Hunting with home made shotguns

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I already typed this out once but some sort of error with the website meant that it didn't all get saved and I lost it all. I now don't have the time/inclination to write it all out again for my records but for those at home here's a quick summary.

As previously mentioned all food here with the exception of rice and a few other tit bits tends to come from the Jungle and so Harris makes a trip out hunting everynow and then to try and get some meat together. I was invited along for a couple of days and jumped at the opportunity. Two other people joined us - Rafel, Harris's brother and Gilbert a friend of Harris. It was actually them who would be doing the shooting and Harris took a back seat for this journey choosing to stay back and do a bit of fishing while we went out hunting.

Went up to the border with Kalimantan by longboat which took a few hours hacking our way through damns caused by huge tree logs and other debree in the river. Stayed in a shelter and went out hunting. They didn't get anything when I was with them but they nearly shot a Rhinoceros hornbill - they missed thank god as it's a highly protected species. Later that night in the pissing rain they went out again and came home with a few deer which were promptly skinned and chopped up in the morning.

The next day we packed up and went home. On the way we stopped to collect fishing nets that we had put out the day before but the river had risen over a meter overnight and most of them were unreachable - no fish in the ones we did recover.

I'll let the pics give you a rough idea of what it was like.

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Photos

First Damn
For lots of reasons this small relatively unused river get blocked by huge logs all over the place. Some can just be ramped over in the boat while others require the Parang (machete).

River Scenery
Always changing on the way up to the border, at this point giant bamboo loomed in over us.

Just before we got off the beaten track - literally
If you can see the two guys at the bottom right (Rafel and Gilbert) that should give you some idea of the size of things.

Shelter
I spent the night drinking Jack Daniels, reading Harry potter and eating mouse deer.

Shooting
Taking careful aim with the handmade shotguns - they still missed this shot though. losers :)

Poser
me posing for a photo while the other two try to pick up the wild boar trail we're following. Note my oh so stylish traditional Kelabit backpack.

Rich pickings
One of the deer they shot. Sadly this one was pregnant but they were pleased about that as the baby is good eating apparently.