Been away for a few weeks , went down to visit a mate at his new cattle property about 900 km south of here , well actually it was a lot more than that because I had to take a side trip to Beachmere to pick up a hunting mate just north of Brisbane , on the way down I called in and met up with Johno in Texas [ QLD ] from this forum , good bloke , had a chat for about a hour and a half and saw some of his projects , he seems to keep him self very busy ,
My air conditioner died about that time just as it was getting hot , got to the mates cattle property late afternoon and set up camp , mate and his wife came down to visit just after we had set up , they had been busy with cattle work prior to that , we had a few drinks and they left to go get cleaned up and get some thing to eat , we did the same , a couple of hours later the mate come back and a few more drinks were had , very late night , or should I say very early morning , I finally got to bed about 5.00am , got up about 8.00am , I can't do that sort of thing any more , getting too old for it, I didn't really drink that much but I just can't take late nights any more .
Mate drove us around his property and the area the next day and we caught up on what had been happening to us since we last talked in person , mate had bought this property about five years ago and had just recently spent just over a million dollars on fencing and improvements , quite a lot of the day was taken up with a visit to his new house that is being built and that is impressive to say the least , my hunting mate reckons that it can be seen from space , think that may be a slight exaggeration but it can be seen from over 20 km away from across the valley .
They have had some good seasons there and not long back they had a crop of clover that was knee high with stems as big as your finger , that was followed up as it seems is common in that part of the country with thistle about 4 to 5 ft high and grass about 4 ft high , his cattle are a breed based on Black Angus and with the thick cover it made identification hard , many times we thought we saw pigs in the long grass only to find on much closer inspection that we were looking at cattle , with all the miles we did by 4x4 and on foot we didn't actually see any pigs and very little fresh pig sign , and what we did see was heading up over the mountain into the nation park that bordered his property on one side , he'd had a guy there a few weeks before trying to muster some of the wild goats with dogs , seems he got about 12 out of a mob of 100+ , country was just too thick for the dogs to work effectively but it did seem to chase the beasties back up into the park , so no sightings of pigs , goats or deer , on the third day we got there it started raining and didn't let up most of the time we were there , there were a few intervals where we were able to climb some of the mountains looking for game but on only two days was it really dry enough to be safe and the rest of the time we decided that discretion was the better part of valour , so when it was too wet to go hunting [ and that was most of the time , it was really too wet to even drive about most of the time in the 4x4 as it just cut up the station tracks too much and walking in it meant that it stuck to your boots and you ended up several inches higher ] we went fishing , I caught my first ever Murray Cod but as legal minimum length is about 24inches it was slightly under size and I threw it back ,
The fish were shut down but had been firing prior to that , they seem very susceptible to barometric pressure , the old saying goes 10 and 20 cod a plenty and it still rings true the barometer fell and the fish went off , the first day there we had seen plenty of cod and carp actively feeding but once the barometer dropped they just cruised around and wouldn't take a bait of any sort let alone a lure
The rivers and creeks around this area were once noted for their crystal clear water but the carp invasion are slowly turning the water muddy , I did manage to get one carp with my bow on my mates property but wasn't game to bow fish else where as while they are in the process of bring it in in NSW it's still actually illegal to bow fish for carp , but given the numbers I saw while fishing I reckon that I could have easily taken 20 to 30 per day with a bow and there is no problem with accidentally taking a cod as the two fish are just too different
Had bought my two man inflatable canoe with me but didn't use it as the water was low and it would have meant portage every few hundred metres or so and you know what we Australians think of portage
Tried whistling up foxes several times with no luck , I think the mates whippets have done a surprisingly good job of keeping them down , tried spotlighting for rabbits along the tracks and did manage to get three rabbits and a hare , trouble was that the thistle comes right to the edge of the tracks and even brushes against the edges of the car as you drive through , you could hide a army in that stuff and never see them again ,
We were down there about 7 days and the rain stopped and we decided to come home a day early since we had the chance to pack up our camp while it was dry , there was more rain on the way
The drive back was a very long one as we had several stops visiting people , also hit more rain on the trip home , Talking to Chuck must be rubbing off on me
David
My air conditioner died about that time just as it was getting hot , got to the mates cattle property late afternoon and set up camp , mate and his wife came down to visit just after we had set up , they had been busy with cattle work prior to that , we had a few drinks and they left to go get cleaned up and get some thing to eat , we did the same , a couple of hours later the mate come back and a few more drinks were had , very late night , or should I say very early morning , I finally got to bed about 5.00am , got up about 8.00am , I can't do that sort of thing any more , getting too old for it, I didn't really drink that much but I just can't take late nights any more .
Mate drove us around his property and the area the next day and we caught up on what had been happening to us since we last talked in person , mate had bought this property about five years ago and had just recently spent just over a million dollars on fencing and improvements , quite a lot of the day was taken up with a visit to his new house that is being built and that is impressive to say the least , my hunting mate reckons that it can be seen from space , think that may be a slight exaggeration but it can be seen from over 20 km away from across the valley .
They have had some good seasons there and not long back they had a crop of clover that was knee high with stems as big as your finger , that was followed up as it seems is common in that part of the country with thistle about 4 to 5 ft high and grass about 4 ft high , his cattle are a breed based on Black Angus and with the thick cover it made identification hard , many times we thought we saw pigs in the long grass only to find on much closer inspection that we were looking at cattle , with all the miles we did by 4x4 and on foot we didn't actually see any pigs and very little fresh pig sign , and what we did see was heading up over the mountain into the nation park that bordered his property on one side , he'd had a guy there a few weeks before trying to muster some of the wild goats with dogs , seems he got about 12 out of a mob of 100+ , country was just too thick for the dogs to work effectively but it did seem to chase the beasties back up into the park , so no sightings of pigs , goats or deer , on the third day we got there it started raining and didn't let up most of the time we were there , there were a few intervals where we were able to climb some of the mountains looking for game but on only two days was it really dry enough to be safe and the rest of the time we decided that discretion was the better part of valour , so when it was too wet to go hunting [ and that was most of the time , it was really too wet to even drive about most of the time in the 4x4 as it just cut up the station tracks too much and walking in it meant that it stuck to your boots and you ended up several inches higher ] we went fishing , I caught my first ever Murray Cod but as legal minimum length is about 24inches it was slightly under size and I threw it back ,
The fish were shut down but had been firing prior to that , they seem very susceptible to barometric pressure , the old saying goes 10 and 20 cod a plenty and it still rings true the barometer fell and the fish went off , the first day there we had seen plenty of cod and carp actively feeding but once the barometer dropped they just cruised around and wouldn't take a bait of any sort let alone a lure
The rivers and creeks around this area were once noted for their crystal clear water but the carp invasion are slowly turning the water muddy , I did manage to get one carp with my bow on my mates property but wasn't game to bow fish else where as while they are in the process of bring it in in NSW it's still actually illegal to bow fish for carp , but given the numbers I saw while fishing I reckon that I could have easily taken 20 to 30 per day with a bow and there is no problem with accidentally taking a cod as the two fish are just too different
Had bought my two man inflatable canoe with me but didn't use it as the water was low and it would have meant portage every few hundred metres or so and you know what we Australians think of portage
Tried whistling up foxes several times with no luck , I think the mates whippets have done a surprisingly good job of keeping them down , tried spotlighting for rabbits along the tracks and did manage to get three rabbits and a hare , trouble was that the thistle comes right to the edge of the tracks and even brushes against the edges of the car as you drive through , you could hide a army in that stuff and never see them again ,
We were down there about 7 days and the rain stopped and we decided to come home a day early since we had the chance to pack up our camp while it was dry , there was more rain on the way
The drive back was a very long one as we had several stops visiting people , also hit more rain on the trip home , Talking to Chuck must be rubbing off on me
David
