Thread: Early Winter hunt

Originally Posted by 308

Any kind of a story to go with the pics?

Sure,
We arrived at hut Friday Afternoon, after the usual toss the coin to see who gets the prime bunk and unpack, we headed out for a evening stalk, loads of sign but the weather was against us, headed back to the hut.
We got up at 4 am, coffee, and kitted up, neither of us slept well. We knew the weather was set to break so the deer will be out,
Walked about 2 Ks from the hut down stream and crossed the river, sun was starting to light the tops, the wind sorted I sneaked up a bank onto the flats, took about 15 steps in and something caught my eye, I thought in the darkness it was ferns blowing but soon realiased the fern fronds were antlers! Heart racing, I had no shot, I rested against a manauka and watched it feed, decided to give it a whistle and it lifted its head, looked left, dropped it, clean neck shot atabout 35-40 meters, how easy was that!
My mate carried on while I dressed the stag, 5-10 mins later... boom, he had one, nice spiker! we packed the animals back over river to the track.
After collecting animals we started back to hut and a my mate yelled out STAG! in the river... I lept out and ran to the bank with rifle, lined up and took a shot, missed... was leading it to much.... watched the stag nearly leap the river in one go, it stopped on bush line just over 100 meters away ( we ranged it afterwards), I’d loose it if it went in, had no side shot so I went for head, I know my rifle is 2” high at 100 so took a guess, pink mist and the stag dropped on the spot, head shot.
That’s all within about 1:20 from first to third.. thats the short version...