Now or when I was younger?
I have less hobbies now. I like kayaking and fishing but don't do as much as I should. I used to be big into open-ocean marine deep sea fishing and other saltwater inlet style fishing, but now I actually much prefer inland freshwater creeks and rivers which I find more serene and peaceful. The fish are not as good to eat, and I don't usually bother eating them, just do catch and release.
More than that though my absolute favourite thing to do is hiking and a hunting style they call "mooching" in the UK, which no one really does in Australia much. Where you just walk around with your dogs in a wilderness area and try and find whatever you can find.
In Australia most hunters are targeting something in particular and have their dogs trained to ignore everything else and they use a very specialised kind of method that often involves the dogs hunting off the back of a vehicle (if they are even using dogs). But just wandering around quietly, searching for "sign" and clues and using your instincts to figure out where you think the animals will be hiding and getting in synch with your dogs and reading eachothers' body language etc etc. That is my favourite thing in the world which I do basically every day except for when I have a run of nightshifts and can't really do it.
We don't catch many things, but we get lots of "flushes" and "chases". If I wanted to get serious about maximising my "bag" of game I would switch to collie lurchers or something like that. I use a specialised boarhound and a sheep dog, so we don't get much, and that is actually fine with me. I don't want to be decimating the wildlife in my preferred areas (which are limited in number, and threatening to reduce all the time).
The animals we target (with varying success and some with no success) are - Quails, Brush Turkeys, Pheasant Coucal, curlews and various rails, European brown hare, European Rabbit, about 3 different species of bandicoot, 2 species of possum, various rodents (invasive and native- including rakali water rat), 7 species of macropod (Agile, Swamp, Red-necked and Whiptail wallabies, pademelons and wallaroos, and grey kangaroos), 3 species of deer (red, rusa and fallow), feral cat, red fox, wild dog. Feral goat and feral pigs SHOULD be possible encounters but I have never encountered them in my local areas (I have participated in a few boar hunts with relatives many years ago, not with my own dogs). Very very very rarely I have dipped my toe in emu country, and scrub bull, brumby and camel country (also axis deer), and if I went through the possible animals out there I'd have more to list, but I have never "dogged" them in any capacity, or even actively looked for them and found their sign or anything.
My dogs also chase water dragons and lace monitors occasionally and have harassed carpet pythons (and harassed an ENORMOUS red bellied black snake, must have been near record size), but I have trained them to basically not attack reptiles. I'm not interested and it is also the easiest way to keep them safe from venomous snakes. They still show some interest but are cautious due to my training.
This is my main hobby, my main daily physical activity. Just venturing around in the wilderness kind of stealthily tracking animals with my dogs and then mostly just flushing them and chasing them, but occasionally they will bag the odd thing which is found "lacking" as bolushi would say.
Then I come home, put up my feet and drink scotch and play video games or watch movies. Or of course research on the internet (animals and history and other topics), debate and troll, etc (a lot of the latter internet stuff is what I do at work. I have about 40 something hours a week to waste at work on the internet).
In the past I have been big into basketball, skateboarding, bmx, mountain biking, rugby, running, lifting weights, etc, don't do any of that any more. Also stopped going out socialising with friends for a long time but now that my kids are bigger I recently started again, a little.
I am very very interested in comedy as well. Almost geekily know a lot about the history of comedy and know a lot about comedians and comedy writers and stuff around the world. Even wanted to be a comedy writer at one point. I dislike and scrutinise and criticise a lot of them. My favourite thing to watch is this guy who just shits on comedians and other dumb celebrities in funny ways-
Redbar RadioAlso interested in scifi and curiosities and some fantasy I guess. Crime stuff maybe. History, like I mentioned, has become a bigger and bigger focus for me. And I like searching for obscure historical texts and getting clues from them.
I feel like that is probably about it. I am writing my book which is a big thing, taking a lot of time, though should be taking more of my time.
