Spent last evening doing some feral sheep culling in a bush block . I know most of you Aussies will be getting hormonally aroused at the thought , but it is genuinely tough work in the scrub and rubbishy crap that these tasty little blighters inhabit.Apart from the waist- high grass dropping seedheads everywhere and the gorse digging into any exposed flesh , the fallen pine trees and fern clumps , not to mention the flies or the skeeters biting , hunting wild sheep in their choice of ground is pretty fast paced action . But them woolies had no answer for the 7mmRimmed/12ga combo gun or the trusty 223.

And just to prove it , some brave hunter pics....




Damn , thought I had made the pics smaller .. oops

Muzza
How come they arn't mustered and returned to the flock? Not worth the effort? Bad genetics?

All in all you have some nice lamb chops there.

Poor bastards what did you do to them before you shot them, I see one with it's legs still spread post or pre metamorphosis?....Les

Hi Muzza,
Great work,some tasty roasts to be had I'm sure. Interested in some details on the combo. What is it, I haven't heard of that calibre mix. I use a Savage 24 .22/20G myself, but would love to get the same in a centrefire. Have had a look at Sabbatti and Valmet combos, but don't like the centrefire barrel on the bottom.
Cheers,
Tom

Bakes - the woolies are in an area of real steep , gorse covered crap with some pines and lots of awful native rubbish . Mustering all of them is not very feasable, so some of them stay in there and make more .These ones just happened to be in a family group that were reasonably accessable to the track - like half a kilometer uphill....

Dontom - the combo gun is my mates , its a 7mm Rimmed over 12 gauge , fitted with short eye releif low powered scope . He got it from Graeme Champion Firearms in Hawera , he imports them from Sweden along with lots of other high class , low usage sporting rifles . Cant recall the make offhand , will try and ask next time I see the guy ( thats him in the top photo )

And Les - well , I did warn the world about the effect this would have on Aussie hormones. Public displays of envy such as yours will get you nowhere fast son , beleive me .Go take a cold shower..

OK I'm guessing Muzza, you are the git in the top pic?

I shot a wild or feral ram in Central North Island when I was there hunting red stag in '93.

They also were covered in burrs, a dark dirty brown, and lept the farm fences as if they didn't exist. Now the mount on the wall is a nice clean wool like he was from the back paddock, or mustering yards.

After shooting thi ram, the others ran off into very steep bushed ravines like you describe. Never scored the ram but I feel was a good score.

Sorry mate , guessed wrong - I'm the slightly out-of-focus hairy bloke with sweat leaking out everywhere in the 2nd shot....

These guys are hard to hunt in this heavy cover , they know their way around and they are closer to the ground for getting through the prickly crap .They dont seem to get many thorns or burrs here , although it is a bit early yet for the main crop of biddi-bids that clog your socks over the next few months . Still picking thorns out of my hands and legs three days later tho from bashing through the scrub .

Havent seen any trophy-type sheep in here yet , none of them are from horned breeds so it isnt likely that a trophy will appear . There are some with triple wool tho, you dont shoot them unless they are on the track , and havent seen one that close yet .Too heavy to carry far .

This sort of hunting doesnt have the glamour of deerstalking or danger of mountain hunting but it puts meat on the table and is still good fun.

The first guy looked like he would have a German last name.

Crawling around that dense scrub doesn't look like much fun.

Hunting is s'posed to be challenging , and hunting in this thick , prickly cover is definately a challenge ...

Nothing like some wild wooly backs for the BBQ.
Dont look too daggy to be to wild?

Just this years lambs MM , go for the smaller ones when you have to carry them far...

A few years ago I had this thing come prowling around the place.



Hog Killer

NitroX - my hunting buddy offered this in response to your query on who is who in the photos - " tell the guy asking the serious questions that the gun is a Brno , model unknown , and tell that german pr*ck that many generations of my English and Scottish ancestors are turning in their graves at the thought of being called a bloody German ".

Personally it doesnt bother me at all , but some folk are a mite touchy about such things....

The meat is delicious , by the way ...

Did some feral sheep culling myself about 12 yrs ago. The biggest trouble we had was getting a projectile throught the foot or so thickness of their wild fleece.
The sheep, Merinos I think were about 7-8 yrs old & had never been shorn. Couple this with the sticks, leaves, dirt & shit they had collected over their wild lives & they (about 20 of them) had a fantastic bullet trap on their backs.
The solution to this dilemna ?
Use a bigger gun.
Initially .222 rem were used with little effect.
After that a .308 win did the trick & head shots where possible, on a couple of occasions those big curly horns got in the way too.
I know this all sounds like a bit of a simple task gone wrong, but it was just a case of being undergunned from the start.
Did you have any dramas with bullet performance with regards to their fleece etc ?

No problems with knocking them down , they were all clean-faced and without horns so headshots with either the 223 or 7mm did the job without drama . Those unshorn big ones can take some handling if you dont hit them in the right place tho.No substitute for proper bullet placement.

[QUOTE]Originally posted by muzza:
Sorry mate , guessed wrong - I'm the slightly out-of-focus hairy bloke with sweat leaking out everywhere in the 2nd shot....
QUOTE]

You don't mean the one that, with a deerstalker cap, would look just right on a pennyfathing bike? (Retorical)

At risk of being rude - dont you look like a bloke who should have a broom handle shoved up his fundamental orifice....?

Actually I can ride a penny-farthing cycle , and they are not that easy to master , beleive me .