Stikbow Hunter eMag Jan Feb 2010

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January/February 2010 Page 1

Well, here we go again for another year. First off I must thank all you readers and contributors out there for your patience in wait-ing for the last edition of 2009 to come out. It was a steep learn-ing curve for me, steeper than I expected, coupled with software issues it made things a little difficult. I’m pretty confident that all these things are sorted now and we will be able to continue on time for the upcoming year. So what will the year of 2010 hold? I know I have a few trips booked. There will be the Wild Deer expo on 6th and 7th of Febru-ary at Fairfield Estate, Rutherglen Victoria. Also I will be heading up to the Archery Expo in Sydney on February 27th and 28th. Then in September I will be fulfilling a dream and heading over to Colorado in the USA to hopefully have some close encounters with the local Elk population as well as what ever other game critters that are around and in season at the time. In-between all that I will hopefully be making a few local trips on the Sambar as well as a Backpack hunt scheduled for the end of April. I’m sure I will also have to try and knock over another goat or two for the freezer as our meat stocks will be getting low. As for the magazine, well we will be forging on as usual while trying to implement some new ideas along the way. I’m very hopeful that we will have some good sponsors on board so we can offer our readers and contributors some great prizes for their efforts. Along with the great prizes from our sponsors I still have the much sort after Stikbow Hunter stubbie holders that I will be sending to anyone that contributes an article etc for the mag. I will be trying to get some more merchan-dise up on the site including polo shirts, short sleeve business shirts and long sleeve tees. I will be trying to run the regular departments as usual and with the support of you guys I’m sure we can grow them into something that all readers can get a bit of useful info out of. So that about sums it up. Hopefully with your support we will see another great year of Stikbow Hunter eMagazine editions hit the site. So for now, aim small, shoot straight and most of all have a safe and enjoyable time in our great outdoors.

Cheers,

Matt

Freelance Contributions - Email submissions to the Editor, [email protected]. Submissions must be in word format and be accompanied by high quality Jpeg photos (usually 3000 pixels wide/high or larger are sufficient). Alternatively, send files on a CD or Flash drive to; Matt Curry 6 Clarendon drive Melton South, Victoria, Australia 3338. Include your postal address if you would like it returned.

EDITORIAL

2010. Here we go again.


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CONTENTS

Cover Photo: The Editors Jim Jones Firefly TD Longbow Location: Balranald, NSW Photographer: Matt Curry

Bowhunting Adventure: Hell West and Two Up Part Two Darren Amos

Bowhunting Adventure: Sunrise Hunt, Sunrise Rescue Teal

Bowhunting Adventure: Fickle Winds and a few Trad goats Matt Curry

Features

Regular Departments

Editorial: Matt Curry

Build Along: Home made Linen Phenolic Russell Barber

What’s in Your Pack: Paul Baumgartner

Gear Review: Truglo Bino Bivy Matt Curry

Health and Fitness: Peter and Teal Padewski

Bowhunting Adventure: Reverence Please Ben Mayer


Dane turned and looked at me for advice and with that the billy made a break out the back door, Ha! Ha! Dane didn’t see that opening and Whitey was off with AC/DC playing in my mind, Jail Break. I strolled up to Dane and said “I guess you thought you had him mate?” “Yep I thought so”! I then freed the little nanny stuck in the mesh and she hardly made a sound as she knew I was sav-ing her from certain death. She hobbled out of the trap and straight to the dam for a big drink. Well lad let’s go get him now! We snuck up to where they disappeared into the pulled country. We could see they were headed for the Mulga, way back down near camp and were stopping for a feed every now and then. “Go for it Dane” I said. “Hunt him now cause this is what hunting is all about, you’ve seen him, he’s seen you now follow him up and nail your billy, I will get the ute and bring up the rear parking at the far end of the track near camp”. I could see Dane way down the track in front of me staying well off the Back Door Billy and could see he was giving up so I drove down to him and gave him some more encouragement to go get him. The mob had just entered the mulga. “Dane you will have cover but time is running out” It was thundering, windy and getting dark quickly. Off he went again with my words ringing in his ears “Don’t Muck Around”. Dark now set in and it was blowing a gale as another Hell Western storm blew in and raised dust and still no Dane. Ah oh! I hope he has his head torch with him as I always carry mine just in case. Ok flashing orange strobe light on now and driving the fenceline blasting the horn along the edge of the Mulga only to have the wind blow the sound in the opposite direction. Mind you we were actually only 300 metres from camp. Finally I see a light flashing up the fenceline from the camp direction with a shall we say bug-gered lad who immediately bypassed me and hit the fridge in the ute for a cold one before talking to

We pick up with Darren and Dane where we left them, chasin monster

billies out west. PART TWO

me (I already had one or two thanks Dane). Next I got the run down on where all the goats were and what they were doing but there was only one thing I wanted to know mate. “Did You Get Him”? “Yep I got him” was the reply and his face was a hive of excitement, he couldn’t con-tain himself. Dane had produced the goods and had hunted the Back Door Billy and nailed him with one arrow at 10 metres. A well placed arrow had him down for the count in seconds, making him the new PB billy in a way he will never forget. Well done mate. Back to camp and a few more drinks and feed and many replays of his adven-ture.

Next morning we were headed for the creek in search of pigs not far from the homestead, it looked good but pig sign was scarce. The further we went along the creek the better it got and Dane soon learned hunting pigs is far different from hunting goats. Danes footwear choice for this task was his pull on Blunstones whilst I was wearing my volleys as usual. I have never heard


something as noisy as Danes boots every step of the way and he was about to find out how it af-fected our hunting. The pigs were bedded in the low hanging tea tree that lined the banks and were near impossible to spot until you were either on top of them or they busted out in front of us after fickle breeze changes blew our chances. The fur-ther we went the more pigs and sign was seen with the majority being sows and slips. The weather was developing around us and bloody hot down along the creek with mozzies the size of jumbo jets attacking us. Two pigs busted out and one made a mistake and headed straight to Dane who was on the opposite bank and sent an arrow her way. The pig was bowled clean over and then up again and gone back the other direction to which we just came from. We spent a good hour trailing her and it was evident that the shot was not life threatening and she will live to fight another day. I explained to Dane that if you have any op-portunity with pigs to hit them again ASAP to en-sure they don’t disappear on you as sometimes a perfect shot can still result in a lost animal. Thun-dering now and we high tailed it for the ute to get back to camp and batten down the hatches. Just in the nick of time to as down it came. We copped a good 1” of rain in an hour and some scary light-ening that made the hairs stand up on your neck. After it passed we were out of the ute and geared up to hit the Mulga once again with brand new, wet, quite and track free red dirt in search of Danes area where Back Door Billy bit the dust! Sure enough it was that time of the day again when the goats hit the Mulga and they were every-where once more. Up ahead we spotted one good black billy and Back Door Billy’s mate the tannish with the heavy pull back horns cross the road and disappear into the Mulga. Once inside the Mulga you have to be lucky to find the same goats but this is what we were about to do. I put on some speed weaving in and around the shrubs with Dane in hot pursuit only to come into exactly the

area where the boys were headed. I hit the skids when I caught a glimpse of the black billy coming from my left and crouch low in preparation. With Dane 15 metres behind me, black billy was well on the way of a nasty surprise. A noise off behind me caught my attention and out came the tannish billy with his thick horns straight towards me. Man he was a good looking billy, really different from the others I have got but he was front onto me and at 5 metres I nearly drew on him. Nah can’t do it, back to the black billy. He was in full view now, I went to draw the longbow and strug-gled somewhat and let fly with an arrow that missed him by 2 feet and smashed a log right in front of him!. I was dehydrated from the creek walk and struggling. I went about knocking an-other arrow as normal and Black billy would you believe had not moved an inch. This time I picked a spot and drew back the longbow without a half hearted effort and let loose upon him taking him cleanly through the heart and dead in seconds. I turned and looked at Dane and with thumbs up, he was gone!

He was off after the tannish billy and wasn’t hanging around for the photo shoot. Stuff him I thought as I admired Blacky’s horns and regath-ered my arrows. I pulled out the GPS, plotted him and headed off further to follow the steady flow of goats through the Mulga. I was running into goats everywhere and walking with them in har-mony. There were trophy Billies up on logs stretched out feeding away beside me, rutting the nannies and cattle as well causing distractions. A cracker thunderstorm was still in the area with fantastic thunder claps to hide any noise and cre-ate distractions for slipping past unwanted game. Off to my right was a billy that spotted me a little earlier and I didn’t follow up but this time he was

Russell Barber Owner/Bowyer 408 NW Renfro Burelson, TX 76028 PH:(817)709-9499 [email protected]


having a feed on the Mulga only 20 metres away unaware of my presence. With his back turned I slipped in to 10 metres and stood there for 5 min-utes it seemed waiting for old mate to turn. Finally around he came and stretched out for the tasty mulga and another carbon thingy arrow was on its way and it’s all over red rover, his day had come to an end.

Dane let out a whistle and I whistled him into the new scene. Dane had been chasing another real good billy and had lucked out as they hit the open ground early. With photos and head taken we headed for Blacky’s position with hast as the weather was turning nasty. There he is he hasn’t move and still was at the scene of the log shot (Dane won’t let me live that one down). Photos and head taken then off back to camp in the dark again and we were only 1 km from our swags. Back in camp having a feed and beverage with head torches on Dane turned and said “Look that bug is on fire!” I said “what!” thinking ok he’s had too much to drink the young fella. With that he let out a squeal and panicked “Swiper is next to my swag only 3 metres from you!” “Slow down lad where is he” and yes there he was in our camp once again.

We had been eating chicken in the ute waiting out the storm at lunch time and had thrown the bones out the window around camp. “I’ll get my bow” he said “I haven’t shot a fox before”. “Pigs arse mate neither have I and your not gonna shoot Swiper the camp fox”. Turns out Swiper is a Swiperette and she has pups as we were sur-rounded at one stage by 4 other foxes all staying a safe distance away while mum got the goodies for them and then they would coming squeaking into her. We ended up feeding her chicken not 10 metres from our chairs would you believe (who needs a fox whistle). At one stage we could hear roos out behind us and so could she as she bolted and sat up on a log looking like the Dog Sitting On the Tucker box. The last day had arrived and we had to leave for home at some stage but before we go we gotta even up the goat count Dane said. On the way out to the property I was telling Dane about a large shaggy grey billy that I had given a limp to last trip and was on my to do list right at the top if I got a chance. I wasn’t to know that today our paths would cross once again! Back into the mosh pit we went with refreshed ground again after a storm at 2.00am. We slowly crept along with a breeze in our faces, everything was quite not a bleat to be heard and little in the way of tracks on the red dirt. “Look over there a black billy and two nannies feeding lets see what else is in here”. We stayed parallel to an access track and started seeing spatters of all different colours mostly nannies and kids lying down in amongst the Mulga. “What are we going to do Darren” said Dane. “Well mate lets keep them on our left and see if we can locate a billy or two up further be-fore it opens up”. It wasn’t long before we heard the love tunes and clashing of horns up ahead causing big smiles as it was party time again which renewed our enthusiasm for one last billy. “There they are mate, hell right on the edge of the cleared stuff you don’t want them to go out there”. About 10 or so billies had a nanny bailed up and there were some good sets in amongst them. “What’s the plan” Dane said. “I found em you go get em” was the reply! Now this was no easy feat as cover was limited and they new something was up. They almost instantly spotted Dane after commencing his stalk but they were reluctant to leave their girl friend and this was in Dane’s favour. I did not have a clear picture of all the billies from where I was standing but my jaw hit the deck as from out behind a bush behind the nanny


came SHAGGY my old mate who clearly had the best rack in there. I can’t write what I thought but let’s say Dane is extremely lucky he did not have volley prints right over the top of him. Me ole mate was onto Dane though and once bitten twice shy you might say stayed just outa reach. Another decent billy pre-sented an opportunity for Dane and he let loose and arrow harmlessly sailing over his back and into the dirt. The goats retreated into the Mulga a little in hot pursuit of the nanny which gave Dane some time to regather his arrow and get some ad-vice. “See that grey goat.” “Yeah mate that’s SHAGGY, you know my SHAGGY the same SHAGGY I have been blabbering on about please don’t shoot SHAGGY.” Dane thought stuff you Darren SHAGGY is history and it’s my friggin turn. Anyway we let them settle down a bit while we fought over SHAGGY and then I gave in. “Ok Dane let’s get him” and with that I got us around into a position where we have an opportunity to have another go again. I’m looking at the billies surrounding the nanny and there is a grey goat hogging the nanny but it is not SHAGGY. Danes already on his way to bust a cap in SHAGGY but it’s not him, “shoot the grey one Dane” I am saying as I am only 3 steps behind him. As the nanny re-locates seeking refuge the grey billy presents a shot and Dane nails him on the trot. The grey billy instantly bailed up in the logs and wouldn’t move with Dane broadside at 18 metres. Wait a minute mate I signaled to Dane he might walk out pre-senting himself a bit better. Dane could see that where he was a log was a certain hindrance.

I crouched down low and caught Danes attention once more, get down lad and have a look through there. Dane got down and turned and looked at me with a yeah right idiot look on his face. I gave him some encouragement and said you can do it

there is no log mate and with that the lad concen-trated a little spot on the grey billy, drew that longbow back and let loose a perfect arrow sail-ing straight through the grey billy’s boiler room. I was fortunate to capture the arrow entering through the billy with my camera and I don’t know who was happier Dane or me. With the grey billy on the ground I said to Dane “thank god it’s not SHAGGY mate”. And he said “yes it is”. “No it’s not does he look SHAGGY to you matey? No”. Old SHAGGY had given us the slip and lives a little longer (thank god). It still didn’t matter Dane had his last billy on the ground with a spectacular finish and stalk to top the trip off and even though he was no SHAGGY he was a special memory in his own right for Danes bow hunting adventures. Well done mate, good luck in Longreach!!


For full details on sizes, colours and availability please contact the editor via email or phone: 0401292311 [email protected]


Stikbow Hunter eMagazine is extremely happy to announce that thanks to some very generous sponsors we will be running an end of year BEST STORIES competition along with a photo com-petition to be held every issue. Bi Monthly Photo and Writing Competition: Send in your photos and stories to be in the running for some great prizes. A top secret panel of readers will decide which photo and story they liked best for each issue. The winning photo and story will be awarded some great prizes kindly donated by John McDonald at A.M.S.O 128 arch-ery supplies and Darren Amos form Trash Boys DVD’s All entries to be sent via email to [email protected] or via mail to: Stikbow Hunter Editor 6 Clarendon drive Melton South, Victoria, Australia, 3338 End Of Year Writing Competition:: The writing competition will be judged after the last issue of Stikbow Hunter has been released for the year. The winners will be decided via a voting system that we will be setting up on the Stikbow hunter web site. We have three great prizes to be awarded to the top three stories. These prizes were very generously donated by Mark Harvey of TradBits archery, Russell Barber of Kanga Custom Bows in the USA and Ben Maher. The prizes include a TradBits Rising pig 3D target, a Caldwell Camp knife valued at about $400 and a Custom made Kanga bows Take down Long Bow. All entries to be sent via email in a word doc. with separate photos to [email protected] or alternatively on disc or flash drive to: Stikbow Hunter Editor 6 Clarendon drive, Melton Sth, Victoria,


I have been asked on more than one occasion why I make my own linen phenolic. Well the sim-ple answer is I want to save money and plus when you add the shipping charges to the commercial stuff then it is just too expensive and you are lim-ited to the colors they have, usually red, black and white. Now phenolic can be used in a wide variety of applications from riser accent strips, re-enforcing limb tips, limb butt overlays and knife handle scales to name a few. The big plus is you can make it any color you want you, can use any cloth fabric including denim, which by the way looks ab-solutely awesome on a knife handle. Now if your wife is like mine and makes patch work quilts then all you have to do is sneak some material out of her supply. Of course she will already have a rub-berized cutting board and rotary knife for her quilt-ing if not then just a measuring tape and a pair of scissors will get the job done.

If your wife or girl friend does not have any fabric then just head down to the local sewing, craft or any store that sells fabric and pick some up in the color that you want. If you decide on denim then head to the local second hand clothing store and pick up a pair of used jeans for a couple of dollars.

Ok first step is to cut your material into strips for this exercise I have elected to cut my strips 3 inches wide and about 20 inches long. Seeing the length is longer than the board I keep the ma-terial folded in half and cut the strips. You will

have to play around a bit to get the thickness you want I am aiming for about 1/16”. Once I have the strips cut, in this case 12, it’s time to prepare my very expensive press form. My press is just 2 pieces of ¾” ply that I have run through the drum sander to get smooth and perfectly flat. First I give both inside sections a good coat of paste wax or floor wax it don’t matter which. What this does is stops the 2 pieces being glued together if any epoxy escapes during the pressing.

Russell Barber of Kanga Custom Bows takes us step by step through the process of making the Linen Phenolic he

utilizes in his custom bows.


Next I lay some glad wrap over one of the boards, then its time to mix up some epoxy. I use Aero/Marine 400 the same epoxy I use to glue up my bows.

Lay 2 pieces of fabric on the saran wrap and cover with the epoxy; spread the epoxy out so it is roughly covering all the cloth. Then all I do is keep layering the cloth 2 at a time and adding the epoxy till all the strips are used.

I do not put epoxy on the top of the last 2 strips of cloth, as the pressing will force the epoxy through the cloth. Now I fold the glad wrap back over the cloth from both sides and both ends, place the other board on top and then with 4 G clamps clamp them together as tight as I can.

Once you have the form clamped up place it in the heat box for a few hours to cure. If you don’t have a heat box then just leave the form clamped for a couple of days. Once the epoxy has cured remove the clamps, take the form apart, remove the glad wrap and trim the edges. I use the band saw for trimming. There you have your home made linen pheno-lic ready to use for what ever reason you want .

Russell Barber Owner/Bowyer 408 NW Renfro Burelson, TX 76028 PH: (817)709-9499 [email protected]


With the excitement, trepidation and anxiety that only a hunter or in this case Huntress can feel I had gratefully accepted an invite from my good friend Howie to go chase some wild goats up around Bathurst way. Little did I know that the trip alone to get there was go-ing to be a true adventure let alone the hunting itself but alas, that is another story for another time. This little story is about the lighter side of hunting and how a bad day can be turned into the start of another one of life’s little adventures. Making it back to my truck after the hunt still feeling the affects of my migraine and too much sun I decide to make a start on the road home. Bidding Howie farewell I follow the same road as the one I took coming out of Taralga and whilst I am 30 odd kilometres out, I hear a calling to take Wombeyan Caves road back to The Southern Highlands. I am trying to dismiss this calling as shear madness then I remember that I am madness, look what I am doing. There was no way I could stop the truck from turning left she was going that way with or without me. 20 kilometres in I wind down to a lovely campsite, I do the tourist loop, and my head is filled with knowledge and location data. Back out the other side, I am upon the road to hell. I have been told for

over 20 years now how bad this road is but I am think-ing; surely, now it would be better after two decades. Wrong! I could not believe how wild this road was. It was only wide enough for my enormous truck. One slip and I would be dead. No barricade to stop me falling off the edge and boulders in the middle of the road. Average vehicles would not be able to pass them or strong enough to move them. I had never seen any-thing like it. I am trying at this stage to justify the call-ing I had to take this road back and nothing was com-ing to mind. Not allowing fear to enter my head as the sun was setting and there was no traffic to be seen, I have no phone reception or cars for communication, if something were to happen to me. I begin thinking of how much I love to live on the edge. Well now, that was exactly what I was doing. Round and round cor-ners I kept driving, not knowing what I would find in the middle of the road on the next bend. I was in total wilderness and only an old memory of what the road stops ahead were. Another river with a campsite and then a rock face with a hole blasted thru it to allow one car at a time, but could not remember when I hit sealed road again.

Teal the Huntress puts her bow away to help save a young wild goat attacked

by wild dogs.


Lost in thought as I took blind corner after another trying to remember I came to a screaming holt. Only doing 20kmh does not require much braking to stop, but when there is a goat in the middle of the road, you hit them hard. I rubbed my eyes in disbelief; it was a kid, without a herd. I checked the rock face up and down, no one to be seen. I jumped down from my truck and approached, this one looked sick and stunned. Walking up to it, it just stood and looked at me. I moved in closer with no thought of stalking. The kid turned and slowly moved to the edge of the sheer drop. Stepping its dainty hooves over the knocked down fence it stopped to look at me. I made goat noises to it and it just looked me in the eyes. I knew it was mine. Picking up the kid and plonking her onto the seat, I slowly took off. Bang on the floor, it went and parked itself. The smell coming from it was so unpleasant, I had seen something not right with its neck, but I had no time to stop and check. The sun was going down on me and I needed to get off the high road to hell. I think the road from that point on seemed longer than I had ever thought it was. By the time I ran through my head all the landmarks and tried to stop my head hurrying to sealed road, I realized this goat was the reason I was given the calling to take this road. Finally, in calling range I rang hubby and told him I have a live goat in my truck. I could not explain as I ran out of words as well as range. We arrive home and the excitement of our daughter that I did not kill a goat but brought a live one was in high gear. Studying my sub-ject, I discover a wild dog has attacked her. Her neck riddled with holes and full of maggots. We set the laun-dry up for her and I left the maggots to clean the wound until I had researched enough to know when to remove them.

The following day we nursed her with probiotics and colloidal silver the same as the night before. She was in pain, grinding her back teeth. This little goat was a kid nanny and deserved a vet, so off we went and spent

the hour with the vet pulling out all the maggots and filling the holes with antibiotic crème. It is now five days later and I am writing my tale of my adventure and little Dilly the Kid is happily eating the weeds from my free and wild garden. I found her near the Wollondilly River so aptly named her. At night, Dilly sleeps on our daughters lap as she watches her movies or she will sneak a cuddle and fall

asleep in my arms whilst I am in bed. I guess all are wandering if I will ever make a great huntress!


I often hear talk between hunters or read threads written on outdoor web forums about navigation and in particular the Global Positioning System, more com-monly called the GPS. Having spent the better part of 8 plus years in the Australian Infantry, most of that within reconnaissance units, I was lucky enough to be taught from scratch the correct way to navigate in the bush, both in tactical and non tactical environments. The Army being the Army like to start people off with the very basics and lift the bar once you have those basics down pat. Skills such as being able to read all aspects of a map, using a compass correctly, construction of nav data sheets and being able to shoot both bearings and back bearings were part and parcel of many a nav lesson. Over the years with the weight and responsibil-ity of rank, I found myself in the class room and in the field instructing younger diggers on the perishable skill (and yes gentlemen, it is very much so a perishable skill) of navigation in the bush. The Army’s way of think-ing and mine also, is that the GPS is a wonderful and very useful tool to land navigate, but it is still an only an aid. Please re-read the last part of that sentence again.

Like any modern piece of equipment in the 21st Cen-tury, be it a laptop, Hifi system or GPS, they’re good when they work but when things go sideways, and if you’re out in the bush long enough things will, you need to be able to rectify any challenge that may arise, and ASAP. What I’m saying is if your $500 GPS unit packs it in you’d better have some sort of “Plan B”. More on this later however. First I’ll examine the good points of having a GPS in your daypack and then I’ll digress some and give examples of when the almighty GPS fails to live up to its end of the bargain and hype.

The Good... Know your enemy! Sound words and centuries old, so let’s start off with a bit of a history lesson on the Global Positioning System and just where it came from followed by some statistics. The US federal government

was first to launch GPS satellites in 1978 for Defence and military use and there are currently about 31 ac-tive satellites broadcasting above us today.

On average a GPS satellite travels at 7000 miles per hour and circles the earth twice per day and the distance from earth in which they orbit is about 12 000 miles and costs $800 million USD per year to maintain the system. But the total amount spend buy the US government to date is about $16 billion USD. So you can see the US takes things seriously when it comes to the GPS.

All that’s written above maybe regarded as use-less information by some but at least you can see the amount of effort put into this marvel of modern naviga-tion. And it truly is a marvel when one can be com-pletely turned around in the bush (read lost), not knowing in which direction camp, your 4WD or home is; at the press of a button your life can be saved and the day’s outlook can look immediately brighter. For that alone the price of a GPS unit is a drop in the ocean if it means you get home safe and sound to hunt and walk the bush again another day.

This happened to me a while back, and I can hon-estly say I was humbled, relieved and embarrassed all at once that late afternoon. Let’s set the scene for ease of explanation...I was on a week-long backpack hunt with my close mate, the late Bill Baker in the Ba-salt country of North Queensland.

We had made our way back to the banks of the Fletcher River after an exploratory trip to Turtle Lake. We set up camp around midday, had some lunch and planned to hunt some boars in an area around the River system. Out of habit I turned on my Garmin 12, let it settle in and locked our position as a waypoint. I had no map of the area we were hunting as I was with Bill, who I might add, just about walked on and knew

Al Kidner takes us through some basics of GPS operation.


every rock by name in the Basalt country (This being the first mistake that is, not having a map of the hunting area). Never leave your navigation up to someone else, always be aware of your surroundings and if you can, get a topographical map of good scale. Anyway back to the story... Bill went one end of the swamp and I the other and we planned on getting back just on dark for dinner, a scotch and some hydration.

The hunt came up empty and nothing was seen, so I made my way back to where I thought our fly camp was. After walking sometime and well after dark I started getting that warning feeling in the pit of my stomach which was telling me something was wrong. I sat down on a patch of two million year old lava, pulled out my GPS and turned it on to check my general posi-tion. Before my unit had time to plot my position I noticed I was walking due east, straight towards the raising full moon and the same direction as the hard-ened lava flow. I was meant to be heading south, back to camp. The dreadful feeling of being lost or being “turned around” as we called it in the Army filled me with dread and a chill rolled across my shoulders. By the book I was not “lost”, so to speak, as I knew “roughly” where I was ... roughly. I just did not know exactly where I was, and there is a big difference be-tween the two, call it “geographic embarrassment”.

Bill must have picked up on this as well, as he made contact with me on the small handheld radios we had. It was getting well after dinner time now and true to Bill’s form, he wanted to know where I stashed the bottle of scotch. I informed him that I’ll be a tad late for our din-ner reservations and to start without me. It took me an-other good hour and a half including two more referrals to my Garmin 12 in order to get me back into camp be-fore midnight. Again, I can honestly say that this was

the first time in the many years I’ve been navigating in the bush, both in Australia and in foreign countries that I’d been turned around like that so quickly. Bill and I chatted about this over a late warm meal and he knew all about the situation as it was something that happens to just about everybody who hunts deep in the basalt country one time or another.

So you can see just how well a GPS unit can save hours of heading in the wrong direction or even save someone’s life if things happen to go from bad to worse. I’ve navigated from the thickest triple canopy jungles to flat deserts all without the aid of a GPS but this was one time I carried it and it hauled my butt out of sticky situation.

The Bad... I was lucky in the above situation and I’m sure that there are thousands of similar stories out there, some no doubt ending worse than mine. I was lucky in re-gards to the pitfalls of solely trusting a GPS as there are any number of things that could have made my Garmin not work and point me in a safe direction. Blocked reception is one of the major problems asso-ciated with navigating using a GPS. Your GPS unit will need to be able to acquire a minimum of 3 satellites in order to give you an accurate grid reference or latitude & longitude position and 4 to calculate your present altitude. Thick forest canopy, heavy morning or eve-ning fog or solid rock walls in high country will impede your reception causing navigational problems when you need you GPS the most. Best way to fix this is to trek into an area that enables you to gain a clear sky for accurate satellite reception. Also, if you have and older model it will not pick up satellites as good as the newer models out there say in thick wooded areas or gully systems. My new Garmin 60 CSX is the top of the range model and I upgraded from the Etrex model for this very reason. The best satellites to view on your display are the ones straight overhead; these will give you the strongest signal as opposed to ones on the outer edges of your screen nearest to the horizon.


And the Ugly... Late one night in August 1991, Jimmy, a mate of mine was fishing the outer reef off Cairns, some 6 hours from the coast. Having caught enough fish for the trip he decided to head back to shore, however on re-ferring to his boat mounted GPS unit he found the screen blank... absolutely useless and he could get no fixed position whatsoever, it didn’t matter how many times he turned the unit on and off for calibration. What he did not know was that the Invasion of the first Gulf War in Kuwait had occurred over night, true story. As mentioned earlier the US government owns the Global Positioning System and its satellites. So be aware at anytime and at the flick of a switch all your trust in the world can be sent to a conflict thousands of miles away and sending you for an unwanted trip maybe up that well known creek. Fortunately Jimmy was an experienced boater/ fisherman and had offshore maps to aid him on his journey back to the docks. Also be aware that the US government puts in an error of accuracy into its system and it was not until 2000 that the US military turned it off, but it is still be-lieved that there is some error put into the system. The US being the only ones to have accuracy down to a meter or less, how else would you drop laser guided bunker busters on Terry Taliban from the other side of the world? Another mate of mine from the British 3 Para was conducting winter operations in the mountainous Hindu Kush region of Afghanistan when the liquid-crystal display froze up and rendered his unit inoper-able. The problem was solved easy enough due to not solely relying on a unit for navigation. He still had his nav data sheet, map, two compasses and had done enough cross referencing from GPS to his position on his map to keep his head above water and well out of trouble. Like I said, the GPS is only an aid to naviga-tion. He just made sure in future to keep his unit close to his body for warmth so as not to have this problem again with the crystal screen.

So there you have it, the good, the bad and what can be the ugly situations of using the GPS in the out-doors. It always pays to be prepared like our mates the boy scouts and not put all your eggs in one basket. Here are some valid points to take away with you from this article if you’re only new to GPS navigation or are planning on a backpack hunt into some wilderness area.

• Keep your GPS on a lanyard and more so tied off to you somehow;

• Don’t ignore the owners manual, take it with you in a zip lock bag for referencing out in the field;

• Take a compass, two if need be and know how to use them on a map;

• Know how to read a map and study it whilst

reading your GPS to cross check where you are;

• Always have a spare set of batteries; • When hunting a new area for the first time,

turn on your unit and let it settle in to acquire satellites for 10 to 15 minutes. After that time frame it’ll be quicker as it knows what part of the world it is operating in.

• When marking waypoints let your unit take

it’s time on locking onto satellites after turn-ing it on. If you do it as soon as you turn it on it will mark a faulty position;

And finally, continue to enjoy the outdoors. Be confi-dent in your navigation and in my personal opinion buy the best GPS unit you can afford. Who knows, it might just save your life one day.

AK



Like many bowhunters, I started hunting with one of the “wheelie contraptions”, but soon found that for all the convenience and accuracy they of-fer a newbie shooter, there were just as many de-tractors… so I made the transition to TRAD! My regular afternoon hunts and weekend wanders around local farms, now see me with either my Steve Jawerth custom Longbow (“The Moose”) or Samick Deer Master Recurve in my hand and quiver of wooden shafts hung across my back! I have been very fortunate within the past 12 months to hunt at “Bonus Downs” at Mitchell – part of Mick Baker’s (Trophy Bowhunts Australia) se-lection of hunting properties and also within recent months have wandered the beautiful setting of “Upindi” on Glenlyon Dam – organized through Paul Rea (www.aussiebowhunter.com). I have only actively begun extended day hunts and week-ends away within the past 12 months, due to my recovering from a heart condition and then meet-ing a new hunting partner with whom I’ve covered many kilometers and shared many laughs and great experiences (Thanks Gary!). As many of you are aware, there’s a need for us to carry a few essentials when wandering throughout our preferred hunting spots to allow us to deal with the best (a successful kill) and worst (first aid situation or getting lost) that can happen. I think I’ve started to refine what I now carry and am now quite comfortable in knowing that I am able to cope with most situations that may arise. I’ve been lucky enough to not need the majority of what I carry – but have been in a situation where I thought it getting close to needing some of the “in case” gear…more on that later. As a wise bloke once told me, “It’s better to be lookin’ at it than lookin’ for it!”. I carry my gear in one of 3 locations – a Mossy Oak waist pack, Camel Back Black Classic 2 litre or a leather Back Quiver with zip-pered compartment.

Paul Baumgartner runs us through what’s in his day to day hunting

pack.

My Waist Pack is used to carry: Scandi knife – 95mm lauri blade (made by Steve Jawerth – a fantastic piece of equipment), fire steel attached to knife sheath, 0.5 Watt UHF ra-dio (3km range), camera, paracord survival band (by Derek Webster), fox whistle, Leatherman Kick, Bushnell Backtrack GPS (small simple unit with 3 location points and digital compass read-ing), spare batteries, toilet paper, Stingose Spray, Anti-bacterial gel, bandages, paracetamol and ibuprofen tablets, emergency blanket, gauze pads, pressure bandage, small first aid kit, gloves, poncho, a pair of boot laces (for tether-ing or setting up shelter), small torch (3 LED), cap LED light, binoculars, sharpening stone, Leatherman Micra, small spare pocket knife, matches, 3 or 4 pull ties (for dressing / carrying game) large garbage bag, electrical tape, 3 small carabiners, lightstick.

Camel Back 2 Litre carries: Bladder (water), muesli bars and a small plastic bag (for Rubbish). Leather Back Quiver carries: Spare string, bow stringer, allan key for recurve bow, bag of lollies, piece of fruit and spare arrows (of course!).


The only time I came close to needing any of my “in case” gear was on a late afternoon goat hunt in western Queensland. Three of us were stalking a mob with two reasonable billies, after a couple of missed opportunities we realized that Mark was missing and assumed that he had di-verted to follow up on another mob… Gary and I continued a couple of kilometres further into the scrub, where our mob split into two, which saw him follow to the west and myself to the north-east. After a long and unsuccessful stalk into the dusk hours…and my mob being spooked by sev-eral startled wallabies that I hadn’t spotted, I re-turned to the point where Gary and I had parted ways… With no response on the UHF, I presumed that he was still in stalk mode as we tend to turn our radios down or off when moving in on game. At that point I realized that in our initial haste to follow the mob when leaving the Hilux, I’d forgotten to mark the 4WD’s location on my GPS…bugger!!! By this stage it was well and truly dark and I used the small torch to start finding my way through the scrub and fallen timber in the rough direction of Mark’s vehicle, using the digital compass on the Bushnell Backtrack. After a while I attempted the UHF again and was answered by Mark – after a brief conversation – the limitations of my little Backtrack unit were truly revealed…no co-ordinates or bread crumb trail to follow! Mark sounded the Hilux’s horn 3 times and flashed his lights, but I was unable to hear or see it. Soon Gary joined in on the UHF – he had remembered to mark the vehicle on his GPS but the batteries had gone flat – so there we were; Mark in the car waiting, me wandering in the rough direction with only a digital compass bearing and Gary moving somewhere in my vicinity with a flat GPS… I love a good adventure!

Thankfully it was a dark night and by signaling with my torch from a tree, Gary was able to find my location, get some batteries into his GPS and we made our way back to a bored and hun-gry Mark. Nothing too drastic, but it’s good to know that we’d carried the gear we would have needed if we’d had to camp rough for the night. It pays to think what the country and situation may require before heading out on a hunt. Thanks for reading, enjoy your time in our great outdoors where you get to get to walk around this fantastic country… there’s no greater medi-cine for the heart of a hunter!


I think most would agree that a pair of good binocu-lars is almost essential when out in the field chasing our chosen game but what use is a good set of binoculars if you can’t see through them because the lenses are wet or covered in dirt and debris from crawling through the undergrowth? I have asked myself that same question on a few occasions when hunting the elusive Sambar of the Victorian High country. I have a good set of binocu-lars but hate fiddling around with lens caps etc just to have a quick look especially in the wet weather. It was this type of scenario that led me on a search for an al-ternative way of carrying my binoculars. On a backpack hunt last year one of my mates Mark had a great little bino pouch/harness made by Badlands. It was exactly what I was after. Water proof, easily fitted my 8 X 42 Vortex binos, quite to open as it utilized rare earth mag-nets for the closures instead of zips, had a couple little internal pockets for game licenses etc and had a built in harness that held it close to your chest. On returning home I started searching for one the same, this was

when I discovered a very similar item made by Bad-lands for Truglo.

We take a look at a great alternative way to carry your binoculars.


It was almost identical except it had slightly different pockets, no bungee cords for the binos in the pouch and the Badlands one has a one litre water bladder ouch on the back. This didn’t bother me in the slightest so I promptly bought one.

I’ve had the Truglo bino Bivy for about a year now and have put it through all kinds of weather from heat, to freezing cold and rain. On all occasions I have been extremely happy with the level of protection it has of-fered my binoculars. Even belly crawling it has kept

them clean and dry ready for immediate use. The beauty of it is, when you need to have a look you just simple pull the front access panel open and lift your binos out. I carry mine without the lens caps on so they are ready for viewing with instantly. So far I cannot find a fault with them. I have not had any issue with string clearance from either longbow or recurve and find it very comfortable to wear whether on its own or with my hunting pack on. I rate this product very highly and for myself consider it a must have piece of equipment.

PROS:

• Water Proof

• Dust proof

• Comfortable

• Quiet operation

• Great all-round piece of equipment

• Great protection for your Binos

CONS:

• None that I can think of.

PRICE: $60AUS approx.


28th –29th November 2009


One thing I like to do is try and find different ways of utilizing the game that I take. After a recent trip away on the goats I had a good supply of fresh meat in the freezer so thought instead of the usual roasts, chops etc I might bone out a leg and try some goat jerky. A little while ago I purchased a Sunbeam food dehydrator with the view of making my own Jerky as well as dehy-drated meals for backpacking. After experimenting with a few different recipes I settled on the one below.

• One leg of goat or meat of choice.

• 3/4 cup of Worcestershire sauce.

• 1/4 cup Soy sauce.

• Salt and pepper to taste.

METHOD: First bone out the leg of goat and try to cut out any fat, tendons etc. I’ve found goat meat to be very lean so there is not too much fat to worry about anyway. I cut the meat into about hand sized pieces or smaller which allows your marinade to soak in better.

Next combine all the ingredients together in a good sized bow and give a bit of a stir. Next pop all your meat into the bowl and make sure it is covered with the marinade. Cover the bowl and put in the fridge for 24hrs. You can leave it to marinade longer or shorter depending on how strong you like the flavour. Once the meat has marinaded for the required time, remove from the fridge and slice into thin slices of about 2mm thick-ness. A scary sharp knife makes life real easy for this part. Lay out the slices on the drying racks with a little room around them to help airflow. Pop them in the de-hydrator on the highest setting which for mine is 75 Cel-sius. I normally give it about 5-6 hours of drying which seems to be just right. Once dry bag it up and keep it in the pantry ready to chew on when you like. Longest I’ve kept mine so far has been 2 weeks. After 2 weeks it was still perfect but I just ran out. Enjoy!!

By Matt Curry


Well with the weather heating up and Christmas fast approaching we really wanted to fit in one last trip be-fore the end of the year. A phone call was made to ar-range access to a property we have in southern NSW that holds good numbers of goats. We are quite privi-leged to be able to hunt this place as the owners selec-tively muster and manage the goats on the place for extra income. My regular hunting partner Luke was missing out on this trip after he and his wife Ellie had just added another baby girl to the family so it was just me and Dad this time.

It didn’t take long for the day to roll around and we were on our way for the 5 hour trip to the property. The weather was promising to be a bit on the hot side with temperatures tipped to be in the low to mid thirties. This didn’t bother us too much as we had a beautiful camp site right on the river with a nice big sandy beach lead-ing into the water. We also had an abundance of shade.

The trip was pretty uneventful save me making a “donation” to the local constabulary after a digression in the speed stakes on the start of a certain highway just out of Euston. That little inconvenience out of the way we made it to the camp site around midday. A flurry of activity saw camp set up in no time with thoughts soon

turning to having a look around for some goats. Even with the temperature in the low 30’s we donned our gear, strung the bows, loosed a couple warm up shots at my Tradbits 3D goat and headed off for a walk.

I headed for the large sand hill on the place which always produced the goods while dad headed off in another direction. The sand hill was unusually quite so I hit the old water course and followed that for a bit. It wasn’t long before I started seeing small mobs of goats feeding along the bottom of the water course. I crept in for a closer look to see what was what. After watching the goats for a while it was soon apparent that these goats were part of a bigger mob probably numbering up near one hundred or so. They were spread out for probably 500 metres feeding on the green pick along the water course. The closest I could get before running out of cover was about 40 metres. They seemed to be slowly feeding away from me so I decided to see if I could get ahead of them and wait in ambush. A bit of stealthy running saw me positioned just ahead of the lead bunch up against a big euca-lypt. If they continued on their path I should get a good 20m shot. I was constantly checking the fickle breeze with my puffer bottle which was swirling all over the place. Every now and then I would feel the breeze

By Matt Curry.


switch from in my face one minute to be tickling the back of my neck the next; hopefully it would hold out as the first goats were now only 50 metres out. Things were looking good until just before they got to my shooting lane they did a 90 degree turn and headed up and away from me out of the water course. I couldn’t believe it, after waiting nearly 40 minutes they were now out of reach. I sat and waited a while longer when I spied a young nanny walking directly toward me. Look-ing around for more cover I scampered up into the low fork of the eucalypt. I was about 4-5 feet off the ground and if she kept coming she would pass broadside to me at about 12 metres. As luck would have it she did just that. As her head went behind the first branches I came to full draw on my Jim Jones Firefly longbow. A few seconds later her chest cleared the branches; I picked a spot tight behind the shoulder and sent a Steel Force Phathead tipped Carbon Express 150 zipping straight through her. At the hit she spun around bolted about 10 metres and dropped with hardly a kick. I was stoked as now I at least had one goat to butcher for the freezer back home but before that could happen the hard work of skinning, cleaning and lugging the carcass the cou-ple of kilometers back to camp had to be attended to. Ohh those ice cold cans of coke were sure going to go down well!

Next morning we awoke to the sounds of the local cockatoo population heading from their roosts to the feeding grounds. With the sun just starting to peep shyly above the horizon there was a certain promise of another warm day hanging in the air, although the crisp morning temperature belied the fact that it was still a few hours away. After a wake up coffee and a quick snack the back packs were shouldered in preparation for another hunt. Dad and I again headed for the large sand hill in search of goats. Nothing was seen when we reached the base of the hill so I opted to climb over it while dad scouted around the bottom. Once up top I could see dad still making his way around the bottom so I pulled out my Vortex binos and scanned the expan-sive lignum flat below. It wasn’t long before I spotted a small mob of about 20 goats feeding on the fresh green pick out in the middle of the lignum. Dad couldn’t see them from ground level so I decided to put in a stalk.


Dropping down into the lignum it was hard work keep-ing track of the goats as they were feeding quite quickly away from me. Testing the wind I decided that if I could put in a quick sprint of a few hundred metres I might be able to get in front of them. Backing out of the lignum I did the bolt in a wide arc around the goats, coming to a stop in some pushed up timber. Unfortunately the goats had veered off slightly and were now going to cross about 50 metres out in front of me. There weren’t any options available to close the gap save belly crawling 40 metres across the open ground. Given the goats had their head down feeding I thought I would give it a go. Needless to say I made it about 10 metres before the sounds of hooves on hard ground told the story. Stand-ing up I watched the goats disappear up ahead into some thick timber. Given the wind was coming from that way I thought I might just quietly sneak along and see what happened.

I had perhaps covered 500-600 metres when I spied a bit of white under the gap of a large fallen down euca-lypt. Out with the Vortex binos again and I could make out the shape of a goat laying in the shade of the tree. Further inspection revealed more goats 50 or 60 metres further on. A quick squeeze on the puffer bottle con-firmed the wind was still holding true so I began my stalk. The large trunk of the eucalypt gave perfect cover. About 50 metres out from the white goat I stopped and pulled out the binos again. She was actu-ally on the other side of the tree but the curve in the trunk lying on the ground had left a nice gap showing most of her body but more importantly a great gap to her vitals. Putting the binos away I closed into about 18 metres. The ground was a little noisy and I could see her body tense. I knew it was now or never for the shot. Kneeling down with one leg stretched out I doubled over and laid the Firefly longbow over nearly horizontal. I was very confident in the shot as I regularly practice this exact type of shot at home. Coming to full draw, I anchored, picked a spot low down on her chest and sent the arrow on its way. The arrow punched clean through her chest maybe half an inch further back than where I wanted. She got up and only managed to make it about 10 metres to a massive hollowed out tree trunk where she collapsed. Photos taken I took the front and back legs and placed them in my game bag. I stashed


them in a shady spot and marked them on the GPS as I wanted to keep hunting a bit more, I would pick them up on the way back to camp. I really wanted to get a nice skin so I could make a back quiver for my 3 year old son Noah who was showing a keen interest in all things bow related. I spent the next couple hours looking over numerous small mobs of goats but all the likely con-tenders for a great skin had little kids at foot so I was content to shoot them with the camera.

The day was heating up, so a quick check on my Garmin GPS saw me making a bee line back to the goat legs I had stashed. Once I had the legs securely stowed in my pack I slowly headed back in the direction of camp. About 400 metres from camp I spotted a small mob of goats heading along a bit of an old levy bank. A quick doubled over sprint saw me stuck out in the open like the proverbial sore thumb. I stayed hunched over with my camo doing its job well. I only got one half hearted look and that was it. There was a lovely young nanny that decided to prop about 20 metres out and offer me a chance at a broadside shot, only problem was she stopped behind a log which came up to the bottom of her chest. I knew with the trajectory of my arrow at that distance I would just need to clear the log by about 2 inches and the shot would be spot on. All I

can say is that I drilled that log absolutely perfectly, burying the broadhead up past the insert. The goats were not too concerned and just wandered down the

levy out of site. Sneaking up to the top of the levy my young nanny was having a feed about 25 metres out slightly quartering away. She was just on the edge of my comfortable distance, dropping to my knees for a nice solid stance I again came to full draw on the Fire-fly, anchored and sent the arrow on its way. This time there was no log in the way and the arrow found its mark getting a complete pass through. She did the bolt taking the rest of the mob with her but soon faulted within sight before collapsing and expiring about 100 metres out. The usual photos were taken, front and back legs taken off and stowed with the earlier ones in my pack. All this done and I was only 300 metres or so from camp.

Making it back to camp I could see dad had been back but was nowhere to be seen. I then spied move-ment about 500 metres around the river bank. It was dad heading back, he had obviously taken off to try and ambush some goats at their regular watering place on the river. A quick catch up when he got back revealed he had plenty of action but could not drop the string on any as they all seemed to have young kids at foot so he was just content to watch their antics for a while. We spent the heat of the day lazing around camp and fling-ing arrows at my Tradbits 3D goat before heading out for an afternoon hunt about 4:00pm. Again we had plenty of encounters but never got into a position for a shot. That night dad cooked up a beautiful roast leg of goat from one of the legs taken earlier in the day. There is just something very special about sitting around a campfire chewin on freshly harvested game. It didn’t take long though for the mistress of the fire to draw you into that all too familiar staring match that you just can’t win, then for the eyelids to become heavy and sleep beckon.


Again we woke to the ruckus made by the local cockatoos. The wind had swung during the night prom-ising a cooler day then the last two with no arguments from us. The morning ritual of coffee and a snack was adhered to before the packs were once again shoul-dered. With the wind having swung we headed in the opposite direction to the last few days. Dad and I stuck together this time enjoying the friendly rivalry of some stump shooting as we went along. The hours rolled on with a few blown stalks thrown in to keep things inter-esting. It’s amazing how time just slips away as you do the things you love. As we made the turn back towards camp we spotted another small mob of goats moving from right to left about 70 metres ahead of us. Dad opted to break left and try to get in position to cut them off, while I headed straight at them using a thick stand of saplings for cover. The ever swirling wind proved our down fall again when the goats winded us and headed to parts better known to them than us. We regrouped and headed back towards camp. We hadn’t gone far when behind me there was an almighty commotion as a mini dust storm sprung up. What was surprising though was what came out the other side of the said dust storm. It was one of the largest pigs I had seen in quite a long time. He must have been laid up in the shadows amongst all the fallen timber fast asleep when he caught my sent as I passed. I did catch a glimpse of some ivory out the side of his mouth but no shot was presented. He paused about 50 metres out to give us a quick look over then headed of flat out across the open ground. Dad and I just looked at each other and shrugged. We knew there were pigs on the place but had never seen one. This was certainly one pig we hope to run into again.

Back at camp we settled in for the afternoon relax and general camp talk. It was decided we would pack up the next morning. Dad had yet to get a shot away so we decided to go and sit in ambush at the spot the goats always come down to water. I opted to leave the bow back in camp content to just take photos of dad shooting. We found a good spot and settled in to wait. I positioned myself up a tree about 20 metres behind dad as a lookout and scanned around with the binos. It was-n’t long before a beautiful brown and white nanny came in. She had an awesome coat that literally shone in the afternoon sun. She would have made a fine skin but also had a small kid at foot.

I took a few photos with my SLR and watched as she wandered off into the bush. Not long after we could see a good mob working their way along the river edge. It took them about 15 minutes to close in and drop down to the water directly below us. Dad was positioned about 7 metres off their exit trail and things were looking good. Suddenly a massive tree must of come crashing down over the river resulting in goats going everywhere. Dad had goats almost within touching distance but could not discern which ones had kids and which ones didn’t so decided not to take a shot.

It was a fitting end to the hunt with dad completely happy in his decisions not to take any shots. To me that’s the difference between being a hunter and just a shooter. Another great night was spent around the campfire before hitting the beds. The usual cockatoo alarm clock woke us in the morning. We spent a leisurely few hours before breaking camp and closing the book on another traditional bowhunting adventure.

Mind Over Muscle Sports Kinesiologist

Peter Padewski www.peteal.com

Treatment for Hunters with Injuries. Train-ing to Rehabilitate. Strengthening for Hunts . Mind Over Muscle works with you to achieve

results. Available To You Anywhere.

02 4885 2490 [email protected]


For full details on the Expo call 0415 890 940


I was born in 1963 in Canley Vale NSW into a Euro-pean migrant family. My very first interest in health came about due to movies I was watching in black and white with Steve Reeves as Hercules. I decided to cre-ate my own weights out of bricks, stones and using a swing and later making concrete blocks. As European parents are strict with work duties, every weekend and holidays they assigned tasks for me to do, which cre-ated a fantastic work ethic, I incorporated as training.

I then began to research more, about health and training and absorb any knowledge I could. Mostly books, as no computers were around then. Amazingly, I conned my parents into buying me a bull worker. I per-formed all the exercises and developed my own from there on. My body began to grow and I needed more training so I joined the Police Boys Club in Cabramatta. Here, I, was introduced to my first iron weights. I loved it from the first session at 14 years of age.

Never liking school, I only enjoyed two subjects, sports and lunch. I exceeded in both these subjects including training with weights. I eventually left school and I was employed in the construction industry as a concrete cutter, as I loved physical work. Picking up concrete was like picking up weights. My body had now grown to 108 kilos at the age of 18 and it was all mus-cle. This was my life. I lived and breathed training in bodybuilding. I trained 5 -6 days per week and worked 6 days per week as well as playing grade level football. We were never warned, of over training, but encour-aged to get bigger and stronger. I did this for over 20 years.

Due to physical demand in the construction industry of constantly lifting, bending, carrying heavy dead ob-jects like concrete, it took a toll on my spine. This article leads us into writing about spinal injuries. My wife Teal discovered Sports Kinesiology by accident and found it helped immensely with her injuries. I was very skeptical

Sports Kinesiologist Peter Padewski and Pilates/Fitness instructor Teal con-tinue on their quest to help us achieve our full potential whether in the field

or just everyday life.

in the beginning and it took a while before I tried it. Still not sure if it worked for me, I knew I had to change my career. I only wanted to study fitness. Teal encouraged me to look at studying this tech-nique. I enjoyed anatomy, physiology, and nutrition along with hands on components of the course. 2 years later, I graduated in a Diploma of Sports Kine-siology. At this very moment, I remembered telling my parents when I was younger I wanted to become a doctor. It is amazing the path you take in life. I am not a doctor but I am a practitioner in natural thera-pies.

In this article we are looking at back injuries mostly lower back. Firstly, we are looking at stretching ex-ercises and core exercises that helped me. Every-one is different and every injury is different. If you are uncertain with how to do these exercises, please contact our office.

These stretches are my favorites for my specific injuries. If you choose to try these exercises, re-member to stop if you feel any pain in your body.


Piriformus Stretch.

Targeting – Piriformus and very good for sciatica. Either on a ball or edge of chair.

Quadriceps Stretch. Targeting the quads and hip flexors. Tuck butt under for more stretch in the quad.

Hamstring Stretch. Targeting – Hamstrings and lower back.

Lying Hip Rotation. Targeting – Gluteals – Hamstrings

– Abductors


Lattissimus Dorsi Stretch. Target-ing Latts, Intercostals, Groin Mus-

Hip Flexors. Targeting – Pso as, Iliacus, Rectus Femorus, Sartorious

Cobra Stretch. Targeting – Abdomi-nals


There’s nothing more impressive than an awe-some trophy mount. Not only is it a nice addition to any room but it’s also a great reminder of your hunting experience. In my travels as a taxidermist, I’ve seen and mounted a fair few trophy animals. From Elk, and Buffalo…. To Kudu and Mouflon. I’ve seen impres-sive racks, and high scoring horns. But the memo-rable trophies are not necessarily the highest scor-ers. Great trophies come in all shapes and sizes. They tell a story and evoke memories. But too of-ten, they lose quality and are even ruined due to a lack of preparation on the hunter’s part and poor handling in the field. A great trophy mount really starts to take shape before you’ve even packed for the hunt. Prepara-tion is the key and it’s good to make a habit of tak-ing care of your trophies from the word go. Make sure you pack your field care essentials- Salt, rub-ber gloves, a hessian sack, good knives and a sharpener or steel, ear openers (if you have them) and a screw driver for prising skin off around ant-lers and horns.

One of the most important tools is your knife and I’m often asked which knives I recommend for skinning. Well I do have my favourites, but knives are a very personal tool. I know hunters that swear by their top of the range handcrafted knives and I’ve seen a whole elk skinned with a two-dollar box cutter as well. I find the boning knife to be pretty good for most skinning jobs and my favourite is the ‘Victorinox’. The shape is ideal and they hold their edge without needing sharpening; cape after cape. At around forty bux, they are cheap too. So losing one in the field is not so much of an issue. I save my good knives for special jobs but find that I still end up pulling out the cheap boning knives! Salt is another topic I am often asked about. You can get away with any sort of salt, but the one I recommend is called ‘Mermaid Fine Curing Salt’. It costs about ten bux for a twenty-five kilo sack and I buy it at a butchery supplies wholesaler. Pool salt is fine too… but the grains are large and rough. The fine grain salt makes for faster penetra-tion of the skin. Don’t be stingy with the salt. It’s cheap. Always use a plentiful clean batch and make sure you rub it into all the nooks and cran-nies. Try to make a habit of wearing gloves too. Animals can carry all sorts of nasties…. especially pigs!

Taxidermist Sascha Smith takes us through the fundamental steps to proper field preparation and care of your trophy animal ready for the trip to the Taxi-dermist.

By Taxidermist Sascha Smith


prep, you can apply them to any hunt, anywhere in the world. I would strongly recommend taking some time out with your taxidermist or an experi-enced friend to learn the basics of skinning and field care. Then you’ll be ready for any situation!

Happy Hunting- Sash Taxidermist Sascha Smith is based in Narra-been in Sydney. You inquiries are welcome any time. 0421 277 304 www.taxidermistsaschasmith.com

Ear openers or ear pliers can be ordered through your taxidermist. They make the mundane job of turning ears a lot easier and are great for all skinners; from beginner to expert. Turning the ears faster and right to the edges also helps to avoid hair slip on the ears. There is a bit of an art to us-ing the ear pliers but your taxidermist can show you how it’s done. In the last article, I touched on the importance of getting the skin off straight away…. especially if it’s hot or humid….then letting it cool and either salting or freezing it immediately. A properly pre-pared cape makes for a higher quality trophy mount. Bacteria start to grow on the skin immedi-ately after death and during the hotter summer months, this can cause spoilage or ‘hair slip’ pretty quickly. A lot of slip will render the cape useless. If you know how to cape, then you’ll know all the ins and out of salting so I won’t go into all that here. But if you don’t know how to skin and turn the face, then the cape will have to go straight to the taxidermist or into a freezer. The cape should be sealed in a good plastic bag before freezing. I’m often asked how long an animal or raw skins can be left out of the salt or freezer before they start to slip. The answer is not very long! Cooler weather will buy you more time but ideally, fresh skins, capes and unskinned animals need to be salted or frozen straight away. Ultimately, the best preparation a hunter can have is to learn how to skin. This way, you can be totally self -sufficient and won’t be left chasing up a freezer in the middle of nowhere! This is a really common scenario and I take a lot of calls from guys who’ve harvested animals and don’t know what to do with them next. Once you know the basics of skinning and field


There are no antlers here. You'll find these words somewhat devoid of tusks, horns or near death adven-ture. I'm thinking of a simpler outdoor escapade. I am by nature a hunter, I spend most of my waking hours trying to find more time to spend outdoors. Whether it be fishing, or stalking through frosted forests, I will always be in pursuit of game. In these days of computer games and shopping centres, mobile phones and stress, hunting is a much needed part of my life. In some very important ways it defines me and as such, when afield I try and remem-ber one thing amidst the concentration, oft timed physical exertion and cold nights... I try to remember to have fun. In searching for "fun" I return time and again to hunting rabbits. They are plentiful, taste good and for an archer they are worthy of pursuit. Too often have I been in a hunting camp where for my liking things have become too serious. My fellow bowman have become so entrenched in the taking of "game" that they might well turn with scorn at the long eared fel-lows bolting amidst the knee high scrub before them, impatient for the want of antler and horn. Perhaps slow down ... breath a little and concentrate a bit more on the smaller things around you. A bowshot rabbit is (for want of a better word) a trophy. Stalking him can take great patience and cunning, loosing your arrows at him successfully will take skill and perhaps, given his ability to make his getaway both fast and surpris-ingly clever, just a little luck. Upon retrieving our na-tions most unwanted guest, he can and will make great table fare. He will be the training ground in both our own field craft and that of the youngsters and new hunters we take afield (you do make an effort to take "newbies" into the bush don't you?). As a student of nature, the resilient rabbit and his adaptability is a testament to his, albeit unwanted, sur-vival. I have found him, hunted him, eaten him and been so very frustrated by him from one end of this country to the other. The rabbit gives us reason to get afield in a way which seems so much less "serious"

Outback Broadheads PH: 0417833153 http://users.ncable.net.au/~woody/

By Ben Mayer

Ben Mayer sheds a little light on why many of us Trad shooters consider the humble bunny a worthy trophy.


than so many of our other outdoor pursuits seem to have become. And you won't have to look too far, he'll be there. Last year I spent 5 days above the snow line ready to chase my revered Sambar in the hope of a years worth of venison in the freezer. I had spent some months getting arrows ready, searching maps and scouting and preparing 'heavy' tackle, my equipment ready and tuned. Instead, at the first sign of scratchings and a fleeting glance at those seemingly unwieldy ears (they are that big for a reason!) I found myself chasing rabbits across the mountain tops, under those forebod-ing grand canopies and across snow dusted clearings ... stump shooting my way from burrow to burrow. With my hunting partner just across the gully, hot tea waiting over the fire and tomorrows promise of more rabbits, missed shots and quiet stalks ... it came back to me like the proverbial bolt of lightning as to why I go hunt-ing in the first place. Is there a better way to spend time afield? I will always be a deer stalker. I was taught by my Dad the rights and wrongs, how to’s and what for’s in the Victorian High Country. I also love hunting our wild pigs anywhere I can find them, be they the dusty boars of our inland red soil or the sneaky fellows who haunt our high country forests. It is, as they say, "in my blood". But I was taught my most important lessons chasing rabbits. I gained a love of hunting and nature’s brilliance, in and of itself, as an effort kept in step with the wild places and the creatures that live there... hunt-ing is an effort, a predetermined attempt to take game which should never be judged by outcome. Perhaps more so when hunting with a stick and string.

My early rabbit hunts gave me humbling lessons that stay with me every time I draw my bow. I was taught that life is precious, yes even that of our feral animal population, and if any life is taken whilst hunting it should be with dignity and respect. I was taught that rabbits should, within all practical reason, be eaten and if possible skins utilized. That these little “pests" are a destructive force in our environment that have proven to be, as a species, nigh on indestructible. And my own

experience has shown me that they are the perfect challenge for the 'trad' archer... the guy or girl who limits their chances when hunting by defining his hunting ethic with his choice of weapon. Don't let this hold you back ... the longbow and re-curve are the perfect foil to the rabbits ability to give awkward and rushed chances ... moving shots, particu-larly at close range are the forte of the trad archer and if available grab some lighter weight bows and cheap arrows and invite some friends or youngsters to that local 'bunny patch'. You know the ones I mean, those who seem guiltily interested in your stories of longbows and hunting. It's a responsibility when doing this, show-ing people, particularly youngsters the why's, how's and where's, but ultimately rewarding, often humbling ex-perience. Did I say 'cheap arrows'?..... Again and again the rabbit may prove himself a wor-thy teacher , able adversary and hopefully, good eating. So strap on that back quiver, chock full of broadheads and blunts and get chasing. When that big ol' boar has you winded and you start to get despondent...back track a little to that spot where ol' Mr Rabbit bid you good morning earlier .. he won't be far away and when the two of you again cross paths... remember ... a little reverence please. Me, well..... the spaniel at my feet has spied my quiver and Longbow by the door, his tail has wagged and he heads outside to wait impatiently for me ... seems wrong to deny him a run across the paddock does it not ? ... Perhaps, just this once, I might actually get one before he does .....


Hello all … I am really excited to announce Rod Jenkins, as seen in Masters of the Barebow Vol. 1,2 & 3 will be coming to Australia to run a couple of clinics in early August this year. Rod will be holding two clin-ics, the first on the 7th and 8th of August and the second on the 14th and 15th of August. The clinics will be held one hour outside of Mel-bourne in picturesque Daylesford Victoria and all food, accommodation, and Rod's coaching will be included in the cost. There will be both, a multi room share house and separate bunkroom style rooms available. There will also be access to other activities, includ-ing horse riding, golf, fishing and access to small game hunting only minutes away from the ranch. We will likely hold a rabbit hunt for those visi-tors interested. Other hunting opportunities can be arranged for those travelling from interstate and overseas.

We are lucky to have Rod travelling out so be sure to take advantage of this special opportunity. PLACES ARE VERY LIMITED AND WE ALREADY HAVE BOOKINGS, SO IF INTERESTED PLEASE contact myself or Jason ASAP!!! Cost inc. coaching, accommodation and meals (aside from the Saturday night ... it'll be a pub meal for those interested).... will be $ 400.00 Any and all enquiries can be directed via email... [email protected] Or for a quicker response Ben Maher 0421287554 Or Jason "Cheech" Edwards on 0428359859

Brought to you by Ben Mayer and Jason Edwards


Terry Curry took this mid sized pig with his Lewis Hollow TD Longbow, Goldtip Shafts and Outback Supreme broadhead.

Deep in sleep, some unsuspect-ing bacon. Photo by Terry Curry

The editor took this young nanny with his Great Plains Recurve, Carbon Express shafts and Outback Supreme broadhead

Paul Baumgartner With his Steve Jawerth “The Moose” Longbow

Paul Baumgartner’s Steve Jawerth Longbow. 46#@28”

Alex the Lion taking a hammering by Bill Van Oosten

Rabbit taken by Bill Van Oosten us-ing his Samick Phantom Take Down Recurve.

Luke Morgan takes in the view back-packing into Sambar country



Boar taken with a Checkmate Hunter II Recurve, GT Tradi-tional shafts and 130gr Ribtec broadhead on a 100gr brass in-sert

January/February 2010

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March/April 2010 • HEALTH AND FITNESS • GEAR REVIEWS • MORE BOWHUNTING

ADVENTURES • WHAT’S IN YOUR PACK

• PLUS MUCH MORE

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Stikbow Hunter eMag Jan Feb 2010