2007 Trophy Takers annual awards, Neura NSW

On the weekend of the 29th Sept- 1st Oct, the 2007 TT awards were held at the Neura Community Hall in central west NSW. The majority of members rolled in on Friday afternoon, with some of the old hands staying up to welcome new arrivals well into the night. Saturday morning dawned clear and crisp, and two of the Albury contingent, Fuzzie and Killler, were up early and heading to Bathurst to have a hunt for goats with a mate up that way.

Back at the hall, and the boys swung into action building the fine trophy display including a myriad of shoulder mounts, European mounts and scull caps, as well as plenty of top quality photographs. Outside the hall a couple of the young up and comers Nick Hervert and Ryan Kennedy tracked down Dave Whiting’s 3D boar target and started shooting arrows into it, practicing with both their compounds and traditional gear. This trend continued over the whole weekend with the poor old pig copping a flogging with all manner of high tech and not so high tech equipment.

With the trad bows came the flu-flu arrows and soon cardboard discs were being thrown into the air shortly followed by several flu-flu’s at a time. At the end of the day, I think Cashy took line honours with the flu-flu’s, with his first three shots hitting the mark. In addition to the target shooting, hunting video’s were being played in the hall for all to watch. A bit of new footage was offered up as well as some old favourites. There was also some top quality hunting gear on sale, bought along by Corey Head.

Saturday night saw the presentation of the annual TT game awards and the photography and trophy awards. This year the photography and trophy awards were selected by a team of keen young local bowhunter’s from the Wellington area. It was great to have them along, and have such a valuable input into proceedings. The winners of the 2007 awards are presented below:

Boar Award:
Mick Barrett - 30 6/8 DS

Goat Award:
Mick Barrett - 128 5/8 DS

Red Deer Award:
Mark Wills - 267 DS

Fallow Deer Award:
Paul Southwell - 223 DS

Rusa Deer Award:
Damian Gouveia - 195 - 5/8 DS

Chital Deer Award
Antonio Lara - 156 4/8 DS

Fox Award:
Wayne Anderson - 10 6/16 DS

Traditional Award:
James Warne Goat - 104 6/8 DS
Ben Chambers Goat - 105 5/8 DS

Junior Bowhunter
Casey McCallum

Chairmans Award
Casey McCallum Fallow - 212 4/8 DS

Legend Award
Paul Hardie

Photography and Trophy Awards

Best hunting photo – framed live game:
Anthony Clarkson – Bedded deer

Best hunting photo – framed hunter and game
Dale Furze – Sambar ‘05’

Best scenic/natural photo
Adam Greentree – Spider

Best hunting photo – unframed live game
Stan Kwasigroch – Lining up a pig

Best hunting photo – unframed hunter and game
Adam Greentree and Graham CashRed deer

Best composite live game framed
James Warne – Billies fighting

Best composite hunter and game
Pedro Lever – Manuel Aguis fallow/fox/cat

Best mounted gamehead
Chris Hervert – Billy

After the awards presentation, the annual story competition winner was announced and the raffle was drawn. For 2007, the staff at Archery Supplies decided that the BowTech bow would be going to an excited Chris Hervert for his story “we need a bigger ball room” printed in the June/July 2007 newsletter. Well done Hervert, you arsey bastard!

There were some great prizes in the raffle, none of which surpassed a beautifully crafted set of timber arrows donated by Manuel Agius. Mick Kernaghan was the lucky winner of these. After the presentation, it was time to retire to the large bonfire that was burning outside, and plenty of stories were told, helped along with the odd amber ale!