AUSTRALIA: Northern Territory Cull Hunting With BIG COUNTRY SAFARIS AUSTRALIA - May 2025

[UpNorthMI]

A video clip of my son and our guide dealing with the chaos of a lot of animals in thick cover. We are culling buffalo cows, the cow in the video is shot twice with a .375 H&H Mag and just runs off, it's like they are armor plated. This cow was hit hard and left a good blood trail, we followed up and were able to finish the job after several hundred yards in very thick cover.

Our guide did an excellent job of managing the situation and keeping the selected cow in sight and communicating which animal she was.

 

[PCC600]

Its a very big area, we were not at Alex's main camp which was several hundred miles further in. We were based on cattle stations, several of these properties that we hunted were over 1 million acres each. We stayed with the ranch owners and staff, it was an eye opening experience about their life and how remote things were. We were made most welcome by many friendly people.

Yes I know the area and property sizes . I was an owner of one of these stations . It looks like the Roper River area to me .

 

[UpNorthMI]

Yes I know the area and property sizes . I was an owner of one of these stations . It looks like the Roper River area to me .

I'm not sure of our exact location but we were in that rough area. You certainly know a lot more than me as a first time NT visitor if you owned one of those cattle stations. Certainly a different way of living compared to a lot of other people in the world. We took a helicopter ride 2 hours from Katherine for a fishing trip and drove 8 hours from Katherine to the South West to hunt camel later in our trip. I loved the remoteness of it all, the lack of cell coverage, the very few people. More posts to come.

 

[UpNorthMI]

Tuesday - May 20 - Day 4 Hunting - Morning

The day started with a handover from Dylan to Alex. Alex explained the plan for the rest of our trip. The plan looked something like this:

• 4 more days hunting in our current area.
• Travel West to Katherine for a night.
• 1 day fishing for barramundi by helicopter
• 1 day travel South West to location to hunt camels.
• 3 days hunting camels.
• 1 day long travel back to Darwin to start our journey home.

Based on our initial cull discussions we had the following animals left to hunt:

• 20 Buffalo cull cows
• 7 Feral Donkey
• 10 Feral Camel

It was another beautiful morning, bright and warm, my son was suffering with a little jetlag and tiredness, we had been full on since arrival in Australia, Alex and I went out for the morning. We immediately started bumping into buffalo,

10 minutes later we stumbled into a couple of feral donkey, I made short work of them with my Blaser R8 in .308. I took the time to try to find some bone in the shoulder area as the Barnes TSX bullets seemed a little hard for these soft skinned animals.

Just before 9am. I took the first buffalo of the morning with my double rifle, another one followed 10 minutes later.

At around 11:30am we found a group of buffalo and set off on a bit of a stalk to try to get in to see if there were any suitable cows for our cull. We found two suitable cows on the left side of the group and Alex said that we needed to take both. I was carrying my .500/.416 NE double rifle and found a suitable tree to lean my shoulder against to steady myself. The first shot caught the first cow on the shoulder at about 60 yards, the animal immediately went down, I immediatly found the second cow and knocked her off her feet at a range of about 80 yards, this was my first "right & left" at buffalo, what an experience! Wow this double rifle shot well with it's red dot sight and the 400 grain Hornady DGX bonded bullets had done nothing but super impress me so far.

It had been a busy morning for me, it was time to get some lunch and pick my son up for him to lead the afternoon activity. Alex had said that we need to get into a few animals and we certainly did, we saw tremendous numbers of animals each day.

 

[UpNorthMI]

Tuesday - May 20 - Day 4 Hunting - Afternoon

I'd had all the morning action it was my son's turn for the afternoon. We got out late after a good lunch but ran into buffalo. Here is a short clip of a very large cow taking more rounds than she should from a .375. Sorry the video needed rotating and is not the best product!

 

[UpNorthMI]

Tuesday - May 20 - Day 4 Hunting - Afternoon Continued

That large cow took a total of 4 shots of .375 with 300 grain Barnes TSX bullets! Look at her large horns

My son took another cow from that group, this time to a single shot.

Alex worked diligently to find more animals in the thick cover

My son took 1 more buffalo late in the afternoon and followed that up with 3 feral pigs.

There are a lot of empty slots in that culling ammo belt! We had a busy day both taking 6 animals each. Our total animals after 4 days of hunting was now 30.

2 Trophy Buffalo
17 Cull Buffalo Cows
5 Feral Donkey
2 Feral Wild Dogs
4 Feral Pig

We were relocating base to stay at the main cattle station with the owner his family and the employees. It was a very memorable day with a lot of activity. Time to move and drive a little. During this drive I saw a huge group of pigs cross our dirt road, there were at least 30 animals with some very large pigs, unfortunately all rifles and ammo had been packed away in the back of the truck, I just had to watch them disappear into cover.

 

[UpNorthMI]

Wednesday - May 21 - Day 5 Hunting - Morning

The morning was another warm and clear day, it was time to unpack our main vehicle and transfer guns and ammo back to the buggy. Ammo belts had been restocked and Alex was keen for us to continue our cull.

As we were leaving the cattle station compound area I saw a strange looking dog, it was certainly not the security dog that roamed the living area, a quick check with staff confirmed that there had been a feral wild dog seen multiply times over the last week within the exclusion fencing, it had been taking trash and some of the hens providing eggs, my son made an excellent shot with his .375 to knock down this pest.

It was a quiet morning, we covered a lot of new ground, the action came thick and fast from Noon onwards, my son shot a nice large cow.

 

[UpNorthMI]

Wednesday - May 21 - Day 5 Hunting - Early Afternoon

The chaos of getting into a large group of buffalo. Alex managing things well, giving direction, identifying animals and coaching us.

 

[UpNorthMI]

Wednesday - May 21 - Day 5 Hunting - Early Afternoon

We get into some donkeys, my son takes a very light color one.

It's my turn on the next couple of donkeys, they take .308 rounds very well! Both are located, down and dead.

 

[UpNorthMI]

Wednesday - May 21 - Day 5 Hunting - Afternoon

It's soon my turn with a bit of double rifle action, the first shot is successful on a buffalo cow, not the best video. The second video shows my only miss of the trip with my double rifle as I hit a termite mound (or tree) in front of a trotting buffalo cow that I am shooting at.

 

[UpNorthMI]

Wednesday - May 21 - Day 5 Hunting - Afternoon

The afternoon provided me with another "Right & Left" on buffalo with my double rifle, what a trip to have so much shooting opportunity, I was worried about shooting my newer double rifle that I had never hunted with, in reality it was a great tool for the job.

We wrapped up the day and were hungry for dinner and a celebratory beer or two. The day was a total of 14 animals, 7 buffalo, 6 donkey & 1 feral wild dog, this gave us a total of 44 animals for the 5 days of hunting, made up of:

2 Trophy Buffalo
24 Cull Buffalo Cows
11 Feral Donkey
3 Feral Wild Dogs
4 Feral Pig

We saw tremendous numbers of animals during the day with Alex, I quickly realized that we only had 6 buffalo left to take and then it was going to be fishing and camel hunting both in other locations. Alex Jagers can be only one of a few outfitters that can offer this form of cull hunting with mixed animals at this sort of quantity level over a handful of days. What a trip it had been so far, Alex had certainly delivered it was great father and son time together.

 

[UpNorthMI]

Thursday / Friday - May 22 /23 - Day 6 & 7 Hunting

Our goal was 6 more buffalo cull cows for this part of our trip. Thursday we headed out later in the morning in a different direction and had a short day where I shot my last buffalo with my double rifle and my son shot 2 buffalo with his .375 Blaser R8.

Thursday wrapped up with a total of 3 buffalo and a wonderful sunset.

It turns out that my son had shot 3 more buffalo than me so he decided to sleep in on Friday morning, maybe more like catch up on satellite texting with his girl back home! Alex wanted to make sure we got our final 3 buffalo and suggested the scoped rifle versus the double. So we headed out on Friday morning with my son's left handed .375 Blaser R8.

It was a good call from Alex as we soon got into a few buffalo that were at longer ranges and I bagged our final 3 buffalo of the trip by late morning.

It was a slightly sad moment when you realize that this part of our trip was coming to an end but wow what an opportunity it was, what an amazing experience my son and I had with Alex and Dylan. The promise of catching a few fish and getting in to a few camel over the coming days was more than enough to make me smile and to start packing to relocate.

I'm sure you have seen enough buffalo pictures by now! The Northern Territory has a lot of buffalo!

 

[TOBY458]

You’re making me want to go back to Australia and do a cull hunt! This seems amazing!

 

[Green Chile]

This is some kind of deluxe cull hunt. I know Alek can put them together but the numbers are amazing. This is not your average cull hunt....fishing with helicopters. Keep posting so us peasants can enjoy from a distance! Great stuff.

 

[UpNorthMI]

You’re making me want to go back to Australia and do a cull hunt! This seems amazing!

As I go through the photos and videos of this trip and write all of the postings here, it really is making me think that I may also have to return to Australia! It was an amazing experience and an amazing hunt. There is more to come, I feel like a full time member on this website!

 

[UpNorthMI]

This is some kind of deluxe cull hunt. I know Alek can put them together but the numbers are amazing. This is not your average cull hunt....fishing with helicopters. Keep posting so us peasants can enjoy from a distance! Great stuff.

Thanks for those kind words, I appreciate that others are appreciating my efforts of posting this very long hunt report. I felt that I have to share this experience as I know it will be one of my greatest hunting experiences of my life. Having the time and funds at this point in my life after a career of hard work, made this hunt really precious to me, sharing with my son is priceless.

It will likely be early next week before we get into some crazy fishing tales and the second phase of this cull hunt as we move onto camels.

 

[UpNorthMI]

On the afternoon of our first day hunting we ran into a group of donkey that were on a cattle station road (reported earlier with photo). My son found a video clip of our "gunship mode" as I get ready to take a donkey with my .500/.416 NE double rifle. Please remember this is culling!

As you will see it takes a moment for the onlooking group of donkeys to provide a quartering on front shot where there is no animal behind the one I'm shooting at. The donkey is hit on the front shoulder the impact is very hard and it basically dies on it's feet. The donkey just collapses instantly then rolls off the road into the road ditch. You really had to be there to see this in real life.

While the big double was definitely overkill for a donkey we had other donkeys that took several / many well placed shots with a .375 or .308, they are tough animals like most of the animals in Australia. Maybe the issue was the Barnes TSX bullets were just too hard, I later switched to Nosler partition bullets in .308 and shot for bone on the shoulder, these produced better actual results.