Thread: hunting incompetence

I was out with 2post a couple of roars back. Dropping down a ponga face we had stopped to look and wait as we had heard noise below us and to one side. Just then my phone rings. It's down in the bottom of my day pack and takes some time to reach. That particular mobile number has a fairly limited distribution list so even in the circumstances I feel obliged to check it and sure enough it had been my wife phoning.

Now my wife has never even texted me during my previous 60 hunting trips, let alone phoned - accepting as she does that hunting time is man-alone time. So then I feel obliged to call her back to determine what domestic emergency has befallen my family.

You'll all be familiar with those running boar carnival games where you attempt to knock down a parade of critters with an BB rifle to win a large fluffy bunny or somesuch. So while in mid-conversation we had an all-the-fun-of-the-fair experience where first a hind, then its yearling, and then a 6-point stag paraded at a leisurely stroll, each in turn, across the gap in the bush below us at a distance of maybe 12 metres at most. Because I was slightly in front of 2post, he had to watch helplessly with rifle-in-hand while I determined what far-away drama had unfolded.

Conversation over and so were the deer – long gone, and certainly never to be seen again.

And bizarrely the reason for the call? Did I want peas or beans with my dinner ?