Cautionary tale with a happy ending
Well little miss nearly 12 has been pestering me to take her hunting for a few months now, having failed at getting either of my older sons to show any interest in hunting I have taken a much more cautious approach with my girls.
Spotlighting hares from the truck and such, the odd easy trip 4wding and taking them to places not to hostile, steep, or gorse/matagouri infested and in reasonable weather too not howling nor westers, rain or super hot.
My youngest daughter who was 9 at the time joined me on one such hunt and literally within 10 minutes of parking the truck my mate smoked a large velvet stag so she immediately believes hunting is easy....
Well fast forward a year and little miss older sister has had a similar experience :yaeh am not durnk:
We arrived late afternoon at our chosen glassing spot parked the truck and walked 10 minutes up over a ridge and sat our bums under a couple of scrubby manuka trees to settle in for a couple hours glassing until night fall.
I explained to my daughter we had to stay low using the manuka to hide our outline and that we would likely be here for a few hours and would need to keep the noise to a bare minimum and whisper if she needed to tell me anything.
She nodded and I handed her a pair of binos, explaining to her that deer will come from the bush edge and wait sometime up to an hour before venturing out to feed in the open closer to dusk, she nodded and dutifully started looking around binos glued to her face the whole time.
Meanwhile myself and my good mate settled in breaking down the face and scanning places we know the deer frequent.
Settling in for a good solid glassing session I scanneda little further a field and almost immediately set eyes on the back of a deer just the other side of the ridge at about 430 yards, I watched it for a minute before letting my mate know "we are on" I guided him onto it with his binos and we both watched as it and 2 more deer fed up over the ridge towards us.
Now the tricky part, we were sitting on a ver steep hill side with long tussock everywhere.....no where flat to take a prone shot.
With the deer completely oblivious to our presence and the wind well in our favour we hatched a plan to crawl on our bellies about 30m back up to the saddle behind us and lay prone for a shot from there.
Wih my mate keeping an eye on the deer to make sure they were head down feeding my daughter and I crawled up to the saddle, I then re aquired the deer and watched them signaling to my mate when they were to pre occupied feeding so he could crawl up to where my daughter and I were now set up.
I quickly checked the range again 450 yards perfect conditions only the slightest hint of a breeze coming towards us.
I quickly consulted strelok and dialed in the correction then I lined up on the biggest hind and chambered a round.
She was facing slightly down hill and almost facing us directly so had to wait 30 seconds or so for her to step sidways and present a good shot.
She dutifully steppec to the side and I whispered to my mate to get ready to spot the shot, I also warned my daughter I was about to shoot.
Breath in.....breath out.....stop......Boomfa ! Whatched her topple just before I heard the corresponding THWACK ! of a solid hit bang flop and she rolled about 5m down hill.
The other 2 hinds gapped it back over the hill so no follow up shots on them.
Worked out we could get the trusty Pajero to within about 20m of where the hind piled up so I jogged back to the truck leaving my mate and daughter to stay with the rifles and binos.
Quick bit of careful 4wding and we were over to where the hind was, my daughter was first out the truck and making her way down to yhe hind.....bloody quick and zero fear, I told her to stop short and wait as even though I was fairly certain the hind was dead I didn't want to risk it thrashing around and hurting anyone.
I quickly closed the gap and ascertained it was definitely dead then I stood back and proudly watched as my daughter approached the deer and gently stroked it thanking the deer for letting us eat her....this was completely unprompted as she's never seen me do it but it is something I always do....proud dad moment there.
Anyway me and my mate dragged the hind 20-30m back up the hill to where the truck was and gutted the deer all the while my daughter asking questions and intently watching not even slightly grossd out.
Now for the cautionary bit !!!!!! The deer was actually hit quite high in the spine whick was not where I was aiming result was still good dead on the spot but it made me wonder.
I checked my scope which I had already dialed back immediately after the shot......it was still dialed about 4 inches high !!!! Clearly las time I shot I forgot to dial it back and ehen I shot this time I didn't actually check the numbers I just counted the clicks......bloody lucky as if it was a few inches higher I would've shot straight over the top. Bit of luck there and a reality check.
Anyway now both daughters think this deer hunting caper is easy :D already being pestered as to when we can go again.
What a way to spend an afternoon. I'll upload pics shortly.
