Cape York Safari October 2012 - lotsa pics

[bigbob]

Absolutely bloody magic! Loved every minute!

[rodlonq]

Thanks fellas.

On day 7 I was having more trouble walking comfortably and I opted to spend the day in camp. Bruno and Mick went out to hunt the swamps for the morning. I washed my clothes (that was a relief), sharpened knives and broad heads, and kicked back to enjoy the peace. I had thought it would be a good idea to catch lunch and have some fillets cooked for fish sandwiches when the lads returned. I got the fish I was looking for but I only started to prepare it when the fellas came in. We decided to have if for the evening meal and went for a swim instead.

CY2012Day7 1Barra4TeaSelfy.JPG (159.5 KiB) Viewed 3085 times

In the afternoon I went for a short shuffle up the overflow we were camped beside. I came across a wallow only 400 m from the camp and there was a pig laying against the steep bank side of the hole. I went back into the bush and taking a wide berth emerged where I thought I would have a good shot from the near vertical bank down to the wallowing boar. It turns out I came up about 20 m past of my mark and there was heavy scrub to get around between myself and the boar. I went back into the bush once more and emerged closer only to find I had been winded and the boar (an old Cape York Rattler) was trotting off into the distance showing some flashes of a very good set of ivory. There was no access down the bank where I was standing so I went back out into the bush and jogged parallel to the overflow until I thought I had gone far enough to get downwind of the boar again and headed back to the bank of the overflow. When I got to the bank there was no sign of my quarry, it had done the now familiar "Cape York Vanishing Boar" trick.

Shortly after another stalk was blown by the swirling wind and my impatience. It was nearing dusk I had wandered a fair way from camp and had no torch in my pack so I had to make double time whether my feet liked it or not.

CY2012Day7 2NearlyDark.JPG (139.74 KiB) Viewed 3085 times

Bruno had a good day, bringing a good boar and two sows to ground . I don't have the photos yet but I will add them when Bruno emails them to me. We had started the day with a tally of 8 pigs each so far for the trip but now Bruno was well ahead, no matter, I wasn't there to have a competition . We had fish for tea that night, I tell you Mick can cook a tasty barra fillet, but he will not part with his recipe for the light coating . Bruno and I went fishing after tea and both managed to boat a decent fish. We kept both of them because the excess fillets were destined to be handed over at the homestead.

CY2012Day7 3BrunosBarra.JPG (49.44 KiB) Viewed 3085 times

CY2012Day7 4Barra76cm.JPG (136.94 KiB) Viewed 3085 times

[rodlonq]

Day 8 found me refreshed and ready to get back to hunting. However a couple of hours later my resolve was failing (everything was willing except the souls of my feet) and I opted to sit in ambush South of a stand of Cape Palms, two of them heavily seeding and the wind coming from the North. Mick and Bruno went off to hunt the next couple of swamps and we were to meet back at a fence junction only 200 m to the South of my ambush site in two hours.

CY2012Day8 1AmbushPalms.JPG (158.95 KiB) Viewed 3083 times

An hour after the lads left I was sitting, watching and listening. I could hear a pig noisily munching Cape Palm seeds at another stand about 100m to the West. I was determined to show my patience and wait for that "huge boar" to come in and offer me a "hunt of a lifetime" opportunity. Another half hour and the boar had come so I caved in to my impatience and stalked up on the palm clump where I had heard the pig feeding earlier. There was no sound and there was no pigs snuffling around under the palms. I did however spot a nice boar laying under a log across a narrow deep gully running to the South-West. I stalked in to about 10 m when the boar rolled to an upright laying position sniffing the wind. It knew there was something but didn't make too much of it. As soon as it turned its head away from me I drew back and loosed and arrow which found its mark about 2" forward of the crease and about 1/2 way up the body. The boar jumped to its feet and immediately crashed to the ground again. I thought the boar had expired after only a brief period of convulsions so I started to advance. The next thing I knew it was scrambling out of the scrub straight towards me, standing in a rather bare steep sided gully. I admittedly panicked and let go another arrow that hit the boar on the top of its lowered head without effect, What an amateur reaction???? Time to react properly and escape this situation. A big jump and scramble up the side of the gully just in time to see the boar run past was all I could manage. Now the boar had piled up in the bottom of a Cape Palm and was finally expiring. I gave it a while listening intently and no more sound seemed to come so I reached out and grabbed the top back leg to drag the boar out one handed. My first arrow was dragging in the ground and he was a good lump of a boar so I hardly moved it. I placed my bow on the ground to free up the other hand and begin dragging the boar out to where I could photograph it, then it came back to life and started curling over looking like it wanted to eat me. I wrestled with the boar for a while and I was nearly ready to expire myself when it finally gave up. I realised it was time to meet the lads and I was not at the agreed rendezvous or my ambush site so I made my way back to the fence junction. About 15 minutes resting in the shade Mick and Bruno turned up in the vehicle and Mick immediately notice I was down some arrows in my quiver. He asked if I let it get away and I said "no Mick, I was still holding its back legs for 5 minutes after it died , let's go and take a photo". I had learned a lot of lessons in that 1/2 hour or so.

CY2012Day8 2Boar6.JPG (144.89 KiB) Viewed 3083 times

Bruno had bagged another boar today as well but I don't have photos yet, will add them later. I was totally worn out and just followed Mick and Bruno around for the rest of the day looking for a stray to come my way after Bruno went about his business.

[rodlonq]

Day 9..... I was almost tempted to stay in camp again because I had added a very sore back to my list of groaning body parts. The encounter with the big bodied boar the day before had nearly beaten me. I would spend the day not walking too far from the vehicle however I did have a couple of almost successful stalks, getting to within 3 m of one boar and to within 5 m of another. I didn't convert, the whole situation was embarrassing and painful so I'll just post photos of the pigs Bruno got .

The first boar was watering on a dam with about 60 m to the nearest cover, and Bruno was stalking up to a large clump of trees downwind of the pig to approach from there. Bruno must have whispered something hypnotic because the boar promptly trotted over to Bruno's cover and lay down beside a log to rest. Bruno only had to move a little sideways to get a shooting lane and sent an arrow home. The boar went back to the last place it had watered and expired. Nice one Bruno .

CY2012Day9 1BrunoBoar8.JPG (160.83 KiB) Viewed 3081 times

Later in the day Bruno stalked up on a boar sleeping under the root ball of a tree that was exposed by erosion, right next to the spill way on a small dam. The shot was good and the boar ran into the water just to test Bruno's resolve about not tempting crocodiles to eat his legs. It turned out to be a nice little boar.

CY2012Day9 2BrunoBoar9.JPG (97.59 KiB) Viewed 3081 times

CY2012Day9 3BrunoBoar9.JPG (89.6 KiB) Viewed 3081 times

[Stickbow Hunter]

Just fantastic to read and see mate. What a great trip ya had!!!

Jeff

[rodlonq]

Day 10. We moved back from the river to the homestead in the afternoon of day 9 and a night on a real mattress instead of a yoga mat on a wire cot had done me a world of good. Today would be a shortish day for hunting as we had to pack everything up to leave by 5AM tomorrow morning. This was to be the most interesting and memorable session of hunting for the entire trip.

Bruno and I had both gotten busted and midday was looming upon us. Bruno was up, and was stalking in on a mob of pigs from the West using a 2 m high mound of earth scraped out of the adjacent dam for cover. He was making a good show of it and lined up a nice young boar. The shot was high and too far back and the boar took off into the moderately timbered grass country to the South, taking most of the mob with it. We followed the pigs very quietly, Mick reminding us to keep our eyes open as the pigs may just lay down and camp under any of the shady trees. I was a fair way to the South-West from Mick and Bruno, and had given up on finding Bruno's boar. Moving towards their last known direction I found them about 300 m away and discovered Bruno had grounded two camping boars about 100 m apart. Neither of them was his initial target so photos were taken and the search resumed.

CY2012Day10 1BrunoBoar10.JPG (160.15 KiB) Viewed 3080 times

CY2012Day10 2BrunoBoar11.JPG (167.24 KiB) Viewed 3080 times

Bruno's first boar seemed to have pulled the Cape York vanishing trick, so we headed back to the dam, ever watchful for pigs camping under the larger trees. On approaching the long narrow dam from the Southern end we saw two pigs wallowing beside the far end of the long earth mound along the Western side of the dam. I was up so I took a wide birth to approach the pigs from the West using the wall for cover and perpendicular to the wind. The woody weed surrounding the area was very thick so took my time. Meantime the wind swirled and I finally peaked over the earth wall to seethe two pigs disappearing into the distance. That stalk was blown however there was a boar settling into a camp under a tea tree straight across on the Western side of the dam facing North. Another wide sweeping approach saw me come in too early and I was to the North of the pig with it facing directly towards me. Back into the bush and circumvent a big patch of woody weed to come out spot on at the boars camp. I couldn't see the pig because there was a 3 foot step down on the other side of the boar shade tree that I was also using for cover. I was getting excited as I approached and saw the black of the pigs back. Very slowly and quietly I moved in crouching to stay behind the step. When I judged I was in the right spot to get a window through the tree I stood up, drawing my bow. The window was perfect and my arrow was on its way, covering the 5 m in the blink of an eye. The shot was also perfect, piercing the heart and lungs, with blood immediately issuing from the mortal wound. Then it struck me, the pig had not moved. My own epiphany was simultaneous with roars of laughter from the far end of the dam 100 m away as we all realised Bruno's injured boar had wondered in and lay down here to die . The air was blue as the lads told me between giggles that they had thought it was acting funny just before I shot it. So Bruno had 3 boars for the morning and I had shot an already dead pig, what a bloody turnout.

You can make out the boar's bed and the blood pools where it lay when I shot it almost right in the centre of the first photo.

CY2012Day10 3RodShotBrunosHog.JPG (166.88 KiB) Viewed 3080 times

CY2012Day10 4BrunosEarlierBoar12.JPG (155.59 KiB) Viewed 3080 times

After a lot of ribbing over lunch we moved on to the next dam, Bruno graciously giving up his next stalk to allow me a chance at grounding a 10th pig to average one per day for the trip - thanks mate. There was a good boar laying under a tree and I was still acutely aware of the most excellent stalk I had just put on a dead pig . The stalk went well and the shot from 10 m was true. The boar got up and ran about 40 m before expiring.

CY2012Day10 5Boar7.JPG (162.31 KiB) Viewed 3080 times

I was one very happy to have achieved my goal of harvesting game with each of my bows. Mick had taught me a lot about hunting Cape York pigs which was an experience on it's own. Mostly I was happy to have met Bruno and hunted with him (except for his habit of pre-killing the pigs I am stalking ). We got Mick to take a photo of us with the trophies from the trip.

CY2012Day10 6TrophiesFromCapeYork.JPG (155.11 KiB) Viewed 3080 times

We had our last trip to the Mitchell River for a bath and I could resist taking a photo of the smoke almost completely blocking the sun in the late afternoon.

CY2012Day10 7SmokeySunset.JPG (71.74 KiB) Viewed 3080 times

We had our "last night of the trip" drinks after everything except our swags was packed into the vehicle and trailer. This was a great trip and thank you all for reading my story and for your encouraging comments.

[prasamaccus]

Congrats on blooding all your bows looks like you had a blast, enjoyed the write up and pics.

Paul.

[Stickbow Hunter]

Once again Rod a big CONGRATS!!!

Thanks for sharing your trip with us and you certainly will have learned a lot and had a ball all at the same time. Ya mate Bruno doesn't like to smile much huh. He might have got lessons from another Rod I know.

Jeff

[bigbob]

Once again Rod a big CONGRATS!!!

Thanks for sharing your trip with us and you certainly will have learned a lot and had a ball all at the same time. Ya mate Bruno doesn't like to smile much huh. He might have got lessons from another Rod I know.

Jeff

that was my thoughts too Jeff. Ol Bruno seems to find it hard to crack a smile! If it was me I'd be beaming for weeks. Great Story and pics Rod, enjoyed it greatly.

[hazard]

What an awesome trip! Congrats guys well done.

Thanks for the post.

Hazard

[UPTHETOP]

Rod is good to see the journey you have had from building your own gear and finally putting game to ground with it. It shore is a mildstone in anyones trad journey. There are some great hooks there that will be fond memories for days on the varandah with a beer in hand.
Congradulations on the trip the cape is always someting special.
You'll have to start drinking ya bear with a teaspoon of concrete to toughen up before your next trip it helps keep them blisters stay at bay.

Congradulations again and thanks for taking the time to post the story and photos well done.

Cheers Wayno

[rodlonq]

Thanks for looking fellas, and Wayno, special thanks for the advice on the traditional bush medicine for blisters... mate.....

Cheers..... Rod

[Guy Layton]

Rod,

WOW...!

What a top hunt you guys had and some top quality game taken....! I need to go hunting now...!!

A big congratulation's to you....

Cheers Guy

[andy80]

Excellent story and well done.