The second round of pre-fawning culling and meat gathering is winding up. This time it’s just been me for the most part, with Mate #1 joining me for just the three days in the twenty I’ve been here. It’s not everyone’s cup of tea being alone for a while, but I love it. No people, no TV, no internet… just an “old fashioned” regular telephone which regularly stops working.
(I carry an EPIRB, just in case.)
There’s no point me going into all the detail as to why or how and the challenges of the weather or terrain etc.; you’ve mostly read all that already. I’ve put some videos together which show what we do in some degree of detail; it’s been fun filming the shots and aftermath and so on, but also intensely frustrating. I’ll have to upgrade this camera – it’s an older one this time round as my wife has the new one for the school sports days, and the old camera has the habit of going flat with no warning whatsoever. Aaarrrgghhh! I’ve missed some cool stuff cos of that.
Also, there’s the inevitable lost opportunities of trying to set up a camera while the animals are on the move. All things considered, I think this is worth it because I have been able to solve some “point of impact” problems by filming long range shots of stationary hares for example, and using the footage to help me understand the misses. Two rifles have been shooting slightly high at extended ranges, not high enough to miss a deer but high enough to miss Hartley Hare. Bottom line is the bullets fly better than the software says they should, so compensation has been made accordingly and the results have followed.
A comment. I find medium range deer culling like this quite psychologically challenging after a while. It’s really not that hard, technically. Once you’ve mastered your rifle and the ballistics of your chosen load, it’s relatively easy. I mean that. I can shoot a red deer at 400m without a second thought. It’s not hunting, or stalking, I’ll go and find a good spot, set up and wait. Not much too it really. And therein lies the problem, after a while it just becomes killing, and that wears on my nerves. I have to constantly remind myself of the need to actively manage the resource, striving to re-establish a balance of sorts between the commercial dictates and the beauty of the wild animals at their peak.
When I say medium range, you might think “wow, 400m, that’s far” but it’s not really. Long range is where things get tricky, and long range doesn’t start until 700m or thereabouts. I’ve had some difficult wind challenges this trip – it’s been blowing from all directions – and the effects of poor windage calls are all too apparent in the form of short runs versus the normal bang-flop. But apply those same medium range windage errors to long range, and you’ll see what I mean, a 3” error becomes a 9” error as the bullet slows down.
This time round, a point of difference has been the hours put into the rabbits. They have taken an overdue hammering after a sudden explosion in numbers throughout the district. On this property there are two problem warrens around sheep yards that I’ve dealt some serious death to. Three days before I start on a specific location, I move the steers in to graze off the spring grass, which is vital and without which you’d get nowhere. It’s taken a fair few hours, and over 250 rounds of .223 Rem and an unknown number of .22LR, but it’s an enjoyable and worthy pursuit on sunny evenings. After the easy pickings with .22LR, I’ve taken to standing off warrens by a good 150m+ plus now, with as high a vantage point as possible – the additional field of view is covered by the reach of the .223. It’s normal now to be shooting rabbits at well over 250m with a 90%+ success rate.
In between times I’ve put down the longer range gear and gone subsonic, with some excellent close in stalks on goats, shooting the .308 subsonic 151gr cast lead bullets I’ve posted about before. I have some video of this on the GoPro but it’s pretty hard to get the gist of what’s going on because the target animals are too far away for this type of camera. It’s a very effective weapon, the subsonic bullet. I can clearly observe the lack of flight instinct in nearby animals. It’s more of a “what was that?”,”er, dunno” kind of response, and the animals continue to browse.
I’m no expert YouTuber so these vids are pretty amateur in presentation, but so what. I’ve enjoyed making them, and hope you enjoy watching them. Not all of them have “kill shots” because I either didn’t manage to get setup, or as has happened several times, I’ve had a technical / operator fail.
Hopefully the videos communicate the constant need for diligent, hard-nosed, unforgiving pest control. Our hill country farms can be overrun by pest ungulates and the small but deadly predators – mustelids, possums, rats and feral cats. Plus of course the lagomorphs.
(Please excuse the constant sniffing in the videos – it’s peak hayfever season and it’s been a trial. Thin drippy snot, itchy eyes and an uncontrollable sniff. Manageable through liberal doses of cortisone nasal spray, eye drops and three types of antihistamine!)
Anyways, the freezers are certainly full of prime venison, and the goat numbers are well down again. The work continues!
(I carry an EPIRB, just in case.)
There’s no point me going into all the detail as to why or how and the challenges of the weather or terrain etc.; you’ve mostly read all that already. I’ve put some videos together which show what we do in some degree of detail; it’s been fun filming the shots and aftermath and so on, but also intensely frustrating. I’ll have to upgrade this camera – it’s an older one this time round as my wife has the new one for the school sports days, and the old camera has the habit of going flat with no warning whatsoever. Aaarrrgghhh! I’ve missed some cool stuff cos of that.
Also, there’s the inevitable lost opportunities of trying to set up a camera while the animals are on the move. All things considered, I think this is worth it because I have been able to solve some “point of impact” problems by filming long range shots of stationary hares for example, and using the footage to help me understand the misses. Two rifles have been shooting slightly high at extended ranges, not high enough to miss a deer but high enough to miss Hartley Hare. Bottom line is the bullets fly better than the software says they should, so compensation has been made accordingly and the results have followed.
A comment. I find medium range deer culling like this quite psychologically challenging after a while. It’s really not that hard, technically. Once you’ve mastered your rifle and the ballistics of your chosen load, it’s relatively easy. I mean that. I can shoot a red deer at 400m without a second thought. It’s not hunting, or stalking, I’ll go and find a good spot, set up and wait. Not much too it really. And therein lies the problem, after a while it just becomes killing, and that wears on my nerves. I have to constantly remind myself of the need to actively manage the resource, striving to re-establish a balance of sorts between the commercial dictates and the beauty of the wild animals at their peak.
When I say medium range, you might think “wow, 400m, that’s far” but it’s not really. Long range is where things get tricky, and long range doesn’t start until 700m or thereabouts. I’ve had some difficult wind challenges this trip – it’s been blowing from all directions – and the effects of poor windage calls are all too apparent in the form of short runs versus the normal bang-flop. But apply those same medium range windage errors to long range, and you’ll see what I mean, a 3” error becomes a 9” error as the bullet slows down.
This time round, a point of difference has been the hours put into the rabbits. They have taken an overdue hammering after a sudden explosion in numbers throughout the district. On this property there are two problem warrens around sheep yards that I’ve dealt some serious death to. Three days before I start on a specific location, I move the steers in to graze off the spring grass, which is vital and without which you’d get nowhere. It’s taken a fair few hours, and over 250 rounds of .223 Rem and an unknown number of .22LR, but it’s an enjoyable and worthy pursuit on sunny evenings. After the easy pickings with .22LR, I’ve taken to standing off warrens by a good 150m+ plus now, with as high a vantage point as possible – the additional field of view is covered by the reach of the .223. It’s normal now to be shooting rabbits at well over 250m with a 90%+ success rate.
In between times I’ve put down the longer range gear and gone subsonic, with some excellent close in stalks on goats, shooting the .308 subsonic 151gr cast lead bullets I’ve posted about before. I have some video of this on the GoPro but it’s pretty hard to get the gist of what’s going on because the target animals are too far away for this type of camera. It’s a very effective weapon, the subsonic bullet. I can clearly observe the lack of flight instinct in nearby animals. It’s more of a “what was that?”,”er, dunno” kind of response, and the animals continue to browse.
I’m no expert YouTuber so these vids are pretty amateur in presentation, but so what. I’ve enjoyed making them, and hope you enjoy watching them. Not all of them have “kill shots” because I either didn’t manage to get setup, or as has happened several times, I’ve had a technical / operator fail.
Hopefully the videos communicate the constant need for diligent, hard-nosed, unforgiving pest control. Our hill country farms can be overrun by pest ungulates and the small but deadly predators – mustelids, possums, rats and feral cats. Plus of course the lagomorphs.
(Please excuse the constant sniffing in the videos – it’s peak hayfever season and it’s been a trial. Thin drippy snot, itchy eyes and an uncontrollable sniff. Manageable through liberal doses of cortisone nasal spray, eye drops and three types of antihistamine!)
Anyways, the freezers are certainly full of prime venison, and the goat numbers are well down again. The work continues!
