously it's there's disconnect. But if you're watching a dog or a cat or something walk across the road, imagining a 3D image of what the heart looks like inside there and the moment that they not just the moment that you'd be able to execute a shot, but the position of the front leg in relation to the heart and how like looking at cows or a sheep in a paddock, you're obviously never thinking about actually shooting those animals, but how flustered are they? What emotional state are they in? Are they relaxed? Are they these things you should be thinking about a lot? Like I'm getting really into calls, really into refining, like getting up in a tree stand, doing being in a blinder, people might say it's boring, it's this, is that, it's unnecessary, whatever. And it might not be my preferred. I I like getting boots on the ground, spot and stalk, but there's getting good at all of these other aspects makes you good at all other aspects.
SPEAKER_06That's true. Like even sport, like uh hunting as an example of a sport, but like I was I was saying I played hockey, and a lot of the thing about like the position that I would play is was required a lot of patience and position. Like I was not a good ball carrier, like I was I'm not a great hockey player, but I was really good at being in the position that you needed to be when that ball would just be loose and no one was around, and I just was so good at finding those spots. Uh and I'd always uh I'd always turn something around for the team, you know, like you find that you that little bit of moment, but you have to be really patient. You have to be really patient. It's the same with hunting, you know. And I used to I used to always think, oh, this is like sales. Like you can't push a sale, you can't get the client to agree just because you need to win the game. It's like that's like hockey. You can't just score a goal because you gotta win. It's like you gotta you've really gotta put all the positions in place and you've got to wait, and then you've got to get played to do a certain thing, you've got to push the ball somewhere and then wait, and then you get that opportunity. Hunting's like that, you know. Hunting's like that. Do you ever play chess? I used to play chess a lot, actually.
SPEAKER_02I love chess. Yeah. And I think that's like I know it's the it's a classic thing people would defer to even when they've never played the game before. Yeah. Because they're understanding that it's technical and you know. But the truth of hunt like with hunting, for instance, knowing, you know, when to push it, when to not, also knowing like to lay down your piece and give up the game. You know, when it's like there's a grandmaster playing another grandmaster, they've both got most of their pieces on the board. And then one gives up because they've both done all the capital and they don't even say a word. He puts out his hand, the other one shakes his hand, they both walk away. They both know where it's going. Yeah. Also having that, you know, where you just like I'm in a position, there there's enough startle in the animal, I've got no cover, I'm not I'm not getting this thought. Yeah. If I wait, I can reposition. I even I'll come back. Like I love that. Those moments where I'm like, I'm better off not disturbing the area and coming back tomorrow or next month. Yeah, lose the battle, win the war. 100%.
SPEAKER_06And uh yeah, I find that too is like you know, I've grown up selling. That's always been the thing that I did, whatever job that I had. It's always been that customer phase, you know, taking the customers out, you know, that marketing selling type of aspect. And it's funny when you talk to non-salesmen who are the technicians that do the project, they just they know or the you know, the uh money guy that just wants the money to pay the bills, they're like, oh, just go and get that sale. Yeah. I'm like, no man, no, no, no. Oh, tell them, tell them if they buy now, they'll get five percent off. I go, no, no, no, no. You can we gotta wait. If I do that, I'm just gonna spook the guy and he'll be like, why does he want to sell so fast? This is all about, you know, this is on another level. It's not a it's not a practical level of money in the bank or, you know, jobs in the system. It's you've got to you need to be able to wait for that moment to put the piece of paper in front of him along with your hand to say, let's make a deal. Great, let's do it. You know, and that's I mean, you know, it's for me that's seeing the way in all things.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Yeah. It was short-term gain for long-term loss, which is like like you're saying, you know, often what people want to do is they want to go, oh, I'm gonna go in, I w really want to shoot an animal. We really want to get the animal shot. But what you actually want to do is you want to shoot animals consistently. Yeah. Or you want to clear out pests. Like, for instance, I went to I bought something from an artery shop recently. I bought a a target and loads of other stuff. You're not going into another. That was a very small percentage of actually what I bought that day. But here's the thing, I spent loads of other money on stuff, and then I needed an artery target. I said, What are the targets like? They're like, oh yeah, they're great. One friend of ours has had one for six months, they're spectacular. I've had it for about six weeks, if that, and it's already in tatters. Now, that idea that just to make that sale, I'm now apprehensive about using them again. I'd rather go elsewhere. Because I they were disingenuous. If they're disingenuous about that to make a sale, how far is it gonna go? Yeah. And I've had that before. I was when I was studying, I had a job in a craft beer, but I got really into craft beer. I started brewing and I got really into it. And then there was a group of people from the uni, not in my department, they were in physics, I was in biology, but they were uh they weren't in my field, it wasn't in my preferred skip field, but they used to come in, and rather than having one or two drinks, because they would ask me and say, What's nice? I'll be like, that's terrible, that's great, that's terrible, that's great. And they would just give me their credit card and they would go and sit down and they're just like, just keep them coming. Like, whatever you think we should be drinking, just because they trusted my opinion. Now, one day the manager was there and they're like, What about that nun? I'm like, I actually is gross, so I don't worry about that. And he's like, Caleb, can I speak to you? I can't believe you said that that was gross. You don't talk about the products like that. I'm like, yeah, but I'm being honest. I'm not gonna say it's all amazing. Because if that was the case, they would come in, have one round of drinks and probably go. But because they trust my opinion, because I'm honest with them about the product, they sit here for hours and I just feed them drinks that are like ten or twenty dollars a like well, back then. Yeah, like twenty dollars a pop. So it's much better to be genuine and it's like that with hunting. It's better to just be honest with yourself and be straightforward with your hunting and go, I could go in now and shoot that thing, ruin the area, scare off this and that, you know, just be haphazard and overbearing in order to make a kill, but then I'm gonna ruin my hunting for the future.
SPEAKER_06Yeah, you know, I think that actually applies to life. Even the the bags that I make. I I can just release something, and you know, but you want to release something that you know really works. So you give it to your mates to try it. You give it to you try it out yourself, you take it on trips, and then you go, yep, I'm happy with this. I I would use this, and then you release it. Because otherwise you you're giving your own consumer or your own customer like customers used to be the most important thing in the world. You know, like back in the day, the customer was a person that you really looked after. They come into your shop and you're like, Oh, hello, sir, how may I help you, please? You know, you know, you really make sure they feel welcome and that you you you're there to help them with their decision-making process. But you just put stuff on the market and it's pop you know, it's you market it really well so people buy it, but you know that it's shit. They're not gonna buy it again.
SPEAKER_02I've gone from feeling like a guest to an in position everywhere I go.
SPEAKER_06Yeah, I think that's because our culture uh has changed to the point where everyone is as important as everyone else. Whereas when I first started working um in a I was in a jewellery shop actually, uh um a famous one called Goldmark. It was like, you know, the uh cut price gold, but it was uh about even in that place, uh, and this was out in Broad Meadows, where you know it was a bit of a rough area too, when a customer walked into that shop, they were they were the king. They were as important as the king. And it wasn't like how you going, mate? Oh mate, what's up? You know, and there's none of that. It was hello sir, hello ma'am, how are you? How may I help you? You never asked, can I help you? You always asked, how may I help you? Always treat the customer like they're the this needs to be up there with the most enjoyable experience for this day. And that has gone. I don't see that as much. I wouldn't say it's gone because I don't know for sure, but I definitely don't see it as much. When I walk into a shop, I'm not feeling like I feel like an imposition.
SPEAKER_02I mean, it might not be dead yet, but it's certainly bleeding out. It's not this is not something that I experience. I go into a shop and there'll be two sales assistants talking about what they watched on Netflix. They will side-eye you and then continue their conversation because it's gone from being the customer is someone to be treated in high esteem to employee rights are everything. Though employee rights are in are important, it's not doesn't supersede how the customer's experience goes. Yeah. I don't feel anyway.
SPEAKER_06No, look, I'm the old, I'm the that guy that goes into a shop and uh, you know, the the a service station as an example and the the attendants on the phone talking and serving me. Oh well, I'm a guy that just won't hand over their stuff until they stop. You're done with that kind of You think you should you can serve me now? They're like, oh, but I'm just a service station attendant. Yeah, okay. You're not just a service station. I'm a customer. You know, like at least give me your time. You know, is there anything else I want to buy? You know, like it's a bit old fuddy daddy, but uh, you know, I at least bring that approach to my businesses as well. And even like, you know, friendships and stuff like that. Yeah, life. Yeah, you know, like you've got to appreciate the people that are you're running in the same paddock as, I think is is important.
SPEAKER_02We're too worried about dynamics. If everyone just treated everyone like that, everyone would get on a lot better. Yeah, uh, it's a hundred percent. And what there was we were talking about dogs earlier on a minute ago, did you just see that article recently that was it's not recent, I mean it just came out recently, and I think we may have meant it might have come might have come up. But about how the dog fence on one side of the dog fence, how it the nature's flourishing. And it's the same thing as the idea with the wolves in Yellowstone that because the dingos are controlling the kangaroos, then the habitat gets to flourish because the at the kangaroos aren't overgrazing the land. Yeah, uh yeah, I did see that.
SPEAKER_06And um and to me it makes sense because we don't have there's there's no season on kangaroos. I I think there should be. I don't think it's a dumb idea to have a season for kangaroos. You wouldn't even make a dent in their population.
SPEAKER_02Let's bag limits. Let's let's give every hunter a certain amount of bag limits, let's do tags like they do in America.
SPEAKER_06That that's exactly what I'm talking about.
SPEAKER_02Let's start eating these things because let's consume it because they're great meat.
SPEAKER_06Like they're as good as deer meat. Like they're a pretty lean meat, they're like a samba meat, uh in my opinion anyway. Dark red. Yeah, dark red, very similar to samba. They're very lean. You can e they're easy to abuse in the fry pan, but you can still cook them really, really well.
SPEAKER_02You want to slow them out, I've I find mostly. The tail is sensational, yeah.
SPEAKER_06I remember watching the episode, Jamie Oliver made um ragu out of a kangaroo tail. Oh yeah. And I'm like, that is the I didn't eat it at all, but I just watched this episode, I'm like, that looks delicious. Um but you we do that, and that's an example of why is on one side there's predators. On the other side, the kangaroos don't have any predators, the poor things die out. How's that good how's that uh you know humane, quote unquote?
SPEAKER_02I've got I think there are other factors at play in some regions, like we have the fact that there are there's obviously farming on the site that doesn't have can of uh dingoes and much more abundant water sources, so the kangaroos can move a lot more freely, but there is definitely merit to the notion that it's just it's just obvious logic that if one area has a heavy predator that is in abundance, then the ground is going to be much better because kangaroos they are in plague proportion, they really are. People don't people from the city who just might drive out to the Torquay and see a few in there, even though it's crazily overpopulated. I have loads of places that I hunt on, lots of permission. And the one cons consistent request I get is to shoot kangaroo. Yeah. Like I just I have to get my root shooters just really to be having a truly symbiosic relationship with the places that I should hunt on. Because they, yeah, they like having the the rabbit shot, they cause a problem. You know, they might want me to clear up the deer or the goats or the pigs or whatever. But what they really want is to get I've got a woman, she is uh just complaining about the fact that she's getting attacked by large male kangaros and they are actively pursuing her dogs. They're trying to kill a dog. These animals, they might look cool on the back of the on the the crest, you know, they might be lovely. Skippy was very, very helpful when people were in trouble. But these animals are incredibly dangerous if they're caught off. If they're if you even just trying to save one from a fence, the way they try and grab at your neck and kick you with their back legs, they're incredibly dangerous.
SPEAKER_06Yeah, Skippy. Skippy is responsible for, you know, like you hear the phrase, I can't believe you killed Skip. Um, but you know, people don't realise Skippy wasn't real. Uh Skippy didn't have opposing thumbs. There's no way he could have done some of the complex um uh you know lock opening that he used to do. I think people need to realise that Skippy was actually a stuffed animal for a lot of that time.
SPEAKER_02I think he was a taxidomised piece of it.
SPEAKER_06They did have a little one, but it was a young kangaroo. People think that kangaroos stay that size. They don't, they get enormous. Like a grey kangaroo can get you know as big as a bigger than a man. It gets up to six foot. A red kangaroo, oh my gosh, those things are those things get even bigger and they're muscly as they don't muck around. And they can get aggressive too when they feel bothered. So, you know, kids around kids. As we go uh Christmas holidays up in uh Yarrowanga, which um pretty popular destination, and on the golf course, in the golf course car park, there's kangaroos just hanging around and they're scary.
SPEAKER_02And a languid afternoon kangaroo that looks relaxed, led down, he is gonna be quick to though people used to box kangaroos as a source of entertainment. Now that can go wrong quickly. Like one of those if you look at the back claw of a kangaroo and the force it takes for them to be able to hop the way they do is for as long as consist and consistently as they do, they're strong and they're dangerous.
SPEAKER_06And against human skin, it's uh yeah, that claw's gonna do some damage. But uh when I was a kid, actually, I used to uh work on a uh it was a greyhound farm and it was uh there was other animals on there, but the um guy's main he was a greyhound trainer and a mate of mine and and myself, we were paid by this guy to go and shoot kangaroos. And he had a limit, like I think it was 500 or something in the city.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, pretty standard admin. Yeah.
SPEAKER_06So we used to go there over a weekend and we would shoot heaps and you turn them into uh dog food or I'm not too sure of the legalities of it all, but this was like f a long time ago, 30, 40 years ago. Thereabouts. Um but point being is there was no matter how many we shot, there was heaps there. So we could spend all day shooting, all day, you know, mincing and whatever we had to do to make this dog food. Um and there would still be the same amount, and we would shoot like 20, 30 a weekend. So there's no shortage of um emblem logos for us to have. There's always going to be kangaroos around.
SPEAKER_02And the crazy thing is the greens have done this massive push, this massive push to try and destroy the meat and pelt trade abroad. Yeah. Germany was the biggest importer, and now it's just all fallen apart. Adidas has stopped using them in their boots. Because the assumption is that people. People are going out and killing a native species that isn't massively overpopulated for the meat and the pelts when what's really happening is people are going out and fulfilling quotas of animals that need to be dispatched and the byproduct, the meat and the pelts, instead of going to use, is going to waste. And to get people who are professionals, who have all of the accreditations, equipment, and everything else to do the job and then get an income from doing that job cannot do it anymore. So what you inevitably end up with is people that are less competent, less capable, government-employed people who are just going to work and filling a job rather than it being their true vocation, going out and shooting kangaroos and leaving them dead.
SPEAKER_06Yeah, 100%. You know, this is actually like your uh interview with um Nicola Centafonti. She was saying that you guys were saying actually that the people that make the laws are often the people that don't live in the areas that the laws have the greatest effect on. Yeah, everything from gun laws to um, you know, use of the land. And, you know, I think it would be it'd be a really, really good idea for those people that uh and the practicality of this is obviously another issue, but those people that make those laws have to go and live in those areas. Like the Murray-Darling Basin, that's the that whole commission that does that. I reckon not a lot of those people that go and see the disasters that happen as a result of their flooding or whatever they do, the way they manage it, the the the the river dries up here or it gets too flooded there, they get the black water that happens up in that um that uh Murrum uh the Murrumbidgee basin area. It's a disaster sometimes. Sometimes they just it chokes out the river, they get, you know, fish floating up because of the um overflow from the the flooding of the plains that pushes the water into the river. But those people don't see it because they're they live in the city, they live in Melbourne, they go out and get their lattes on bloody Brunswick Street. They don't know what's going on.
SPEAKER_02Um our assumption is generally just that the the best minds are on the job. We just assume that the people that are in charge of these policies and procedures are the best qualified people for the job when generally it's some people in a room kind of shrugging their shoulders and just throwing stuff at the wall.
SPEAKER_06Yeah, I think in Australia we know that they are not. We're just we're just too lazy to as people. Until recently, until COVID really, I never heard Australians talk about politics. So you'd go to like a meet and greet, you know, hunting meet and greet, and no one would talk about politics, they're just talking about stupid stuff.
SPEAKER_02I think it's the only country in the world where you there is a financial imperative to vote. No one voted. So they literally made you vote and you get fined if you don't vote.
SPEAKER_06Yeah, I I personally think that's a that should end. I think compulsory voting is there's arguments for it. Oh no, I'm not sure. There's none. I can't see that that's a problem.
SPEAKER_02Do you know I think it is against our human rights to be forced to vote because if you don't have a valid opinion, a well-thought opinion, then what you're doing is cancelling out potentially the vote of someone who does. It's unfair, it's unethical, and here's the thing. It's not democratic. It's not democratic.
SPEAKER_06That's the whole purpose of democracy is to engage with choice. But you're forcing someone to choose. How is that? Well, you're forcing someone to make a choice, to do something, to make another choice for who you is going to lead. All that you get is people that uh don't want to vote because they don't feel that they should. You're getting people that would ordinarily not vote because they don't feel connected with it anyway. They're going and forcing their decision on other people.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I I also think as well, it's only it's the truest of protests, of peaceful protests. Because if you vote strategically or you just spoil your ballot, so even that essentially is what you're saying is I am still adhering to the system. If you vote, then what you're saying is I'd like this person to win. But if that person over there wins, I still agree with the majority rule, even though it's this big Rick moral. So what we do is we have that. And if you decide to not vote, it's you saying, I'm not engaging in this system. I think the whole system's broken. To then tell people they'll be fined for not doing it, I think it's crazy.
SPEAKER_06Yeah, well, it's just uh it's um, you know, pressure, it's coercion, and I can't say that that's been democratic. I think that's actually why parties in the city like the Greens are so big, you know, is that everyone has to vote, or why Labour has been such a prominent force is because a lot of the people were forced to vote. A lot of the people work on building sites and are in unions, so they go and vote for the who they're told to vote for, basically. Um I think that'll I don't think know if that law will change, but I think the way those people will vote will change. Um Yeah. Anyway, that's that's interesting.
SPEAKER_02I mean, things like people, they just their default is voting for the Green Party. Now, I the what the Green Party is supposed to do is stand for the earth, what's best overall for the earth. But when you actually look at their policies when it comes to hunting and or you know, uh the dispatch of pet feral species, it actually isn't it's more just a political standpoint, which is just kind of tree huggy, you know, it's like that is their agenda. So that's not great. And also I don't want someone's foundational policy to just be that. You know, what's your economic standpoint? How do you feel about world politics? Like what's going on underneath the surface? I'm not just going to vote for the, you know, looking after the earth like it's the standalone only thing that's important.
SPEAKER_06Yeah. Uh yeah, that's right. I mean, look, the the watermelons, the greens. Green on the outside, red on the inside.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_06So, I mean, that's really the basis of their policies, is I want everyone, which is a lot of the reason why people get into politics, like the Animal Justice Party, or you know, I want everyone to think like me. And if they don't think like me, then I want to be able to force them to do what I think that they should do.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and it's usually just such basic dogmatic principles. Like, I don't think that it's very nice to hurt animals. So what I need to do is do whatever it is by the hook or by the crook. I need to stop this my perception of animals being hurt, hurt by other people, because I think that that is bad, makes me feel bad. So therefore, I'm gonna make my whole political platform that and I'm gonna appeal to other people's feelings.
SPEAKER_06Like I was listening to someone from the Animal Justice Party talking about kangaroos and one person from the Animal Justice Party, if that's a person you think.
SPEAKER_02No, no, it was someone else, actually. Oh, really?
SPEAKER_06It was another person, yeah.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, it's funny uh the Victorian thing. Oh, I'm dying to get her on. She won't even reply to that message, unfortunately.
SPEAKER_06She replied to one of my messages. She really is. Yeah, and I was like In a sarcastic way. No, she thought I meant that um she was correcting me because I said um we don't hunt uh feral uh native species in Australia, but um she corrected me. She actually thought that I was saying, you know, like I was on her side and I was saying, yeah, that you know, duck hunting is bad, but I wasn't. And so I tried to engage further with her, and when she realized that oh, hang on, no, this guy's saying that you know people should be able to shoot ducks. Um, you know, which you know, there's in some places they're in like plate proportions, they and they're dying of starvation and also millions. It's but yeah, she yeah, once she realized that I wasn't on her side, there was no other engagement.
SPEAKER_02She occa occasionally replies to my comments on Tinder on her Instagram posts. But I think that's just to generate momentum so you can continue to comment and then she ducks out. But I've been official, like trying to get her to come on the show, she's having none of it. And I just I just yeah, it's it's unfortunate because she's gained traction. But my problem with these kind of politicians is my same issue with dogs. But the problem is when you choose for aesthetics, you never get the psychological traits. So if you look at any animal they're split into working line and show lines, spaniels, collies, retrievers, Alsatians, anything. When you start any animal in the world, in fact, this is when you start choosing an animal for purely aesthetics, you always lose the integrity of the mind. They're never as good at performing their unnecessary task when you just focus on aesthetics. And what they've done is they've chosen her to appeal to the younger generation.
SPEAKER_06Yeah.
SPEAKER_02You know, she's cool, she wears a crocs in Parliament. Uh, this is Georgie Purcell for anyone who's not aware of it.
SPEAKER_06She's all tatted up and she's all tatted up.
SPEAKER_02She's a stripper. Used to like, and to me, it's that it doesn't matter. No, but that's appealing to it.
SPEAKER_06She's very appealing to from the same side of the street that, you know.
SPEAKER_02100%. That kind of thing. She's attractive, but it's an instant shutdown as well. Because as soon as you bring up that fact that she used to, and well, they just call it sex industry because sex work is real work. That's what the mantra is. And as soon as you bring that up, then she can just get defensive, she's a victim, and then everything you said and you're about to say has been vetoed. I personally think I don't care what you did for a living. I don't care if you were a king in a foreign country or you did whatever, you were you were selling pies out of a corner store. If you have the right policies, you're intelligent, and you can do the job, then more power to you. I don't care what she did before. But unfortunately, can't do any of those. She's not very good.
SPEAKER_06I don't think her she See, she won't come on because she can't argue her point.
SPEAKER_02No, she does it she doesn't have a well-rounded argument. She doesn't have a well-rounded opinion. Also, I found as well that she doesn't understand how memes work, which is really troubling. Memes. So memes have a format. You know, memes work because they So, for instance, you know, there's the the woman who's screaming and then there's a cat. Yeah. This isn't one that she did, it's just an example. So what it is is that the format of that meme is that it's a word or it's several words that can be reordered or looked at in a different way and mean something totally different, right? But what people often do is they see the woman has lost control and the cat is steady in his resolve, and they just make that the format. So the woman saying something inflammatory because she's lost the argument because she's got angry, and the cat just stays cool and says something in response that's kind of cool and edgy. The people don't understand that meme. Georgie does ones like there, there was one that's like inspirational words flashing up with picturesque backgrounds, and what it is supposed to be is people say things that are not deep, not profound, and kind of just funny, and then it flashes up like it's an inspirational quote. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But she said something that was really it was like about abortion or something, and it was flashing up with this same meme format. And another one was there's Nigel Farage saying boring over and over again that people were using as a meme. Yeah. And then she was- I think I saw that one. Yeah, and she was trying to do it wrong. She but the thing is also, she is a far-left politician using the voiceover of a far right politician. And I, you know, it just it that is really troubling for me.
SPEAKER_06Yeah, but she you're talking about uh, you know, what do they say on Joe Rogan too much? Nuance. That's nuance. You're talking about like a very minutia uh port uh portion of something that she's just not gonna get. So she's just gonna go, okay, what's everyone else doing? And that's why she won't she won't come on your show because you're gonna be discussing some point of some greater subject and it to illustrate why you know hunting's okay or something like that. And she's gonna and her thing is I don't like it. Because it's wrong, death is wrong. You agree death is wrong? Yes, death is wrong. So then that's killing. Well then that's wrong, because killing causes death.
SPEAKER_02So But it's a feeling though, isn't it? It's not I mean, the thing is you need to be pragmatic about it. Is death wrong? No, it's inevitable. Yeah. So is the but but the thing is, what are we prioritizing? Are we prioritizing the death of this animal, which needs a human hand in ending that life, or the death of all the other animals that are affected by it?
SPEAKER_06Yeah, but this is that um, you know, but uh facts don't care about your feelings. Yeah, as my my brother says, feelings don't care about your facts either. Yeah. So yeah, it's true. It's like they don't care because it's my feelings. My feelings are more important than the fact that you're presenting me. And you know, weirdly to go back to why you're not important when you walk into a shop anymore, it's the same thing. Well, that's my feelings. Okay, you there's here's a fact, there's a customer in my shop, but the fact is the my feelings are that we're all the same. So, and I'm doing something, and I feel like this is important as well.
SPEAKER_02And not only that, but they have the power of it being essentially their establishment. They work there, this is my space, and I feel that vibe when I go into a lot of things.
SPEAKER_06We we don't have um, you know, a we're not in a kingdom, I know we're in a kingdom, but we're not in a kingdom, so to speak, where we have uh an emperor and stuff like that. But those people in that house think they're the emperors. And you watch their videos of them walking around and they're weird-looking videos and they're uh those um short videos that they do, like even the Liberal Party do them. They're so detached. They're so You know, I heard J.D. Vance on uh Joe Rogan, and Joe Rogan was talking about, you know, the vaccine hesitancy and stuff like that. He was talking about, you know, these facts about, you know, people getting sick after taking the vaccine. And J.D. Vance was like, oh really? Oh, really? I didn't know about that. I'm like, mate, I've been living under a rock. This has been the conversation topic for the last four years.
SPEAKER_02Another thing I found interesting and funny was someone had made a video about Georgie saying that she doesn't go into the outdoors. And her retort was to show a video of her on her ride on mower in her garden and out just in her like on her whatever acreage is, like you could see her house in the background. She's like, I go outside all the time. What an idiot. What an idiot. Yeah, like the outdoors is in relation to Yeah, you know.
SPEAKER_06That's what I mean. But she's on a ride here's a here's how's this for idiocy then? So she's on a ride on mower, she's a representative for some inner city suburb uh electorate, like Well, apparently she's from rural Victoria.
SPEAKER_02She's uh representative of rural Victoria. Is she?
SPEAKER_06I thought she was a like uh like an inner city representative.
SPEAKER_02I think she was voted in by some I mean, what do we call rural? I mean, the amount of people who live outside of Melbourne in what was considered rural Victoria, which are just people that are from the city that have got a slice over the country. You know. She's being voted in by, you know, yeah, people like that. And I don't think that, you know, your sort of the earth farmers and cowboys are out there thinking she's got the policies and the and the Well, they've destroyed.
SPEAKER_06They've made duck hunting, so my cousin went duck hunting. He said each duck cost him about $250.
SPEAKER_02It's almost pointless. And you can't even you can't even get on get after it at first light. You've got to wait till afterwards. They're basically just tightening the grip. Yeah. Making it seem like you've got hunting, but uh to only to people who don't understand what you need to do to be good at hunting. I mean, public's all all but pointless. I mean, it is a bit saturated on some public land. I think that all show should be like maybe a tag system to keep the numbers down.
SPEAKER_06Yeah, there are places I know people go, they shit off the rice and stuff like that, but it is quieter, but and they don't get into that heavy duty like where there's always activists around and stuff like that. But it's still still expensive, it's just petrol prices and you know, all this kind of stuff like that. It's like, you know, 250 bucks a bird, that's a lot of birds.
SPEAKER_02That's uh that's a I do enjoy duck, but that's pretty expensive. Yeah. Um, another thing I wanted to talk about, I wanted to mention is backpack hunting. We've got one due. Yeah. We're gonna go out. I'm saying we're talking about it, so we're definitely gonna commit to it. We've been talking about this for probably two years now. Yeah. We need to get after it. Yeah. With a rifle. Both avid boat hunters. We both have to be. I don't mind.
SPEAKER_06I don't mind backpack hunting with a rifle. Yeah. Um my place or yours. Where where do you go?
SPEAKER_02Oh, well, I'm not talking about it on here, that's for sure.
SPEAKER_06No, but um I like to go I got a I got a spot I think you'd like. I took a guy last year. Um I think he couldn't come. You were away last year. I took a mate of mine, and um he'd never shot, he'd he'd never shot at an animal. And uh he it was his first hunting trip, his first backpack hunting trip. And then I put in front of a um it was quite funny actually. So we were out in the high country. Um, we couldn't cross this particular river that we normally cross that will sh uh remain unnamed, but we couldn't cross it. We're in public land two. It was flooded, so it was like four, five foot deep. It was just, and I was running. So we're hunting on uh the left hand side of the river. We see a deer um was on our first day. A deer ran past. I called the deer up to a stop with a um a fellow call.
SPEAKER_02Oh, with a fellow call. Yeah, a fellow call.
SPEAKER_06I just it was anything that came to my mind and it stopped and it stopped, and I was like, what the hell is that? Like, that's really interesting. It's looking, and um I go, mate, your shot 50 metres away. Poor bugger, he missed. Oh I remind him about it all the time, and he'll listen to this and he'll um he'll have a laugh too. But um and I thought, how good would this be? Like first day, first day hunting, we get something, like we can go home tomorrow, or we can just bump around tomorrow, we can walk around, find something else. It's like that was his dream. He missed. Um he just he said he missed just because his sight was in, everything was right, he just missed because he just he missed. Yeah, he just aimed the wrong way. And um, anyways, um that area I'd love to go back to. I haven't been there since uh winter time last year, and I reckon if we go in July, late May, July, something like that, or June, it's it's it's cold, but you you can deal with that. It's the best hunting.
SPEAKER_02I'm from England, I'm used to it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think the biggest problem there usually is that feeling when the adrenaline starts to rush and that anticipation, and you want to get it over with. Yeah. So you rush the shot. You know, you just instead of your every training to slowly pull through, pick your moment you've got more time than you expect, you try you want to get it done. You just want to get through those feelings and you've got to learn to learn to sit with them.
SPEAKER_06We've we've all done that. Like I've shot animals too far away when they're gonna move closer. Sure. Just because you're like, oh no, I gotta shoot it, I gotta shoot it, I've got to shoot it. But you know, you wait, uh you know, obviously in the early days, now I know, okay, well let's just see what they do next. Let's just see what they do. They're getting closer, they're getting closer. And, you know, you want to shoot the animal when the closer the animal is to shoot them, you know, especially with the bow. If you can be right on top of it, the better. I remember when I was a kid, I got so good at hunting rabbits I could shoot them basically on top of them. You know, I'd I'd uh they go behind of a tree and I'd sneak up, sneak up. And I got really good at, you know, hunting rabbits who were really flighty. Yeah, stalking. Be right on the top, you know. Um but uh so I gotta take him out again. He wants to go. So I um you can come. I mean, I'd love to have you along with that. Because you're a a an encyclopedia of information when it comes to Bush.
SPEAKER_02Oh, true. Yeah. Um what gun are you gonna be what gun have you got?
SPEAKER_06Uh 30 oh six is my go-to. Nice. Yeah, I I like that. It's to me, it's the equivalent of like a 65-pound bow. You know, it's not a 338, it's not a 338 Magnum, which um my cousins shoot and they're like, oh, you get a man's gun. Both are gonna blow your armour. Dude. Yeah. I've shot the 338, it's just um it's loud and it kicks and it's heavy. I find the 338 uh three sorry, the 3006 is a really nice round, especially for the high country. 308's really good. I never hunted really with that. Uh been with guys that have, then that's their go-to round.
SPEAKER_02I got a 308 and blubber. Yeah, they're good rounds. 30 caliber, I mean, just to get the job done, especially Samba. Yeah. But what kind of greenage are you rocking? 180. 180. Whoa. When in doubt, just blew up the hillside, yeah.
SPEAKER_06It's not a long distance shot, but you know, when you're in that country, you're really not shooting anything that's further than a hundred metres. Yeah, I mean, there's usually some scrub or something in the way it's gonna yeah. Yeah, yeah. And you know what, it drops them. You hit him on the shoulder. Oh yeah, I have shot samba, and with that, square on, and I've actually thought I'd missed because the thing's just like wandered over. I mean, I've hit it because it you can see it's crooked once it pulls up, but I'm like shit, I just trots on and then it goes and sits under a tree. And but um, yeah, 180, uh, it's like I said, it's probably a bit heavy, but you know I'm not following, I'm not hunting, I'm not trying to find anything afterwards.
SPEAKER_02Sambader, they don't get hydroshock. They're of the deer that we have, I mean, apparently you get it a bit with uh I don't know actually, no. I've only really heard of it with sambadir. So as the energy enters the body from the energy sword inside the bullet, you get hydro shock, so it moves through the water, the fluids inside the body, and that's what causes them to drop. It ruptures organs and everything. Sambadere don't I love saying it all as one word. Sambadir. It's not samba, samad deer just rolls off the tongue so much better. Um with sambadir, the they don't get that. So you get one of two things. You either get tap dancing, or they just continue to run. So you know when you get that like when they you hit them and they do a little tap dance, you either get that, which is usually to do with Yeah, just like a perfect shot or getting hitting a limb or something, or just catching them right. Or they just I mean, I shot a deer and he just kept on running. Like you just Samba. Samba deer, yeah. They just samba deer, sorry. Samadir. Samba deer. Uh they just keep on running, you know, like nothing's happened, and you're like, oh shit. And then you're like, oh no, double lung. Yeah. Just fine. Yeah, perfect shot.
SPEAKER_06Yeah, I shot one. Uh it was a doe. With a uh had a young one with it and it took off and I thought I missed it. But it ran about 20 metres, ran from one hill, maybe 30 metres, run hill, it got to the top of the other hill and then it would expired. Um so I I have had them run, but not very far. Yeah, I got uh fallow with a 180 grain, that's a that's an interesting you want to take something home at least. Oh look, I I've um I shot one in the high neck and uh with that at at pretty close range actually, because they sort of they don't spook as easy, they sort of a little bit like prance around doing their thing and then uh but um yeah that was uh I've done that a few times. It's that's fine.
SPEAKER_02I I've got 165 Sierras, which I think it's just what my gun likes. You know, I tried loads of stuff. I do have a box of really expensive 180s that I've not even touched because I just I got myself I don't like going down to 130. I've got friends who shoot 130 and they just go for headshots like or head and neck, yeah. They're not really messing around with worrying about uh trophies. Um do you reload? Do I know I don't reload my own. No, I mean at the moment it's just been so crazy with Ukraine and like it's barely worth it. You're not gonna see a return on your equipment very, very soon.
SPEAKER_06I don't reload. I'm just uh curious because I know um I mean I will do religiously, and they um they make some really amazing bullets, like long range, low grain, um, and they got like one for each, you know, each distance. I've got a mate who's got like he's got his pouch and he has like one for seven meters, seven hundred plus, you know, five hundred, he could've this whole and they all got different colours on them, they look amazing.
SPEAKER_02This is but the thing is we don't realise is we will labour over tuning our bows. Arrows, cut them to length. How much, how many grains here, how many, uh, what's the flake that uh you need to do that with your gun, really. You need to know where your gun sits and you know get it get it through nice.
SPEAKER_06Yeah, for shooting longer distances I wouldn't use there's no way I'd use a hundred. In fact, I have uh tried to shoot stuff at 200 250 meters thereabouts plus with this, and it's it just you gotta really change how you shoot it.
SPEAKER_02I got a 200 meter one with 165s. Oh yeah, nice. But it was super calm, no wind. I was in a valley and it was just the the deer was calm, the weather was calm, it was just a good situation. You know, I just uh it's just the wind when it's just raining. Yeah, that's true.
SPEAKER_06I I look, I'm not the greatest I'm not gonna I'm not a super good shot. Like I can take stuff, but it's like I like to get stuff really close, just for my own confidence. So I like to shoot under 150 for it.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, my shot process is okay. Like my actual ability to do I think as an archer, moving over to guns is like the difference is crazy, you know, being able to Yeah. It makes it a lot easier, I agree.
SPEAKER_06Uh with a gun, like I shot bows first. I'd shot guns before, but I started shooting guns again after a long time shooting bows, only bows, and I never like I was only ever um tradbow. I just like never really got into the compound stuff. So it you know, that's even closer again. There's a lot of a lot of thinking that goes into that process, especially when you're practicing. So when I went back uh to game, and I used to be a a notoriously bad shot with a gun. Like I've got friends that would just roll around laughing that I couldn't hit the side of a barn with a shotgun. But um I when I picked up the gun again, I was like really good. You know, I was r in fact, actually the first year I shot with like 150 metres away um with the gun after not ha not picking one up for such a long time. And I was like blown away. I'm like, fire out, I'm really good.
SPEAKER_02It's just you know slow trigger pull, staple platform, knowing what you're doing. But what I find impressive, that I've didn't even really enter my wheelhouse of look is when you see people and they use a scope cam and their the crosshairs is up and off and they're they know exactly where to place the crosshairs in relation, they're using their mill dot. And I just there's some guys who shoot air guns. Uh guy called Hunter's Vermin, I think his name was, but he used to shoot with uh the English guy? He is an English Irish, English or Irish, yeah. From from over my way. Um, and he is impeccable at doing that, you know, knowing his drop and the windage and playing all of that. And I'm just yeah, just it's the next level. Did you ever see uh Gamekeeper John? Gamekeeper John, the the slingshot guy.
SPEAKER_06The slingshot guy, yeah, man. I still love his videos, like because we're talking about Shang Eyes earlier. Like I grew up with Shanghai's. In fact, my dad made me my first Shang, my brother and I my first Shanghai. My granddad, yeah, yeah. Yeah, we we made it out of a um the heavy gauge coat hanger. So it was a small, he had all these rules, like it's got to be small so people can't see it in your hand. So um, but it was this really cool uh uh Shanghai, and um again I didn't, you know, grew up, didn't do much, then picked it up again, and then as an adult you get hyper interested in things that you're interested in as a kid. And I started w watching Game Keeper John's videos, and oh man, that guy was awesome with his sickers.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, the uh the travellers in England love 'em. Catapult shooting is pretty big in England generally, but um but they're uh illegal hunting. Oh, 100%. Anyone can there's no restrictions on them. Or air rifles. So air guns are totally legal, you know, as long as it's sub-twel-foot pounds. Oh, so you can't have a bow, but you can have a You can have a bow. You can't hunt with it. You can't hunt with it, I mean, yeah. You can hunt with any and there's no licensing on an air rifle whatsoever. As long as it's twelve sub twelve foot pounds, which is plenty to shoot small game. That's bunnies, yeah.
SPEAKER_06Yeah. Yeah. Have you seen those really big, like those heavy caliber uh 50 caliber areas, yeah, yeah. They're amazing. They fascinate me, man.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and you get about four shots out of a tank and you can shoot 50 cow.
SPEAKER_06Yeah. Yeah. Crazy. They fascinate me. I mean, I've I've really interested in I mean, that's why I like tradbow. I like the idea of having something simple that can, you know, that you can shoot things with and drop big big animals with. And, you know, even a gun, I like a gun because it's it's still simple. Like, um, my tika is just a hammer, what have you got? Spring. I got a tika T3.
SPEAKER_02T3X? Yeah, that's it. The light version. The light version of it. The exact same gun, yeah.
SPEAKER_06Yeah, it's a grass gun. I haven't even changed the stock on it.
SPEAKER_02Well, if you got the synthetic or just got the synthetic stock.
SPEAKER_06I want to I wanted to put a wood stock on it and I was like, you know, ready to do. And then I'm like, but this is so light.
SPEAKER_02It's such a light. It's a very light platform. I did get the I did get a new recoil pad. Okay. Or a better, I upgraded my recoil pad just because I also like to just shoot it. Yeah. And if you're just doing one or two shots when you're out hunting, it's fine. But if you want to go to the range ten shots in, you know you've been shooting. I agree, yeah.
SPEAKER_06I was signing mine in a uh a couple of weeks ago, a couple of months ago, maybe, and it like I'd I just did my mate's 308, and he has a um which I've got too, a uh thermal site.
SPEAKER_02Oh, yeah, yeah. Nice.
SPEAKER_06Did that, and then I did my um my one, and by the end of it, oh dude, I noticed I've really had a sore shoulder. But I haven't changed the that's what I probably should do because I have looked at upgrading the stock, but I like it, I like it being light so you can walk a long way with it.
SPEAKER_02It's uh that's the thing. I just I'm done with being encumbered by equipment when I'm I because I like the process. I like bushwalking. You know, I like being out there getting after it. When I'm worried about heavy gun, big backpack, all of that, it's great having a heavy gun when you're there and you're lined up in front of the animal. Yeah. Everything else, I'd rather take the pressure in the shoulder. Is that your ideal gun? Uh yeah. I mean, it's just it does everything it says on the tin. The the thing, the misconception I think people have is worrying about getting some super fancy gun when you're much better off worrying about getting a super fancy scope. Yeah. And getting a whatever.
SPEAKER_06Yeah, I agree. I've got an old bushnan. It was actually the last bushnel that they had in this size uh 500 3500 bushnel, 3500, it is. It's really good, but it's old now.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I just want to get myself a Swarovski or a Zeiss or something. Because I mean that's that's the thing.
SPEAKER_06This is a Japanese-made bushnel, it's a very rare one.
SPEAKER_02Oh, what's like the that's the being able to see the thing like is one of the most important parts of the process, you know, seeing the little flick of see it being able to observe it with as much clarity.
SPEAKER_06Yeah, I do have a 22 with a shit sign. Me too. And uh and I really notice that I can't see stuff, especially when it gets a little bit dark. It's the worst.
SPEAKER_02Just popping bunnies and it's just having a crap scope is makes for a crap time sometimes.
SPEAKER_06Yeah, yeah, yeah. I got a really cool gun, I'll show it to you after. It's a um uh an an gosh, I forgot what it's called. And it's a German uh lever action. Damn it, what's it called? Anyways, I'll show it to you later. I got it gifted to me from a mate, because it's from WA, can't own it anymore. Yeah. So he's like, I'll give it to you. I'm like, I'll buy it off. He goes, nah, I'll give it to you. I'm not giving I'm not giving anyone the satisfaction of me taking money for this thing. So uh yeah, it's um Irma, an Irma worky. Really cool. With uh oh gosh, it's a really old scope too. It's like a early 80s gun or something like that. Was it 22? Yeah, twenty-two mag. 22 mag.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, cool gun. Really, really cool gun. A friend of mine talking about all the rules, he literally he messaged me right after Bombay. So, oh, you know those shotguns with the bullet, the the button on the back where you just reload with the button. I'm like, did you buy one of those? He said, Yeah, I've just got it. I went, not anymore, you can't.
SPEAKER_06Yeah. It's it's funny, like, you can't have a pump action shotgun, but you can have a lever action shotgun. You're crazy as that. Yeah, you can't have a pump action shotgun, but you can have or uh an SLR, uh, but you can have those, you know, those uh those lever loaders. It's like who whoever decides on these things really doesn't understand the guns and doesn't understand what they're what they're even talking about. Like there was that Canadian guy that was talking about a gun buyback over there, and he couldn't even pronounce the name of the um of the supplier, of the manufacturer of the gun properly. Yeah. I can't even remember what he said, but he was just fluffing. I'm like, these guys don't know what they're doing. They don't understand guns, they don't understand, you know, usages. Um they've never shot one often. They just watch movies. But they go, oh, you know, Chris Midge is like, oh, you can only have four guns now. It's like, well, so we can only have the same amount of guns that those guys used to do that mess. Uh okay. Well that's firstly, as a as a city guy, that's not a big deal for me. As big a deal. But for some city guys, it is a big deal because they go hunting all different species. But for a farmer, obviously that's a problem. I don't want to rehash over stuff that everyone's spoken about forever, but it's just it goes back to what um, you know, Centafanti said, which is you can't like you can't do people that don't know and don't have that experience are making rules for people that do, and it's really frustrating. People that are that uh, you know, they're the guys that are saying, you know, the problem, here's the problem. If you do this, this is gonna happen. I know, I have that experience. And the politicians are just like, uh, not even gonna take your uh I'm not even gonna take what you said into account, but I'm gonna pretend I do. Thanks for your interest, and we're gonna do this anyway.
SPEAKER_02Basically, what my my the the largest proportion of my voter base wants me to do, whether it's good or bad.
SPEAKER_06Yeah, that's exact exactly right. What's it which way is the wind blowing? I'll go that way. And you know what? Sometimes the wind changed directions very fast, which Albanese is finding at the moment.
SPEAKER_02But while policies are being written, they fall out of vogue. It's crazy.
SPEAKER_06Yeah, and then they go, Oh, this politician didn't agree to you know workers' rights on such and such pay deal. But you go, hang on, what else was in that thing that they had to say no to? It's a scam.
SPEAKER_02Let's handle something like what's your bucket list anymore.
SPEAKER_06Um, I would love to shoot something in America. I went to America a few years ago.
SPEAKER_02I was gonna say, why don't you get something more Yoruba?
SPEAKER_06Well, I tried. Um I'm going again in September this year. So and uh I'm gonna spend some time gonna go because uh Three Rivers Archery. Shout out to them. They're really good customers of mine um who buy a lot of stuff off me for the mainly R2s and C1s, um and the A1 uh arrow bags. Um so I'm gonna go and visit them, they're up in Indiana, but I've got a good friend in Wyoming and then Tom Clum's in Colorado, so I pop in and say good day to them, and I hope to go on another bear hunt.
SPEAKER_04Oh, cool.
SPEAKER_06So I went on a bear hunt, uh, didn't see a bear, but we saw, you know, all the typical American animals. So I saw elk, I saw elk fighting, I saw herds of elk. I saw um a moose that was apparently a small one, but I'm like, that's massive. Um I saw a mule deer that just came upon us in the um Wow. Yeah, we're walking around the bush.
SPEAKER_02Did you just have a bear tag or something?
SPEAKER_06Yeah, he had a bear tag. So I had a um 45 over 70, because I didn't have a bow. And uh my mate um Gavin, he had his um he had like a 75 pound, I've forgotten the name of his bow, beautiful bow. Um he had one he had he wanted to shoot it with the bow and I was like backup guy. So I just had fun shooting that lever action. Such a beautiful rifle, Marlon, Marlon uh 45 over 70 lever, all in stainless steel. Beautiful gun. Um but uh yeah, so I was hoping to see one because I'd never seen a bear. We've never seen a bear in the wild after black bear. Um yeah, and I saw I one of the most amazing things is I saw elk, um a herd of elk, and then they were fighting. And then my mate was calling him and they were calling back. It was so cool.
SPEAKER_02Oh, that would be a dream. Getting a getting a nice elk.
SPEAKER_06Yeah, something like that. Look, I I wouldn't be too fussed. Just to shoot something in America is you know, like that's where um I think our version of bow hunting and archery is from. I know it goes back, you know, obviously uh, you know, I watched Robin Hood, Errol Flynn and Robin Hood is the greatest film I've ever seen as a kid. And I still watch it now and then. Um, you know, and that really that's actually what got me started that. But you know, our form of, you know, like our bows, you know, like that style of bow that we shoot is an American product. And uh, you know, like those videos of Fred Bear going around hunting, like that's that's what I want to do.
SPEAKER_02It's they are the best in the world. They they are amazing and they've got a wonderful rich history. I mean, I've got a stalker jackal, which is just a Howard Hillbell, you know, legend.
SPEAKER_05Single it's a one piece, isn't it?
SPEAKER_02No, it's a three-piece. Oh, okay. Um yeah, okay. The grip I'm talking about, you know, the old style of that, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_06Yeah. I've got a coyote and as you said, I've been mucking around with the grip.
SPEAKER_02Reshaping the uh reshaping the grip, yeah.
SPEAKER_06It's it's so much nicer.
SPEAKER_02It's n it's not easy taking a rasp to a like a three, four thousand dollar bill.
SPEAKER_06No, so put it this way, when it was first suggested to me to do it, so when I did it, or actually um Tom Clum suggested I do it. Um, but that was only recently, and Jack in his uh podcast, and he's always saying, I just reshape it, just reshape it, just do it. Like, but it when it was first suggested to me, I reckon it took me two years to get the courage to go and reshape it. And even that first rasp, like, well yeah, we're doing this. But it's made the bow so much more a pleasure to shoot, because now it suits my hand. I think it's actually a better handle than what it comes out with. But I I hear that some of his handles as in um the uh stalkistick bows handles are a bit like that. They're just built for the bigger hand. Yeah, you know, not my dainty, you know.
SPEAKER_02I suppose it's just doing those, you know, it if if you go for the bigger hand, if someone's got a smaller hand, he does reshaping, you you can get it, but that's just the kind of stock handle. Yeah, it's just a stock's handle. You can't add any more material, I suppose.
SPEAKER_06I bought it off a a bloke who's apparently an absolute unit, so uh, you know, ex-army guy, so not really lovely guy too, by the way, but um I think he's a bigger guy, so he probably didn't didn't bother him so much. But I like a really sort of pointy handle uh that fits into my the um the what's that called the like on the lifeline.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_06So um, but it's really nice to shoot now because he used to fight me. He used to like want to come out of my hand. I was really holding it with my thumb.
SPEAKER_02It's funny, do you know what? I used to feel the same way, but my jackal is the Howard Hill style, and it's got like a flat palm, so I have to have and it really helps me to lock out and keep my form tight by having that like having my hand in that more aggressive style that the coyote's got. It gives you a bit a less of a ballast point, so it is right in there and it's not really on the flat of your hand, but I just feel like my arm because I think because I shot compound before, I shot tread, went into combat for a long time, it made it makes me have my arm my elbow twisted out like I'm shooting a compound bow a bit. I think that having that other style gave me a different grip style. Yeah, yeah. You know what I mean? So it helped me to differentiate between shooting a combat bow and shooting a stick bow. It just gave me a Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_06No, I I see what you mean. I like the like you saw the bivouac that I have, like that's got a really pleasant handle. It's such and that's just their stock standard handle that it can be.
SPEAKER_02Looks very ergonomic. It's got a similar kind of grip angle to the coyote, hasn't it? I think. Uh now it does. Yeah, right. Ah, fair enough.
SPEAKER_06But um no, but the the coyote's a lot flatter, like you were just describing. It was really flat. But um Tom Tom Clum that is was saying that he has a clum handle or clum style handle, which is um, you know, Tom's Tom's own design. Because Tom Tom and him uh South made um their own they made a line of ILF bows, oh yeah, risers. And uh and I'm really into like I've just gotten really into ILF again, so I reckon they're they're really cool.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, fair enough.
SPEAKER_06Yeah, yeah, it's good. But um uh not a good defensive weapon, I will say, the ILF. Uh I can attest. I got attacked by a pig, a wild pig, once, and uh everyone else jumped out of the way laughing, as you do when you're hunting with mates. And uh I tried to defend myself with my ILF bow uh as I got um thrown up in the air and the thing just came apart. Really? Well, it's not, it's only yeah, pinned in basically with some springs and it just fell apart. And luckily the pig didn't want anything else to do with me after it uhiliated me in front of my friends, and uh but yeah, that's a that's another funny story. But um yeah, but the it I I think they're such a nice they're just fun to shoot to very easy, you can change handles at them really easily, so yeah. Yeah, easy product.
SPEAKER_02So anyway, that's that's me. And we've gone for you're officially so far my longest podcast.
SPEAKER_06Well, I came into that uh that was my target, and uh yeah, well, throw it down.
SPEAKER_02Got quite the rackle to break.
SPEAKER_06Mate, it's been an absolute pleasure. I love talking to you. Callum as always, had a ball, and uh yeah, man, thanks for coming to Sunny Melbourne today. Pleasure, mate. See you soon. Cheers.
SPEAKER_02Thank you, everybody. We hope you enjoyed the show. Wherever you are, whatever time of day it might be, good morning, good afternoon, good evening, and good hunting.