A hunt with a spear

[guzzo]

You definately need a spear thrower and your spear is too rigid. Needs to taper from the head to the tail so it will quiver in flight to help keep it straight. In good hands a spear is quite effective!!

It flew like a brick.......I have since heard a lot of people use bamboo......I have seen some of the locals hunting sting rays and they all have a spear thrower and their speers are long and thin like you say

hahahaha

I have found several 10 inch plus stone spear heads made from the Pine Creek chert. This is amongst the best weapons grade material anywhere in the country and was traded to WA and Qld as well as all across the NT. They were VERY old and still sharp enough to break a pig’s skin.

These spearheads are totally excessive for any living native animal and methinks they were for hunting hippo sized wombats and other mega-fauna many thousands of moons ago.

I have known some amazing old men who could do anything with a spear including nailing fish in saltwater with a freshwater layer on top (maximum visual distortion).
Sadly they have been falling off the perch and these skills are also fading.

So, goodonya cobber for reviving the oldest hunting tool in the game (apart from rocks). A spear thrower will give you double the thrust and double the distance, Early days in Sydney the Eoa people could throw a spear twice the distance of an effective musket ball, with greater accuracy and effect and the colonists learned that the hard way.

Love ya work mate.

Thanks mate! I will have to go back to the drawing board haha

 

[saximus]

If your in the NT I am sure i can come up with an adventure that could get us both amost killed

If that's a serious offer I'll be on the next plane up

 

[saratoga]

Bamboo or Beach hibiscus is good, but you need to straighten both over a fire. Many aboriginal hunters will load the spear into the spear thrower and just before throwing will give it a little flick with the other hand to set up the quivering motion so it flies truer.

 

[guzzo]

Bamboo or Beach hibiscus is good, but you need to straighten both over a fire. Many aboriginal hunters will load the spear into the spear thrower and just before throwing will give it a little flick with the other hand to set up the quivering motion so it flies truer.

gees wish I had spoken to you earlier

If that's a serious offer I'll be on the next plane up

Hey mate got to give me more time to think up an adventure....when this wet is over I will let u know

 

[Darlyn]

Not a joke but the earthquake is Japans fault.

Ummm I really don't understand this............ But hey nice font!

 

[AshMan]

i wish my friday nights were as intresting as yours

 

[SteveNT]

Bamboo or Beach hibiscus is good, but you need to straighten both over a fire. Many aboriginal hunters will load the spear into the spear thrower and just before throwing will give it a little flick with the other hand to set up the quivering motion so it flies truer.

Mate, that's a true story for hunting fish. Both those timbers are floaters which you want for fishing but for big land animals you would want real weight. Like milky plum (persoonia falcata), ironwood (erythrophleum chlorostachys) etc.

Right tool for the job stuff. Like the tiny stone tips used on spear grass stems that will slow a magpie goose down just enough for you to catch it.

 

[guzzo]

Mate, that's a true story for hunting fish. Both those timbers are floaters which you want for fishing but for big land animals you would want real weight. Like milky plum (persoonia falcata), ironwood (erythrophleum chlorostachys) etc.

Right tool for the job stuff. Like the tiny stone tips used on spear grass stems that will slow a magpie goose down enough for you to catch it.

very interesting stevent.....I knew of one traditional owner when i was in jabiru who was known for getting a buffalo with a spear...thought i would try it but I was not quite made of the right stuff haha

 

[cris]

Ummm I really don't understand this............ But hey nice font!

Their crack its there fault. Then again it would be fair to blame the quakers.

 

[Darlyn]

I'm always amazed by people "hunting" buffalo. For christ sake they just stand there.
That's not hunting, it's like shooting a cow in the paddock.
No matter what the weapon is.

 

[SteveNT]

Never been hunted by an angry buffalo then young Darlyn. (hope the font is ok)

 

[saximus]

Yeah I would have thought a couple of tonnes of angry Buffalo was pretty fair sport

 

[Darlyn]

You guys may be right (doubt it)
What would make the buff angry?
Hunting them or just looking at them from a distance as they munch away.
Bit like snakes really, if you don't interfere with them they don't become angry.

 

[SteveNT]

I was going up the middle road through Arnhem Land a few years ago and blew a tyre. A buffalo bull decided to play with me and I had to climb off the roof into the Troopie and blast the horn, rev the motor, etc and when it was far enough awayI would get a wheel nut off, get chased again and repeat the process. An hour later I got the tyre swapped and shunted that bull up the **** with my car 30km across the flood plain.

Just keeping future travellers safe!

 

[Darlyn]

Excellent, but did you hunt it down and shoot it.
Just for the sport of it, or because it was endangering your life?
Or did you figure that hey he is not about to hunt me down and eat me, "I'm safe?
Just like a cow/bull in a paddock?

 

[SteveNT]

Given the chance he would have smashed me and wandered off to sample some of the herbage without a second thought. If he sees a car coming now he will stay well clear. All he suffered was humiliation was and a bruised ****. It worked for me!

 

[saratoga]

Mate, that's a true story for hunting fish. Both those timbers are floaters which you want for fishing but for big land animals you would want real weight. Like milky plum (persoonia falcata), ironwood (erythrophleum chlorostachys) etc.

Right tool for the job stuff. Like the tiny stone tips used on spear grass stems that will slow a magpie goose down just enough for you to catch it.

Bamboo is fine for both buffalo and pigs, provided you have a decent weight on the end of it, like a metal shovel-nose tip and use a bondok (spear thrower). I've seen some pretty nasty looking ironwood tips as well.

I don't think they used spear grass (Sorghum sp), much too thin lol, but they did use the tall sedge (Phragmites sp) that grows along the rivers, for goose spears

 

[MrFireStorm]

Save yourself some work and pick up a javelin mate......lol

 

[Guest]

I wore old overalls on that hunt



If your in the NT I am sure i can come up with an adventure that could get us both amost killed

can i come?

 

[guzzo]

can i come?

Of course! you might have to make your own spear