Thread: Swapped a meal for a deer.

Last summer/autumn was a blank for me for one reason or another. Two trips to my usual spot turned up nothing. Then another into the Tararuas with a good mate end of March and still nothing. The weather pretty much beat us on that one. What was funny though was on the walk out, we heard 6 different stags roaring. When I say we, I mean my mate. My hearing is pretty bad and the tinnitus seems to be louder than ever. He couldn't believe how I couldn't hear some of them. And now understands why my hunting trips are nearly all focussed on tops and open country
I could hear one which was only a couple hundred metres off the track but even with good wind (finally) that one shut up on us.

Anyway, mid December just been and it was back to my usual spot for hopefully some Christmas venison. I had my new southernlite pack to try out to for the first time. This is my pack here https://www.facebook.com/southernlit...A467KBL7smCSql Very very happy with it. Well despite best intentions, the usual holdups kept adding on. Including the wife saying stay a few extra nights if you want, so stopped into the supermarket along the way to get a bit more food. Got to the road end later than I'd hoped but in good time to get in, set up and close to 2 hours of daylight left and a great forecast ahead anyway so feeling pretty relaxed.

I got into the hut in good time and was hanging out for a brew and while I'm boiling water may as well get the freeze-dri meal sorted. There were a couple of trampers in so the usual pleasantries were exchanged before I took the binos and my brew for a quick look-see. Well how about that.....3 deer already out feeding but a long way off. What to do? A deer in the hand is better than a heap in the bush, so I grabbed the daypack, double checked the torch was working then made tracks.

My initial glassing should probably have been for a bit longer given how much light I still had left, because as I'm starting to cut distance, I come up over a small rise, and there's a young stag stopped just looking at me from maybe 40m away. I slowly close the bolt and dial the scope right down and then steadily bring the rifle up whilst not looking directly at him. I thought he was going to accommodate all this carry on, but he started prancing off towards the scrub. Argh! A minute pause to make sure I couldn't see him and I then back tracked a bit and snuck up onto a shelf to see if I could cut him off. Saw him once more as he was still heading off and cursed myself. Oh well, the 3 I'd spotted were still plenty ahead so all is not lost.

Carried on now taking my time as I should have to start with and it paid off because a couple hundred meters further on I spy a young spiker feeding on its own. Now I'm in business. Got down low out of sight and a quick system check of everything then the belly crawl forwards until I can see him again. Ranged him at 160m and he's feeding happily but front on. So I just hold tight and wait. He keeps feeding his way down into a dip, then out of sight but I've got everything covered so I'm going to see him again. After about 10 minutes I'm starting to doubt myself. There's no way he's snuck off without me seeing. I slowly sit up and now I see his head. He knows something is up because even though still feeding, every time he looks up its straight at me. Then out the corner of my eye I see movement and its a young stag heading slowly along to join this one. I'm sure it's the same animal I bumped about a half hour back. Same size and same looking head. Maybe he's seen this spiker and decided to come down and have dinner after all.

The stag is broadside and stays that way as he takes the odd step forward whilst feeding away. An easy shot, one bound and he's down. With the way the light was I see 5 or 6 big exhales of breath/mist from him and that's it. Quite a somber feeling that is still the enduring memory from this hunt. Not long after and a big hind trots past, then I see the spiker and it's decided that following might be in it's best interests.

After boning it out (all four legs plus back steaks) then back to the hut, as usual everyone else is long in bed and I'm deciding if I really want to eat a stone cold freeze-dri meal or just go to be slightly hungry. Opt for the latter in the end.

I saw the 3 deer back out in the morning but with the wind heading their way ditched that idea and as it was, I wasn't fully confident my still repairing knee would handle much more weight for the walk out. I've considered this before, and finally gave in to doing a bit of a shuttle on the steepest part of the walk out. Carry the pack for a km or so, then ditch it and go back for the meat and carry that. I got all the meat back in the pack for the last bit of walk out and it handled the load brilliantly.

Well, pressure is off now. Hoping for a hunt/fish trip before the end of March somewhere. And next summer the plan is to use the pack for why I chose the design and do a walk in, packraft out trip somewhere too. Always something to aim for

Cheers all.

Well done. Enjoyed the write up and end result for the freezer! December is a crazy good month for getting prepared for BBQ's.

Great story, thanks. Nice to read of successful stalks.

nice chewing there, well done

Well written yarn,I enjoyed reading that.

Nice story. Just goes to show that even when you know where animals are it pays 'to make haste slowly'.