my guide, Chris Rhodes of Rockjaw Tours, already had a rental car wait- ing for me. I followed Chris into the township of Lady Barron where a very comfortable two-bedroom house would be my home over the next four days. My first indication that the hunting on Flinders was going to be great was the number of road kill wallabies I noticed on the side of the road leading out of the airport. There are so many of these pests that almost all of the cars here are fitted with a metal “wallaby guard” to protect them from the numerous wal- laby encounters on the road. On Flinders, wallaby hunting is done year round at night using a 4WD vehicle and a spotlight. Hunting in this manner requires a special spotlight- ing permit issued by the Australian government. Chris takes care of all the arrangements and I did not even need to purchase a hunting license. A typi- cal night of hunting in the summertime starts around 9:00 p.m. All shooting is done out the window of the vehicle, with shots ranging in distance from 10 to 125 yards. Most of my shooting was done around 75 yards. The caliber of choice is a 17 HMR, which is more than adequate for both the Rufus and Ben- nett’s wallabies. Even with fast-paced shooting, the diminutive rimfire does not heat the barrel sufficiently to warrant a break in the action. Hunting wallabies was my first introduction to the 17 HMR, and since then I have purchased a CZ and Volquartsen in 17 HMR to use on gophers in Canada. It is a great round with no recoil and a very quiet report. The two times I have visited
Flinders has been in the month of Janu- ary, which is in the middle of summer for Australia. My hunting continued until a little after midnight and sometimes would cover two or more farmers’ prop- erty. In Australia they refer to individual fenced-in fields as “paddocks” and we would cover a dozen or more paddocks in a night of hunting. Usually within two or three minutes into the hunt we would spot our first wallaby. Chris would stop the vehicle, and using the side view mirror as a rest I would take aim at the neck of the wallaby. If I did not hit the wallaby it normally would run off but sometimes if I missed over the animal’s head I would get another chance. Wallabies resemble miniature kangaroos and when they “run” they
really are just hopping. If the animal was running directly away from me I had a reasonable chance of hitting it but passing shots were more difficult. On all my hunts the action was consistent and sometimes nonstop. On the first hunt I killed 57 wallabies within an hour and got exactly 100 that night after a little over three hours of hunting. On most occasions one shot to the neck or head of a wallaby results in instant death, but sometimes when the animal has only the back to you a spine or heart shot is needed. In this case a follow-up shot may be required. In some paddocks there can be several groups of both Rufus and Bennett’s wallabies and it can get pretty exciting trying to shoot as many as possible before they all flee for cover. A 10-yard shot at a Rufus may be imme- diately followed by a 100-yard shot at a Bennett’s. I was glad that my rifle had a variable power scope.
Because getting a firearm into
Australia is fairly difficult, I used a bolt-action Anschutz rifle (that belongs to Chris) fitted with a Leupold scope. This combination proved deadly on wallabies. I have hunted rabbits, prairie dogs and Richardson’s ground squirrels, and in my opinion the wallaby is the most fun of the lot to hunt. Although the wallaby is much larger than a prairie dog or gopher, they do not wait around for second shots and a challenging running shot sometimes is required.
In addition to wallaby hunting at night, Chris also offers Cape Barren goose hunts during the day. This type of goose hunting is more like a driven pheasant hunt whereby the geese are driven toward a group of shooters. There is a daily limit of eight birds and each bird may weigh up to 18 pounds. During the winter months Chris also
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offers wild quail hunting. Combining a daytime goose or quail hunt with a night wallaby hunt would satisfy even the most serious sportsman. Although my schedule allowed me to visit Australia only in January, probably the best time to go there is in June to November. During this time the grass is shorter, making the animals easier to see, and it is possible to start the hunt as early as 6:00 p.m. Australia is a long way from the
United States, and getting there requires a bit of traveling. The country offers beautiful scenery, friendly people and a chance to experience some of the most unusual high volume varmint hunting in the world. I told Chris I wanted to write an article for The Varmint Hunter Magazine but I did not want to let the rest of the world know about this place and decimate the local wallaby popu- lation. His response was that wallaby hunting could go on 52 weeks a year and still not impact the population. I know from hunting doves in Argentina that sometimes even considerable hunting pressure does not make a dent in the number of animals.
For more information about hunt-
ing wallabies on Flinders Island, please visit the Rockjaw Tours Website at www.
rockjawtours.com.au or email Chris at
chris_rhodes@bigpond.com.
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