Adios

If you are going to fit a scope mount light then a 240 Lightforce is not a suitable substitute for an ultrafire torch it makes no sense at all. The best Lightforce for a scope mount for rabbits is a 140 lense with a 50 watt globe adjusted toa tight spot it will still show up a fox at 100 meters it is compact and easy to fit and has low battery drain . I am not even sure thay make a scope fitting for a 240 lense. You could go a 170 with a 100 watt globe but you will be lugging a much bigger battery or spotting time will be much shorter. Modern Led torches are a good light compact option for casual hunting and have excellent performane to weight ratio.

I am not looking to buy one Jase is . I already have a One Planet 75 Litre and a few smaller day packs but not the back to carry heavy weight anymore . You are right though the Badlands look quite good . I liked the OX setup.

I agree 100% . I would try and find a smaller external frame pack with removable haversack with a good wide padded waist belt and wide padded shoulder straps with a chest strap , prefferably a chest strap that can be moved up and down . However if you find a really comfortable pack that suits you with no chest strap add it in later . Once you get the pack find an ex soldier or treker to adjust it correctly as Duncs has outlined. The frame allows maximum ventilation around your back and you can remove the haversack part and use just the metal frame to carry fire wood a trophy or meat etc. Not sure where you would find one though . The modern internal frame pack is probably more comfortable and torso length adjustable though . You need to go to a big camping outdoors type shop that has a good selection of types and just try them all on and spend some hours adjusting them to fit. It is the only way to get an idea of what model and brand suits you.

I have found that any clothing that is soft and fluffy is bound to pick up burrs and seeds like mad. I just don't buy it. If it is not smooth cotton , polyester cotton , canvas or cordura surface I just don't use it in the bush . That is the drawback to silent clothing but I rekon a cotton or cottom polyester blend is fairly silent also.

The most awesome safe I ever saw was an old mate of mine that is dead now unfortunately , he was a grazier and had a full walk in strong room built the size of a large bedroom and everything was on the walls and had his reloading bench and all inside . It gave this great feeling of not having a safe at all but having a gun and trophy room well it was a room but built like a bank vault .

Another thing you need to be aware of is when you press the track back ( back track) feature you need to make sure you have not walked back any distance along your return route because what happens is the track back will steer you back to that last point you were when you turned around and changed direction from the heading out course and from that waypoint steer you on the back track . What this does is confuse you into thinking that the GPS is pointing you in the wrong direction , well it is but it will correct once you have moved enough toward the place you turned around . If you just keep walking in the direction you know is good it will eventually correct itself and point to the next waypoint in the back track route. A GPS can not correct a course unless it travels a distance that is outside the circle of error of any particular coordinate fix position. It varies from a few meters to as many as 100 meters in bad times when satellites are few and in bad geometry. This is not related to selective availability which has been turned off. When birds have good geometry , that is several birds nicely spaced overhead a fix is more accurate .

Not the same NV scope that I am talking about.

The really good military stuff is a combination of , Thermal , Image intensifier and black and white IR all on the one image . At night It's almost like looking through a normal scope in day time . I would have to sell my house to buy one.

Only you can really answer that question. I guess if you are in FNQ now then you may a well sell the lot and start again with a more suitable cartridge like 308 W or 7 mm 08 or 270 or 30-06 forget the 44 it has too much range limitations.

Some good pointers here. An edge has to be suitable to the job . So you may be able to hone a super sharp fine edge that will shave a gnats ass but will it stand up to striking a few bones or the grit in fur etc. An edge has to be durable as possible for the job. Quality of steel helps a great deal but how you sharpen it also helps get the right kind of edge. You could have a finer smaller angle edge on a small drop point skinning knife than you might use on a boning knife or camp knife that could be used for much rougher work . Most rec hunters will not do enough work with a knife to require constant resharpening in the field .

+1 .

Life is too short for some long technique. If the edge is really gone I just grind it up by hand on a wet carborundum stone coarse then fine , end off with a few carving edge slicing type strokes then dress it up a bit more on a steel. When it got a bit blunt in the field I would dress it up again on the steel . Sometimes you can dress up your knife a bit on a Roos foot pad as it acts like a strop. My Roo knife has the steel built into the sheath on special ferrules so you can actually dress it up as you go without needing to take the steel out but eventually at some point you have to go back to the stone . Lots of different ways to sharpen an edge. For a skinning knife I like a sharp mostly non feathered edge but for cutting through meat I like the feathered edge of a steel or diamond steel.

It all comes down to screwing the public for more money to buy new unnecessary products . You have to because they shut down the old ones. They shut down a perfectly good EPIRB system and now UHF radios. So that's about $650 worth of my gear in the garbage bin . This is what happens when criminals get into Government.

Gerber Montego 8 x 30 wide angle BAK 4 prism. Compact , light and cheap enough to loose or drop off a cliff and work real good. $164 at Peters of Kensington . normally $257 . Buy two pair and keep one as a spare in the car .

Using a sat phone over very short distances like from the paddock of a small property to the homestead is no different to using a UHF and a lot more expensive. The problems are much different when you are in the real wilderness . Do you expect your wife or family to sit by the sat phone every minuet just in-case you get into trouble. If you are just going to potter around your own paddocks during a working hours then a sat phone could be good as an emergency contact but if you are fifty kilometers out in wild country and no one has a clue where you exactly are then the first line of defense is the EPIRB . The farmer can just say to his missus . I'm bogged at the " saddle" come and get me. How do you explain to the wife where you are if she can not read a topographic map or understand a grid reference. If you are lucky you may get contact with some emergency worker or Policeman that knows some navigation but don't bet your life on it . The home paddock mentality is too narrow in it's thinking for real wilderness work . If you only intend to hunt on private properties then a sat phone could be good .

A Sat phone is not a better safety item than an EPIRB because you have to be alert and conscious while using one and if you are out of range or in a black hole your dead. In a life threatening situation you may be dazed and in shock in extreme pain or whatever. Dialing numbers and holding on to talk to someone might fail also you have to tell them where you are . The EPIRB is a switch on and it don't matter if you pass out after that and lay there waiting for rescue. You don't have to know where you are or convince some idiot on the phone you are in trouble. Think about the trouble you have on a mobile phones getting contact and services now well a sat phone is just a mobile phone working from satellites . The EPIRB is a recognized emergency signal . Great to have both but don't drop the EPIRB in favor of a phone for real wilderness treks. JMHO

The only thing I don't like about registering an EPIRB is that what if you Joe Blogs are lost at sea and say James Packer is lost at sea also . The EPIRB registration code tells them who is who! Who will get rescued first? Too much control .

You might need to register the new 406MHz . Just make sure you get a new one of the latest type as the old 243 MHz models don't work anymore . The main consideration is that you do not set it off unless there is a genuine threat to health and safety. If you set it off because you got a flat tyre then you will be in trouble, unless that flat tyre trappped you some place without food and water for a time that became a threat to life and limb and you had no other form of communicatios like radio or Mobile phone. You can set it off to rescue someone else who is at threat. I would buy an GME brand.

I agree mate , there is no call to be having a go at peoples age or experience . Everyone has to start someplace and I have leart new stuff from people on this site that are way younger than me.

That is quite true also UV seems to be a problem with hunting cloths. Even if you beak up your outline well the clothing can still havea UV shine. You should not wash your camo in detergents or softeners just some Borax.

Exactly ! The most important place to camo is your face , hands and shoulder shape . That's what animals recognise the most from us upright bipedal apes. .

They can be useful for some protection from snake bite but the main reason for wearing them is to protect your lower shins from burr bush and scratches and dings from rough country. Also in early mornings in winter the grass can be wet and very cold. The gaiters will keep your legs dry and warm and help to stop grass seeds and stones etc from getting into your boots. They are very handy to have in your kit just incase the going is rough and wet. In cold weather if your lower legs get wet and your boots get wet . your feet and legs will get very cold and uncomfortable . If you have ever chased dogs through miles of galvanised burr you will wish you had worn long trousers and gaitors . Getting many scratchs on your legs in the bush can lead to infections .