beep beep beep beep... wha? smoke detectors? nope... phone? nope... ooh, hunting adventure... check! Okay, so my brain, in its deep slumber wasnt exactly functioning at that hour of the morning
the ute was ready to go having been loaded up with everything except the bow the night before. Threw the morning coffee down the hatch and stumbled out the door, making the short trip to pick up my hunting partner Craig (aka Fishmad1). Found him wide eyed and bushy tailed (bastard! lol) waiting out front, and after salutory grunts were exchanged we were on our way!
The favoured hunting grounds were a property about an hour south of Darwin, and having hunted there a few previous occasions and with some guidance from the owner we parked up thed ute, dropped the quad in the dirt and were off by 0600.
We decided to check a waterhole that has given some good signs in the past. Parking about 500m short of the hole, we jumped off the quad and started gearing up when a flicker of movement caught my attention. I gave FM a tap on the shoulder and both watched in amusement as a mob of horses fed towards us from about 100m out. The new silencer that FM had fashioned up for the quad obviously worked as the seven nags feeding had no idea we were there. They fed in to about thirty metres before the penny dropped and they spied the Honda, dashing off with an indignant flick of the tail in our direction.
We started moving in towards the waterhole, looping around to come in with the wind in our faces and the sun at our backs. We'd only covered about 300m when a scrub bull materialised in our sun-filled faces, about 50 metres out and unaware of our presence. His girls, about 70 metres away, had seen me in the open and spooked, taking the bull with them. bugger bugger bugger... he had a nice spread of about 30 inches (well, nice to me anyway!) and we were allowed to take out a bull if we could. Oh well **sigh** maybe next time. Continued on to the waterhole...
We arrived at the creek that runs away from the waterhole in question, some recent signs of activity (diggings and scats) had me thinking i'd stumbled into a pig farm by accident. Started moving up the creek with conditions making it a little more challenging. At 0730 it was already 36 degrees and we had a swirling wind. Oh well, work with what you've got i reckon... about 100m up the creek and 50m off the waterhole I heard some movement on the other side of the creek and spied a mob of about six pigs, three sows, a boar and 2 piglets moving in the opposite direction. I turned to FM and gave the handsignal for pigs, chuckled to myself when i saw his eyes bug. Happy days. I was trying to figure out how to move across the creek to stalk, given that the leaves were bone dry and it was like walking on cornflakes, when i heard more movement a short distance ahead. Deciding to press on and see how we went, I nocked a GoldTip XT Hunter/ Tusker Spirit combo on the Slayer EX and dropped the hood of my leafy suit. "be at one with the bush, be the bush" i was thinking when two sows broke cover about 40 metres ahead, moving to the water. I froze, the sow dipped her head and looked directly at me, staring for about five seconds before going on her merry way. She dropped down into the waterhole and plunged into the water, her companion being content to plop unceremoniously into the muck at the edge of the water and wriggle around.
I turned slowly to let FM know i was going to stalk the two in the water, FM giving a smile and a slow thumbs up in reply. A couple of nervous steps twoards the water and i heard movement, BIG movement behind and left of me. Hoping that i hadnt spooked something that FM might be after, and having set my goal, i moved into a position where i could send the big sow a message at 330fps, when she's decided that she's had enough swimming and moves behind a bank in the direction she came from. She popped up over the embankment about 35 metres out and covered a few steps when she stopped and looked in my direction again. The Riverghost leafy suit did its job and she didnt spook, giving me a quartering shot and the opportunity to draw and settle her shape between the 30 and 40 metre pins. She turned broadside and took a step forward just as i released, watching the shaft in slo-mo as it entered her a little further back than preferred. I saw the arrow punch through cleanly and bury itself in the dirt about ten metres past her. She turned and looked at the arrow, standing stock still for a moment before crashing off into the bush. I marked the spot i shot from with an arrowshaft in the ground and heard the telltale 'fring' of FM's bow, followed by a very satisfying grunt and the crash of pig through bush. a quick woohoo over the UHF radio and we both started tracking our pigs.
A few times during the bloodtrailling groups of two- and three pigs would wander in our direction. It would have been nice to take out another pig each, but we decided to follow up those that we had already hit.
FM found his first, a nice double lung shot leaving a bright red frothy trail to follow 15 metres to his prize. FM came over and gave me a hand with mine.
My girl had covered about 40 metres through tangled scrub before succumbing.
Happy days - each got a pig and its only 9am!
Compulsory photographs were taken and we opened my sow up to check the wound track. She'd bled out largely internally, making the bloodtrailling fairly challenging.
We moved off to another area about 1500m away, taking several hours to cover the ground. No sign, no critters. We opted to move back to the first waterhole and sit on that for a while seeing as it was still pretty dry. Positions were selected for open visability and good lanes of fire, so we dropped our packs and waited.... and waited... and... zzz...zzzzz
I opened my eyes to what i thought was a camera flash. Why FM, you sneaky little basta...... BOOOOOOOM.... an earthshattering peal of very nearby thunder, followed closely by the sound of two bumholes snapping shut, roused me from my doze. Grey clouds everywhere... nice... at least it will cool things down... drip... drip....... dripdripdrip... then it came...
The rain that hit us could only be described as biblical. Visiblity was less than 15 metres and within minutes there was 2 inches of water on the ground. Conditions no longer being condusive to good hunting, we headed back to the quad and called it quits for the day... an hours paddle later we were back at the car, exhausted but happy with our results...
will have to do it again shorlty 
