Wallabie Hunting Trip Wallabie Hunting Trip

The second Club Hunt for the year snuck up on us and was bashing on the door. This time we headed down to the Hakataramea area to hunt wallabies. ‘Hunt’ might be an understatement for one group, it may as well have been classed as a ‘shoot’! The LU Hunting Club had access to four different farms in the area. This should have meant that the total number of wallabies should have been a lot higher, but that was to be said elsewhere.

We had access to the farms on the 13th and 14th of May. Three trucks headed to each farm, either with 4 or 5 people per truck. Some of the groups were lucky enough to get permission to head to the farms on Friday evening. Hurstlea station and half of Station Peak shot down on Friday night. This was going to prove very beneficial for Hurstlea Station. Arriving at roughly 8:15 pm, we dropped all our gear and shot into the hills. We had two trucks full, one good spotlight (and one average one), and a thermal to top it off. As it was our first time on the farm for everyone. We were all unsure of what to expect.

We had a bit of a slow start, bumping into a few wallabies but not managing to get a shot away. We eventually found some on one of the hillsides. So, the .243 was put into action, drilling the first wallaby of the trip. After that first shot and shots did not stop for the rest of the evening. Taking down about 25 wallabies that night and countless numbers of hares.

The next day was proving to be very slow with not much action happening. We caught up with the owner of the station, which proved beneficial for us as he permitted us to hunt on the home block. So, the decision was made to have an early dinner and head out spotlighting before it got dark. After having an early dinner, everyone loaded into the trucks and we headed down to the home block. We went around the block trying to find any wallabies we could. We managed to pick up a handful before we decide to head back to where we were the night prior. As we were leaving the home block we bumped into a young fallow buck on the road, which was nice to see. When we got back to the main block, we headed up to where we were the night before. Long and behold the wallabies were all back in the same area as the night before! Guns started blazing and empty shells started landing across the back of the truck and rolling down the windscreen! The night was proving to be very successful! We managed to find a few more paddocks that we did not hunt the night before, which were holding good numbers. With the number of wallabies that we were seeing and the amount of shooting that was happening, the ammunition stock was slowly dwindling, to the point, we were trying to find spares in any of the trucks! We eventually wrapped up the spotlighting and called it a night due to practically running out of ammunition! The evening did not finish there and ran into the early hours of Sunday morning, with everyone getting up well after the planned time. All in all, everyone had an awesome trip, and nearly everyone at Hurstlea Station who had not got a wallaby before now had.

The official count for Hurstlea was 70 wallabies and a whole heap of hares!