Cherry popped....on the board

[Scouser]

Hi all, got my first deer yesterday, Fallow, on a guided hunt at Balnagown deer farm, about 40 mins north of Auckland

as im a complete novice/newbie, whose only experience is from 'you tube' and other internet sights, i decided to try and get some first hand experience before 'the roar'.....got to start somewhere!

the 'farm' is set up for hunting (bowhunters can go solo, no guide) with 300 acres of pines, rolling hills and native bush, my guide Peter Hansen, set me up for a stag, so we ignored the 'spikers' and hinds
for a decent sized animal (4-5 years old), after seeing no stags in the pine forest, we were unfortunately 'upwind' for the open hills part of the farm, a mob ran off with a couple of nice stags in it, didn't even
get the chance to take the safety off the 222 cal Remington Peter had set me up with (my 25-06 is not sighted in yet), so we flanked around, got downwind and slowly descended into the native bush to try
and stalk them, lots of activity in the bush, and eventually i got the chance to shoot at a stag approx 80 mts away, prone shot....

I managed to control my 'fever' and drop him first shot, RAPT, my shot placement was a few inches further right than i wanted (we all want perfect, right) but thankfully is was not a gut shot and Peter humanely
finished him with a knife....took some photos (which i cant down load onto this site, unfortunately) he then taught me cleaning out and checking liver and ribcage for spots/disease and how to make the front/back legs
into back pack straps for me to carry out, then taught me to skin him, carcass weight 32 kgs

brilliant start to the season for me, now of course I want to hunt 'in the wild' and do the prep work myself, if any body else is in this situation please PM me for details and costs, (NO commission for me, bummer)

[Happy]

Good work Scouser.. Great to have someone whos knows the ropes to show you how it goes !!!

[Rushy]

Well done Scouser. It will feel good to get yourself on the board.

[TimeRider]

Congrats Scouser

[Bavarian_Hunter]

Savour the feeling mate, none feel the same as your first!

[Toby]

Congrats on the first, why cant you load pics up?

[Scouser]

Congrats on the first, why cant you load pics up?

Not sure Toby, ive double checked the info from crzyman in the forum, but when i click on the photo it shows a 'red X'' in the little box to the right of the heading, tried on 3 different posts, will let my partner have a bash tonight, shes into IT......

[Toby]

File to large? try resize the image and try again.

[Rushy]

Not sure Toby, ive double checked the info from crzyman in the forum, but when i click on the photo it shows a 'red X'' in the little box to the right of the heading, tried on 3 different posts, will let my partner have a bash tonight, shes into IT......

See if you can't make the photo file size smaller. It may be too large.

[veitnamcam]

Nice one scouser :thumbup:
Guided hunts can be great for getting to see some animals and how they go about there lives,also how they react to human scent
Our social club hunts i organise are always on private property and there has been a first kill on every trip so far.

Sent from my GT-S5360T using Tapatalk 2

[dogmatix]

Good work!
Nice to get one under your belt.

[Scouser]

Not sure Toby, ive double checked the info from crzyman in the forum, but when i click on the photo it shows a 'red X'' in the little box to the right of the heading, tried on 3 different posts, will let my partner have a bash tonight, shes into IT......

Still wont load.....but my partner, after seeing the photo said 'arrh he looks so cute'.....to which i replied, 'he will on wednesday when he's on the end of your fork'.......

[Rushy]

Ha ha ha that is the reality of it Scouser

[RimfireNZ]

Nice one Scouser. Congratulations. 32KG is pretty decent. Most of the ones I've shot have been around 25-30KG for just the skinned carcass.

My first dear was a fear years ago on a guided hunt too (I went from Tony from the Cazador restaurant. He films most of his hunts and puts them on youtube: Waikarimoana,the hunting and fishing channel - YouTube). I was using a suppressed 22-250 and put one right in his head from 250m away. I'll always remember that. It was the first "big" animal I shot (bigger than a hare/possum anyway).

Fallow tastes delicious. You can use a bread knife on the steaks pretty much. Perfect time too, it's BBQ season still

[Rushy]

Thanks for the link to a great video RimfireNZ