Thread: Unexpected bonus….part one

This story could of been a couple of pics in the .223 thread. Decide nah the forum needs another story.

I headed up to my brothers for what seems like a annual pilgrimage( be meaning to go more but lockdowns and quad issues meant it hasn’t happen as often as I’d like…). Actually I’d gone up at a similar time last year. Was a bit cooler then but yesterday arvo was hot as…

Rock up to the locked double gates, go to dial up the combination….hmm what gives… not working.. shuffled it round a few times, give it a tap, yes I’ve the right combination…no go. Sweet as, I’ll try another gate…nup, locked, couldn’t even move the keys. As I was I a cellphone dead spot, didn’t really want to drive out and make a call…I’ll try that gate. Sweet as, gate was unlocked. Not a idea place to park as couldn’t get car/trailer up track cos of branches n trees, so backed up as far as I could, scratching the car in the process…f##k, hopefully mum won’t see it…. Hmmm, this looks real dodge so I left a note on window for local nosey neighbour/neighbourhood watch/pitch fork vigilante types to assuage any concerns.

Unload quad n load up quad turning it into a ‘technical..’…sort of. Plan was to do a evening hunt then spotlight back out when was dark.

Cruised up a track, noticing some real laid back magpies..might get a crack here….shore nuff, managed this one….



Rode up to where I was going to park quad n go for a walk. Basically I park at top of ridge then using old bulldozed tracks, I walk down a face that’s covered in regen native which has grass clearings I that can look into. With the way the wind was I had to head up a ridge then cut down the ‘middle’ of the face then do a loop back to quad with the wind in my face…


As I was walking up ridge I spooked a hare. Was going to have a crack at it but it took off…which turned out to be a good thing as to what happened shortly…. Funnily enough I’d spooked a hare in the same spot(ish) a year ago…

I walked down a spur (that had been bulldozed once upon a time but now was just a stock track), taking my time and checking out clearings as I went. I had plenty of time as I needed it to be dark when I headed back to car spotlighting. About 2/3 of the way down I had a sit down and scanned whatever clearings I could see. I saw some sheep make a appearance on the opposite face(neighbouring property) coming up out of some rubbish..most probably from the creek. Sweet, starting to look like prime time, animals starting to move up out of the shade to eat/forage.

With not seeing anything and enough contemplation I start up shanks pony again n moseyed off. Within 50 metres of moving off down the track it opened up on my left hand side. Oh, a deer..hasn’t seen me, sweet. Lie down, jiggle around to get a clear line of fire…(suppressed) BOOM, thud, neck shot , deer down. Best way to get to it is to scuttle down the bottom and come back up the other side. Scout around and and find it…resting against a fence…luckily… The 55gn SP had done it’s job.



Now the fun begins….. getting meat out.. I knew I wasn’t going to carry it out whole as I had nowhere for it to go ie a chiller so brak it down it was. Drag it out a bit then turn it on its back…front wheels off…then one back strap…as I was getting the second in, it rolled through the fence…oh dear….Put everything over the fence then climb down…no actually zigzag using the cattle tracks, mucho easier.

The deer ended up in a better spot as I had room more to finish business…
Finish cutting the other backstrap off then the rear wheels…the neck chops can stay for Tane. Plan was to lug the meat out to where the (good) track came down to the creek then walk up and get the quad. Normally I like to walk it out once but since I had climb a few elevations with a load I thought I’d use my top two inches, walk out and use Honda goodness to do the grunt work..




I’d leaked a bit getting the meat to the pick up point so made use of the H20 in the creek…dead sheep n all. As I was waiting for it to get darker I’ll killed a bit of time by pulling out some ragwort. Good deed for the day done. I’ll come back another time n do some more weeds n some fencing jobs since he’s been kid enough to let me hunt here.

I might break this adventure into 2 parts as Tapatalk is been a bit if a dick loading photos and I’m starting to wilt a bit… all will be revealed in part two…


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