The Shanks Syndicate

Where to start? After a decent drive down to the Shanks Ranch on Friday night Tim and I rolled up to find James & Shanks in residence. We sat down and regaled each other with tales of opening, James had come off a week of hunting ducks and Shanks had been keeping his head down after a good opening.

We hit the hay quite late in the evening and were awoken to the sound of barking dogs and Craig yelling JAMES! as the other guests arrived at about 7. A brekkie of toast, weetbix & coffee and we saddled up.

The inaugural gathering of the Shanks syndicate - roll call:

The "guns":

Vice Regal Shankspony (Craig)
Top Predator (James)
Cleaky (Tim)
Snuffit



The "manservant":



NZ Varminter (Grant)
& his boy Mitchell

We drove down to start the day by the release pen, the birds had been weaned off weeks ago so were fully wild at this point. What followed was 6 hours of up hill, down dale and bashing through a mixture of rough stuff - all the while putting up birds. Personal highlights: snaking a bird off Tim as it burst from a patch of scrub cackling its head off with a lab hard on its tail (sorry Tim, we're still mates right?), knocking down a melanistic bird at 60m from a highly elevated boulder, but unfortunately we lost this bird in a patch of shitty scrub - and knocking over a goat! Tim got his first wild birds, Craig shot well and James came right even knocking down a bird from a seated postion with his Xtrema near the end of the shooting day. Hunting near bottomless tomos is challenging in itself, my first bird of the day fell straight into one and we just weren't going down there without safety ropes and harnesses. James dropped a high rooster straight into a huge tomo as well - peril to man and dog alike even approaching that one. If nothing else we were under-dogged, having another couple of hounds would have been great in hindsight.



We stopped mid afternoon for a posed photo session, just for fun smoking some big stogies.



And let James pose for the camera with his "gun-boy":



And posed some more:



We got back to Shank's house, had some lunch (Fallow steaks with garlic), watched a film clip or 2 of day's events and cleaned the bag. Later that evening we got ready for a pig hunt, Shanks & Mitchell taking bows, me and Tim with rifles, James with video camera.

We got to the baits a wee bit late to see a black boar and 3 grey pigs milling around. As the wind was right on our face we were able to get within 20 m of the bait. Craig & Mitchell were up front when a grey boar came trotting towards them to within 8m. Craig drew and put an arrow right through the boiler room and the pig ran off up the hill and over the brow. The black boar trotted off leaving the other 2 pigs undisturbed. Craig drew again and nailed a second pig through the spine, dropping it on the spot. The other pig belted off, aided by a wayward shot from me to give it a hurry along. Craig cut the spined pig's throat then we went in search of the first pig with the aid of headlamps. I found it still moving in s patch of scrub and we had 2 in the bag. I have to say that a skilled bow hunter is not to be messed with.



Back to the Shanks homestead again to light a fire, have a bite and then the James party headed out to spotlight another pig or two while we cleaned up a pig for ride home to Ak. Tim and i got out of there at about 8, had a nice drive to Huntly where I dropped tim off and then carried on home. I hung the pig in the garage (v. unhappy wife)and hit the hay tired but very happy.

Roll on day II at the shanks preserve!