Wilderlife
WKR
Hi all,
I've heard stuff like this brought up on a few North American podcasts and it's an idea that I've always wanted to explore.
This thread is by no means me wanting to get the ball rolling and start organising stuff; rather, it's just putting the feelers out there to see if this sort of this is intriguing to enough North Americans to maybe start to form friendships online and work towards something in the future.
A quick rundown about my situation in Australia.
We have limitless hunting for many of our game species over here. fallow deer in my particular area (New South Wales) are able to be hunted from March 1st to October 31st every year. They typically rut from late March to mid April. I have several private properties where I have great access to fallow deer. We have lots of public land available in my state but it's much harder to hunt - lots of artificial pine plantation. The other great public land access in Australia is down in Victoria where lots of people pursue sambar deer. I have some experience down there and could organise something, but it's not the stuff I do most of the time. In this area, both sambar and fallow deer are able to be hunted limitlessly year-round.
Other game species I regularly hunt include rabbits, hares, feral pigs and feral goats. The goats are off-limits in some areas as they are rounded up and sold, but I still hunt them in some spots where rounding them up would be too difficult. Everything else is totally fair game and I have lots of access to those species in various places.
I also regularly fish for murray cod - an Australian native fish that is capable of growing to a huge size. Not many people eat them over here as their populations don't have big runs like some of your fish over there. It's typically a catch and release type of deal, but I'm not against somebody wanting to eat one if they want.
What really gets me excited is the possibility of forming some friendships with people over in North America, who would love to come over here and be taken on some hunting/fishing trips, in exchange for being taken out in some of the Rocky Mountains after your typical game over there. I wouldn't necessarily expect to hunt the trophy of a lifetime by any means. For me, it's more about the friendships, locations, and experiences. Similarly, I couldn't guarantee anyone an enormous trophy boar, buck, or stag, but I could certainly guarantee being given plenty of opportunities to hunt plenty of animals and have a wonderful time.
I'm a school teacher so have 12 weeks leave every year that coincide with 4 different school holiday periods, so my schedule is flexible. I typically have holidays from late December to late January (5 weeks), late March to mid-April (2 weeks), early to mid July (2 weeks), and Mid to late September (2 weeks).
Lots of the logistics can be worked out later and there is plenty more I could discuss now but I might save it for people if they have particular questions they want answered. I can also see myself potentially being inundated with emails and friend requests but we should keep it fairly low key at least until some proper discussion has been had.
I like the idea of being 'looked after' over there, in the same way I would look after someone over here. There are lots of spots where we would camp out and the country is rugged, but nowhere I go in any of these particular spots requires a hike in where you'd backpack and camp at that spot for multiple nights. I have lots of places to stay near farmhouses, and where I can drive a vehicle to. Having said that, there are some spots that require a decent hike and I am going to likely hike to them and do some overnight backpack trips this year just because it'd be fun. At the same time, I have a lot of backpacking gear and would love to backpack into areas of the Rocky Mountains with someone who has experience.
Here are some pictures of areas I tend to spend a lot of time in. If you want to see more, check out my Instagram page.
I've heard stuff like this brought up on a few North American podcasts and it's an idea that I've always wanted to explore.
This thread is by no means me wanting to get the ball rolling and start organising stuff; rather, it's just putting the feelers out there to see if this sort of this is intriguing to enough North Americans to maybe start to form friendships online and work towards something in the future.
A quick rundown about my situation in Australia.
We have limitless hunting for many of our game species over here. fallow deer in my particular area (New South Wales) are able to be hunted from March 1st to October 31st every year. They typically rut from late March to mid April. I have several private properties where I have great access to fallow deer. We have lots of public land available in my state but it's much harder to hunt - lots of artificial pine plantation. The other great public land access in Australia is down in Victoria where lots of people pursue sambar deer. I have some experience down there and could organise something, but it's not the stuff I do most of the time. In this area, both sambar and fallow deer are able to be hunted limitlessly year-round.
Other game species I regularly hunt include rabbits, hares, feral pigs and feral goats. The goats are off-limits in some areas as they are rounded up and sold, but I still hunt them in some spots where rounding them up would be too difficult. Everything else is totally fair game and I have lots of access to those species in various places.
I also regularly fish for murray cod - an Australian native fish that is capable of growing to a huge size. Not many people eat them over here as their populations don't have big runs like some of your fish over there. It's typically a catch and release type of deal, but I'm not against somebody wanting to eat one if they want.
What really gets me excited is the possibility of forming some friendships with people over in North America, who would love to come over here and be taken on some hunting/fishing trips, in exchange for being taken out in some of the Rocky Mountains after your typical game over there. I wouldn't necessarily expect to hunt the trophy of a lifetime by any means. For me, it's more about the friendships, locations, and experiences. Similarly, I couldn't guarantee anyone an enormous trophy boar, buck, or stag, but I could certainly guarantee being given plenty of opportunities to hunt plenty of animals and have a wonderful time.
I'm a school teacher so have 12 weeks leave every year that coincide with 4 different school holiday periods, so my schedule is flexible. I typically have holidays from late December to late January (5 weeks), late March to mid-April (2 weeks), early to mid July (2 weeks), and Mid to late September (2 weeks).
Lots of the logistics can be worked out later and there is plenty more I could discuss now but I might save it for people if they have particular questions they want answered. I can also see myself potentially being inundated with emails and friend requests but we should keep it fairly low key at least until some proper discussion has been had.
I like the idea of being 'looked after' over there, in the same way I would look after someone over here. There are lots of spots where we would camp out and the country is rugged, but nowhere I go in any of these particular spots requires a hike in where you'd backpack and camp at that spot for multiple nights. I have lots of places to stay near farmhouses, and where I can drive a vehicle to. Having said that, there are some spots that require a decent hike and I am going to likely hike to them and do some overnight backpack trips this year just because it'd be fun. At the same time, I have a lot of backpacking gear and would love to backpack into areas of the Rocky Mountains with someone who has experience.
Here are some pictures of areas I tend to spend a lot of time in. If you want to see more, check out my Instagram page.
. This year will be the first time I bother buying one, as our bear populations are way up, but I still only average one bear siting in the field per year. Then again, I've never tried really looking for them.
