doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Cape Barren Geese, 2015

I've just returned from a few days on Flinders Island, in Bass Strait, between mainland SE Ausralia and Tasmania with a small group chasing Cape Barren Geese.

Here's a few pics:

Typical of the countryside the geese graze, where we find whatever cover we can to wait in � ditches, thistles etc. The geese tend to fly low, so their flight paths are shaped by trees, landscape etc.


�Rockjaw� doing the rounds on the quadbike, off to stir some more birds up to drive over us.


A skein of geese about to come in low and hard over the thistles I was using for cover on one particular morning. Note the ti-tree scrub to the left: the geese will normally come around them, rather than gain elevation and go over.


In a drainage ditch across a paddock, Jim waits�


�for these geese, which landed just short into a stiff breeze, to graze their way into range (and then misses!)


Steve was right under this mob


My first goose for the trip and the gun and cartridges which brought it down: 1880 W&C Scott toplever hammer single 10g 2 7/8�, 3 � dr 2F pushing 1 3/8oz #2 or BB (same one I re-browned a year or two back). 10g guns and BP are few and far between here, so the boys enjoyed the novelty of hearing and seeing that distinctive, chesty boom and plume of smoke from a "big" gun!


Obligatory artfully arranged gun and goose detail�


For scale; gun has a 34� barrel


Patches of remnant ti-tree habitat provide shelter for peacocks�

[img]http://i606.photobucket.com/albums/tt146/cadet450/11_zps2ef862cf.jpg[/img]

�like this young cock bagged by Will; Jim took another; Tony a double.

I wish I'd managed a peacock; compounded by the fact that we were given some tips about when and how to find them, but broke early � but that�s a lesson learned for the next time.
I wish I'd put the gun down just once and took up the camera to get a photo of geese coming in low and hard, then flaring at 5-10m when I rose to take the shot.
Apart from that, it was a ripper of a trip.

Hmm... not sure what's going on there...
Here's the peacock:

Great photos, cadet. I always enjoy seeing other new and "strange" lands that can be hunted. Handsome goose and .................about the peacock, how do they taste? Thanks for posting.

All my best, SRH

Ditto concerning Stan's comments. Nice looking goose and I've always wondered if peacocks were any good to eat?

Excellent eating; quite a pale meat.

Thanks. Maybe I will get the chance to try some someday. I just finished a plate of doves. Medium rare.

SRH

Excellent! I didn't even know they were still legal game. Makes me want to plan a trip.... Hah!

Destry

Not really game per se; they were hunted almost to extinction once, but subsequent conservation programmes have been so successful that in some places they are a pest when they graze and foul pasture etc, so limited culling under permit is used to disperse and control them.
Planning a trip?! www.rockjawtours.com.au

There are parts of suburban Los Angeles (Palos Verdes, Rolling Hills, San Marino, Pasadena) where peacocks are a nuisance. They are large, loud, messy, and aggressive, but the city governments don't let residents mess with them. There are wild peacocks roaming parts of the Imperial Valley near the Mexican border, but I don't know if they are legal to shoot. They are not listed in the regs as upland game.

Well, I've heard their song and they sure as heck aren't "songbirds"!!! A tom turkey in heat sounds downright melodious compared....