Last of Our Kind

"The Last Of Our Kind" is perfect for a back country hut, hunting lodge, or winters night by the fire as the rain hammers down outside. It's longer than most hunting books of its kind, it's perfect as a companion for a weekend hunt or to keep you amused as you sit in a tree stand or hide for a 6 hour stint.

The Last Of Our Kind is an interesting mix of hunting and fishing yarns, as well as hard truths, and the sum of Pete's almost 30 years' experience with a rifle in his hands. Society has become has been wrapped in cotton wool, entitled, and softened. Now the need for instant gratification without hardship has changed hunters and hunting to the point where people new to the sport bully each other like mean school girls online, safe behind their keyboads. But as little as 30 years ago, things were very different and in many parts of the world they still are. Pete tells it how "he feels" it is, and he makes no effort to spare the feelings of the new generation of hunters born and breed in comfort, and educated on the internet. Pete has withdrawn further from his peers in the west, and will remain quietly hidden in the last of the worlds rapidly vanishing wild frontiers, with his horse, dog, and rifle, hunting alongside the last of his kind.

If you've never missed a deer, you've done bugger all hunting.

I've lived a strange sort of life, and the one thing that's has provided me with grounding, and sense of peace, is my time spent in wild places with the dwindling population of the world's frontiers. I'm currently in Turkey as I type this introduction; and if I look to my left, outside there are young boys no more than 10 years old galloping around on terribly intimidating Arabian horses firing off arrows at targets. This world, and the places I have felt most at home in are disappearing at an alarming rate, and the world I grew up in is all but gone at home in Australia and New Zealand.

There are many reasons for this, but the biggest are comfort and technology, along with the appeal of big city living over rural hardship and isolation.Nothing is hard anymore; and new hunters have no idea what a wet Swannie in a pack even weighs, with hunting gear now being both warm and lightweight. Dehydrated meals are ready to eat in seconds with hot water from the Jetboil, tents actually keep you dry, and a deer on a slip 600 meters away is easily glassed, ranged, dialed up, and dropped with the help of a smart phone, range finder and a 6.5 Creedmoor topped with a Nightforce scope. The days of billy tea, damper, and carrying the sporterised .303 that grandad killed 16 Japs with back in Papua are no more.Me; my time fell between these two worlds, and as the old faded away, I was both a pioneer of the new, and educated by those that did it hard in the good old days. I don't shun modern technology at all and have chosen to both embrace it and evolve the way I hunt, as well as hold onto the true spirit of the hunt... and that is overcoming hardships in wild places, hunting wild creatures, with wild men.

These are both stories I retell around the campfire with friends, and many I have written for magazines over the years. The hunts that have inspired and changed me both as a man and as a hunter, the good yarns, the lessons I learnt, and the lessons I wish I'd been taught rather than learn through failures. I'm going to offend a few people, but I call it how I see it, not as the politically correct would like me too.

It also contains the sum total of Pete's knowledge on marksmanship, as well as an introduction into long range shooting and getting the most out of your rifle. It contains the information he wished he had been given 30 years earlier, and is valuable for a shooter of any experience level.