Dates: June 30-July 14, 2018

Outfitter: Australian Outfitters by Andrew Mackay

PH: Andrew Mackay

Airline: Qantas

Rifles: .318 Westley Richards custom and .470 NE Merkel Double.

This hunt has been a few years in the making. I had met Andrew when I was hunting with Pine Mountain Outfitters in Saskatchewan a number of years ago and enjoyed his company. He and I know a number of folks in common and it seemed a good fit. To this point, all of my hunting has been either North America or Africa, and I had been thinking about expanding that a bit. Andrew is natively from Australia and hunts the world over. A more experienced guide would be hard to find! We had talked at the SCI convention back in 2017 about the details a bit, but I decided to book this after talking with him in Canada later that year and did the actual booking process in February at the SCI convention. My initial plan was to hunt Buffalo, Banteng, Scrub Bull, and if opportunity arose, a Sambar stag. I was told that I could shoot all the Wallabies, Dingos, Donkeys, and Camels I felt like. Andrew was quite clear that Camels were not found where we were going; and that Sambar were rather unlikely, but if we saw one, we could shoot it. Wallabies are neither game nor protected in the Northern Territory of Australia. Donkeys were a bit of a change. Since booking, they have become something of a market item in Australia to sell, so if I wanted one, that would be about $250. Dingos are vermin. Wild horses are like the Wallaby- neither protected or forbidden. There are also wild pigs, which induce a trophy fee, but are not really game animals. Interestingly, while you do not need a license to fish recreationally in the NT, the outfitter does have to have a license to allow you to do it. They also have some bag limits and rules there on fish.

Andrew initially was very strongly recommending that I use the rifles that he has there as Australia's gun rules are rather complex and require a lot of time to navigate through. Frankly, I am not sure if anyone's rules are easy. However, once I commented on wanting to use my double, he agreed that there was no reason not to bring my own. He did comment that Banteng might require a longer shot, and a scoped gun would be a need then. Since bringing one or two is the same difficulty, I elected to bring a rifle that I picked up from Mike Fell, a Sterling Davenport made .318 Westley Richards. This is effectively a .338-06, but from around the early 1900's (predating the '06) using a .330 bullet. Definitely an oddball caliber, but it was fun to get it up and get it shooting well.

Travel to Australia is a bit more of a undertaking than some other places. The flight from the continental US to Australia is about 18-19 hours flight time. Add in the multiple hours for layovers and flights within the country (I had to get to Dallas to leave and had to get to and from Darwin in Australia) the trip is effectively 2 days each way and you do cross the international date line, so on paper my flight to was effectively 3 days and the one back was 1 day... I flew business class which has the ability to lie down flat. How the folks in economy put up with this flight, I have no idea. The airline service was good, and while we had a delay on return (got in over an hour late) Shawn Kennedy had planned for a long layover and I had no issues with my transfers. Customs on arriving in Sydney was a bit of a hassle with it taking them quite a while to find the one fellow who could deal with firearms, but I had all the paperwork and the guy was quite pleasant, so it was more a long wait (hurry up and wait) than it was a hassle. Strangely enough, in Australia, the guns were not a big issue with regards to the airline, but ammunition was- and required a pre-approval for that. I had it, so no issues, but I could see where someone who was not used to it would not know and cause no end of issues.

I arrived in Darwin and met up with Lora, who works with Andrew in Australia. She is working on becoming a PH, and does do some guiding in North America and New Zealand. We did a bunch of errands and drove to Pine Creek, a small town about half way to Big River Station which is where I would be hunting first. This is in Australia's Northern Territory, which is the Outback portion of the country. If anything, the population density and buildings reminded me of 1970's America- main streets with mom and pop type stores, places shutting down at 4 or so in the evening and everyone waving at each other as they drive by. There was a huge number of RV trailers (called caravans by the Aussies) which shows that travel and camping are a common recreation. I was also to find out that most of these folks are older and I was seeing the Australian equivalent of our Snowbirds. Also of personal note, my Grandfather had served for a period of time in Northern Australia during WWII and it was amazing the number of WWII airfields and sites that were marked on the road. The one I saw looked like an overgrown airstrip- but we did not have time to really explore these. It would have been worthwhile to take some time to research my namesake's service record and spend some time trying to find some of these spots, but I expect time wears on and there would be little to see currently compared to 1941-2.



We overnighted at Pine Creek and then headed on to Big River, arriving at 3 or so in the afternoon. The camp at Big River Station (Station is the Australian equivalent for ranch) was set on a river, and if you were inclined to fish, there were lots of Barramundi in the river along with a pool that held a number of Bull sharks. I really had no time to try and fish, so nothing there for me. The camp was a typical East African style camp with electricity, toilet, and shower. When I arrived, there were two fellows from the states there finishing up their Buffalo hunt, and were going to go south to Queensland to hunt some Rusa Deer. They had good success with buffalo with one of them shooting two, and the other, one. Both were very experienced hunters, one specializing in Mountain game, the other having about my experience with African stuff. The following morning we were up and started looking for critters.





My first day of hunting, we went looking for Buffalo to start out with. Finding a buffalo proved to not be too hard. Finding THE Buffalo was a bit more work. We found some buffalo cows and calves pretty early on and saw a middle aged bull. We also experienced a large number of Wild Asses (Donkey) in the area. These are apparently a hot commodity for the Chinese trade, but as they will not slaughter them in Australia, they are captured live and sent to China via ship. The trip on the ship is used to fatten them, and then they are slaughtered. These appear much bigger than the donkeys I was used to seeing in Africa. They also had a lot of wild horses (Brumbies) but on Big River, the owner likes seeing them, so they are not killed and/or sold. Interestingly we saw no wild mules, and according to the station owner, you have to confine the donkey and the horse together to get that crossbreeding to happen. There were a few Kangaroos and a lot of Wallabies around. Supposedly the Kangaroo has a different body shape and tail structure than the Wallaby. I could only tell them apart because the Kangaroo bounces while the Wallaby more bounds forward.

Wallaby



Donkeys



My first animal that I shot was a particularly sick Dingo. The farmers want the Dingoes shot on sight (like our coyotes) and in some places there is even a bounty on them. My dingo stood around while I got the rifle out, loaded it, took the scope covers off, and then started running. I made a running shot on it, but only at 30 yards or so. I think they look a bit more dog like than Coyotes, which did give me some remorse on shooting it. No other Dingo was willing to stand around long enough for me to get a shot at it this whole trip.

Dingo




The next couple days were spent looking over Scrub Bulls and Buffalo. The goal for a Water Buffalo is 100" of horn (length plus diameter of both horns). We were seeing a fair number of low 90" buffalo bulls, but nothing really big. We also saw a few Scrub Bulls (which are just feral cattle) but while I wanted to get one of them, none of them made Andrew's criteria for a shootable scrub bull. The scrub bulls are basically feral short horned cattle,the domestic stock around here is mostly Brahmin type cattle now. While the rancher will take any scrub cattle he catches to market, they have evolved to being scared of people enough that they stick to thick cover whenever they see folks or helicopters (how they round the cows up). On the third day we went on to the coast on the Sea of Carpentaria, to an area that Andrew has under contract from some of the local Aboriginal tribal members. This was about a 5 hour drive. The camp here would be more a fly type camp, but they had electricity and a communal toilet and shower point. One of the attractions is that you are right on the ocean and you can set Crab Pots out and get your own seafood right there. We took the crab pots out, but it turned out, we didn't use them. On our way in, we saw a big buffalo that Andrew thought was maybe 100". After looking at him for a while, we put a stalk on him and got to 50 yards. He started looking nervous and Andrew said I needed to shoot now. I took my first shot with him standing broadside and he jumped. He then ran to the other side of a tree where I shot him again, this time he hunched up and his leg was dangling. I put a total of 5 shots into him, and then a finishing shot. Somehow in the excitement, I had unloaded a live round at some point, and when we got up to him, I only had 5 holes, so I was thinking I somehow missed him. Turns out I hadn't shot that many times...

Buffalo








We then skinned him out and went to the beach. Andrew made a few calls and said we would head back to camp right after lunch so that we could hunt scrub bulls a bit more and leave a day early for the Banteng area. I was able to take a little walk on the beach at low tide. Interestingly, there were buffalo tracks on the beach and evidence that the herds come out to the ocean- I am not sure, but it may be they drink a bit of ocean water to get their salt intake. On our drive back, we stopped and talked to the fellow that Andrew deals with for this area, and I got to see some of what the life for the current Aboriginals is like. They are provided with pretty nice places and areas, but it does seem a bit depressing, and most are not working. On our continued way out, we continued to see lots of buffalo and I think we saw around 75 or so in the Aboriginal areas, including a bull that was probably as big as the one I shot.



On arrival to the camp, we met up with the new clients from the states and talked with them. They were a father and son pair from Colorado and were here for buffalo and fishing. They had gotten a really nice pig their first day, with a bow. The next day I looked for a scrub bull, with no success in finding a good one. The other guys got another hog, and while they were on buffalo, they just were not big enough. That evening, they planned on going to the Aboriginal area the following day, and I would hunt scrub cattle at Big River until noon then we would travel on to the Cobourg peninsula for Banteng.



The following morning, we went on a walkabout where Andrew had not been for a year to see if the scrub cattle were using a couple of water holes back where you could not drive to. We didn't find scrub cattle, but we did surprise a group of feral hogs that were sleeping there. We got to within 10 feet, but none of them had decent teeth so we left them alone. We were maybe 100 yards away when they finally caught our scent and ran off. We were continually seeing Donkey, Wallabies, Buffalo, and some cattle, just not anything worth shooting at.




One thing that did happen on occasion was that there would be a rather dense fog in the morning. This would disrupt spotting game somewhat, but was rather pleasant as the temperatures in the day were in the mid 90's and it was pretty humid at all times. Folks tend to think of the outback as being a desert, and in places it is, but here it is a tropical flood plain that in our summer is their dry season and they tend to have no rain for months- but in the wet season, they have continuous rain and the area becomes one big swamp. The ocean fish are able to come upstream (where the sharks and Barramundi come from) and all the roads are subject to flooding. They measure flood stage in meters here, so that should give you and idea how much water they deal with.



That afternoon we headed back towards Darwin towards the Cobourg Peninsula. We would meet up with Robert, an Aboriginal guide assistant from Karl Goodhand's outfit who have the rights to the Banteng area we were going to hunt at a town called Jabiru. Once we met up with him, we headed up further north. This was in the Garig Gunak Barlu National Park area, after driving through the Kakadu National park. The camp we had been going to stay in had been burnt out, so we were doing a fly camp like we had in Alaska- except you couldn't bathe in the river (big crocs including a known 12 footer.) We forded a number of rivers, and the last we crossed had a very unusual sight. The road was high enough to block movement dwonstream, but big enough for bait fish to go through- maybe 2" deep at most. There was a huge school of predators (mostly Barramundi) right at the edge, and whenever a group of baitfish tried to cross, there was a water boiling feeding frenzy.




We arrived there around 2 ish and set up camp. We had all that done in time to take a quick look for Banteng. We saw numerous Wallaby and then a herd of Banteng. At that point we got out and tried to stalk close to the Banteng. The first thing we saw were more wallabies and a Dingo. Then the Banteng. This herd had a small bull running with them. We got a pretty good look at them, but he was not what we were looking for. We walked back and planned out the next day.




The area we were hunting was accessed by a road to a public boat landing. Non aboriginals are not allowed off the road except by permission to hunt. This area is rather wooded, and is adjacent to a big flood plain. The Banteng move on and off the flood plain and different groups appear in the hunting area on a daily basis. Banteng are a Indonesian bovine that were once called Bali Cattle in Australia. These animals are gregarious herd grazers, and herd up much more so than Buffalo. They also are not as protective of their young as Buffalo and do not have the reproductive success. They will also interbreed with regular cattle if they share a place. The Banteng are considered endangered everywhere but northern Australia. The US government calls them "feral Bali Cattle" so they are legal to hunt for Americans in Australia, but otherwise they are not elsewhere per US import regs. There are two major areas where the Banteng are found- on the Cobourg Peninsula and by Mary River. The Mary river population used to be the more heavily hunted, but they also have a lot more cattle around there, so some interbreeding is suspected there. If you want to hunt them, I suggest you have a long conversation with your outfitter to find out the specifics of where you will be and the relative "purity" of the herd. Banteng bulls are a dark brown-black color with a white tail patch and white stockings. The cows and calves look a lot like jersey dairy cows- light brown with curved horns. Like all wild bovines they are potentially dangerous if you do something stupid.




The next day we again did some walking and while we saw some Banteng. We got in the middle of a herd and were in a position that we cut the herd off from some calves. The mothers abandoned the calves while we were there and then later came back for them. Andrew did explain if we did that with Buffalo, we would have been charged by the mothers, but Banteng are much more shy. We stood off watching the calves and hoped the bull would show so we could assess him. Andrew did get a view of one well enough to see his head and state he was too young- I didn't get a good look at his head. We then pulled out and looked elsewhere. That evening, we did not see much of anything.

The following day we saw a few young bulls in the afternoon but nothing of note.

Our third day we decided to make a long foot loop and see what we could on the waterholes early. We left camp before sunup and were on the first waterhole, where we had seen a young bull the night before at just after sun up. Nothing to be seen. We made a 6km loop without seeing any Banteng. We then tried the other side, walking to the river, and towards the flood plain, we ran into a pretty good sized herd. Following them for a while, we discovered that there were 2 good bulls in this group. This ended up resulting in a 2 hour cat and mouse stalk through the thick brush to decide which was better. In the end, they stopped in a somewhat open area and we could get a look. The two big bulls were keeping their distance from each other. Once Andrew was able to get a good look at both of them, he decided that the one on the right side of the herd was the older and thicker bull. It took us about 45 minutes to get within double rifle range, and at times we thought I might just have to shoot with the scoped bolt gun. Nevertheless, we persevered and I got a 45 yard shot at the bull. I shot and hit him and proceeded to shoot him 3 more times before he fell. Both Robert and Andrew also shot as the first shot did not drop him and these animals tend to run a long ways and given the rather sizable trophy fee, no one wants to deal with a crippled bull. I did shoot him once as insurance, and then we had the bull.






He was rather old, with some brooming of his horns, and we found after the fact that he had some bruising in his head around the ear from a fight earlier in the day. I was told that taking one with a double gun was a rather unusual thing- that they usually are not so cooperative with a close shot. Andrew and Robert went to get water and cameras and we started the caping process. Given the rules we could not drive in and pick him up. After pictures and caping, we started carrying him out. We all got some degree of heat stroke from this- it was in the high 90's F with 80-90% humidity. This was a bit of a slog to get to the truck, 4 km from the road after all of this.



After getting the bull to camp, we found that there was a particularly cheeky crow who had been tearing everything apart. He would get within 4-5 feet of you if you didn't have a gun... Camp was a bit of a mess. I was assigned the role of designated crow sniper and finally got him...



As this was in the Aboriginal areas, we had no beer or alcohol in camp, so the celebration was with steak and diet coke...



The next morning, we pulled camp and drove to Darwin. That evening on the balcony at the Mantra hotel we celebrated the bull, had a nice steak dinner on the town, and got a good rest. It was amazing how fast the sun slips below the horizon here.





The following day I dealt with getting my Australian export permits for the rifles (which you get at the main government office downtown, not at the airport...you drop off the paperwork and come back and get it later in the day) and I got a day room at the Mercure hotel next to the airport as I would be leaving at 1:45 AM to head back to Sydney. Andrew needed to hurry back to camp to pick up the clients to take them back the following day and then get the new folks coming in the day after. As he said, no rest for the wicked...

The trip back was a bit long (an understatement) but event free aside from getting in late. I really enjoyed my stay in Australia, and had some good hunting as well. Too bad I didn't have a bit more time to poke around and see some of the history and experience some of the fishing, though.

WOW! Great post, fantastic pictures.
I'm very happy for you having such a great hunt.

Thank you for sharing with us.

George

Good report and pictures. Very nice "lunar" bull and some nice "sweepers" photos, too. Super banteng! Congratulations and thanks for sharing your adventure.

Congrats. Nice Trophies.

Great report mate.

Excellent report,thanks for sharing.

Chuck,

Nice report and trophies. I think you'll be interested in how my hunt was conducted as opposed to yours if I can every get to doing the report.

Mark

Big River! Beautiful place! My bro got a couple of monster boars there years ago, but got smashed by cattle ticks. One of the toughest hunts we did. Congratulations on a great adventure!

nice

Great hunt report! Congratulations!

Congrats CR! As usual, I enjoyed the concise post and pics.

quote:

Originally posted by BenKK:
My bro got a couple of monster boars there years ago, but got smashed by cattle ticks.

GULP!! I am headed over next month; having caught tick bite fever last month in Zim I am not looking forward to another close encounter with ticks.

CR: great report; did you run into ticks?

Well done doc. Nice animals & great report.

The only ticks I saw were on the Banteng’s balls. Remarkably few bugs... some mozzies after dark in camp was it.

I can almost guarantee you won’t have a problem with ticks. In fifteen years I have only been hit by ticks four times, and these ones don’t spread diseases.

Well done Doc! Some very nice Aussie trophies... the Banteng are just too cool. I went with Graham Williams the first two weeks of June and had similar success on buff and banteng taking both with my double. Struck out on scrub bull, they were the most "turned-on" critter I ran into there.

Glad you had a great hunt... we seem to follow each other around.

quote:

Originally posted by crbutler:
The only ticks I saw were on the Banteng’s balls. Remarkably few bugs... some mozzies after dark in camp was it.

Edited: I quoted the wrong guy the first time.

Good. And thanks again for your help when I caught TBF - you were the first guy I thought about asking and you responded immediately. I owe you a beer the next time I am in MN.

Good stuff - congrats...

Thanks to all for the complements!

I now see I put this in the wrong place, but I guess its at least topical...

And Mark, get cracking on that report...

.

Charles, Good on you. Great report, super trophies !! Thanks for posting !!

Charlie

.

Awesome. Leaving in 10 days. You answered my question about alcohol in tribal area....Can't wait looks like so much fun.

gunslinger55,

Check with your outfitter. We hunted in aboriginal land in Arnhemland and had all the beer, wine and alcohol we wanted. Check out my report.

Mark

Thanks. I don't want too much but to go down under and not have a few frothies just seems wrong lol

quote:

Originally posted by gunslinger55:
Thanks. I don't want too much but to go down under and not have a few frothies just seems wrong lol

With a few excepitions I only drink on Friday and Saturdays and then limit myself to two drinks but somehow a frosty pop around a fire when hunting is the way to end the day.

I leave tomorrow night Gunslinger; spending a week with friends in the Brisbane area, then heading up to Darwin. Looking forward to a toast in camp!

Have a safe trip see you in Darwin. Definite toast around the fire in Order! I leave Thursday evening from Phoenix