2012 Trophy Takers Annual Awards - Tully QLD.

Tully Bowhunters Club at Tully in Far North Queensland was the venue for the fourth lot of TT Annual Awards to be held in the Sunshine State with previous locations being Barcaldine, Maryborough and Gladstone.
The Awards were held in conjunction with the Tully Club’s renowned Annual Traditional shoot and provided a real opportunity for our members to mix, meet or renew acquaintances with likeminded bowhunters and field archers. TT members travelled some long distances including from Victoria, NSW and other parts of QLD plus Wal Parker made it two Awards in a row from where he works in PNG.

As expected the weather was fine, hot and humid for this late September weekend, meaning a few cold ones were enjoyed by all after each day’s shooting events.

The Tully Club was established in 1977 and with 35 years of rich Bowhunting history the opportunity was not missed by the TT Committee to give some recognition to many of the local bowhunting legends during the Saturday night TT Annual Award presentations. By the way the close link between TT and the Tully club goes back to our foundation days in the mid 1980’s when Tully greats such as the late Bill Baker and the late Bill Hill plus Dave Keable, Albert Agale, John Tietzel and Michael Venturato joined, supported and rated some excellent game with us.

Whilst TT has never enjoyed a massive membership I am proud to say we continue to attract the truly active trophy bowhunters throughout Australia to our ranks and the quantity of quality game registered by our members year in year out never ceases to amaze me. The 2012 rating year was no different and continued to rearrange Top 10 positioning for many of the game animals our rating service rates. The Award winners are listed below but before listing these great efforts I would like to thank ALL of you TT Bowmen of the Bush that rated game with us this year and say congratulations in achieving and sharing some great personal milestones with us.

The highlights and best of our rating year, as presented at Tully were:

Boar - 32 DS - Paul Woods
(Accepted by Dave Keable)

Billy - 144 1/8 DS - Josh White
(Accepted by Shane Ross)

Red Deer - 249 5/8 DS - Adam Greentree
(Accepted by Lachlan Cooke)

Fallow Deer - 250 6/8 DS - Trevor Willis
(Accepted by Dave Whiting)

Rusa Deer - 209 4/8 DS - Ben Salleras
(Accepted by Peter “Slosh” Salleras)

Chital Deer - 197 DS - Paul Southwell
(Accepted by Paul Southwell)

Hog Deer - 96 5/8 DS - Will Ellen
(Accepted by Dave Whiting)

Buffalo - 91 6/8 DS - Anthony Clarkson
(Accepted by Chris Ogle)

Fox - 10 10/16 DS - Shane Dupille
(Accepted by Dave Whiting)

Cat – 8 DS - Steven Holgate
(Accepted by Mark Southwell)

Junior Bowhunter - Awarded to Glenn Payne
For his excellent ratings across our Billy, Fallow and Fox categories during 2012.
Accepted by Willy Agale.

Bill Baker Deer Award:
Award shared this year between Will Ellen for his magnificent Hog Deer and Paul Southwell for his excellent Chital Stag. Presented by Walter Niebling and accepted by Paul Southwell on behalf of both hunters.

Ian Fenton Traditional Award:
Another shared award between two of our longbow members, firstly Mark Pitts for his 151 point Rusa and secondly long term member Manuel Agius for his 176 2/8 point Snowy Mountains fallow.

Everyone in attendance on the night were thrilled to have this prestigious award accepted by the Ware family, a name synonymous with bowhunting in north Queensland for a period extending into its fifth decade with Bill and Gabby flying the family banner in the sport since the 1970s and sons David and Willy doing well with the bow in more recent decades.

Chairman’s Award:
A tough decision for me again this year but in the end I went with Paul Southwell for his outstanding results on a number of massive Chital he has shot over the past 12 months or so that not only regained him the #1 rating but also strengthened the quality of our top ten ratings for Chital. Well done Paul.

Dallas Conway & Kev Whiting No.1 Shield:
Will Ellen and Paul Southwell have had their names added to the shield for those that have over the past 26 years broken a #1 record on our primary rating fields of Boar, Billy, Buffalo and the six deer species. They are both now the proud owners of the very hard to get TT #1 shields. Well done fellas.

Danny (Where am I?) McMahon Legend Award:
This year went to three of our Cobar members and brothers Sean “Warra” Walsh; Dash Warren and Brock Walsh, plus Michael “Ranga” Blair from Innisfail for their hunting trip adventure gone wrong, including eventual helicopter rescue from a flood ravaged property in far NW NSW earlier this year. Well done boys, ya’s just pipped a fast finishing Danny Bajt who gave himself a very serious broadhead cut to the hand the night before he was due to head off on a long awaited and anticipated Buffalo hunt in the NT.
Hope the hands on the mend Danny and you can eventually take the trip on the Buffalo.

As for this year’s winners don’t forget that you guys get to pick next year’s
lucky/unlucky winner/mug!!!

TT award pictures below.