Do you hunt public or private land?

[Warlocke]

Another thread on here was lamenting the fact that someone nearly gets killed every year from rifle shooters.

It's got so bad in my area that I only hunt private land, which is a pain in the arse sometimes because I know where there is lots of game on public land.

Just don't think it is worth going to my funeral for.

One hunting trip some years ago I stepped out of some salt bush only to be greeted by a hail of gunfire.

Only thing that saved me was the fact that I was on a small ridge and I fell down into the gully protecting me from the gunfire.

Turned out that I knew the culprits and gave them a mouth full.

Lucky there was a creek between them and me (with the rifles don't know whether it was lucky for me or them).

The spot that I am hunting atm regularly has shooters on the property but the owner won't allow them on at the same time as me.

Suits me fine.

[PeterM]

All private for me, but sometimes this wont spot those bullets when it come the hunting the deer around Wollongong (which Jindy it talking about) its nearly impossible not to have bullets fly past you down there even when anyone is doing the right thing. Its one small area and too many rifle shooters.

[jindydiver]

I think that we have been lucky here that we have a huge country and so accidents are few and far between. In NZ it is just a normal season for 3 guys to be killed by people often from their own hunting camp.
Anyone can go hunt any forest they like in VIC (almost) and so they are spread right out. Imagine if there was a forest down there where the deer were as thick as they are south of Sydney, you can bet people would get shot regularly.
Mozza's story of what happened to him down the coast makes your skin crawl, and after hearing it I turned right off hunting anywhere where the deer are regularly poached.
I think anybody who takes advantage of the GC’s opening of any land down there would be wise to wear the brightest blaze orange they can get their hands on. It is illegal for those guys to poach there now, I am sure they will still be poaching after March 1.

[Scott]

A lady was nearly shot up here just 2 days ago when these idiots started blazing away only 200m at the back of her house. Bullets whizzed and whined over her head. The place where these guys were shooting is a nature reserve. And they were shooting deer out of season. The law will handle it!!!! ( I hope). Getting back to the post. We only ever hunt private land these days. Most of the public land we used to hunt on (state forests) has been closed to hunter's, but only to those that respect the closure. Besides that I dont want to hunt there anymore! Therer's just to many 4wd ute's with big ugly dogs hanging all over them and fellas with not real good attitudes towards other hunter's. Cheers Scott

[Rabbitz]

Interesting timing for this thread....
A newspaper web site has an item about **** Cheney (U.S. Vice President) accidently wounding a hunting "buddy" this week...
Sprayed him with shotgun pellets apparently.

Rabz

[timbo]

I hunt a mixture of Public and Private at the moment and the more I hunt private the more private places seem to open up. Word of mouth and the neighbours visiting when I call in.
I was out chasing Hares the day and was teaching the young bloke (who is 9) about not shooting rabbits and hares on the other side of the fence because we didn't have the owners permission to shoot there.

Was telling one of the guys at work his reply was "well you must be the only bloke in town that wouldn't" No wonder farmers are shutting the gates.

Tim

[Mozza]

I hunt private land mostly, and this dosn't guarantee you much safety sometimes as poachers don't worry too much whose land it is, so I usually wear blaze somewhere on me.

[aussiehunter]

private land doenst stop poachers,they have no ethics,no morals..we have all had our run in with poachers. ive said this before,ive heard some deer hunters say,

"its not hunting unless ur poaching".

we get poachers here,that sneak in through nat parks,even just drive down our roads,we even get doggers they are the worse ,as when the grass is high they will just burn it so they can hunt it,with no regard to the property,house etc...

zero tolerence....

cheers pat :D

[Dave]

Nothing makes a trip to your favorite rabbit hunting property go downhill quicker than seeing shotgun shells littered all over the ground when you are the only bloke who is supposed to hunt their :evil:

[Antarcher]

I hunt both private and public. I've had two occasions where absolute cannons have gone off in my near vicinity. Some of these guys are shooting huge calibres, near houses too!. The second occasion I was stalking a malform I had my eye on and these guys shot it from right near a house that they didn't have permission from. They strolled out a bush and quickly dragged it away. They had no idea I was opposite them about 70m away. This one scared the crap out of me.
Last week my mate was sitting on a few of deer, waiting for a small one to walk by for meat, when two shots were fired into the mob right in front of him. He didn't wait around to see who it was. He was just out of there. Gave him the fright of his life.

[Warlocke]

I was hunting on another spot in the hills with a mate when we got onto fresh tracks of a Buck and Doe.

We trailed them up a ridge being very quiet as the tracks were fresh with dirt still falling into the depression left by the animals.

As we were about to crest the rise, we heard gunshots go off in front of us.

We got the hell out of there in case some of the bullets came our way.

This was on private property with the poachers coming in on the property from National Park.

The place that I have just got onto had yobbos coming out from town with a few stubbies and shooting Reds from the road.

Ruined it for everybody as the place and all adjoining properties have been locked down since.

The owner is very helpfull though, he is in the process of getting me a collection of keys.

Seems they like bowhunters that take the time to meet them and ask permission.

Won't be long before I get my first Red :D

[hawkeye]

yeah - came back from a stalk late afternoon (car hidden in bush) to find 3 vehicles (one being 2 KIDS on a 4 wheeler) tearing about the nearby scrub shooting high-powered rifles at any skippy that moved. :shock:

i was packing as bullets whizzed through the scrub all about me!!! :(

not a good situation to be in! :x

[Sparra]

I have a sister that lives up at MT.KEMBLA and over looks a footy field and a paddock on the other side of it...My brother inlaw was sitting on there front deck looking at 2 deer in the paddock when a shot went off.The deer hit the deck and 2 blokes ran out of the scrub,picked it up and bolted.This was only about 300 yards from there house in suburbia.
She also knows people up there with property but they won't let me on because they see too many deer comming in out of the national park with arrows sticking out of them..

[Mick Smith]

A few years ago, I was hunting red deer at the start of the Victorian season. The property I was hunting backed into state forest. I followed some extremely fresh tracks along a game trail through the back fence and into some very dense and dark teatrees. It was still and silent. I would take one or two steps and strain to see into the heavily shaded scrub. Every now and then I could hear a twig snap only 20 or so meters away. I kept this up for some time, just a step or two and then I'd wait to listen and look. Out of the gloom I could suddenly make out a man standing there, but even worse, I could see he had a rifle up to his shoulder and it was pointing at me. :shock: I yelled out, "HEY... DON'T SHOOT" or something along those lines. The bloke with the rifle said that he was never going to shoot and that he was just checking me out with the rifle scope. As you would expect, I got a real fright. I wasn't very impressed to say the least either.

I usually wear a bright red beanie these days when I'm hunting on public land. :)

Mick

[Clinglish]

I was told by the ADA members that if I was going Hunting Blaze would be essential I haven't been able to find anything that fits my budget ,so I got a couple of the longsleeve cotton safety work tops by yakka
and some fabric paints from spotlight. I will post pics when I do a couple

[humphrey]

i hunt private land 95% of the time, but there is some great sambar spots in state forest up around narbethong/marysville area that i occasionally hunt. i have never ever seen anyone else anywhere near there. that particular patch of forest would be something like 10km x 10km. the only thing that turns me away is those bastard feral dogs. :evil:

[Paul R]

Strueth :shock:
Some of you Blokes have had some scarey experiances.

The only experience I have ever had with poachers was many years ago now when I was a young fella of about 10, I was out shooting bunnies with my Dad and a couple of .22s. It was a beautiful cool crisp morning and I was in heaven, huntin with my dad. We just got to the top of the biggest hill on the 10 000 acre private property we had permission to hunt, when from out of one of the gullies on the other side a burst of automatic gun fire broke out.

Who ever it was let rip a few more long bursts of fully automatic fire, scaring the hell out of me. I turned, wide eyed to look at my Dad( who was a Vietnam Vet ) for reasurance and to my surprise he had dropped to one knee, had his rifle but pulled tight into his shoulder, leaning slightly forward, eyes wide, scanning the scrub from where the sound of fire had eminated. I guess habbits die hard but as a young kid my Dads actions scared me even more, so I followed his example and dropped to one knee beside him, ready for the enemy hoards to charge (I think I had been reading too many boys own type adventure books).
My Dad then turned to me with a big grin on his face and said, " That must be a bloody big rabbit their shootin at. " His joke and quiet chuckle reassured me that all was fine and he then went on to explain that the burst of automatic fire wasn't aimed in our direction and that it was a few hundred meters away and that we had best stay on this side of the hill for now. Being a young fella I had a million questions and so my Dad proceeded to give me a lesson on incoming fire and reaction drills etc as we walked back to camp.

I'll never forget that day :D

[Paul R]

I forgot to say that I live in Qld so all of my hunting is on Private property.

[barebow]

All my hunting is on private property and like a few of you blokes I have had my share of poachers.

Was camping a couple hundred yards from a dam one Easter out west and had sole access to the place.Some so called roo shooters shot the back window out of my Pajero,reckoned they thought it was a roo's eye,damn big eye.When I caught them they tried to tell me they had permission to be there,police were called and they had the book thrown at them.I can tell you of several other close calls over the years......POACHERS......GRRRRRRRRRRRRR

[Dale Furze]

Most of my Sambar hunting is done on fairly secluded public land, if it is really cold I will wear my fleece blaze cap, but most of the time have some blaze on my pack. I have seen a few rifle hunters in the bush ( all alone ) and as I am 'HUNTING', I see them first, sit down, wait for'm to p'orf and then go the other way. They are none the wiser, and wonder why they can't shoot a deer when they can't even see another hunter. :roll: