by sandgroperbill » 14 Sep 2015, 3:21 pm
Hi,
TBH the only hunting allowed in WA has to be on private property (farms with the property owners permission). This is limited to feral species (unless the property owner has a permit, in which case you may hunt roos, but these permits are limited.
If you use recreational hunting/feral control as your genuine reason when applying for your license, you must already have the permission of a landowner with an "adequate" amount of land. This varies from caliber to caliber, for example (from memory) 30-30 and 45-70 require 500 acres, 22cal and most 30 Cal centre fires need 2000 acres (minimum 1000 but less than 2000 may get you extra questions and still be declined depending on the location and type of land, so just think 2000 acres).
The landowner has to fill out a form and list the Calibres they will allow (they can simply write any, but this is totally up to them) and list the feral species that can be found on their property.
If you don't have this, then you can join a club and get a license based on this, but your firearms will have restrictions placed on them ( you cannot use a firearm restricted to ranges to hunt on private property), but if your firearm is licensed for recreational hunting, there will be no restrictions listed on the license, so you can use it at the range as well as for hunting.
Finding a landowner that will allow you to use their property and give you a letter, well, this is a lot more difficult. Most farmers are sick of strangers asking them for letters, and there is a problem with people hunting on their land without permission (around me there are a couple of farmers that have had livestock stolen and their property damaged) so are understandably reluctant to allow people on their farms to shoot.
You could join a club of some sort (bowls, darts, cricket, whatever you can find) outside of Perth to make connections and let people get to know you. Lend a hand here and there, make a few friends and you'll start to meet people with land.
Alternatively, a few stations up north will hire themselves out to you for a week (basic accommodation, be prepared to rough it). These stations are riddled with feral camels, donkeys, goats, etc. So if you get a group of people together, you can have an entire large station to yourselves for a few hundred each with more ferals than you could point a boom stick at. Just be aware that you would need calibres large enough for these species, so it can be a bit of a catch 22 (you need a landowner with enough land to justify a large enough calibre, I would suggest .243 would be absolute minimum, .270+ would be a better bet, .303, 7mm-08 or higher would be my opinion).
Hope this info helps.
SB