Hey everyone, it's been a while but thought I'd pop by and say G'day.
Work has kept me pretty busy the past few years, but I normally get out for one decent adventure each year. It's just that I've been unsuccessful those hunts though.
A couple of good mates (Jezza and Reithy) reached out and invited me on a hunt for Feral Goats up in our mountainous terrain here on the Great Dividing Range. All three of us hunting own Big Jim Thunderchilds, so we decided on a Big Jim Goat hunt.
Recently another mate started making self bows and gave one to me, so I took it along as well to try and get a Billy with that one. I made up a new batch of woods to go with the selfbow using some natural Turkey feathers, some creative painting and some Ribteks passed down to my from a good friend who passed away last year.
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We rocked up to the property on Friday afternoon and set ourselves up in the cabin. Got the fire going, cooked up dinner, maybe a few sneaky beers and first light Saturday we were off.
It was cold and windy, and the Goats weren't keen on leaving the shelter of the thick bush.
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Covering the ground with binoculars won out in the end with some spotted on a distant hill.
We set off and caught up with them in the thick tea tree. A young Nanny fed towards me and she became my first selfbow kill.
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More Goats made their presence known, with a few handy Billies amongst them. A bit of cat and mouse ensured as they fed along, but we managed to get in front of the feeding mob.
Reithy was first up, and as a one horned fella walked past at 20, I witnessed one of the most emphatic kills I've seen. The Billy dropped on the spot, his legs folding under him as the arrow took out both lungs.
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The Billy had completely snapped one horn off fighting, but Reithy was pretty happy with himself, and rightly so.
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We continued after the remainder, as they fed unaware of their companions demise. Another white Billy was preoccupied browsing and allowed me to get very close. I drew the Osage selfbow back and sent the Ribtek on its way, quickly downing a representative Billy.
I was happy to get a decent one with the selfbow, and looked up at the sky and let Tom know his broadheads were still going strong.
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Past my bedtime now, so I'll continue tomorrow.
Cheers,
Memo.
Nice looking Osage bow. How hard is Osage to get in Australia?
Great hunt so far! Thanks for sharing it with us! Nice looking arrows and cool osage selfbow!
Thanks for sharing :clapper: :clapper: :clapper:
Congrats on your first 2 selfbow kills. Looks like cool country to hunt in. Thanks for sharing. :thumbsup:
AWESOME post! thank you for sharing your adventure!
This is awesome to see .
Steve is one of 'the' tradbow people here in Oz. Few if any are more respected or liked.
And now he goes and gets it done with a selfbow.
Nope, not jealous 🤗
I really enjoyed this story. Thanks for taking the time to write it.
Two questions tho.
1. What weight bows do you usually shoot for goats?
2. What is a sneaky beer?
Thanks again!
Enjoyed the post. That self bow has good mojo.
:campfire: Great hunt so far :campfire:
Congrats! Thanks for sharing!
Really neat hunt. Congrats and thanks for sharing with us!
:campfire:
Great thread guys!!! Great job also!!! Thanks for sharing.
Nothing wrong with a nanny, I killed on that looks just like yours in TX years ago. Big horned and very unique so I got her mounted. :campfire:
Good stuff Memo!
Congrats
This hunt is on my list to do.
Quote from: rainman on October 23, 2025, 09:59:01 AMNice looking Osage bow. How hard is Osage to get in Australia?
Hey Rainman,
It's certainly not common. Not easily found, but some occasionally there are a few trees around.
MnFn,
A "sneaky beer" refers to having a beer in an informal, casual or impromptu scenario. Rather than going to a bar and drinking with friends, it would be like visiting a friend in the middle of the day and he'd say " do you want a sneaky beer?"
Hopefully my Australian makes sense, haha.
Tradbowhunter,
You would be more than welcome if you ever made it here to come for a hunt like this.
For those of you outside of Australia, Ben Maher is a great credit to our Traditional Bowhunting community. Well respected by some, loved by many and envied by all left handers for his bow collection. Proud to call him a mate.
Thanks everyone for the kind words, I best get back to the tale.
After ticking off the Selfbow Billy from the list, Jez and Reithy were giving me some ribbing about "putting that toy away and get your real bow"
The Thunderchild was strung up, and we set off to find a good Billy.
A mob was located with a couple of likely targets.
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Half an hour of cat and mouse later, the wind swirled and they decided to depart. Continuing on we passed numerous mobs of Nannies and young Billies, but the big fellas were scarce. We suspected that the mustering of the goats had taken a toll. They are rounded up by dogs or on motorbike and sold to the Abbitoirs. Prices are by the kilo, so often they sell the mature Billies and leave the nannies and immature ones to repopulate.
Finally we found a mob that had a pure black Billy with horns around 32" spread.
I quickly closed the gap and sent an arrow into him quartering with a loud crack.
I thought I'd smoked him, and he walked behind a bush. Jez called good shot, and we were high fiving until he walked out the other side and took off with the rest of the Billies. Followed him up to get another arrow into him but he dissapeared.
Upon reflection, he had his left foreleg back when I shot, and the arrow cracked him on the point of the elbow.
The daylight was fading, so we headed back to the cabin to cook up dinner and a few sneaky bourbons this time MnFn, haha.
The next day we headed to a neighbouring property the boys had access to in the hope there'd be some big fellas around. It was fairly fresh as the sun came up, we spotted plenty of nannies and young billies again, but had to search hard for some quality.
We eventually spotted some and a plan was hatched. We found them near the top of a hill, circled around to get the wind right and closed in to their location. A straggler was off to the side of the mob and he spotted us closing in. The boys told me to cut around and close in, while they were pinned down.
I snuck off, and hoped to cut off their escape route. A few minutes later, they came down the trail. I quickly crawled towards a downed tree for cover, only to find the indescribable joy of extracting tiger pear cactus from my leg.
One Billy spotted me trying to hide, keep quiet and pull the offending item off me. The boys could see that the Billies were holding up, so they made themselves visible from a distance to push the mob past the sharp eyed sentry.
As they came into range, there were two that stood out. One presented a broadside shot, which I took. They were all looking at me and at the noise of the shot, they moved. My shot hit too far back, a speculative shot as he ran off missed, but the initial shot hit him hard enough for him to fall behind. I closed the gap and thought I heart shot him, but the arrow must have hit the bottom of his chest behind his foreleg and ricochet down.
Sneaked in again and an identical shot, off the brisket. Well at least my grouping was good. Last arrow found the mark and he went down swiftly. Jez and Reithy arrived to congratulate me and hang crap on my fine one quiver kill.
He was the biggest one in the mob, and was 34" spread.
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Pressure off, we headed up a feeder gully and saw a small mob of Billies. Jez was up next and as he closed the gap, a decent Boar burst out of the grass. He kept to the creek line, so Reithy and myself make some ground in a beeline as he snaked his way along the creek.
He figured something wasn't right and burst out and headed for the tree line, with two arrows racing after him. Both were close misses, just over his back and as we picked them up they were stuck in the ground an inch apart.
Back out the way we came and a lone Billy was meandering along a fence line. Jez and Reithy closed in and Reithy got his shot away first and claimed a nice representative Billy.
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We drove to another part of the property glassing over mobs, looking for the big boys, when a mob of pigs were spotted. Bows were grabbed and we headed off to intercept. We closed the gap, but a sheep fence stopped them feeding right to us. We could see a hole in the fence further down and knew they'd come through that. As they went through at 25 yards we all drew and let rip a couple of arrows in the mayhem. No pigs were harmed, but we had a good laugh at the fun.
As we collected arrows, Jez mentioned that it looked like a good spot for a Fox whistle, so we set up and started calling. Sure enough, one materialised 10 yards in front of me,a quick shot was a very close miss. So much so that he yelped and jumped, ran 10 then stopped, only for two more arrows to fly at him. Reithy hit him, but too far back and he was lost to the long grass and blackberries.
We went back to the ute (pickip) and resharpened our arrows laughing at the fun of it all and poking fun at each other.
I had to snap a pic of it because that little 10 minute session was such a boost to us for all our looking. Not that we were down in the dumps, but just a great example of how fun shooting stickbows is with good friends.
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Back to the ute, covering more ground, glassing as we went. A few Billies were spotted and Jez was up.
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As he stalked in two really good ones fed out of the treeline and joined them. The big white one was his target now.
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The big Ginger Ninja moved in and smoked the curly white Billy. Dropping him virtually on the spot.
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Quote from: MnFn on October 29, 2025, 07:42:18 AMI really enjoyed this story. Thanks for taking the time to write it.
Two questions tho.
1. What weight bows do you usually shoot for goats?
2. What is a sneaky beer?
Thanks again!
I got so carried away with the sneaky beer, I forgot to say 50lbs is around average for Goats, but you could probably have no dramas with a good #45 set up.
In keeping with our jovial weekend, Jezzas pic of his Billy seemed serious so we said " How about your best thousand yard stare"
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Laughing follows,
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That's better.
We drove the ute down a rough fire trail to pick up the Jez while he cut off the head.
A quick snap of the three Thunderchilds in the back with three Goat heads and three rough looking heads :biglaugh:
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Nothing sneaky about the beers back to camp - it was celebration time, the weekend was a great success. Great time had with good company. Sore jaws from laughing, a few kills under the belt, and an open fire back at camp to re live all the events from a great time.
I always liked the old photos from yesteryear of Australian bowhunters end of trip trophy pictures, and suggested to the boys we do one to remember a great trip.
After camp was packed up the following day,we headed down to the creek and set up the horns on a log amongst the She Oak trees and took one last picture.
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By my reckoning, I'd say there's probably a dozen, maybe two dozen Big Jim Thunderchilds here in Australia. So to get a picture like this is pretty special.
Thanks for reading, hope you enjoyed it.
Cheers,
Memo.
What a fantastic write up, and what an adventure! I'm not jealous in the least over here in the nanny state of the poms.
I ordered some broadheads from the states last year, customs deemed them pointy and sharp so destroyed.
Anyways, sorry got distracted , long may your freedoms Continue to enjoy such great times.
Again awesome hunt thank you for sharing story and photos.
Nice, fun hunt and looks like a great couple of days in the field. Are you leaving the meat on the ground and just taking the heads?
Quote from: 2wfstlhunting on November 10, 2025, 01:24:16 PMNice, fun hunt and looks like a great couple of days in the field. Are you leaving the meat on the ground and just taking the heads?
Yep, that's right. I intended to take one for meat, but the Nanny i got on the first day was in pretty poor condition, it wasn't worth butchering her.
The Kangaroos were in very high numbers, so there was too much competition for feed. The second property we went too had been shooting 'Roos and the Goats were in better condition, but we prioritised Horns over meat on that day.
Goat is actually really good eating, I rate it better than lamb.
Nice post. Big Thanks