Hunting Down Under with Jeanette Dowd
Jun 07: Hunting Down Under with Jeanette Dowd. My love and passion for archery started way back in 1986 when a friend of mine invited my husband Kevin and I out to their local archery club to give it a try. (If you are using Internet Explorer or Firefox as your browser, hover your cursor over each image to read the photo captions) Within a month we both had bought our first bows and we have loved it ever since. It has seen us active in competition shooting where we have travelled all over the eastern parts of Australia attending shoots and on our regular hunting trips each year.
I was fortunate enough in July 2005, to have been appointed the inaugural store manager at Abbey Archery's Brisbane Pro Shop at Unit 4, 32 Spine Street, Sumner Park, Queensland, 4074 (Phone 07 3279 6400 and email brisbane@abbeyarchery.com.au) Our store has a huge range of archery gear for all archers, from the beginner to the seasoned target & 3D archer. We have a fantastic mail order service and being situated quite close to our local mail centre, we can pick, pack and post an order in no time at all.
I make it my personal goal to give our customers the best, fastest and friendliest service and we hope that by the numbers who keep returning, that our customers are happy with our overall service.
Our two teenage daughters, Katie and Shayna, have grown up spending most of their holidays and weekends either attending archery competitions or on hunting trips that have taken them all over Queensland and New South Wales.
I first starting going along to field archery competitions and then when I got invited along on a hunting trip and I was over the moon. Some of the many animals I have taken with a bow are Rabbits, Feral Cats, Goats, Pigs and my favourite pastime is going Stingray hunting.
To do something that the whole family enjoys together is a big bonus in this day and age. Sometimes my husband has to push me a little to reach the top or to go that little bit further up that hill, but in the end, to see some of the views we get to see from the top, is breathtaking and very rewarding. To be able to stalk feral animals in their territory is fantastic in itself.
In 2006 my husband, Kev and I travelled 9 hours by car to just out of Charleville, in central western Queensland, to our favourite property. 
While there, we saw literally hundreds of goats, a few rabbits and about 25 pigs. After trekking for a few hours one early morning and only seeing a nanny and kids, we stopped at a small water trough and we could see a large sow and about 6 small pigs lying in the shade of some large gum trees. We slowly moved in only to see the sow saunter off. Kev signalled for me to get in closer to the smaller piglets to have a shot as the property owners do not want any pigs on their land. I got to within 15 metres when I saw one of the piglets turn and start making noises. Without turning around, I could hear the sow coming back in from behind me.
With my arrow already nocked, I thought, as long as she does not get a whiff of me, she might start walking right up beside me. As my luck would have it, she slowly walked out to the left hand side of where I was kneeling. At around 25 metres, she presented a side-on shoot and I took it. The arrow was perfect height but a little bit back as I did not allow for her movement. She raced off and lay down under a tree. Kev and I waited about 20 minutes, then we crept in for another shot and I got away a very good arrow this time. This was the biggest pig that I had ever hunted. Over the week of this hunting trip, Kev shot 3 different species - a pig, goat and a rabbit and I was very pleased with my sow.
At week's end, we travelled back to Charleville to attend the Queensland ABA Titles. Every year we arrange our activities around the archery shoot calendar and also add in some hunting trips here and there. For now, we just have to wait for our next trip away.
