How it all began (My Story).

I grew up watching the (Aussie) T.V. series ‘Bush Tucker Man’ staring Les Hiddins and loved watching him find native Australian bush foods in the outback. He also often featured Australian Aboriginal people, their ways of life and how they got their food in the old days. I was very interested in their hunting methods and tools even though Les focussed more on edible plants.

I was very keen on sport growing up and loved the idea of being able to throw projectiles at game animals and gain food that way. I didn’t know if it was possible for me to actually hit an animal with a spear or hunting boomerang (the tools of choice for Australian Aborigines) but I was willing to give it a try. When I was thirteen years old I went on a trip to Central Australia and bought an ornamental boomerang. When I got back I immediately started throwing it at rabbits not far from our farm house. The boomerang, which was more designed for returning, soon broke under the pressures put on it for hunting and I had to ask my father to make me another one.

 We kept the same design but it was made from heavy native wood (black box) and was much tougher. I took this out hunting and in just a few sessions I hit my first rabbit. When I say “hit” I really mean it hit the boomerang. I was walking along a tree line when the rabbbit ran out in front of me in a circle and back towards me to get to its warren. When it was about 6 meters away I threw the boomerang, which landed in front of the rabbit by about half a meter. The boomerang landed in such a way that it stood up on both ends briefly making an upright ‘A’ shape on the ground. The poor rabbit was not expecting this and knocked its head straight on the centre of it and passed out. Very surprised I quickly picked up my successful throwstick and finished off the rabbit. 

Even though I saw this as a bit of a fluke I could see that I would improve and perhaps get direct hits out at a further distance. At that time there were plenty of rabbits in my area and in many parts of Australia. A whole realm of activity had opened up to me. My new sport had begun.

Over the next two years I broke numerous boomerangs on fence posts and trees but my count of rabbits started to increase. After watching my father make my first boomerang I made the rest from there and did my best to avoid obstacles. A dry lake bed full of horehound weeds was close to my house and was ideal cover for rabbits to squat in and hide for the day. It also had very few logs and no big rocks that would break my good work. I would take our two Jack Russel terriers to the lake to raise the rabbits and I would throw at the bunnies in mainly close range, hunting during the cooler months to avoid venomous snakes.  

Most of my throwing was at rabbits that had come up not far from my feet so most of the shots were under fifteen meters. None-the-less, by the time I was fifteen years old I was averaging a rabbit every six throws and getting some in the twenty meter range. With my ‘A’ or ‘V’ shape design though it would always glance off to the left after fifteen meters or so.

Along the way I perfected the boomerang design to fly much straighter for the longer throws by pure accident. I had made a larger one to increase the width and therefore chance of hitting my game. I made it out of a fairly brittle log from a black box tree and when I threw it, it drifted quickly to the left and hit the ground with a snap. A little upset my hours of work had seemingly been ruined, I noticed it had only broken the end of the non-holding side. Just to see what might happen I threw it again and miraculously it flew dead straight! It was then that I remembered some pictures of the original hunting boomerangs that the aborigines had made and it looked the same as them - one short side and one long.

 I took my new design home and shaped and sanded the broken end down. I took it out again the next weekend and had more success at my longer throws. It would go straight the entire length of my throw of about thirty five to forty meters. I had lost a little length in the design but I could also throw it faster because the centre of its weight was closer to my hand. From this point on whenever I broke my throwstick I would use this design for the new one.

By age sixteen and my third winter into throwing boomerangs at rabbits I had hit over one hundred rabbits. I would rarely come home from a hunt without at least one bunny. At the peak of the fun came a day when I was getting ready to go home and a rabbit came out from under my feet once again. I couldn’t immediately throw at it though because it ran behind a low bank blocking my flight path. I quickly ran onto the bank and threw the boomerang at it with a 'leading the target' technique often used in shotgun shooting, but it works in boomerang throwing as well. I had to aim high as well because there was always quite a bit of fall in my throwstick flight. I watched the rabbit run away from me very straight and thought my throw was good enough to get to it if it just stayed on that path. The boomerang caught up with it just above its head and finally stalled at that point and dropped on top of it. The rabbit dropped, rolled a couple of times and went limp. I shouted, “Yes!” and jumped up like I was at a sports game. I had just done my best and furthest throw. I ran up to the rabbit to see where I had hit it. There was no mark to see, but after skinning I found I’d hit it on the back of the head just below the ear. It was an instant kill. 

I continued to hit rabbits for a short time after this until I injured my shoulder quite badly from poor posture and too much tennis. Due to some very good rehab I have since been able to pick up the boomerang, but the days of millions of rabbits, due to new introduced diseases, have long gone. There are still rabbits around but not in the numbers that are ideal for keeping my skill level to where it was many years ago. Not to mention it is harder to get as close to them due to an increased timidity, possibly also due to the lower numbers. These days I have better methods of target throwing and am building my skill level back up to where it was.

As a teen I always wanted to make a show and demonstrate that hitting game with a hunting boomerang was possible. But I didn’t have any idea how a T.V. show would ever get to doing that with me. As of the writing of this article it has been thirty years since I hit my last rabbit. I’ve created a Youtube channel ‘Wozzas Boomerang Adventures’ and am getting back into it and finding small rabbit populations along with hares. I still have the opportunity to show the world what can be done with the hunting boomerang.