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DAY 9

Mick Pat and I awoke in the dark to get an early start for an area called Black Fellow Creek. As we drove the dirt road I happened to spot something out of place along a small billabong. It was a lone wild boar working his way along the muddy bank.

AFTER SPOTTING THIS BOAR FROM A DISTANCE MICK AND PAT MOVED IN FOR THE FINAL STALK

Pat Jr. grabbed his bow and we headed after him. Mick led Pat into 60 yards and Pat took it the rest of the way in. He got within 25 yards and made a perfect heart shot! The boar died within sight of us. What a way to start the morning!

We continued onto the creek and on the way I stopped to film a pair of young bulls in the son. It was a great morning for stalking, it was windy and the sun was low on the horizon. I got within 50 yards of the two bulls and stopped there, but I probably could have made it closer.

After all the fooling around we finally made it to the creek. But the sun was pretty high up now and the bulls were all bedded. We still hunted the entire morning along the creek and came upon some scrub bulls.

I turned to Pat and asked him if he wanted to try for one. He was apprehensive but said yes. The stalk was intense and took at least an hour. But we just couldn,t line everything up at the last moment and the herd busted off.

We sat at a waterhole for a while before heading back to the truck. As we approached I spotted something in the trees not far from the truck. It was a good mature bull. Not a monster, but a shooter. I asked Pat if he wanted it and he said he was too nervous, so I decided to go after him.

Pat gets within 25 yards of the bedded bull

By the time Mick and I got to him he had bedded down. I told Mick I wanted to get a perfect over the shoulder video of this bull and that was risky. I stalked to within 25 yards and had an absolute perfect shot. Mick was in a good position but not perfect. I knew it was risky but I motioned for him to move closer to me and when he did the bull picked us off. We were close!

It all fell apart at the very last seconds of the stalk

We came back to camp for lunch and for the afternoon Pat and I took the quad down the river to hunt on our own. This is something I wanted to do and Mick was comfortable with me doing it. We took a GPS waypoint where we had left the quad and walked about 1k down the river and back. We ran into some scrub bulls and two small buffalo but more importantly we had a great afternoon still hunting alone down a river system in Australia.

On the way back I asked Pat whether he wanted to shoot a buffalo. He told me he did, but he didn't feel he was ready for it. He was pretty nervous stalking the scrub bulls and had decided he was just not ready for either them, or the buffalo. He's a smart kid and he knows his limitations. He was proud of his three fantastic shots on boars and was perfectly happy with leaving things on a high note. That made perfect sense.

We have two hunting days left and we,re going to hit it hard for getting a second buffalo.