HunterFisher

All about Hunting in Australia

Since I have been here I have mainly been involved with Bow Hunting. This is because after many years of rifle hunting in NZ, I decided I really wanted to concentrate on taking a few game animals with the bow. I can tell you it's very addictive and hard to go back to the rifle once you have made a clean kill with the bow.

I have recently got my shooters licence in QLD and still enjoy shooting. The Howard Government severerly changed gun laws in Australia for the worse. There was a buy back program and you cant even on a Ruger 10/22 anymore. Still it's not as bad as some make out and if you are prepared to jump through all the hoops, you can still own some types of firearms for recreational purposes.

I would have to say overall, its much harder in Aus then in NZ to find places to hunt. In QLD where I live, there is no hunting on public state forests. You will need to find a property owner that will let you on and hunt. There are huge stations that have good populations of pigs and deer. However the land owners have got onto the fact that there is a buck to be made out of hunting and guides have got exclusive rights on most of the good properties. A typical example of this would be the Charters Towers chital deer areas, which have mostly been exclusively grabbed up by hunting guides.

This means you may need to employ the services of a hunting guide if you want to hunt the likes of trophy chital etc.

This tusky Boar was arrowed in the Cape York region of Australia. Probably the mecca for bow hunters and big boars....