Caught the ferry from Cape Jervis on Boxing day and arrived that afternoon at the campsite.
We were on an invitation from a landowner friend for a feral goat cull on his property near Parndana. The goats had been buggering up fences and generally breeding out of control over the last few years so needed thinning out.
I took my Marlin 45-70 Guide Gun and my mate had his 6.5x55 sporterised Swede along.

The weather was as hot as hell, so after camp was set up we spent a relaxing afternoon catching marron in the local creek over a few cold beers. The creek hadn't been fished for years so to say it was infested would be understating things. We caught about 3kg of very sizeable marron in one lazy afternoon session and ate like kings that evening.

Next morning we were off after the goats. The owner reckons there were 100 of them, but I doubted that somehow. It didn't take much looking around on the smallish (2000 acre) property to find out where the herd had been so we spent a while glassing the grassy slopes where they met with the bush. And sure enough, 25 goats could be seen out in one paddock.
After a bit of discussion we decided to get downwind and stalk up to them thru the brush and shoot them from the fencline to block any exit. Keep in mind that this was a cull and not a hunt so the idea was the complete erradication of these guys.
After a half hour stalk using the yackka bushes for cover my buddy opened up at about 150yards knocking a couple flat. The goats didn't know where the rounds were coming from so ended up running straight at us. At about 100 yards I put the 45-70 to use. Wow does that thing tip them over or what....with 300grn Sierra HPs no follow up rounds were reqd that's for sure, soccer ball sized holes......
30 seconds later there were 22 goats on the ground, a couple managing to escape into the bush through a breach in the fence we hadn't noticed before. The barrels were smouldering and my shoulder was feeling pretty well thumped.
We spent the next day looking for more animals but I was confident that we had got them all except for a couple that had escaped.
Our task for the trip was over.

We spent the next few days cruising around looking at the scenery and checking out local beaches. Lots of foreign tourists at the seaside splashing about which had the desired effect on our frayed optic nerves. They were probably wondering where the hell the two sunburnt guys in camo and the 5 day growths had appeared from though.....hahaha.

Caught the ferry back on Saurday with a bit of a swell running. Good thing it not a long trip otherwise I would have been feeling pretty green.

An excellent trip. Wouldn't go back in the summer again though. Too many flies and way too hot for comfort really.

Cheers

Sounds like a great trip - did the 6.5 get any action?

quote:

Originally posted by Fenring:
Sounds like a great trip - did the 6.5 get any action?

Oh yeah, for sure.
My buddy was cranking that bolt almost as fast as I could cycle my Marlin.
The 120gn HPs out of his 6.5 were sure getting there pretty quick and with spectacular results. A lot less punishing on the shoulder too.

I reckon the 6.5x55 is almost the ideal light/medium game rifle for Austrlia IMO.

Here are some random snaps....

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