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6 Ranch Podcast
6 Ranch Podcast
Hunting Australia, with Kayuga Adventures Part 2
This is part 2 of my hunting trip to the Northern Territory of Australia. We travel 30 hours to a new part of the continent. Matt and I added another hunter to our adventure, Matt Smith. Join us as we navigate the challenging bush tracks of Cape York, where the nearest neighbor is 70 kilometers away. Learn from the locals who have adapted to this rugged terrain and experience the unique skills of bush trekking. Imagine hunting barefoot, Crocs in hand, and learning the art of stealth hunting from those who do this daily. From the challenges of hunting elusive pigs and wild cattle to the demanding obstacles of bush trekking, this episode will immerse you in the unique hunting environment of Cape York.
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Everything you shoot here you earn. You can't just walk up and expect to shoot something at that waterhole under that tree. The wind's against you, the ground cover's against you and these pigs have been hunting for 40 years yeah, even the bulls here, like the wild cattle here.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:You don't get away with nothing. You move wrong. You go to draw your bow wrong. You move too fast. You move your head one way. You got to draw your bow wrong. You move too fast. You move your head one way. You sure fly. It's what a mosquito. It's over.
Speaker 2:These are stories of outdoor adventure and expert advice from folks with calloused hands. I'm James Nash and this is the Six Ranch Podcast. For those of you out there that are truck guys like me. I want to talk to you about one of our newest sponsors, DECT. If you don't know DECT?
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Speaker 3:Well, I sort of don't wear shoes when I'm stalking.
Speaker 2:Uh-huh.
Speaker 3:When it's crunchy.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Because I can hear like my shoes are crunchy, as like them, crocs, yeah, but I think I're hunting crocs a lot. Yeah, I do, because I can slip them off easy, quick, easy if they get wet your feet dry. Um, yeah, left and right I think like I've got a good pair of going out crocs, like town crocs, and I've got a pair of hunting crocs. I'll wear crocs in the workshop, um, I'll weld with them, I oxycutting them, I build stuff in them, and I think I've only got another one set of shoes, or two set of actual shoes, yeah, but crocs go everywhere you walk barefoot into gas stations.
Speaker 2:Yeah yeah, that's a normal thing here. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I'm just trying to establish the the win, what's shoe worthy and what's not oh my, whatever when I think yeah, yeah I just do it whenever. Tell me about your neighbor.
Speaker 3:So born and bred in Cape York and he's probably mid-60s.
Speaker 2:And Cape York is a peninsula that is in the northeast corner of Australia.
Speaker 3:Yeah, Yep, that's right. Far north Queensland.
Speaker 2:Heads up towards Papua New Guinea. Mm-hmm. Yep.
Speaker 3:So born and bred Cape Yorkian, and he's only got one set of shoes that he wore to court one time.
Speaker 2:In his life.
Speaker 3:In his life, in his mid-60s.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:I've seen him walk across fresh burn like where a fire's just burnt, and he's like, oh yeah, that's right seeing muster. No shoes in the yards, no shoes in the workshop, no shoes, just no shoes at all yeah and uh it was funny, I love it. It was funny I went down there one time and I think it was for a party or I had to go see him about something and like it's a three-hour drive to go see my neighbor.
Speaker 2:Like it's 70 kilometers and he's your closest neighbor yeah, yeah, you can.
Speaker 3:Either it's three hours the main road or it's three hours going down the bush track yeah is what it is. So I get down there and he's he's putting moisturizer on his feet. Okay, geez, mate, what's going on? And he goes oh, I just got tender feet, like his feet. Look like ronald mcdonald. There's just calluses everywhere like, oh, like, yeah, just got a skin on them, like they're hard as new things. He's got tender, tender feet. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:You know I, I did pretty good the other day until we got on that super hot sand and uh, you know the, the ground texture of the ground stepping on on even the, the hard stuff, the limb stuff, like that I'm fine, but man, when it started getting hot I was like I need to get out of this.
Speaker 3:Yeah yeah, it can. It can hurt your feet if you got soft feet and you're used to wearing shoes all the time yeah yeah so here we are, day four.
Speaker 2:We got two days to catch up on. Uh, let's start with yesterday, because after I got my bull you were up to bat, so to speak. What would they say in cricket?
Speaker 3:Yeah, you're into bat, I think.
Speaker 2:Yeah okay.
Speaker 1:Same thing yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so yeah, we done it hard yesterday, I think.
Speaker 2:It felt hard.
Speaker 3:Oh, it felt hard Like we found bullss.
Speaker 3:well, we just found bulls in the wrong spot you do six or seven stocks yesterday yeah, six or seven, I reckon on mature bulls and just couldn't get it, couldn't get to happen. I'd get to, you know, 45, 40, 45, 40. You just get into that zone and then either the wind would change, or another bull would pick you up, or a cow would be over here, or a bird would fly off, or something, and it was just like, oh yeah, here we go again, here we go again. We'll just keep trying.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:So, yeah, yesterday was pretty uneventful for action. Got plenty of time of moving slow Right. Yeah, plenty of time of shuffling and just one foot forward, and it was ultra, ultra slow. Beastly hot yesterday too. Oh it was. We've been going through a lot of water each day.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm drinking about a gallon and a half a day. Yeah, what's that in liters? Six liters, I think.
Speaker 3:Yep, yeah, yeah we're doing average 10ks on foot a day and it's like 40 degrees.
Speaker 2:So which is, uh, you know, 100 degrees in uh in american. So yeah, yesterday was was pretty frustrating in a lot of ways because we were seeing these opportunities, but it also they weren't ideal, and I think that that's there. There's really two, two ways that you could approach that problem. One is you just try right there there's a bull and it might happen, you know, if the wind holds up and if he turns the right direction and nothing else sees you like this could work, but there are low percentage opportunities.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's right, but if you don't try, you don't know, and that's where you get better as well and go oh, next time I'm going to try this. Or next time I'm going to do this different.
Speaker 2:And it's a real finesse game, something that I've been practicing more and more, that I haven't done in the past, because I haven't done a lot of this style of hunting with archery, where it's spot and stalk on open, flat ground right Just not something that I've done hardly any of in my life.
Speaker 2:And what you're constantly reminding me to do is to range the animal and then range a tree on the near side of it. So I know if I get to that tree then this is the yardage that I'll be at and I won't have to reach for my range finder again. Yeah, that's making me do math on my feet in a situation that's already stressful, a long ways from ideal, but but definitely an effective thing. That has gotten easier for me as the days go on and you know, initially, when I'm, you know, arranging three or four trees and kind of setting up a range band and getting in my mind what 20 yards, 30 yards, 40 yards looks like. Something that's also been very interesting to me is, depending on the tightness of the terrain, 30 yards looks very different in different scenarios.
Speaker 3:It always does, and if you have missing ground, it always does as well.
Speaker 2:Yeah, very, very interesting.
Speaker 2:Something that my platoon commander used to preach to us when I was in the basic school was that a GPS was for confirming your location and a map and compass was for you to figure out where you are.
Speaker 2:But you need to do that first, and I think that a lot of times we fall victim to the technological capabilities of some of these devices and you become reliant on it.
Speaker 2:So rather than saying, okay, I think that that tree is 27 yards, and then hitting it with your range finder to see, and starting to build up that skill in your eyes and in your mind, you're just going okay, I'm going to use my range finder every time. And there's a lot of these scenarios when you're in tight, that you can't afford that extra movement, and you've got a release in your hand, what do you do with that? The release is going to clank against the range finder, make a really scary sound. So doing that work when you're at 50 yards and knowing, okay, if I make it to this tree which is 20 yards away, and that tree is 30 yards from the animal, even if the tree's offset a little bit, it's still going to work out, you know yeah, that's right, and yeah, you just don't get reliant on on them devices yeah because one day there'll be something once in a lifetime and whatnot.
Speaker 3:In your range finder might not work, sure? Batteries die.
Speaker 3:Batteries die like you just single one of them you know like, and, as you say, the closer you get to an animal, like we, I like shooting stuff close. You know, I like getting close. But once you're getting close, especially on flat country, even in the hills, in the mountains and stuff, that's just one less movement. You don't have to do, yeah, if you can just look over and go, yeah, look that I'd shoot that tree at 20, he's going to come past it. Five yards past it he'd be 25. Yeah, you know, that's it. That's all I do. I just work my 20 out and then I go okay, well, that ant man's 10 yards past that, yep, you know, and I might be one or two out.
Speaker 3:But then that comes into the arrows and the gear that you're using. It's a forgiving setup. So if you're out one or two meters or yards, it's not dropping out of the kill zone, you're still in there. So I think I see a lot of boars get shot with the rangefinder and not the bow Getting in close. And that movement where you've pulled the rangefinder up and clicked and then put it down, could have been when you drew, yep, and then all of a sudden he props or something. Then that's when you could have released, but then that's when they try and draw and then the boar blows it.
Speaker 2:Yep.
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Speaker 2:And laser marksmanship is a real thing with rangefinders too.
Speaker 2:So a tip that I'll give, give folks, since we're talking about it the first time that you hit your rangefinder button, try to shoot past the critter and then bring your laser down to it.
Speaker 2:So, especially if you have a rangefinder that can range continuously, shoot past them first and then drop it down into them, and that will give you a much more accurate range than just the one click, because a lot of times range finders might not be calibrated correctly. You might be shaking in your hand a little bit and you'll shoot past them, and if the range that you're getting doesn't jive with what you assumed that it would be, what you, what you were guessing, you you need to mash on that button a couple more times and make sure that you're not hitting a branch on the way there, make sure you're not hitting something that's that's beyond the target, and you know, go ahead and confirm that. But laser marksmanship is important. Okay, moving on to today, totally different day try to try a different, uh, different approach. Uh, that, uh, that you and I talked about last night and it was pretty promising this morning.
Speaker 3:But talk me through that a little bit yeah, so we had that a little bit earlier this morning. Uh, we both got a v into us to uh a little energy drink, a little energy drink, just to, yeah, pep us up.
Speaker 3:And, uh, we done our our morning cruise, what we've been doing in the vehicle and looking at what buffalo are out still feeding um, we spotted sort of one bull out in the distance and it looked like he was going to water, where we talked about sitting on the previous night. So what we were going to like what ended up happening is the plan that we we talked about. We went and sat on this spring system that's up on the edge of the escarpment that the buffalo have been coming in and out to water about 9, 30, 10 o'clock.
Speaker 3:So we get in on that, uh, spring system about 7, 30 I think it was yeah something like that and we could see buffalo sort of all around us about 250 to 400 out yeah and we just thought surely one of these bulls has to walk in and get water. And we spent quite a bit of time there. You seen your first snake sitting on a yeah. You thought it was charging you and it was just, it was Come to have a look.
Speaker 2:So you know, everybody knows about snakes in Australia and how you know. A hundred of the world's 50 most dangerous snakes are all here, or whatever Freaking, just sitting there peacefully on a log and this snake, bigger than my future, rears up and just speeds towards me specifically it was a little one, it was not little, that thing was massive, and so fast.
Speaker 2:It was a little one, it was not little, that thing was massive, and so fast. It was three foot. I think you're getting feet and meters confused, which is understandable. But anyways, I very calmly, you know, said some choice words. Backed off to give this snake as much space as it needed to. Backed off to give the snake as much space as it needed to was looking for a hand grenade or anything else that would be suitable for the occasion. And you picked up a palm frond and just started whacking at it as it crawled underneath of you and then crawled inside of the log you were sitting on.
Speaker 3:I wanted to say what kind of snake it was.
Speaker 2:I did not, and they're all the same kind of snake to me.
Speaker 3:We figured it out it was a tree snake and they're harmless.
Speaker 2:I don't know if that's correct. I think that that was a taipan. It was not a taipan. It was terrifying and I handled myself really well given the situation.
Speaker 3:So after James screamed like a girl all the buffalo. Like that's not true.
Speaker 2:I was relatively composed we did have when we were split up, when you went up towards the escarpment to check out what was at the head of that spring system, there was two bulls that came down a trail and were basically coming in between us and, uh, one of them was going to come past me at like 18 yards and he wasn't an old bull, but I was ready to give him the smoke man and he ended up cutting up and going uphill.
Speaker 2:uh, the other bull actually walked into those palm trees that was down below us and I didn't know where you were. I thought it was going to walk right into you. I knew it was smaller than anything you were looking for, but I had to scent it. But you know that was a fun morning. It was a lot more calm and relaxed and we had like slow, steady action all the way around us.
Speaker 3:It was and we had yeah, we had a few bulls bed out on the flat.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:And another older fella off and it was sort of like which one do we go for? The same thing Minimal percentage, but you've got to give it a go, yeah. And it was like, okay, we'll have a crack at this and if if not, we'll go and find something else. So, yeah, well, I'll get halfway to them bedded bulls and they decide to stand up, yeah, and walk away yeah and I was like, oh, I just can't win a trick.
Speaker 3:That that was like 10th stalk or something right that yeah yeah, and it was like, oh well, we went back to the truck and started cruising again go find another yeah, which we did, we.
Speaker 3:We went down to the other waterhole where we've been seeing some, um, good, mature bulls, and, lo and behold, there was a absolute monster in the water, yeah. So we kept cruising and you spotted another one in underneath the tight brush as well, which was a really good bull as well, broomed off on the tips. So we had two shooters on this other water hole and probably what do you reckon? Half a dozen younger bulls around us.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Anyway, we kept driving in, the ute cruised around so we could get the wind right and off we go again. Plan we're up to plan O, or?
Speaker 2:P or something.
Speaker 3:Anyway, we get in there and we spot this real old bull and he's standing in an awesome spot for a stalk Like we've got. I've got just shrubs in like for cover and it was all good, the wind was good. We get there and I was like, oh, this is too good to be true. And then we look over and yep, there's a younger bull standing there 50 yards away from us that I had to try and get past, yeah, and it was like this ain't going to happen, but I'm going to have to try it.
Speaker 2:And like 45 yards away, right around the corner, is this wallow that we couldn't see into and I thought I had seen something. And I I said I think there's a buffalo in the wallow. And then some black birds came out of there and I convinced myself that it was just a bird that I saw and I said I think it's just a bird. And when, right before you took off to start your final approach, you said, as long as there's not a buffalo in the wallow, this is going to work out and then, as soon as you get up, there, the buffalo blows up out of the wallow young bull, and he's 55 yards away from me and I'm like, oh, do I launch one right here and ruin your hunt, or no, I'm just gonna wait.
Speaker 2:So I I waited and, um, yeah, you took off. After that, that big one, um, which you know again didn't work out no, just didn't work out, so it was like, okay, we'll go.
Speaker 3:we had to go get some drinking water. Yeah, a fair way away. So we'll go for a cruise.
Speaker 2:And drinking water is going to be out of a billabong or a stream here, spring system. Yeah, you can know a couple things. One there's probably a buffalo wallowing in it somewhere.
Speaker 3:Definitely.
Speaker 2:There's the water temperature is high and there's probably a crocodile in it.
Speaker 3:Oh yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, definitely. So that's things that I think normal people don't have to worry about with their drinking water. Yep, and you know I'm trusting you here because I, I drank it. But you said, uh, you know people drink this water unfiltered all the time and it's no dramas.
Speaker 3:yeah, yeah, yeah, it's been filtered through its own sand and, like its environment, it's got lily like freshwater lilies in it and grasses and stuff. Yeah, we'll give it a go anyway.
Speaker 2:We'll know in 10 to 14 days. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's it. So yeah, we went and got drinking water, and on the way to get drinking water we seen a bunch of buffalo. Yeah, we seen a really big like. He's probably just past his teenage years, but he was just a big lump of a buffalo with a mob.
Speaker 2:Yeah, right next to a big water hole. Yeah, not really in a stockable situation, so cruised on past him, got our water and we're coming back. And as soon as we cross this dry creek bed which just has the prettiest sand in it, that sand is like pink or orange I can't quite put my thumb on the actual color of it. It sort of looks like coral. It's just stunning.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's like dirt mixed with sand.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:It makes a color that's probably not like it's different for you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean it looks like Himalayan sea salt Okay, like pink Himalayan sea salt, and it's really different for you. Yeah, I mean it looks like like himalayan sea salt okay, pink himalayan sea salt, and it's really coarse like that I'm sure it's got some quartz in it and stuff.
Speaker 2:yeah, really beautiful sand. So we come through that and, uh, you know, back on the road I say there's buffalo and you said, nope, that's an ant heap. I was like, yep, roger, definitely Keep going. And I was like there's something and I was like please don't be an ant heap. And this one turned out to be a scrub bull. Talk to me about what a scrub bull is.
Speaker 3:So scrub bulls are clean skin cattle so they don't have a brand. They've never seen humans, they're feral cattle. They've never seen humans, they're feral cattle. They've never been sort of yarded. They're just like a pig and a buffalo. They're just a feral animal, so they run free.
Speaker 2:What's their reputation like?
Speaker 3:They can be cranky. They're crankier than a buffalo, I reckon.
Speaker 2:My opinion yep like uh they can be cranky.
Speaker 3:Yeah, they're crankier than a buffalo, I reckon. Yeah, my opinion. Yep, like they can both get cranky, but like that has been known to be charged by a scrub bull before you even get to stalking properly. Yeah, he might have been tampered with um from um humans, before being chased or try to, must be mustered or something, and he knows how to get out of it by fighting.
Speaker 2:So, um, yeah, but this one's not not like that yeah, which turned out to be fortunate because we uh we put a stock on him went up that beautiful sandy creek bed and we had the wind right, we had good vegetation and it was a pretty easy stock, like we cruised right on in there and just had trees in the right spot. And then he came towards us, uh, got to 25 yards. I drew, took a shot, lethal shot, but a little ways back he ran to.
Speaker 2:I'm saying 10 yards, 11 yards yeah and stared right through me and I was like ah not ideal.
Speaker 3:I had the camera rolling and I had a train next to me I was fine.
Speaker 2:so I kind of maintained eye contact, reloadeded another arrow and as I drew he was just taken off, and as soon as I hit my anchor point I sent another one, and that shot was perfect. Yeah, you're pin-wielding you know that one, you know, just went right exactly where I wanted it to and yeah, he went, you know, 15 yards maybe after that and was done.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, yeah, and he was a big old bull too, like he was old.
Speaker 2:Yeah, counted the annualized on his horns and I have him at 10 years old. Yeah, now, this is not like any bovine I've ever seen before. He has a dewlap going down his neck that runs all the way down his belly. Huge hump on his back like a brahma bull, but it's it's more like a ridge. It's not a big soft, squishy thing like on a brahma he has a lot of like.
Speaker 3:He is a sort of a brahman bull, but he's just going backwards he's lost all his muscle right yeah, yeah you could see all these bone structure yeah and he's feeding past all his shoulder blade and and these joints and ribs.
Speaker 2:And his teeth were down to the gums as well. Yep, so yeah, another just great animal to take. And you know it's kind of crazy to think about hunting cattle for Americans, like that's nothing that we would ever come across, but that's a big deal down here.
Speaker 3:It is. It's probably the most underrated game animal in Australia to hunt. They're smart, they're switched on and they're fiery. Yeah, you know we've done well there, but in a lot of circumstances as well, you don't get away with much, especially when you've got like cows and calves. Yeah, you know they pick you up from a ways away when you walk out into a paddock. If you're hunting deer, the first thing usually to pick you up in the paddock is cattle yeah their eyesight's unbelievable.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so, yeah, I really like hunting and yeah, yeah, very underrated, very underrated.
Speaker 2:So yeah, that was super cool.
Speaker 3:So now we're, now we're back on right, we're, we've, we've got, we've regained the momentum yeah, I've had like 11 or 12 stalks with an arrow on the string a couple of times and you just sort of walk up to well not walk up. But yeah, pretty easy, get in position, he feeds towards us. It worked out and what worked out great, yep.
Speaker 2:So now, as we're heading back past that waterhole where we'd previously seen all those buffalo I see scooting out across the flat, what I initially thought was like it looked like a bear. You know, I don't know, y'all don't have like black bears, but it looked like a black bear yep and a great big, great big wild boar.
Speaker 2:Yep, and you were out of the truck before it had even stopped, had your bow crocs on. You were on a mission, I was and I followed you for the first couple hundred yards and this, this boar, was kind of cutting in a semi-circle to the left and it looked like he was going to go into some thick cover and come out right in front of you, you know, and have like a 20 or 30 yard shot. So I checked up and and waited, because having more people on a stock than is necessary is, you know, not that important and probably a detriment, especially if they're clumsy like I am. So I was expecting this, this pig to come across and you to smoke him.
Speaker 2:Well, it didn't, and you take off. I was like, oh, that's cool, so I'm just enjoying the wind in the trees and, um, just looking at australia being australia, and you know, head, head back to the truck and sitting there and, uh, you know you're gone 45 minutes or so and come back with a bloody arrow and a smile on your face. So what happened while you were gone?
Speaker 3:so, yeah, after he went through that thick cover I thought he was going to come across in front of me too. So I eased up and he did and he changed paths and off he went, and when them boars get on that walk they cover some country and even out on the flats. It must have been hot for him, or he just got on the trot a little bit. So I sort of jogged a little bit after him because I could see there's a big burnt flat so you can sort of see a long way, but heaps of trees and ant mounds. Anyway, I couldn't really foot him too much, get too close to him. He was just kept at a certain pace and I thought, oh, I don't know how long I'm going to follow this fellow for, but I was looking at him and going, no, he's a good ball.
Speaker 3:Anyway, I crack out to the left a fair's way so I could see him and I start jogging to try and get in front of him so I can intercept him. And, mind you, it's like high 30s out there, it's hot. Anyway, he stopped to rub a couple of trees and yeah, I thought, well, he stopped and I made some ground and eventually I got around in front of him and just before he was going to come past me he stopped and I made some ground and eventually I got around in front of him and just before he was going to come past me he stopped to rub a tree and that was my point to take another five steps. Got beside this ant man and he come past me about I don't know 15, 20 yards and, yeah, I smashed him.
Speaker 2:Nice.
Speaker 3:And he went 30 yards and rolled over and he was a good boar but we never got back to get a photo. I reckon he was a K or 1.5 Ks before I got around in front of him.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's really impressive how fast he was moving, especially given that he's a black hairy animal. In this heat, I would just be laying in the water.
Speaker 3:Well he was. And then he's like, no, we're out of here, and he had something else on his mind yeah.
Speaker 2:So now you're back on, you've got your mojo back like we've got all the momentum. Cruise on down the road and we spot another big bull buffalo, yeah, we do, but he's with an, with a couple cows and that has not been working out for us.
Speaker 3:But we're trying everything, you know, yeah uh.
Speaker 2:However, in in this particular area there are some bigger trees, there are some low brushy trees and then a lot of big ant mounds a lot of big termite heaps, uh, so you're able to move pretty fast in there yeah, that's right.
Speaker 3:like I said to you, as we're walking back down the road to um see how close we could get to him, I said, oh, I need him in this regrowth, yeah, in some sections like that, to cover his eyes. Anyway, at first, when we first seen him, I thought he was going to go down to the water, which was pretty open. Yeah, anyway, to my surprise, he was feeding up on this on this ridge, through all this regrowth and I thought you beauty anyway. Um, there was a cow and a calf sort of with him and, yeah, I get into sort of probably 60 yards off and I kick my crocs off, so I'm bare feet now and I worked my way into an ant mound and then worked my way to a tree and probably what a good advantage that we had was the sun was in our backs and it was sort of setting it was going to be the last stalk of the arbor, you know.
Speaker 3:Anyway, yeah, managed to slip into 25 yards and he's gave me a shot and yeah, put an arrow into him and he probably went 30 yards and he went 30 yards, turned and went back the other way.
Speaker 2:Full tilt smashed into a gum tree and then fell over and was dead yeah, that's right. He didn't know what he didn't, he didn't, he just yeah yeah, I've got a bunch of really good pictures of of your stalk, of you shooting. You can see the buffalo behind you. Um, for folks listening, I'm going to throw some of these up on instagram. You can can check those out. But very, very cool animal, cool hunt, giant bull. Yeah, over three feet wide. Tip to tip.
Speaker 3:Yeah. No, he's a real good bull, he's handy, he's my. Pb of buffalo and stuff.
Speaker 2:And I've got him at 10 years old Yep.
Speaker 3:Yep, yep.
Speaker 2:And it just goes to show that you have to keep going, you got to keep trying, keep trying. Last hunt of this uh segment of our trip here's some dingoes howling out there.
Speaker 3:I thought there was dingoes howling, yeah yeah, I thought so too.
Speaker 2:so we've got dingoes howling around us. Uh, we've got, uh, another, another starry night under the southern sky, mosquitoes and all kinds of gnats and bugs hanging out underneath the lights, underneath the canopy of the Land Cruiser. We've got our normal fleet of cane toads out here creating a ruckus and hopping around. We've got two water buffalo skulls wrapped up and ready to strap to the ute, and we are starting about a 30-hour drive to Cape York tomorrow. Oh yeah, that's for sure, dinkos.
Speaker 3:Yep.
Speaker 2:That's pretty cool. I don't know if you guys can hear them, but it sounds pretty cool. Got some historic stops to try and hit along the way, sounds like all of which are pubs, which I'm excited about. Yep, and yeah, then we'll be on to the next leg of adventure at uh at cayuga adventures and uh in cape york, at strathburn station, and we'll be focusing there on pigs yeah, we will.
Speaker 3:It'll be good, interesting drive.
Speaker 2:Some stuff for you to look at yeah, yeah, I'm excited for it, still trying to work up the courage to uh, to take over for a bit and drive on the left side of the road I don't know if I've got it in me yet. Especially, man, when we're on these dirt roads and it's uh, and it's one lane, and you see a rig coming, like everything in me says like, peel off to the right, you know, and and there's a rig that's going that same direction. So I've got to fight my brain a little bit if I'm going to take that one on. Maybe, once we get on the hardball, I can try a little bit. Yeah, alrighty folks. Well, that's going to be.
Speaker 2:That's going to be part one of this episode and we will be back here very soon to talk with you a little bit more about pig hunting in Cape York. Thanks for following along and make sure you're following Cayuga Adventures to see what they've got going on, and we'll have more stories from there coming up soon. Okay, so we are at Strathburn Station in Cape Yorkork where we left off. We were still in arnhem land, so we need to catch up a little bit on our trip yep, so we sort of well.
Speaker 3:I forget what day we we've done, the last one I don't think it matters okay, so we packed up camp and um left pretty early in the morning.
Speaker 2:Um, no, no tos were there, so we went to say goodbye, but yeah they went there, they were gone and uh what we made the six hour trip back to the highway yep, so lots of, lots of dirt on that route, stopped and got, got gas in one spot there which was nice, um, and it wasn't. It was expensive, but it wasn't outrageously expensive, like they weren't like taking advantage of people like they might have I thought it was, it was good price.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I was expecting way more. I was expecting like three dollars.
Speaker 2:Three dollars ten a liter so then we basically had three days of travel across uh, from arnhem land here to cape york, and came around uh, an area that y'all call the gulf. Um saw a lot of country, a lot of it looked.
Speaker 2:Looked the same or similar, but a lot of trees yeah, but but if you're paying attention, you could see the differences and some really beautiful landscapes between here and there and some really cool small cattle stations, and and we stopped at a couple interesting pubs like the, the daily waters pub and the purple pub. Uh yeah, lots, lots of characters, and those had some good meals.
Speaker 3:It was great yeah, yeah, I donated my fuel cap and uh daily water server so if any aussies are traveling through there. If they want to pick it up and post to me, be all right so, yeah, we made it back here and we're.
Speaker 2:We're also sitting here with, uh, with mr brad smith, and I hope that a lot of you have seen Brad's videos on YouTube. Tremendous videographer with a huge amount of experience in archery, and I know that you're not going to spend any time talking about yourself because you don't like doing that, but I think it would be fair to say that that you might be the most experienced bow hunter on the continent.
Speaker 1:Yeah, good night comment with that that you might be the most experienced bow hunter on the continent. Yeah, good night Comment with that, but if you think about it, because what would make you think that?
Speaker 2:Because Aborigines didn't shoot bows and modern archery is relatively new in Australia and you're not a spring chicken, but you're still out here hooking and jabbing. You've been shooting a bow a lot and hunting with the bow a lot, and I don't know if anybody's done it more than you on this continent. You ever think about that?
Speaker 1:no, yeah, no, I don't, yeah, I haven't thought about that yeah and uh and that doesn't.
Speaker 2:That doesn't surprise me a bit.
Speaker 3:Um every every time I ring smithy or every for as long as I'm known him it's like what are you doing? Oh, I'm going for a hunt here, I'm going for a honey.
Speaker 2:I'm going to shoot targets here yeah I've got a guide here yeah live and breathe it like yeah you've got a bunch of experience with a bunch of different species yeah here and and and around the world, and I think that that's pretty special.
Speaker 2:Something that is unique about what you guys are doing here at cayuga adventures, at strathburn station, which this is a 600,000 acre cattle station. That again is very remote, you know. You're you're six hours away at least from from a legitimate town and, uh, you know a lot of that. A lot of that's dirt road right, um, so very remote, remote, but you've got got this little hunting operation going on here.
Speaker 2:What I think is is tremendously unique about what you're doing is the experience. The foundation of the experience here is about education, is about education in bow hunting, and you have an intro to bow hunting course that you do, and I'd love to talk about that a little bit. But even for me, where I've you know I've been bow hunting for over 30 years, uh, you know, I've been shooting a bow my whole life, you know, since I was knee high to a grasshopper, and I'm learning so much from from you you too, uh, you know from from all the guides here. Every time I go out I'm I'm learning something that I can apply to hunting elsewhere in my life. It's hugely valuable to me.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but I don't think you ever stop learning. You know what I mean? Hopefully not yeah. No, it's one of those things you just, every time you go out you see something different, or you see someone do something a little bit different to what you do, and you soon see what works and what doesn't.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And the same with all the gear they use. You soon see what works, yeah, and what doesn't. So it's just one of those things, but like when you're doing it and like just getting back to it, like your 3,000, boy, this is off track, but your 3,000K journey from the territory to here. I just want to ask you how much civilization did you pass? Right yeah, and if you wanted to go and buy just everyday stuff?
Speaker 2:could you do it. So yeah, we didn't see I don't think 3,000 Ks was it. Yeah, so yeah, 3,000 kilometers, which just to put that into some kind of perspective for people who aren't keen on the metric system it was over 30 hours of driving right, so damn near coast to coast of the United States. Right, we didn't see a town that I feel like I could buy a pair of socks in.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so yeah, I traveled six days in travel and four days hunting.
Speaker 2:I was eight days of travel before we started hunting. On the front end of this, I think by the time I get home from this trip I'll have pretty close to the number of miles required to go all the way around the world.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, because we're just in in latitude.
Speaker 1:I'm a third of the planet south of home, yeah, and I'm a hell of a long ways west no, I only said that because I think, like australia is a continent, like it's, you know, and an island yeah. That you can travel so far but still be so far away from everything. Yeah, and like it suits us, because we're away from the city, we're away from people, yep, right. And then to sit you in a car and travel 30 hours and see Not much, not much.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, right, yeah, thank you yeah, not much, not much. Yeah, yeah, right, yeah, thank you. So, yeah, no it, and it's not as big of a shock to me as maybe what you guys might have realized, might have thought that it was going to be, because I feel a lot of similarities to my home you know I'm from a rural place, but but nothing compares to this it's so much more spread out yeah, right, yeah, but what?
Speaker 1:yeah, yeah, I think if you went to the like you're, the further north you go yeah like through top of canada alaska, and that'd be very, yeah, if you could draw it. If you could, if there was a road going through, yeah, it'd be very similar.
Speaker 2:Yeah, like the alcan highway. Yeah, has you know what I'm saying?
Speaker 1:like it, just yeah yeah, very limited population, that the people that are there are mainly very limited residents and then a lot of people visiting that sort of in the vehicle, start looking there a lot like they do here.
Speaker 2:You know, there's extra spare tires strapped to them. There's extra gas strapped to them yeah, you know they're, they're ready to be self-sufficient for we have to problems.
Speaker 1:You got yeah. You got no option but to be yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 2:You're right, we're going to talk about shot placement because between the three of us we've seen thousands and thousands of hunts and I think if you added up all of our years it would be a lot.
Speaker 2:We don't even need to do that kind of math, but between the three of us we've seen many, many thousands of hunts and we've seen seen many, many thousands of hunts and we've seen the good and the bad and the in the ugly in between. Uh, I am oftentimes very much on my own in the us for how I describe shot placement and I get a lot of resistance for it. Australia and africa seem to be a lot more progressive about understanding where organs actually lie in an animal and at the start of this, uh, this trip here with a with a hog hunting on strathburn, you brought in a 3d target. You sat everybody down, you pulled up a slideshow and showed an autopsy of an animal so that people would have, you know, all kinds of visual references for different situations, for how to actually get an arrow into an animal so that it dies as quickly as possible, which is the most humane thing you can do as a hunter.
Speaker 1:That's how I'll go, yeah, you know. Yes, well, it is, it's. It's, I just think, a visual aspect so people can see firsthand what lays where. It saves me trying to describe it in a drawing or whatever. So it's pretty graphic, but it is what it is. The whole goal of the thing is to put something on the ground very quickly and if we leave something here overnight which I hate doing the chances of something else finding it overnight, the meat's spoiling because of our conditions.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, you know we've just got to, I think, a lot of Righto. So I think, a lot of the today's things, what I see on board, people are still in the past. They're not up with the present, with what's going on right, the gear we're using nowadays and the amount of people can do and the amount of people can learn from what's out there. With everyone shooting this and shooting that, we should be able to aim a little bit better, understand things a little bit better and get things on the ground a little bit quicker and better so what's the difference between how people shot in the past versus how you expect people to shoot now?
Speaker 1:um, well, all I know is if you shoot stuff through the shoulders and keep things under halfway through the shoulders in that bottom third it's, you don't have to wait an hour to track them. You've only seen everything fall over. Yeah, the only time you won't have to wait an hour to track them, you've nearly seen everything fall over, yeah. The only time you won't see anything fall over is if you think country or it disappears over a rise and you can't see it hit the deck. But once you've shot a certain amount of critters, you know pretty much know what's going on. Yeah, you know.
Speaker 1:For someone to say, oh yeah, I smoked it, and this is what we see all the time, yeah, smoked it. And then the next thing is it may be a little back, we'll give it a couple of hours. It doesn't do bow hunting, it doesn't do anyone any favors, it doesn't do that critter any favors. You just bring that shot a little bit forward onto the shoulders and use the proper gear it's done, it's six to use the proper gear. It's done, it's, it's, it's a six second, it's six to twenty seconds and it's done.
Speaker 2:Yep, so when you're talking about the shoulder, uh, there's, there's a bunch of parts to the shoulder and people don't understand that, right. So you've got the humerus bone, which I don't think most folks know how that thing actually functions. You've got the scapula, yep, which is also probably not in the place that people think that it is, and then the actual meat of the shoulder that's covering ribs, right. Right and that meaty section is what we're talking about.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that central ball of muscle in the middle of the shoulder, yeah, the scapula or the shoulder blades towards the front of the shoulder. Your humerus runs off the bottom of that shoulder blade blades towards the front of the shoulder. The humerus runs off the bottom of that shoulder blade back across the bottom of the shoulder and that bottom third of the chest sort of covers a bit of the heart and connects to the leg bone, runs down the leg.
Speaker 2:there's a right, so you're talking about coming straight up the leg, a third of the way up the body on a broadside shot yeah, if you can.
Speaker 1:The biggest misconception what people get and they don't understand it is if the nearest leg to you is either forward or back, or both legs are together. It's something you need to keep in consideration. What's there? If you don't do that, you could be in for a little bit of a blood trial or a long wait, or you know that's it then the roller coaster starts.
Speaker 2:So if those legs are forward or back and this is something I've heard maddie talk about those legs create a v right, and that v is going to point upside down. V and upside down, yeah.
Speaker 1:You know what I mean. It points there's a if V's. You know if you're going to reverse that and follow the inside of the backside of the near side leg or the backside of the far side leg and the it's an upside down V. Yeah, it points to where you need to be aiming.
Speaker 3:Like an arrow, yep yeah, one third of the way up on the up like upside down v yep if you pump, if you pump an arrow through there.
Speaker 1:Honestly, it's happy days, good blood trials, recovery's fast meat, meat recovery.
Speaker 3:You're recovering a lot more meat I think a big thing too is what Brad's shown me over time as well is once you start breaking critters open and I know over there everyone has to grab the meat and take them but if you break that shoulder open first and actually look at the internals before you start the other process, you get a picture of where everything is right.
Speaker 2:So, like when we were buffalo hunting, um, you were actually carrying a sawzall with you. So after I got my bull, we pulled out that sawzall and cut open those ribs so that you and I could both look at it and be like, okay, this is where all these organs lie inside of a water buffalo.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and I was really surprised. I know the lungs wrap the heart a bit, but I was surprised how much the lungs wrap the heart on them.
Speaker 1:They minimally cover it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know they cover it, but it was good, it was just that.
Speaker 3:That's what you'll learn, you know, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:And this is the thing I've heard other people say. I used to aim at the heart, but it's such a small target. Now I just aim at the lungs because it's a bigger target and it's like, well, the lungs wrap around the heart.
Speaker 2:The heart sits at six o'clock, right, you can't get the heart without getting the lungs. Yeah, no, no.
Speaker 1:It's one of those things, mate, but what I'm getting at here is like for most of the stuff we shoot. I love hunting deer and I love hunting boars. 80% of what I shoot at moves before my arrow gets there. So and this is not just me picking a figure out of the air this is what I video. Pretty much everything that gets shot here, or everything I see gets shot, I video. If I don't see it get shot, I don't video it. Obviously.
Speaker 2:And you video it in slow motion.
Speaker 1:Righto. So I can see from the footage that I've taken over 30-odd years that 80% of the boars, 80% of the deer, move at the sound of the shot or they are traveling through the air. Whatever it is, they move. So my way of thinking is instead aiming at the center of that kill zone and 80 of that kill zone is going to drop, is going to disappear down below where you're aiming. Why not aim at six o'clock, where the ticket, where the heart sits? I'm going to say heart because, yeah, we say ticker here in australia.
Speaker 2:I know where the heart where the heart sits.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so why not aim at six o'clock? If you hit the heart with an arrow, that animal is in trouble, that heart cannot function properly. Yep, okay, if they drop down, decide to jump the string, drop down and twist away and the arrow hits a bit higher than where you're aiming, well, it puts you up in the top of the heart, which is even better, into the bottom lobes of the lungs, and you've got the lungs to play with, depending on how far the shot is, how much they drop their quick reaction time. It just makes sense to for me to aim at that a little bit lower.
Speaker 2:So the direction these animals, these 80% of animals, are moving, before the arrow gets there, is down it's down first, but they, they, they drop it's, they drop and they spring away. So they drop and they twist away from the shot and you've had pigs get up and you've got video of this. Get up out of their bed and leave before an arrow can get there yeah, yeah, plenty of times it's um, but that, that and that's one.
Speaker 1:that's one extreme where you probably shouldn't be aiming at 6 o'clock because they can't drop, they can only rise, right. So you're better off aiming center or 12 o'clock if you can. Half the time, if they're in their beds, we need to hit them in the dirt line anyway. So that's a very touchy.
Speaker 2:it's not straightforward when they're bedded and folks, when these guys are talking about the dirt line, one of the things that we're coming up against here is we're walking along these, these creeks that are drying up because we're kind of coming into springtime and we're not to the rainy season yet. It's very, very hot, very humid. Pigs can't sweat, so they're laying in either in wet sand that they've dug out or down in mud, and the stalks, in the middle of the day, ideally, are on these pigs that are bedded. When you're saying dirt line, because part of that animal is below what you can actually see, you're talking about aiming at where pig meets dirt for you visually, yeah, it's not it's not a flat bed.
Speaker 1:yeah, a lot, of, a lot of circumstances. Sometimes it is, but this is where it comes in. You've got to weigh up that option of what where you need to be aiming. A lot of the times, if it's in soft sand or mud, you're only there's a lot of that critter that's below the surface. Yep, all right. So that's where a good pair of binoculars come in. They dig these beds and you've got to understand what lays beneath, right. So, and it depends on if they're twisted onto you backbone is laying towards you or they're angling away from you. The spine is angling away from you, so you need to take into consideration how low you need to put that arrow. Yeah, and what lays what you're shooting through? Like, if you're shooting through sand and leaves, chances are that's not too bad. Right, with the gear we use. Right, and the gear we like using is a solid two blade broadhead, cut on contact, yep, and single bevel prefer, preferably why?
Speaker 2:why single bevel? I? I think people have heard me beat up single bevel for torque and bone, but say more right.
Speaker 1:so single bevel to me is, since I've been using single bevels and since single bevels have become a thing, recovery the next day in this and these conditions we're in here. So when I say the conditions, we're in here, where what I'll hunt mainly is boars in northern new south or northern australia or down home in the hills and deer throughout Australia, and we've got wild dogs over here that can play havoc with any blood trailing. So you hit something in the back a little bit and you think, right, I'll come back in the morning. It's like you're dealing with coyotes over there. You know you're trying to claim some meat the next morning. Fuck, there might be nothing left, yeah Right. Or a dog comes in, smells a blood trail, comes in, pushes, lifts that animal up. Then you're trying to. You've got a blood trail that I hate seeing bloods like pooling blood. Pooling blood means it's not a good sign to me, like I should find a dead animal. If I find pooling blood, something's gone wrong.
Speaker 2:Right, because an animal stood there, bled for a while and then took off again.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it should be dead.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:You know, yeah, fair enough, it might kill it within the next couple of hours, but that's not the goal. My goal is to kill something as quickly and humanely as possible.
Speaker 2:So how has single bevel changed that for follow-up days.
Speaker 1:Righto Single bevel deals with bone way better. Single bevel with hitting behind the crease. Hitting stuff a little bit further back seems to deal with stuff a little bit better. It's twisting motion as it goes through a critter in the soft tissue. Don't know what it does, but those critters hunch up more. Yep, and my success rates the next day have gone up 25, because it's a spiraling coat it is. It's a looser cut. So when that cut does not line up, flush together like it can't, that meat cannot blend back together as good as what it came with. A single single bevel is just a looser cut. Yeah, I don't know how else to explain?
Speaker 1:it. The only cons with a single bevel that I've seen is edge retention, right, and that's. That was a factor in the earth when I started mucking with it. I haven't seen, I haven't chatted the edge of a blade in a long time now. Yeah, and I've hit a lot of bone. When I say hit a lot of bone, and I'm not hitting the shoulder on the way in, I'm hitting the shoulder on the way out. That's my Right. I'm aiming for the shoulder on the way out. If I can bring it out through the, that animal's in trouble as far as I'm concerned, yeah, and if I keep it under a certain height, you know so I'm under the spine.
Speaker 3:That means I'm in through the chest cavity. He's in big trouble. Yeah, but you know, if you cut yourself with a scalpel or a razor sharp, you can, the blood comes out. You can push it back together. But if you come from tradie, if you cut yourself with something that's one-sided edge, albert or you know, and you can't put it back together and it just bleeds, right like uh, I don't know yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 2:There's a lot of one-sided edges, basically everything that cuts wood is single bevel yep, like it, everything is based off of a chisel Yep. So if you look at a circular saw, that's just a bunch of little chisels going around. They're all single bevel and I think there's a misconception about how sharp they can get. Like I can shave with mine. I can take one that I now have four pass-throughs on different animals on this trip on this trip, and I can shave with it because I touched it up a little bit this morning yeah and when I say a little bit, I mean I spent a solid like three or four minutes on it, you know, yeah, and it's ready to go.
Speaker 2:That's incredible and I really I tried hard to get away from the throwaway culture of stuff like I like a real knife. I I don't want to see people throwing blades away. I want them to have a knife that they take, take care of their entire life and they pass it on to somebody else. Imagine if I could do that with this broadhead, right, imagine if I can continue hunting with this broadhead and finding it, you know, on the other side of every animal that I hunt and I can put this thing in my will yeah, and.
Speaker 2:And I can write down like hey, I killed 16 animals with this, like I fed families with this broadhead. And now it's yours, don't lose it.
Speaker 3:You know, if you keep hunting your bud, it's going to get lost, yeah, and that's unfortunate.
Speaker 1:But Matt is saying it is Like the broadheads these boys are doing like my. I've always said you'll shoot them till you lose them. Yeah, that's, that's what it is Like. The first well, the first one I shaped up. That time I shot 28 critters with it, did you, yeah? And then I lost it in a. I shot through a ball and it went into a, like it was. It was bedded, went through the ball into the bank and then then, um, the bloke I was with, oh, rodney, he just said you might, you must, love that broadhead, smithy, you like.
Speaker 1:I've just spent 20 minutes digging out this bank trying to find this broadhead and I thought well mate, it's got like it was a prototype, right, it was what I've tried to do with two broadheads. That and and I do a lot of shooting, I mean when, when, kay, good design that tries it. I'm not a three blade fan. I can understand the benefits of straight by compared to a two blade. Three blades hold their line a lot better, so they go straighter through the animal. Yeah, they do. They don't. There's no path of least resistance. They don't very, they don't duck off one way or another. Yeah, okay, they seem to hold their line a lot better.
Speaker 2:How much pressure does it take to push a bright head through that fading pad?
Speaker 1:if you shoot a con cut on contact, depending on the thickness of the metal, um, it's single digits in pounds. With a zot right from cayuga you go to pilot cut which has got a lot thicker tip and a different style of tip. It's 12 to 13 pounds. Okay, if you go to some modular braid broadheads, it's 50 plus 50 plus pounds.
Speaker 2:Yes, tell me about what muscle twitch does to arrows.
Speaker 1:It grabs an arrow, the flex of a muscle, it's resistance on that arrow passing through something. So it's like it can grab an arrow as you're going down, that muscle twitch, will grab, twist, pull down.
Speaker 2:Your penetration will suffer a little bit I was watching the slow motion video of the water buffalo I shot and even though I think you were filming at 60 frames per second, so it it's not slowed down that much, but you can still see that before those fletches get to the skin, which which is where they stopped, you can see the muscles in that shoulder move and start to arrest and I think a lot of arrow breakage is probably broken from that muscle twitch.
Speaker 1:It's got to play a part in it. You've seen that chittle that I shot at. Yeah, it's like I shoot an arrow and you see the lighter knock and about six yards from him his whole body changes.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:It's like a wave goes through his body. He either tenses up and he's starting to drop and twist away. At six yards no, he was 25, but the arrow was probably 10 to six yards from him. Okay, gotcha, by the time he was his reaction time, if that makes sense. And it zipped through him. Yeah, but it does. Like I said, it plays a part and when I see so much stuff in the state shot with mechanicals I think you know there's so much Irish and I can't understand why where they hit them, where they hit them, it's no, it it's.
Speaker 2:It's amazing to me that people continue to do it, and I think that there's a number of reasons. Right, like there's been some, there's been some powerful but dishonest marketing that's pushed them, and a lot of people don't either have access to a professional at a bow shop or or they don't want to take the time to do it and they think, well, I'll just shoot a mechanical, because then I don't have to have my bow tuned properly well, that's that's, that's one.
Speaker 3:That's it, that's one, yeah but you're not doing the critter any favors by not having your bow tuned look, I'm not trying to defend, no no, I know I've been fighting the war.
Speaker 1:Okay, you know the thing about it is right. I can tell you now we've uh, because that block right, so just say with the deer. That block right, so just say with the deer my experience with with deer hunting, all right. So over the years where I've guided hunters, I've seen a lot of stuff get shot with two bladers and the ratio with two bladers to three and four bladers is probably 50 50, because here in australia it is, it's either you shoot a two blader or or you shoot a like a module blade, like a three or four blader. Yeah, that's what it is.
Speaker 1:To this day, the quickest kills have been with a two-blader. Yeah, the best blood trails have been with a two-blader, right. All that tells me is that it's to do with, like it's to do with shot placement, because if you put a three or four blader through the same spot on a broadside animal compared to a two blader, if it's got an extra cutting blade or an extra two cutting blades, I ain't going to what cuts more. The three or four blader definitely cuts more. So, realistically, I should be seeing better blood trials. I should be seeing quicker kills with three or four blader. Definitely cuts more, right. So realistically, I should be seeing better blood trials. I should be seeing quicker kills with three or four bladers, but if it doesn't get in there, the amount of exit holes I see with two bladers compared to three and four bladers is way up Right.
Speaker 2:So I think of that cutting as like a square footage basically.
Speaker 1:It is mine.
Speaker 2:So if I've got three blades that are, you know, going in a certain distance, then you know we can calculate this, like we know what our cutting diameters are and like it's pretty easy to figure out. Know, uh, what our cutting diameters are and like it's pretty easy to figure out. So if you have a two blade, single bevel that is rotating as it's going through, so you've got a spiral cut that, uh, that that's really long and it's it's doing a lot of damage.
Speaker 2:So, talking through some of the critters that I've shot here this week, right, the, the first pig I shot, um, you know, might have went eight or nine yards, right that, that was over probably in three seconds. Yep, um, three, three seconds being on the outside before that animal was was dead and not moving anyway, yeah, it was past it yeah, yeah, right, um, so kind of kind of as good of a situation as you can get there.
Speaker 2:That's happened to me multiple times this week. That happened to me with, uh, with my water Buffalo as well, right, and these are all shots that went through both main lobes of the lung and through the top of the heart with this single bevel broadhead that I've been shooting since 2017, long before I ever knew you guys, right, um, you know, I started out shooting 175 grain pilot cuts. Now I'm shooting 150 grain pilot cuts this is the second generation of it which show up sharp. Thank baby Jesus, love that so much. And, uh, yeah, I, I do not use the bleeder blades. I put the little filler blade in there and they have been extraordinarily lethal. I don't understand why people would accept a broadhead that has a potential for failure. I don't understand that mentality at all.
Speaker 1:But I think what I was getting to with that example was when I shot a lot of deer with those two bladers. The reactions of deer compared to shot with mechanical or with something with more surface area. The deer seems to run a lot further right like a two blader. You slip it through the ribs, slip it through that. That wind's starting to pick up around it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, but that you slip it through the ribs, slip it through that, that wind's starting to pick up a bit around here, yeah, yeah, but you slip it through the top of the ticker or the lungs. A lot with chittle deer or axis deer. As you know, my experience is that they've run 20, 30 yards and stopped and looked around wondering what's happened and then within seconds they're starting to sway and they hit the deck With a lot of the other hunters that I'll get there. They hit them and they just hammer. They know they've been hit, they know they've been stung by something and they bolt, they run Right because they're feeling more force.
Speaker 2:Yeah, there is.
Speaker 1:There's a lot more force with a lot more blade contact.
Speaker 2:Yep, it doesn't just slip through and was easy so they're, they're having to resist that energy transfer a lot more. Yeah, and that's what I think.
Speaker 1:I think it's dealing with a lot more bone too. Yeah, look, don't get me wrong that the two bladers I use. Look, I'm aiming for that opposite shoulder and I'm hoping to hear that. But it's a lot of times you just slip through, you just hit nothing, but you might slip between the ribs, you might crack a rib, whatever. But that's the difference between something running 20 or 30 yards to something around 70, 80 or 100 yards. Yep, at full steam, you know yep, and we watch it all the time. We. I'm obsessed with watching stuff, youtube, with watching white tail, because I learned, I learned from how you hunt white tail, I learned from how you hunt elk. I transfer what you do with white tail to our fallow, what you do with elk to our red deer. To me I can see a lot of similarities. So, yeah, that's why I like watching it.
Speaker 2:I like seeing what people do that's why I want to come back and hunt red deer and fallow you know yeah, and I reckon once you do that you'll think yeah, it'll put a smile on your face because it's like how good is this?
Speaker 1:Of course, we can get two ruts a year.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we can go here, we can go there. Yeah, you know.
Speaker 2:Yeah and that Okay we've only got two subjects left. One of them is arrow weight. I was shooting 632 grains and that's a lot of what I preach, right For elk. I like people to be shooting between 600 and 650 grains. Our average shot distance is 23 yards. You will not move your pins. It's going to be fine. Everything's going to be fine if, like, everything's going to be fine If you go up to that weight and, uh, an elk is not going to to move appreciably any different, for, for the decreased velocity, you're going to be able to hammer through bone.
Speaker 2:I love it, I'm all about that. I'm also all about listening to your guide, because they are the expert at what they do, right? So when I started planning for this trip, I talked to you, Maddie, and I said how much do you want my arrow to weigh? And you said between 500 and 525 grains. I was like so okay, we're going to go shoot an animal larger than a Cape Buffalo, the largest animal on the continent, and we're not going to have a backup rifle and I'm losing arrow weight. And I was like I had to like, take a moment. And I was like, okay, listen to your guide. So I did it, I got, I I dropped weight. I went down 525 grains and it worked great, worked great. Uh, I'm curious what you, what are your guys's thoughts, generally speaking, about arrow weights, maddie?
Speaker 3:yeah, well, I didn't realize you're shooting 600, or, which would have been fine, but that's usually what we like. You're around the same as what I shoot, um, like a forgiving arrow, you know. So as in when, what I've been taught is a forgiving arrow If you're a few yards out, because I don't hunt with a range finder. So if you're a few yards out and you misjudge it a bit, you're still in the kill zone. It's not dropping out, it's not dropping low. You're not missing anything. You're using the right setup Contact, like a cut-on contact, broad, broadhead, you're going to get in there, there's just a bulk muscle.
Speaker 3:It's the right head, it's the right gear. You're shooting what?
Speaker 2:70 pounds, 28 inches yep, and actually my 2030 40 pins didn't move when I when I lost all that arrow weight, so it wasn't until after 40 that my pins needed to change and I've got a three pin stack, so I needed a different tape, but my 20, 30, 40 remained the same yep, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3:So basically you're making a more forgiving arrow. Yep, out of dropping that weight and, yeah, you're still buried up into the fletches yeah, it was absolutely ample penetration while breaking ribs on a water buffalo, yep yeah, yeah, and you pick your shots.
Speaker 3:You're not shooting 50, 60 yards, you just pick your shots where you are, where you want to want to shoot, and you wait until you're broadside you're slightly quartering on your. Your first shot there and the first shot, done it the second hour. Like we always say, if he gives you another shot, you put an arrow in there anyway.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:And both of them.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, it worked great. So I have no issues with the penetration that I experienced with this setup. I feel pretty comfortable taking the same arrow setup that I have right now, going back home and hunting whatever with it.
Speaker 3:Well, you're saying the thickness of the water, buffalo's skin compared to an elk.
Speaker 2:Probably a little thinner.
Speaker 3:Yep, oh righto.
Speaker 2:Probably a little bit thinner and a lot less hair, right, yep, a lot less hair. It's unreal. Brad arrow weights.
Speaker 1:I shoot. I'm a bit different. I shoot I like stuff a bit heavier. I shoot probably 570 between. I like between 550 and 580. Yep, that's I just think it. It just helps a little bit to me. I look at most of stuff we shoot. Ibo is five grains per pound, yeah something like that.
Speaker 2:That's way too late.
Speaker 1:Minimum yeah, but that's, that's minimum what they use, right? Yeah, and when I was brought up, if you were hunting big game, you go 10 grains per pound. That's what I was brought up or when I started hunting. That's, that was goal. So if you were chasing buffalo and you're shooting 70 pound, you should be shooting something around 700 grains, 60 pound, 600 grains. So nowadays, with what we shoot, we're not shooting buffalo every day of the week. So if you're shooting something between seven or eight grains per pound across the board, if you're shooting a pretty good broadhead, a good strong, cut-on-contact broadhead, you're going to handle a lot of situations out there, I think.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:If you asked me if I was going to shoot buffalo with a 600 grain or a 500 grain, I'd shoot 600 every day of the week. Yeah, you know, if you're shooting 60, 70, 80 yards, well, you might have to worry about those sort of weights a little bit more. I'm not shooting that distance. I don't what suits me. Everyone's a little bit different, so you got to work out what suits you. But if you shoot seven to eight grains per pound, you're going to handle most situations out there. Yeah, without going to extremes. You know what I mean. You know what I mean and that's what it comes down to at the end of the day. It's all about discipline picking the angles, picking your distance, keeping things simple and sticking to your goals or sticking to those angles and distances Discipline at the end of the day.
Speaker 2:Last question Australia as a hunting destination underrated or overrated?
Speaker 3:Underrated. Underrated why? Because we've got. We don't have a season for anything. If you can hunt it and you've got access to hunt it, you can hunt it any time of the year.
Speaker 1:Yep.
Speaker 3:You don't have a limit on what you can uh shoot, yep, and yeah, there's so many, uh, so many species held in one type of sport.
Speaker 2:You know yeah, and a lot of country and a lot of country.
Speaker 1:Yep, mr smith I think it's a little bit underrated. I think people don't understand what we've got here.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:But you know, this season everyone loves hunting the rut with different deer species.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:But we've got a variety of different deer that they rut pretty much from January to December, so it's sort of so there's always a rut going on somewhere there's somewhere, mate, you always chase the rut. If you know what you're on about and you know where to look, you can always chase the rut. And then you've got these mean-mouthed partial hunting pigs and boars. So that's. In between You've got buffalo. There's a variety of species. You know. We call in a lot of predators as well over here.
Speaker 2:So underrated, I reckon, maybe a little bit, you know, I think so.
Speaker 2:Last thing I'll say, folks, if you're interested in skilling up at stalking, at walking towards an animal that could probably see you, and doing it in noisy conditions and still getting inside of 30 yards, sometimes inside of 10 or 20 yards We've pulled off stocks here repeatedly that I would not have thought were possible and the skills and techniques that you guys are teaching are pretty special and I don't know if you realize how special they are. So for people out there who would like to be able to learn how to do that and are willing to put up with some, you know, some, some discomfort, like some lack of creature comforts, like you know you're, you're going to get lit up by bugs. You're going to be hot all the time. You're going to get lit up by bugs. You're going to be hot all the time. This isn't a bougie hunt, it's not and that's fine. But if people can put up with that and they're willing to travel the distance to be here, they're going to learn stuff that they didn't think was possible. Because that's what I've done.
Speaker 1:Well, that's good to hear because we had we had patty from ireland this year come over and like he's right out of his element right here yeah okay, from the northern hemisphere, come into this heat. And he did nothing but smile for the whole week. Yeah, didn't whinge once was the last person to go to bed, was the first up every morning and just took everything in.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it was pretty good. It's not easy here Like it's not easy.
Speaker 2:No, it's not easy.
Speaker 1:You earn. Everything you shoot here you earn. You can't just walk up and expect to shoot something at that waterhole under that tree. The wind's against you, the ground cover's against you and these pigs have been hunting for 40 years. Yeah, Even the bulls here, like the wild cattle here.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:You don't get away with nothing. You move wrong. You've got to draw your bow wrong. You move too fast. You move your head one way, you sure fly. It's what a mosquito it's over green ants, baby.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's a good, it's a good base to start with.
Speaker 3:If you're starting out hunting, it's a great base because it's bread and butter, yeah. And if you want to go and shoot a deer or you want to hunt deer, you've got to get the basics right first. So if you can do multiple stalks, multiple critters, that's what we do.
Speaker 2:I disagree with you. I've hunted my whole life. I hunt as a profession. I hunt all year long, all over the damn place. Like to say that this is for beginners, I think is a misunderstanding you know I think this is for people who want to skill up at stalking.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, it probably is, but it but it also it doesn't give you any false pretenses in what you see, and what you see on YouTube or you see on Insta. You come here and you think, oh fuck, it looks a lot easier, you know when I watch this or watch that yeah you, you know, watch this or watch that, yeah, but it's.
Speaker 1:It's one of those things like when maddie said to me. He said I want to start running some bow honest course up here, are you keen? And I went, mate, I don't know if anyone's going to travel to cape york to want to come to a course. Like it's a fair ways out of the way. You know it's a long ways out of the way it is.
Speaker 1:It's a long way, but I never thought about the adventure they could have here and like the friendships, like we've got blokes here hunting this week. They started hunting on these courses years ago, didn't know each other and, mate, they hunt here, there, everywhere, throughout the year. Yeah, now, and it makes these bonds and that, and ever since we started doing it, I'm thinking and I enjoy the two weeks of the courses probably as much as the 10 or 12 weeks we hunt or I'm guiding hunters, you know, here and there. So, yeah, he got that. I didn't see. I didn't see how good it could be, you know, or how beneficial it could be for people so folks who are interested in Cayuga Adventures, how do they find you?
Speaker 3:Yeah, jump on Insta.
Speaker 2:Cayuga Adventures, cayuga Adventures, yep, cayuga, underscore Adventures there's no R in that, folks, even though it sounds like Matt is using one K-A-Y-U-G-A.
Speaker 1:Adventures Does it.
Speaker 2:Cayuga.
Speaker 3:Cayuga. Cayuga Adventures. K-a-y-u-g-a adventures. Does it kayuga kayuga, kayuga adventures. K-a-y-u-g-a underscore adventures on insta or website kayugaadventurescomau.
Speaker 2:Yeah easy, easy stuff. There's also a link to that in the podcast description. As always, thank you everybody for following along in the adventure. We are going to continue rolling with a little bit more of it here for a few days and then I'm heading home to guide elk. Hope everybody's doing well and having a successful season and thank you guys, both very much for your hospitality and everything you've taught me this week.
Speaker 2:I just want to take a second and thank everyone who's written a review, who has sent mail, who's sent emails, who's sent messages. Your support is incredible and I also love running into you at trade shows and events and just out on the hillside when we're hunting. I think that that's fantastic. I hope you guys keep adventuring as hard and as often as you can. Art for the Six Ranch Podcast was created by John Chatelain and was digitized by Celia Harlander. Original music was written and performed by Justin Hay, and the Sixth Ranch Podcast is now produced by Sixth Ranch Media. Thank you all so much for your continued support of the show and I look forward to next week when we can bring you a brand new episode.