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Here are some photos from the buffalo cow cull at Conway's,
Central Arnhemland.

One of the cow water buffalos culled.

The new owners of the cattle station which has a common boundary with Arnhemland and straddles the Central Arnhemland "Highway", wanted approximately 200 small horned cow water buffalo shot. A fairly cheap daily fee including for expensive petrol or diesel, vehicle use, food, plus a reasonable fee for each buffalo shot. Non-trophy boars, donkeys, and horses were free. Trophy scrub bulls had a very reasonable fee.

The owners are Kiwis and run a successful hunting and guiding business and farm in the South Island of New Zealand. They plan to re-develop the station into a profitable cattle station with a hunting and guiding outfitting business as well. These culls were rough hunts before they are properly setup for next year.

I flew from Adelaide to Darwin arriving mid-day and hired a car to drive down to the Central Arnhemland Highway turn-off which was South of Katherine. Had dinner in Katherine and spent too long on phone calls to various people and drove out to Conways in the dark. The road is OK but very corrugated and if one drove too fast the vibrations were dangerous, so generally 40 to 70 kmph was the speed. Unlike the Stuart Hwy. Got there well after dark, maybe 9:00 PM just as George and a Kiwi friend were driving out to look for me. Just in time. I had phoned from Katherine that I was on my way. Daylight driving back out was much better.

Check out this bullet. What do you think?

Even though I hunted in Arnhemland and drove right passed this place I jumped at the opportunity to shoot "numbers" of buffalo. Not that many opportunities to do this these days. Also would give me some practice with my new 9.3x74 mm Rimmed Tikka double under and over.

I used loads of Woodleigh 286 gr Protected Points and FMJs at about 2170 fps. Very mild shooting but damned accurate.

The rifle is topped with a 1-4x Leupold scope.

The weather was becoming hotter as it does at the beginning of October. A reason I wanted to get in there no later than mid-October. BUT this was culling and shooting, not much real hunting. Shooting from a vehicle or near one mostly. It is not possible to cover enough ground and get the numbers wanted and at this time of the year, it is hot.

A couple more cow buffs shot the second day. I managed to shoot ten the first day, at which I called a halt, so as to leave some for the second day.

The first kills was a mob of pigs. Evidently George and other farm workers had spotted them there every day. He said instead of shooting a target to verify the scope was on target shoot some pigs. Peering over a river bank I spotted the largest sow I had ever seen. Stupidly I realised it was a dead buffalo from a previous cull. But two pigs were walking determinedly away and I brought down one of these. We crossed over and peered over the river bank back down into the water. A flood of pigs ran off in both directions up and down stream, but two that ran in front of me, received a quick bullet each from the 1x scoped sighted 9.3mm.

Escapees! Actually we let them go.

George with another cow.

Bloody slaughter. Three cows (one is a bull actually) shot within a few metres of each other. George would identify which ones he wanted shot. I would shoot one and sometimes he would call which one was next. The second barrel would be used. Reload, maybe pop the first again and go for the third. Reload, maybe pop one of the other two again if it looked too healthy. Maybe then shoot an unweaned calf whose mother had been shot.

Good fun and practice. The barrels can get hot.

Approaching some buffalo another time across a dry creek from us, we dropped down to the creek bed and started up the opposing bank. The buff moved off but we came across a frisky bull. He turned and came back at us, shaking and swinging his head around at maybe 30 metres. We turned tail and ran back up the other river bank as we didn;t want to shoot him. I grabbed the video and came back to the bank to film him (no rifle), causing George to come running with his rifle just in case! The bull was screened by trees now unfortunately.

I took the horns of two of these three buffalo, The top one is actually a bull. The second a cow with more scimitar shaped horns. The last a young cow or maturing calf.

Another three, plus calf. Three animals in the foreground and the fourth to the back.

A scrub turkey, or bustard. They are supposedly good eating but protected. We spotted this one and took some photographs. I then approached it with the video camera to try to get it to fly. George said it would just run off. But four bastards all got up to fly with their impressive wingspans. Hopefully captured well on film.

After shooting the ten buffalo on the first day we went to a favourite donkey spot and on the other side of a fine new barbed wire fence was a herd of male buffalos and some brumbies.

So we went for the horses. They had easily spotted us and ran off, but George predicted correctly they would circle back for a curious look. Horses are a nuisance in that they destroy fences very quickly and so he wanted as many shot as possible. He joined me on this shoot and he aimed with a full wood .303 SMLE while I aimed with my 9.3mm. We both fired and of course shot the same stallion. A fine bronze beast. I shot at another horse at full gallop across our front and hit it. Reloaded and finished it off. Shot at another at a much longer range but missed.

Now we chased the buff bu they kept on in the direction they were headed, away from us. An amazingly fast little stream cut across the flat ground in front of us. Amazing in that it was completely full, to the top, but didn't over-run and flowed very fast.

The buff turned out to be all bulls so we let them go.

We didn't take any photos of the horses. George does not like too and I didn't want too. But in hindsight I wish I had.

George has a special "safari area" which has lots of game and is a very pleasant drive. In the middle of this area is an impressive swamp and waterhole and springs which collects the buffalo, scrub cattle, pigs and donkeys. We spotted maybe 40 or 50 animals at this site.

On the way there we came across a loan donkey. Shot with the 9.3 he kept standing for a second round. Maybe a third I forget before sinking down leaving his head up. Another round. Finally he was finished off with a bullet to the brain with the .303 to conserve ammo. All the 9.3 hits were good. As usual the donkey proved how stubborn it is. I had left the camera in the vehicle so didn't take a pic. Didn't get another donkey as I hoped so no donkey photos.

What really drew the attention however was the more than impressive scrub bull. It was walking off from the main swamp to another smaller higher one to our right. Grabbing cameras and rifles we jumped out of the vehicle and ran to a ridge of rocks separating us from the upper swamp.

At the top of the rise, with a rock ridge extending above us, was a really lovely clear drinking pool fed by springs in the cliff face. It was obviously a choice place for the animals to drink.

More to our interest was the scene in front of us. The scrub cattle were busy crossing the green area in the first photo above, with a small herd of buffalo coming from the other direction. They passed through each other, the buffalo blocking the bull most of the time, keeping him safe. Finally the scrub cattle moved out of the thick green reeds and grass to stand on the rocky ground above. The bull of course choose to cover his target area with a tree. I had a good rest with a daypack on a rock so we just stayed there, shot some photos and video and waited.

The bull turns to us and moves out from the tree. He is about 170 metres away. I am ready instantly and fire a 286 gr Woodleigh Protected Point into his heart - lung area angling a little forward. The bull turned away from us. I had loaded a solid into the second barrel, just in case he ran, and fired this trying for the base of the tail, but missed the spine. Reload and hit him again a couple more times, these in the chest. Of course pandemonium broke out with animals running in every direction, but I had my "tunnel vision" determinedly on the bull.

The bull was on the ground but still sitting up at this point. We approached closer and I tried for a spine shot but missed the spine. Eventually he died.

As can be seen a lovely old scrub bull with fantastic horns. Definitely a trophy worth taking.

Some of the countryside in the "safari area". The safari area abuts Aboriginal Arnhemland and has a steady stream of new buffalo crossing the boundaries.

Our "bull bar" strapped on, we depart for camp to have a late lunch, start a fire to boil off the skulls and clean the horns and bones.

The two sets of buff horns and the scrub bull skull and horns would be going home with me on the flight to Adelaide. Interestingly the flight was an international Qantas flight from Singapore, via Darwin to Adelaide and then Sydney. I wondered how carrying firearms and ammo (even though pre-arranged) would go, as officially you leave Australia on these flights. In Adelaide I waited for my special packages, rifle case and the slightly smelly horns and skulls. The drug sniffing dogs liked my bags very much and always sat next to me. But the customs dog handlers accepted the explanation readily and never bothered other than to give their dogs a biscuit. The stink of the heads was a worry most of it being created in the long drive to the Stuart Highway and then from Katherine to Darwin. The unlimited speed limits do help! But theheads were pretty well cleaned and I sat them in front of the air-conditioner all night to help dry out a bit.

I also brought home some fillets (tenderloins) and backstraps from a couple of the buffalo.

All in all a very enjoyable two day shoot. It felt like a week and honestly I would get bored with it before a week was up.

The game bag:
12 cow water buffalo, 2 small horned bull water buffalo, shot as cows, plus a few unweaned calves;
3 x pigs;
2 x brumbies (wild horses);
1 x donkey;
1 x trophy scrub bull.

The Tikka 9.3mm has gone from being completely unblooded to a respectable game bag in two days. It did very well.

I would however do it again.

The horns of the scrub bull.

Horns from one cow and one bull water buffalo taken as decorations for my office.

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Ezine.NitroExpress.com

Edited by NitroX (09/11/05 02:01 AM)