Just thought I'd post on our trip up to Normanton I mentioned about 3 weeks ago.

We got back in last night and I'm currently avoiding the cleaning duties.

Just please note this was our first trip to the Gulf area.

Our planned arrival at Normanton was delayed by a couple of days due to the insistence of our friends who own the property we were shooting on to stay with them at their home property for a couple of days on the way.
This was not too bad as we went for a couple of drives and blasted about 15 hogs each time and about 40 or 50 goats (estimated goat population at this place is between 10 and 20 thousand). No real trophy billy's although if you wanted to get up into the hills you would no doubt be rewarded as a bow hunter picked up a set of horns there after we left that were around 47 inches I believe.
Arriving at the Normanton property we were happy to see a reasonable size dead hog at the front gates and then about 40 very large black shapes on the first two lagoons as we drove in towards the house.

Next morning we went back to these two lagoons and found no trace however I shot a very nice boar of @ 130kg with a decent set of tusks hanging out, chalk one for the 7x64 VG47. The load was 139gn Hornady SST being pushed by 52gn of 2209 and it made a solid one shot kill. This place is on the Norman river and most of the lagoons are filled from overflow so we were suprised to see this guy camped under trees on the bank especially when we had a few large splashes off the banks whilst we stalked its edges.

The rest of the day was spent finding the various lagoons and water holes and trying to find our way around. Along the way we found another big boar feeding on a lagoon which one of the guys dispatched with his 9.3x62. We missed about 40 other hogs that were just disappearing off the lagoon as we arrived. Sadly when you don't know you way around you can arrive at choice locations unexpectedly. This same lagoon produced another huge boar the following day and we were suprised to see more than 1 dominant male living so close. We suprised a few more hogs along the way around and managed to get a semi respectable tally of 10 which seems poor for the number seen however we the country was not somewhere you could get more than 1-2 shots off before everything had disappeared into heavy cover.

The next morning we got another 2 large boars, 1 which was showing evidence of very recent fighting with another boar. So far all the boars were easy 90-100kg dressed weight (we were not shooting for the box). This was followed by about 8 sows and a few attendant suckers later on.

This set the pattern for teh rest of the week. Get a few boars early in the AM then kock off sows and suckers as they watered during midday. The late afternoons were very unproductive which is pretty much what we had been told by the owner and his manager.

Looking for a change we rigged up the spotlight and decided to see why the largest lagoon (about 3km long) was not producing any hogs morning or day. A short drive along one bank and we were in heavy action with a big mob of sows and one big boar who nearly managed a tip toe away on the edge of the light. These hogs showed that they had no idea about spotlighting and you could cull heaps under a light if you chose.

After 5 days things were starting to get very wary. Hogs were staying off the water during the light and we were seeing them disappear into heavy cover just on daylight. Time for a move so back to our mates home property for a more relaxed pace of living in the homestead and eating home cooked meals (and seeing QLD lose the SOO - sob).

We only had 2 sessions back at Longreach but with about 40 hogs shot in a relatively short period. Two were equal of anything seen in Normanton. One - a sow was at least 100kg live weight), the other a boar was @ 120kg. Once again we gave the goats a bit of a hurry up although you would need a s/auto and a chopper to make a dent in the population.

Most spectacular shot:
Mate's Merkel 9.3x74 on a Brumby - brisket shot it folded in half and fell in a heap without a quiver.
Runner up
A 30kg sow I head shot with the 7x64. The Hornady SST blew the best part of 70% of it head clean off leaving only the offside lower jaw and offside rear of the skull. Quite gruesome really.

What did we learn about the gulf:

Its not open country like we were used to and the likelihood of staying on the hogs without a bike is remote.
Being fairly close to town and only 100,000 acres this property suffers hunting pressure quickly and the hogs have plenty of other water to move to.
You can't walk along northern water ways without being scared shitless of large crocs (particularly when there is a 16 footer living near the house).
Its a damn long way from Brisbane
The hogs are large up there and there are shitloads of them
Its no easier shooting hogs up there than it is down here.

Hope to get a copy of the pics in due course (wife woudln't let me take her digi)/

Cheers

Craig

Craig

Sounds like you had a nice little pig hunting trip with 40 or 50 goats thrown in. WOW. What has happened to the goat selling market? Has it collapsed?

So I gather you used motorbikes most of the time too?

You are so right about needing previous knowledge or local knowledge of a place for good results.

Waiting for the photos.

Thanks for sharing.
I would of thought the Hornady SST to be too fragile to use on boar hogs. Apparently they work just fine.

The SST's were if anything too hard on goats. One shot produced two dead goats. Both shot straight through the chest and both dropped instantly. 1 week later the two dead billy's produced 4 sows and their tribes feeding on the carcass
Mate was using Woodleigh 140's in his 270 and found them way too hard on everything bar the largest boars unless serious bone structure was connected.

The goat market is fluctuating I think. I quizzed my mate about whether he would muster them and he reckons its not worth it. (Our tongue in cheek comments about whether he is a cattleman or a goat herder probably helped). I think we would wear out our rifles and run out of ammo before we made any impact on his goat population anyway.

Cheers

Glad you had a good trip Craig.

Would you be able to provide a comparison between Nosler Ballistic tips and Hornady SST's seeing as you have used the SST's ?? which is softer/harder ??

Thanks Craig,

I have this thing in my head where I can't stand the look of classic calibers with plastic tipped bullets....am I mental or not ??

But I am interested in trying the sst's as quite often there at a good price.

Craig,

I have a cz 9.3x62 and have often thought about trying the 250 gr Nos BT's in that, similar round to your whelen. Rebel also have the Norma Oryx 232 gr bullets which I have thought about, but they cost the same as woodleigh's. At the moment I shoot the speer 270 gr 9.3 bullets, soft but they would work well for even the biggest hogs I suspect.

Sounds alright Craig, but I do like an exit wound. Do you reckon an exit wound is overrated on pigs ??.