It had been far too long since I had been for a hunt, over 6 months in fact so I told my mate that we were going for a hunt this week weather he had plans or not. After finally beating his will to work out of him we settled to g for a mid week walk into some country we had seen some deer in before and we thought it might not have too much snow after the big dump we had last week. We had an early start and as we neared our patch we were making jokes that it was to cold to go hunting as the temp plummeted below zero. We got to the hunting grounds, scared to go outside as the temp reading outside the truck was at -10!
We tramped into our hunting grounds braveing the cold till the sun come up. After an hour of glassing and not seeing any animals in any of the places we thought theyll be holding up put a bit of a dampner on our hopes so decided to carry on trudging through knee deep snow to get a closer look in another couple of guts further up the valley that looked like they might maybe hold an animal or 2. After another 2 hours of glassing we were about to give up and call it a day as we were soaked through and frozen I turned to my mate and said theres a deer. He called bullshit and I replied yeah, theres 3. No wait theres 5. It took him a bit to finally believe me as he locked onto them with his own binos. After a sandwich and a drink we had a plan to sneak up a creek to the only small flatish looking spot where we could get a shot without spooking them.
We crashed and slipped and swore as we made our way up the creek still way short of where we wanted to be, i ranged the deer out of curiosity. 570 yards. I said to my mate, I think this is our shot. Made a bench from our packs got comfy. Dialled the scope, chose a spiker and pew went the 300win mag. Down he went. We were expecting the rest of the group to bolt but they all stood looking at each other wondering what was going on so my mate asked for a shot. He got behind the rifle, pew went the 300 again and down went a hind, he had just shot his first deer. It took us another 2 hours to reach the animals and another 3 make it back to the truck. It was the hardest days hunting I never had but also one of the coolest being with a good mate getting his first animal. Attachment 112817
