After the last few days of heavy rain, I decided to head out to some local DOC land to make the most of a sunny afternoon and see if I could find a red deer or two sitting out avoiding the dripping wet bush.
Parking in the car park and heading up through the trees, it was obvious no one had walked the track, but it was still very well worn from recent roar activity, as this is a popular area for people to hunt during the roar and summer months.
After a couple of hours climb at a leisurely pace, I arrived at my preferred lookout point. Out with the Binos and a quick glass revealed another hunter with 4 dogs heading back to a quad parked on the edge of the DOC and farm land, he must have already been over the area with the pig dogs and seen me heading up and decided to vacate the area.
I watched as he headed off with his dogs onto the farm land and disappeared back down the track and out of sight with the noise of the quad fading into the distance.
"Well that's this spot buggered for the day, fat chance of anything coming out now after the area being scented up and disturbed!" I thought to myself.
Deciding to take advantage of the opportunity for a bit of target practice and fine tuning of a load with the 150 Bergers in .270wsm, I ranged a small slip at 845m. A small white rock about .5 MOA gave a suitable aim point and the first round clipped the top with a satisfying audible report a couple of seconds later.
That'll do nicely I thought as I sent a second VLD on its way, which was pushed off course by a light breeze, just missing my aim point by a couple of inches to the left.
Loading another round into the chamber, a gentle squeeze of the trigger and a solid hit let me know that there wasn't much developing left to do for this load!
I sat for a few minutes letting the silencer cool off as the heat from it was now distorting the sight picture.
Getting behind the rifle again and looking for another aim point on the slip, I was somewhat surprised to be greeted by the sight of a decent stag standing and feeding less that five meters from where my last shot had hit...so surprised in fact that I decided to make a quick phone call to @Uplandstalker and describe the unusual situation, as a quick evaluation had initially led me to think that the animal was too difficult to retrieve the same day.
Steve and I had I brief chat, decided an early morning recovery was possible and with all the data already in shooter, the decision was pretty much made for me, it would almost have been rude not to!
I put the phone down with Steve still on the line, lined up the shot and sent another VLD on its way.
The stag reacted well to the shot, took a few unsteady steps across the slip and collapsed into the vegetation on the far side. A second shot for insurance saw his head slump and I was happy both shots had hit their mark.
Steve and I had a further chat about the situation. Both of us have hunted the area quite extensively, and although it was to be a bit of a mission, with a spare headlight and batteries and plenty of warm clothes and the knowledge that Steve knew exactly the route that I would be taking, I opted to recover the stag there and then.
It took a couple of hours to reach the stag.
He was a real old boy, pedicles sunk well down, teeth well worn and had seen his prime in previous years...but a great character head!
13 intact points and 1 broken point with good thick beams.
A couple of photos and a quick butcher and I started the 3.5 hour walk out down the river in the dark, it was bloody cold as the river was high with snow melt but I made the truck just after 8pm exhausted and happy to have secured a decent old stag with a memorable hunt.
The old slip where the stag was shot, just at the end of the barrel.
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His home.
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The slip.
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Final (awkward) resting place.
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The old boy.
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