01 July 2014, 18:04
Tim HeraldAustralia Buff with Hunt Australia and some added fishing...
I just returned from 10 days in Australia where I was leading hosted hunt with 5 other hunters while filming for Nosler’s Magnum TV. The first week we hunted buffalo and freshwater fished with Matt Graham and Hunt Australia. Then we took a few days to do other things down under. We did an offshore charter one day, took a day to hang out and see Cairns, and then did a day diving and snorkeling on the Great Barrier Reef. It is a long way to Australia, and I would highly recommend doing more than a 5-7 day hunt while there.
I am going to give a “short” overview and then let the photos speak for themselves.
Matt and his crew ran a great camp in a very remote location. They are a good bunch and work very hard. The rains were about 6 weeks late this year, and as late as our first day in camp, it rained. We should been more than a month into the dry season, and this caused a lot of problems for Matt’s crew. We couldn’t access many prime areas, there was a lot of getting stuck, and no burning at all (which had the animals incredibly dispersed). The floodplains that are a “go to” for buff were completely flooded, and water was too high for buffalo. Just to get there to look, you had to hike about a mile, and normally you can drive all around the plains.
Leach Bite from getting the truck out
I will say up front, that the whole place looks like going back to prehistoric times. The plant life, and many of the animals, is very Jurassic Park, and it seemed that a T-Rex should have stepped out any time. Though I have been lucky enough to hunt and fish a lot of places around the world, this may well be the most unique setting.
I love parrots and cockatoos, and we saw many species, including some rare black cockatoos, and many, many sulfur-cresteds. There were scattered wallabies around, and we saw fresh and saltwater crocs. Thankfully, I never say a snake, scorpion, or nasty spider. We saw flying foxes (giant fruit bats, and Matt’s concession runs right up to the ocean, and there were always fresh buff tracks on the beach.
We saw a bull the first evening that was just ridiculous in horn length and width, and we all kept watch for him through the week. I began hunting with friend/client Allen Blevins who was trying with a bow, and I was hunting with a double .470 NE, and had set my limit at 50 yards. Matt drew the short straw guiding us.
The other guys began getting bulls pretty quick, so it freed up guides, and soon, Matt was stuck with just me. We were a group looking for old mature bulls (like Dugga Boys in Africa), so I just wanted old, heavy and worn. Everyone got their bulls. Allen stuck one in the shoulder blade and lost it with bow, and then killed one cleanly with bow. Dale Lane killed an old worn bull early, and on the last evening, he found the giant I saw on day one and killed it. The beast was 54” wide, measure 120” and is the biggest buff ever killed with Hunt Australia. 3 of the guys shot boars, and they were plentiful.
My Hunt:
One morning we walked way in to a higher sandy “ridge” that was the boundary from flooded forest and floodplain to the drier regions. The area was filthy with buff sign, and we had an encounter with a borderline bull. This place was far from camp., but Matt felt if we walked this ridge in late afternoon, we could catch buff moving from swamp to dry ground.
We cut in through another swamp to get the wind right and trekked about 2KM to hit the ridge. Within ½ hour, we spotted a lone bull feeding at the edge of the flooded timber, and as we assessed him, he began moving our way. I could see he wasn’t super wide, but he was worn on his tips with good mass, so I told Matt I wanted to shoot.
The bull fed a while and then stepped up on the ridge walking straight at us. I needed 3 steps to get to a tree for a rest, but we were caught, and I couldn’t move. Finally when he was behind a large tree at 20 yards, I raised my double, and when he gave me a slight quartering to shot, I put a 500 gr Nosler solid in his shoulder.
He bucked and ran pretty much at us, and at between 15-10 yards, I hit him with the second barrel. He dashed off about 50 yards into the forest/jungle and collapsed. My first shot was a center lung shot, and the second shot was a bit higher. As we knew, he was a worn old bull that wouldn’t score much for record books, but anyone who knows me, knows I could care less about that. I really enjoyed the experience with the double, and there is no way I could have shot him a second time with a bolt.
We hunted another few days, and I passed some smaller bulls, and the last day, we were within 40 yards of a fantastic bull that was right around the magical 100” mark. I could have easily taken him with a scoped rifle, but as we waited on the right shot with the double in the thick stuff, a stray puff of wind betrayed us, and he was off.
All the other guys had been able to barramundi fish, and they had caught plenty. I got to fish the last afternoon and caught one barra, but I also caught a monster Saratoga. Great fun.
We chartered a boat out of Gove the next day, and ended up way out on the northern islands headed toward Papua/New Guinea. We caught good mackerel, tuna (which we ate on the spot as sushi), giant trevellay, red emperor, coral trout, golden snapper, black tip shark, and about 6-8 other species of assorted snapper, emperor and others. We took a sampling back to the Walkabout Lodge, and they grilled and fried a feast for us.
We flew to the beach town of Cairns the next day and just hung out and took it easy. The last day, we chartered to the Great Barrier Reef where we dove and snorkeled. I can’t explain how incredible it was. I don’t have underwater photos, but my cameraman videoed it all, and we will run it on the show. The coral formations, sheer number of species and beauty of the fish and other marine life were simply incredible. It was a highlight and life experience for sure.
So now I am on the flight from LA to Atlanta and hope to get home this evening and begin getting back on eastern US time. 13.5 hours time differential is quite a challenge.
I can highly recommend Matt and his crew, and I will be back. We are actually planning another group hunt for the future at a nicely discounted rate, so if you are interested, drop me a message. This is really a trip like no other. I will have this report up as soon as I can settle in and upload the photos…
ed Matt, I am sure no on else would say those things...