After leaving my previous job and having 2 weeks to start my new one I thought it was the best time to get some varminting in before having to go back to work!

My Mate and I arrived 10am Friday morning unpacked the car and then did some sighting in as I had just mounted a new scope (VX-14-12x40) to the 222rem and I checked the zero on the 22-250rem.

After lunch that day we took some footage of blowing up bottles of water, apples and a deodourant can as well (will post that shortly).

After going for a drive in the afternoon to check out the property and visit some parts we dont often visit we came back for dinner and to feed the farmers dogs as he was away.

There had been sightings of a feral cat hanging around the homestead so I was determine to eliminate this feral pest. I grabbed a chunk of dog meat and wired it to a bit of steel that was lying around in hopes to lure the cat then shoot it.
An hour later I handed the shotgun to Sam and said lets go have a look, I grabbed the battery powered Lightforce spotlight and went for a look. We walked around the back and checked where I put the chunk of meat, no cat so I continued to look. The steel with the meat was to our left and when I checked to our right about 20m away sure enough there was the cat sitting there just near the shearing shed. with a quick "sam shoot it" the little La Sorda shotgun sent 32grams of #4 shot at the cat and with a little jump in the back of the cat I knew it had been hit but it ran off.
In our check for it we heard the unmistakeable growling of the cat. Sam had hit it better then I thought it was in a bad spot and sam had to run off and get the 22 to finish it though it was dead by the time he got back. He gave it one anyway just as precautionary method as niether of us wanted to be in a confined area with a pissed off cat! So Sam had his first Feral cat and was over the moon. Last I heard the cat's skin was sitting in a bath of tanning solution!


After that we went out and decided to do some real varminting/spotlighting. With me nailing 2 hares that night in spectacular fashion:


Saturday was spent watching DVD's as the rain prohibited us from wanting to do anything special but boredom got to us and we went spotlighting on sat night:

It was more of the same on Saturday night nailing a few more hares one with a very good headshot:

I shot a fox from a long way away, I hit it I know as it fell over and rolled down the hill a bit before running off at 100mile an hour. I hate not having clean kill and I hate missing out on what could have been a good fox skin!

Sunday saw us going for a very half hearted fox whistle in the drizzle and didnt manage to whislte up any foxes during the day.

Sunday arvo we went out and checked out a newly found warren (a big one at that) but with only a few bunnies about I nailed one with the 222rem and then they didnt want to come out anymore. Saw a fox on the crest of a hill but didnt like the look of the truck so it wouldnt respond to the fox whistle at all.

Sunday night was a good night nailing more hares and 2 more rabbits before we called half time and went back for a coffee:

The 2nd half of the night was quite quiet, driving around not seeing anything at all on the other side of the property. Just as we were leaving the last paddock I spotted eyes at the top of a hill about 500m away. Time to test this new whistle I had been given to review. I shut the truck off and proceeded to whistle. It looked like the fox wasnt interested as its a bad time of year for whistling I wasnt surprised then it came around the other side of the trees looking very interested. It would move some then stop then I'd whistle then it would trot in again and stop, I'd whistle some more! Sam was in the wrong side of the truck and had to get out so I told him to get out on my next whistle which he did. The fox went down a small gully which we lost sight of it and it was quite fraustrating as I had called it in for about 400m and I didnt know where it was going to come out. But things were working for us in this instance and it came out the gully I whistled some more and it started trying to go behind us running along a fence line. I got it up to about 30m away in the clear and Sam let the 222rem bark and with a solid hit I couldnt get out the car quick enough to shake Sams hand as it was his first fox. I was also quite please with myself as it was the first fox I have got to come in real close with a call. The only downer was that the 222rem put a big hole between its shoulder blades and the skin was useless but the tail was big and bushy so we just got that as a momento of our joint efforts. I was pleased how it turned out, I got to whistle my first fox in and Sam got to shoot his first so we were both real happy and celebrated by having a hard earned drink of wild turkey that night after the shooting was finished.
One happy cusomer:

why we didnt skin it:


Monday was our last night there and we went out and we scored 4 hares. I almost got 2 at once but IMO hares are toughter than Rabbits and foxes and I didnt get the penetration to get both but I shot them both in the end:

A rather messy one:


Sam had been shooting at all the wrong times to get a hare this trip but he eventually nailed one right at the end!

All in all it was a great trip with good memories. We ended up scoring 11 Hares, 3 rabbits, a fox and a half and a cat.
Rabbits have been a bit scarce lately down there and I have heard that where there are hares there usually isnt rabbits and after this trip I'd believe it as there were no hares anywhere near where the rabbits were!!

Dont forget to check out Australia's Only Varminting site: www.ausvarmint.kjd84.com/

There you go! I went varminting in New Zealand last year, we shot goats!

Kjd84: Great report and great pictures!
Thanks for letting me know what an Aussie Style Varmint Safari is like.
Let me ask about your 222 Rifle - what brand and model is it and is the scope on it a straight 12 power Leupold or is it a variable?
Also please send along my congratulations to your partner Sam on his first Fox!
Another question if I might - you mention Varmint "Whistling" for the Fox! Is your "whistle" actually a dying Rabbit type squalling call or is it some type of "whistle"?
Again good for Sam on his success on the Fox.
Hold into the wind
VarmintGuy

You folks down under need to start chartering "Rabbit hunts" kinda like Americans do the Prarie Dog hunting.

It would kill 2-birds with 1-stone....
A. Bring money into the economy
B. Get rid of your $%^&* rabbit problem.
C. Work on getting gun ownership back in-favor with the AUS govt.

Best regards

John