Clemo
08-08-08, 09:31 AM
I got a phone call a few months ago from a family friend asking if I would be able to pop out with my bow and try and thin out a few Hares on their small acreage. Last weekend I was sitting at home on a Saturday afternoon with not allot to do, the sun was shining so I thought I would go have a look.
This place is not your usual hunting property it is only 20 acres of mostly well kept lawns and gardens with tracts of native Teatree and Paperbark. I didn’t fire an arrow that day although I did see a Hare a few Bunnies and a Fox. It got me thinking about some of the other similar local places I hunt and what a great recourse these small properties are.
So I thought I would write a bit about them as it may help give some of the younger hunters that are struggling to get started a few ideas.
The area I grew up in once consisted of mostly cattle grazing land with some dairy and poultry farms. Over the years the dairy industry mostly shut up shop and with the demand for smaller rural properties for “tree changers”, allot of the lager properties where subdivided into much smaller parcels and sold off. Properties that you could once spend a few days in without covering the same ground twice are now owned buy 50 different people.
In my rifle hunting days this drove me nuts as these place just aren’t suitable for hunting with firearms, so I had to look further a field for places to hunt, which meant maybe 1 or 2 hunting trips a year if I was lucky.
Getting back into Bow hunting opened up a whole new world of possibilities and I was soon back chasing Bunnies Hares and Foxes in some of my old hornts.
The places I am talking about can be anything from a working Poultry farms to 200acre hobby farms to 20 acre semi rural properties and they can hold surprisingly good numbers of small game.
There are two types of small properties I try to target. Firstly the Poultry farm, in my area chicken farming has remained profitable and does not require allot of land. They do however require allot of water and most poultry farms in my area have access to a river or creek, this combined with the constant presence of dead birds makes them a prime fox location. Rabbits are always on the cards and one of the chicken farms I hunt also grows some crops which brings in hares from all over the place.
The second type of property I look for and you might find this surprising, is the small unstocked acreage, especially the ones with well kept lawns and gardens that back onto natural bushland. The lawns and gardens are like a magnet to small game and provide a reliable food source all year round, and when things are dry these places can really fire.
Contrary to what you might think the garden properties can be quite easy to access too, as the bunnies and especially hares do allot of damage and some property owners will be happy to have someone quietly knock a few over for them.
The least desirable places are the hobby farms which often have allot of stock for the size of the property and I have found that small game animals do not like to compete with stock in this type of high intensity situation.
There are a few things you have to be careful of though. Safety is a major factor, with all smaller places you are always close to a boundary, other peoples, stock, pets or houses. You have to be sensible about the places you hunt, some are just to close to people and property to hunt safely and you should always be mindful of what’s behind your target when shooting. Shooting at something on the crest of a rise is just not on. Identifying your target is another important point, the last thing you want to do is put an arrow through Snowball the family rabbit. Properties with surrounding natural bushland on at least a few sides are ideal.
So there are opportunities out there for those willing to look and ask the question, if not in your back yard, then maybe someone else’s.
http://img337.imageshack.us/img337/9397/hare5cr8.jpg (http://imageshack.us)
This place is not your usual hunting property it is only 20 acres of mostly well kept lawns and gardens with tracts of native Teatree and Paperbark. I didn’t fire an arrow that day although I did see a Hare a few Bunnies and a Fox. It got me thinking about some of the other similar local places I hunt and what a great recourse these small properties are.
So I thought I would write a bit about them as it may help give some of the younger hunters that are struggling to get started a few ideas.
The area I grew up in once consisted of mostly cattle grazing land with some dairy and poultry farms. Over the years the dairy industry mostly shut up shop and with the demand for smaller rural properties for “tree changers”, allot of the lager properties where subdivided into much smaller parcels and sold off. Properties that you could once spend a few days in without covering the same ground twice are now owned buy 50 different people.
In my rifle hunting days this drove me nuts as these place just aren’t suitable for hunting with firearms, so I had to look further a field for places to hunt, which meant maybe 1 or 2 hunting trips a year if I was lucky.
Getting back into Bow hunting opened up a whole new world of possibilities and I was soon back chasing Bunnies Hares and Foxes in some of my old hornts.
The places I am talking about can be anything from a working Poultry farms to 200acre hobby farms to 20 acre semi rural properties and they can hold surprisingly good numbers of small game.
There are two types of small properties I try to target. Firstly the Poultry farm, in my area chicken farming has remained profitable and does not require allot of land. They do however require allot of water and most poultry farms in my area have access to a river or creek, this combined with the constant presence of dead birds makes them a prime fox location. Rabbits are always on the cards and one of the chicken farms I hunt also grows some crops which brings in hares from all over the place.
The second type of property I look for and you might find this surprising, is the small unstocked acreage, especially the ones with well kept lawns and gardens that back onto natural bushland. The lawns and gardens are like a magnet to small game and provide a reliable food source all year round, and when things are dry these places can really fire.
Contrary to what you might think the garden properties can be quite easy to access too, as the bunnies and especially hares do allot of damage and some property owners will be happy to have someone quietly knock a few over for them.
The least desirable places are the hobby farms which often have allot of stock for the size of the property and I have found that small game animals do not like to compete with stock in this type of high intensity situation.
There are a few things you have to be careful of though. Safety is a major factor, with all smaller places you are always close to a boundary, other peoples, stock, pets or houses. You have to be sensible about the places you hunt, some are just to close to people and property to hunt safely and you should always be mindful of what’s behind your target when shooting. Shooting at something on the crest of a rise is just not on. Identifying your target is another important point, the last thing you want to do is put an arrow through Snowball the family rabbit. Properties with surrounding natural bushland on at least a few sides are ideal.
So there are opportunities out there for those willing to look and ask the question, if not in your back yard, then maybe someone else’s.
http://img337.imageshack.us/img337/9397/hare5cr8.jpg (http://imageshack.us)