Well, a bit of excitement on Saturday night....

I was sitting back with the missus having a quiet glass of red and solving the problems of the world etc and notice a flash of light thru the window, like lightning or something, then again. I stick my head out the door and see a vehicle a couple of clicks away shining a spotlight across the paddocks. No worries, probably just the neighbour rounding up his cattle...
Anyway, I keep looking and notice that the car is actually on the road and is spotlighting into the adjoining paddocks....hmmm interesting...
Said vehicle then continues on and methodically covers most of the roads in the immediate area spotlighting paddocks all the way.

I'm not sure about you guys, but being a keen shooter myself I find that this sort of thing really gets my blood up. Not only is it illegal and gives all shooters a bad wrap it is also dangerous.
The Barossa area I live in is not what you'd call closely settled but it is "thoroughly" settled with small holdings and hobby farms. Every place has at least some sheep, cattle, a couple of horses and a dwelling.
Given 30 seconds of thought, it is easy to see why most people around here have a very low opinion of some clown with a light and a farkin 22 rimfire that bounces every second round off a twig or stone 500 yds or more into the darkness.

Now, being the clever guy that I am (NZ educated ) I'm guessing it's only a matter of time before this nugget comes past our place... I know, I'll get in the car quietly and catch him at it and then exchange some French with him..
True to form, he arrives on time with his spotlight flicking around inside my property from the road. Now I'm really pissed off...
Turn the key, high beam on, 5.7litres at full song and catch him red handed.
French is exchanged.
He wimpers something about "just shooting some foxes mate" Yeah! on MY farking property!!
I get his number and tell him I'll be calling the cops next time (it's the third time I've seem him). I follow him for a couple of km's just to make sure he gets the idea.

Any of you blokes had to do anything like this?
What are your thoughts on this kind of thing?

PS. And on the very slim chance that the guy in the white Subaru Brumby is actually reading this, I urge you to get some dancing lessons in beforehand because next time you're shining a spotlight and using a rifle across my property mate, you're going to be doing the hot lead shuffle......

I'd report him to the cops anyway. Doing that in a populated area will get someone killed. You neighbour may be out getting the cows in the next time he comes around and cop a bullet!

Avatar
Totally understand where you are coming from.
Cannot understand why you didn't report him to the police. I still would.
It would be one thing to call the police on a local farmer patrolling his own property but spotlighters drifting through are bad news.
You don't owe him any protection as he didn't ask permission and obviously isn't wanted.
Am pretty sure the police would take a dim view of locals charging up to anyone for an exchange of french.
Back home stealing sheep is a bit of a problem so you might be suprised how quickly your local police respond to such a call.
Dob him in and do everyone a favour.

ps. May be better to drive up without your lights on if you want to grab number plates a bit easier.

quote:

Am pretty sure the police would take a dim view of locals charging up to anyone for an exchange of french.

Like Hell!!!! Go out there and confront him, Demand his name and car rego, and then disable his vehicle(large calibre bullet to the engine usually works) until the cops arrive!!!! and if the cops "take a dim veiw" remind them it's their job to prevent crime and in their absense you were just doing the job for them.

The Kiwi.

We have clowns doing the same thing here in Texas, looking to shoot a few coyotes. Guess you have the same type everywhere.

Doesn't NitroX live in the Barossa Valley?

I know a man who spends alot of time trying to keep them from spotlighting deer on his place. The bastards shoot his cows too. They seem to be all over.

Mickey, You have cut me down to the 375 H&H and 30-06.

quote:

Originally posted by Mickey1:
Doesn't NitroX live in the Barossa Valley?

Oops Avatar, Sorry .

***

Nope not me. I got done by the cops in the good old days spotlighting off the road onto my "own" property. There is a stretch of a dead-end road between two paddocks and gates that we used to leave the light on for. Had permission for the whole fourteen square kilometres of the area we were spotlighting too. The cops asked if we had permission and I said yes, and we owned the quarry right next door which they used as a target range for practice. They checked the rifles regos and our licences and let us off with a warning. I was more pissed off they didn't ask for the ffffing permission slips. We could have lied but they didn't give an ffff if we had permission from the landowner or not. All they were concerned about was whether we had registered firearms.

Nowadays you would kiss off your firearms licence for the rest of your life for the same. Stupid thing to do now.

I had some "acquaintances" who had rigged their utes for "hot pursuit", a switch would kill all the lights except for the front head lights. They used to claim they would and could spotlight for foxes all the way from the Barossa to Clare, about 100 kms away. All off the roads. And NO ONE was going to stop them. Dickheads. Not my friends.

Another time across the ranges where we used to own some land, there were always people spotlighting on Friday and Sat nights. A traditional outing in the area. Nothing else except the pub. Was with my father and we once chased one vehicle for many kilometres until they turned the spotlight into our eyes.

In those days a fox skin was worth about $30 to $50 each and if you took enough animals was worth a lot of money. Once found over thirty skinned foxes in a ditch on a neighbours property. I was the only one with permission to spotlight the property so it would have been done illegally. Thirty foxes would have to have been taken on a great many different properties, but was a bloody good haul. I was impressed. 30x$35=$1000 for one nights work. Average income was only about $25,000 then.

The Greenies and greenie hooligans throwing acid on women wearing fox coats in Europe killed off the fox fur market and prices for fox skins. Result, huge increase in a feral pest in Australia responsible for the death many native species.

I personally love hunting foxes but find (legal) spotlight shooting of foxes incredibly boring.

[/QUOTE]I personally love hunting foxes but find (legal) spotlight shooting of foxes incredibly boring.[/QUOTE]

Can understand... but back home the foxes are runnning when and sometimes before you put the light on. I haven't shot a deer in the day time that has made me hunt as hard as some of the local foxes back home even at night with spotlight.

IMHO it doesn't matter what or how you hunt just how much experience the game has to your methods.

If I may ask, how to Austrailians hunt foxes? We have them here, but I've never bothered to mess with hunting them.

Don't you guys also hunt feral house cats too?

quote:

If I may ask, how to Austrailians hunt foxes? We have them here, but I've never bothered to mess with hunting them.

Generally at night with the use of a handheld spoltlight from a vehicle and a small centrefire rifle, 17rem, 222, 22-250 etc or maybe even just a 22lr.
A call can be used to bring them within shotgun range (even during daylight) but I've never had much luck with those things. Blown them until I've been blue in the face.
Foxes hunted on foot can be a challenge for sure but spotlighting them at night is too easy IMHO.

quote:

Don't you guys also hunt feral house cats too?

Yep, plenty of those in the bush, big muthas too.
Same hunting method applies.

Nitro has a great picture of a feral puddy tat with a headache.

Mate put the Barstards into the Cops & contact The department of the enviroment & Heritage! With their vehicle & rego details! I have that much trouble through these Morons it has gone past being a joke! Illegal spotlighting costs me money! These Idiots get on to properties & destroy my lively hood& valubale live stock! This of course costs me time as I quite often get asked for any details ofanybody I have seen around of a night,to say nothing of several close calls of being shot whilst sitting in the dark haveing a smoke or a feed! I also have had drums of fuel used for target practice!

Talking about spotlighting and cops .....

An acquaintance (friend of a friend) used to have permission to spotlight a station on the Murray River. Bordering the station is a highway and the Police station is off the highway outside of town.

One night we were spotlighting rabbits - we used to get 100 to 200, without going anywhere near all night - and our light lit onto a building. We thought, "What is that building?" and then worked out, "It is the 'cop shop'".

Oops. Moved further away.

On a plus side, the cops used to catch up to sixty different groups a year, illegally spotlighting on this property. They questioned us too, and as usual found something to have a go at. We were driving an unregistered old ute across a lonely dirt road, the gates being directly opposite each other.

As a mate says "they always tell you what you are doing wrong, never stop to tell you you are doing it right".

Here is the pic of a poor puddy with a headache.



From this thread

Head shot with a .375 300 gr Woodleigh RNSP.

***

I hunt foxes by just wandering around the hills with a .22 Magnum or a .222. Spot and stalk. Lambing time is a good time to find them.

In summer when the grapes are ripening sometimes you can get a fair number of foxes in vine rows. A .222 is necessary as 200 metre plus shots are common. Skins are thinner summer ones.

I scare more foxes away than I bring in with a fox whistle.

Hey DOK
I'm guessing you're in and around the Hawker area no?
I've been there a few times in summer goat shooting and at night have sometimes seen up to 3 or 4 spotlights at work at any one time in the surrounding area.
There can be NO WAY that they are all bona fide hunters with property owners permission etc.
Shits me to tears......

quote:

I'm guessing you're in and around the Hawker area no?

A little further sth out of Quorn! But I do most of my work further West out the back of Woomera.But it's suprizing how manyshooters we find out that far! esp over long weekends! Our place has been hit once from the road by Idiots shooting as they passed of a night! As we"re a fair way out of town! So far I have'nt been home when it has happened but the nightr I am I'll be chaseing them down & telling them of my dis pleasure

quote:

Originally posted by deciple-of-keith:

quote:

I'm guessing you're in and around the Hawker area no?

A little further sth out of Quorn! But I do most of my work further West out the back of Woomera.

Hmmm....out west eh.
Is the name 'Dean' ringing any bells?

Hmmm....out west eh.
Is the name 'Dean' ringing any bells?

Mate that depends on wether his old Man used to be a Rabbit processer out at Eucla a few years back?

quote:

Originally posted by deciple-of-keith:
Hmmm....out west eh.
Is the name 'Dean' ringing any bells?

Mate that depends on wether his old Man used to be a Rabbit processer out at Eucla a few years back?

Nah. Probably family though. Had a big place around Woomera some years back.

That would'nt have been Mt ebna by any chance would it

quote:

Originally posted by deciple-of-keith:
That would'nt have been Mt ebna by any chance would it

Might have been....
Jim and Chas
Small world eh...

quote:

Might have been....
Jim and Chas
Small world eh...

Ain't it the truth ! Ive been working out aruond there for about 15yrs now but it loks like I may be comming closer to home as I've been approched by the local processer around the district to work as the bloke who normaly shoots for them has decided he do'ntwant to work through winter!
(Must be nice to pick the time of year you want to shoot!)

I am not quite sure that i would ever call spotlighting foxes here in the Wimmera in Victoria as there are VERY few shooters I know who can collect more than a couple in a night.

Except around the end of the year of course when any one can shoot a hand full of cubs.

We own a 204, a 222, a 223, two 22-250's and they are used mainly for collecting fox skins (plus of course, a few hundred target rounds a month at whatever just for fun'''' now how do those damn smileys wore-----SMILE).

I love hunting fox all of the time. If you can get one in under 200 yards after it is well shot at, you are doing well.

And they are so incredibly territorial. You get to know the cunning old dogs as they normally take a while to get.

and its funny, their territories are so well set!

Back in the glory days of the 70's when skins were worth heaps, many farmers here spent as much time hunting as driving in ever decreasing circles around their paddocks.

The best tally ever in the Wimmera I heard of in one night was a lot less than a number quoted above. They must have shot over an enormous area Shoot the foxes in some areas and they take a while before another dog takes over.

But we all know abouit scats marking territory.

Anyway, too much good beer,
Ross

I meant to say I would ever call fox shooting boring.

Sorry.

Too much Vic Bit
R