SGraves155--Australia06

Area--Carmor Plains on the western border of Kakadu

PH--Matt Kelman

Game taken--Buffalo, croc(trapped)(Matt had depredation permit)

other game seen--dingoes, wallabies, thick with big crocs. Lotsa wild hogs

<img src=" http://i72.photobucket.com/albums/i164/sgraves155_photos/aus tralia/DSC_0596.jpg">

Bear,

This hunt was a scheduled break in a "tourist" type trip with a lady friend, and I was using a borrowed 375H&H. Matt was using his 458WinMag.

Matt only had 2 X-bullets in 300gr, and a bunch of 270gr to sight in the 375 rifle (turned out they didn't shoot to the same place).

The usual way to hunt buff is to pick up their tracks wherever you find bull tracks crossing the dirt roads, then follow on foot. We had tracked a bull for several hours that morning, without success, and returned to the truck, hot and thirsty. As we started the drive back to the Station, a big bull ran across the trail in front of us.  We grabbed our rifles and took off after him. He finally stopped and I put an x-bullet into him, but it was a poor shot, and he took off. We chased after him for about 30 minutes, finally killing him out in the middle of a swamp. He had absorbed 7 rounds of 375 and 3 rounds of 458. During the chase I had fallen in a pool and drowned my camera. We had left our knives back at the truck, and out in the middle of the swamp, with the buffalo as the only dry place to sit on, I realized that between us, we had one round of ammo remaining.  We had 600 yds of croc infested swamp to wade thru to get back to dry land. No one could pay me enough to walk thru there again, but we made it back with no close calls (that I am aware of).