Get better soon mgz.
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Went out for a stroll last night after hares. Had a family friend along again doing the shooting with his new Howa .223. Got fogged out after battling it for 2 hours but managed two pigeons, a plover, five hares and two hedgehogs. I thought it was interesting that in the green light the plovers have eye shine. Great wee torch from Piercing The Darkness actually did pretty well in the murky fog. Attachment 239602Attachment 239603
107 bunnies and 2 roos introduced to the 223 yesterday evening. First walkaround chasing rabbits for far too long. Took a little while to get my trigger finger fully recalibrated to ‘rabbit accurate’, but settled in nicely. Plenty of half-size juveniles that really add to the challenge when at distance.
Kneeling/sitting height shooting sticks were king for that high-country shooting, like usual. Left the bipod on from sighting-in, thinking ‘this might be the time I actually use it.’ Nope. Saw one black bunny, but left it in peace to challenge the natural order.
In the photo with rifle in shot, must have fired close to 30 rounds before shifting from there, as every minute or two another couple would pop out or move around.
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Not much green stuff in there,rabbits will thin out soon,or starve.Good shooting with bunnys,they certainly dial you in.
Good night last night. The crew was reduced to two and we shot to 4:30 in the morning. Bit of a mop up after a fuller crew shot about 70 last week. Started pretty quiet with me reaching 10 in about 2 hours covering the ground shot last week. Then I swapped over to driver duties and mate shot at least 76 over un-shot territory. We kept forgetting to count when the action got heated. The actual total was most likely over 100 considering the number of empty cases retrieved and success rate of second shooter.
A good shoot - Alan says 110! Missed this one too after tooth extraction. Dammit!
Team doing well since lambing - 4 outings in 7 weeks for 308 bunnies = 77 average. Almost all 223, with few 17HMR and 12g. That's good for our local Cantab sites.
Tekapo/McKenzie trips starting in January. Bunnies really sharpen you up, but we're looking forward to the wallabies/deer down there too. Mmmmmm!
Tik Tok or Trebly..............Converted!
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Got out for a walk with the Fox 222 recently.
Shot placement was a bit rusty to start, improved as the evening went on.
5 in total, must get back there again as plenty bouncing around.
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Stupid aussie flys towards the house while i'm on the deck.
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On ya Dundee. Evil little bastard things they are.
Cheers Rushy hope you and your family have a good one.
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Neighbours home but know cop cars up here yet,gonna take it down to the creek to feed the eels.
First shot for 2024 and started the year in style
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@akaroa1
Very cool indeed.
First kill of 2024, causing havoc in the Olds orchard
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I've hunted every day of 2024. 7 rabbits before dinner yesterday and 5 on new years day.
First 3, 10 minutes into the hunt.
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Did a return trip to the other end of the farm Tuesday evening into Wednesday morning. Reduced to the two man crew again. I shot with the 22WMR in quite windy conditions from 10:00pm to 12:30am when I declared on 40 when we swapped duties. AJ took over shooting and while there were critters about we just kept going. After about an hour the wind dropped and we eventually finished at 6:17am with AJ on 106. We only covered about 25% of the place so will have to return again shortly. There were a lot of very small rabbits. Boy are those energetic LITTLE targets!
Well done - another shoot I missed.... aaargh!! 146 very good effort for that site just 45 min from Chch.
Good to hear the 22 magnum got some use too - as well as the 223.
Good start to this new season for team with 455 bunnies accounted for in 5 outings since lambing = average 91. Nothing like the numbers of a few years back but good tally for our local farms. Definitely dryer el nino weather pattern down here in Cantab so expecting a very busy shooting season. 2-3000 minimum - plus wallabies and deer. Could be more depending on Tekapo/McKenzie visits..
First shoot for the year with ruger last night. Ive tried him off the lead and hes coming on really well. Got 43 possums last night and ruger goes and gets them but knows not to go through fences which is good...
Just lately I've been granted access to a wee block of around 1000Ha :D
So have been out a couple of times in the last fortnight, looking for goats and bowling some roo's. Been a good opportunity to put the Franchi through it's paces at range, dropped a couple at just over 200m and then this head shot and another at just on 100m. Been a good confidence boosting exercise to show me that myself and my gun can shoot well. Next mission is to knock over some fallow that are nibbling on the young pines that have been planted out :thumbsup: Hope y'all been getting out there yourselves
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1000Ha and pines,good luck with the fallow.
80 more bunnies yesterday evening. (83 if you include the 3 with the truck on the way home)
Only missed five shots all night, which I’m particularly happy about. Two of those were due to trying to punch the round through matagouri to reach the rabbit on the other side.. I’ll learn one day.
Also proud of this one - double headshot two-fer.
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Not as many as you guys down South but managed 41 Rabbits and 2 Hedgehogs over 2 nights. 3 hours total with the PCP. All with a view of the lake. My last night tonight hoping to break 50 total before we have to go home.https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/202...9ab0a5a348.jpghttps://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/202...50b0830519.jpg
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These 6 pesties :)
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Those re not pests. They are delightfully delectable deliciousness in a shell.
Chilling out before bed at 3.34am - a very pleasant shoot tonight on a site near Christchurch. Had opportunity to play with my Howa 1500 223 after shooting it in on range recently - thoroughly enjoyed it! Very accurate rifle.
Boys shot 93 in 4.5 hours wandering big farm area in the truck. Thermal and spotlights, couple of 223s, and @gadgetman busy on the 22 magnum.
Always good to get out with a good bunch of mates, and wander some delightful terrain. Good for the soul..
Bloody cat brought it in live ,3 am in the morning chased it with a broom for a bit until light bulb moment ,fucken slug gun sacked it [emoji106]Attachment 241442
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Aahh!! That's funny ... I have your Marlin!!! Grabbed the wrong gunbag!
Will get it over this weekend - poss this arvo if you're home :P
Was rather funny , although the wife was crying absolutely petrified she was up on the kitchen bench,both cats had it bailed up under a wicker basket just a case of sliding barrel in to eight inches off and pulled the trigger .Kind off like a pig hunt in mini scale
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If you call them pests feel free to drop them off at mine, I'll assist with disposal...
Been doing ok on the f**king rosellas this year so far, knocked off a breeding pair on the 5th and picked off another pair at lunchtime today - out of the same apple tree ironically. I haven't seen such helpful behaviour out of the damn fruit thieves like that before, shoot the first one and drop it and the second flies down and lands looking down at it's mate wondering why they've decided to have a little lie down... Thank you, I'll accept that. Using a .177 air rifle with flat nose target pellets (as the pointed hunting jobs cut straight through rosellas without dropping them cleanly leading to wounded birds). The interesting thing I've found is you never ever get all of the parrots - once you've got the numbers down the remainder seem to sod off to less risky parts of town giving you a several-month break without fruit trees getting hammered. Then a new batch take up residence followed by a flurry of 'on the job training' letting them know where they are welcome to land and where they find things flying through or past if I don't do my job...
It's a bit of a shame, the wife loves birds and likes looking at them but absolutely cannot tolerate what the rosellas do to her garden which she loves more than birds! But for those that don't know, rosellas can strip a fruit tree in under five minutes dropping everything onto the ground and rather than flying down like most birds they just move to the next fruit and tear that off too. Total wastage!
Don't do what I did with the first one the damn cat brought in, pinned it to the wall with the diving handspear then got cute with the wife and made her deal with it for me while I tried not to laugh. Took me a few hours to clean the blood up and fix the eyes-closed stabs with the kitchen knife done amid screams and retches. She's still pissed off about that but I claimed I couldn't let they weight off the spear (it was true as the rat was pinned by the shoulder fluff roll). In retrospect it would have been smarter to grab the thing with pliers and deal with it outside as the mess was horrific...