Couple more for the freezer. By mistake.
Works been flat stick recently and coming into race season for us the next few months for me means pretty much 7 day weeks. It sucks on the limited hunting time but I do enjoy it so can't complain too much. With that said I took the opportunity to get out last weekend mainly for the walk and hopefully see something but really was just keen to get out and spend a couple of days in the hills. The fact that the missus was away was even better and with some decent weather I was chomping at the bit to go. Saturday morning rolled round and I was out of bed bloody early to sort a couple of things round the house before packing the gear up and throwing it all in the amarok and hitting the round. I had 2 different valleys in mind to hunt and couldn't make my mind up as to which one to head up. That was until i got close enough to see that the first was still completely under snow down to bush edge. Easy decision, I was heading up the one with less snow, which just happened to be the same place I shot my first deer a couple years ago and since then had never managed to get another up there. I guess you could say I has unfinished business.
A couple of hours after leaving the truck saw me break out into the open feeling rather buggered. Too many coronas and jimmy's mutton pipes have been consumed recently and the body definitely felt them. When i reached the bush edge I sat and glassed a huge open valley but no animals were seen. However seeing it was 2pm and I still had a fair climb to get to my camp site I wasn't fazed and threw the pack back on and carried on the climb. Another hour or so later and I reached my camp site. Having been up here a few times before I knew I had a decent flat spot to camp out of the way, with running water close by. When i got there I was surprised to see huge avalanche had come down at some point over the winter and filled a dry river bed. It looked pretty spectacular and I'm still not sure why I didn't take any photos. Camp was setup and with a couple of hours of light left, I headed up the valley for an evening hunt.
It was probably a good hour and a half later when I spotted a couple of reds up the hill to my right. I sat watching them as due to the terrain and lack of daylight left knew there was no hope in getting to them. The heart rate did pick up though when they fed down through a couple of guts towards me. I half thought they would keep coming to withing shooting range but alas the turned round and went back and round the corner. With light just about gone I headed back to camp for a feed and come up with a plan for the morning. After much deliberation in my head I decided to spend half an hour or so the following morning glassing the face where I had seen the deer and if nothing appeared heading up round the corner into the next valley for a gander.
One good part of hunting at this time of year is the long nights which means a decent sleep and time for the body to recover. The next morning I woke early and sat outside my tent drinking coffee and eating brekkie while glassing for deer while the sun came up. I was as happy as a pig in shit. But with no animals seen after an hour decided it was time to try new ground. An hour later I was in the next valley round. I broke out the bush and immediately was stopped dead in my tracks. I could smell deer and then all of a sudden, I could hear bushes moving not far ahead. Then 2 reds just wandered out not more than 30 metres in front of me. I froze, they looked straight at me as if nothing was a miss. But they were on the skyline and there was no chance of a shot, so we had a staring contest for 5 minutes before they eventually wandered of on a gentle sunday stroll. I tried to follow but the ground was pretty steep as mentioned before due to beer and pies my fitness isn't as good as it should be. However the encounter filled me with confidence for the day.
I carried on up the hill and found a primo glassing spot that gave me vision of the whole valley. I sat and glassed and soon spotted a couple of animals a long way off, at best guess 700 metres. A spiker and what I think was a young 8 pointer. The bigger of the 2 quickly fed down out of sight, while the spiker was standing on a mound going about his morning without a care in the world. I knew the area they were in and decided that I would try and stay high using guts as cover and see if I could get close enough to maybe pull off a shot. I slowly started moving, while keeping an eye on the spiker, he was happy down there when all of a sudden I got made, not by him but a bloody hind. She stuck her head up couple hundred metres ahead of me and cantered off. I had no idea she was there, but when she moved the spiker saw her, then me. Bugger. The bastard spent the next 20 minutes not moving but with his eyes firmly locked on me. I couldn't move and my left leg was starting to get cramp. Not ideal. Thankfully he finally slowly wandered off down hill out of sight and i could stretch. I knew where he was and a good approach route and formed a plan.
Plans change. I began to syddle round the hill aiming for a gut to head down that would give me good cover. But, just as i was about to drop down into said gut there were 3 deer no more than 150 metres in front of me, oblivious to me being there. I slipped over trying to get back out of sight and thought I'd given myself up, but no, they didn't see or hear me. I decided to have a crack at one as I reasoned that if they got spooked they may alert the other deer in the valley and the whole game ould be up. I slowly slipped my pack off and put some ear plugs in. The .270 is a bit on the noisy side. Slowly I crept up to a flatish area and put the rifle on my pack and tried to calm down and get a decent rest. I lined up on 1 of the deer and waited. All I could see was 3 white arses. After what seemed like an eternity it turned side on, I settled myself and felt pretty comfortable. I pulled the trigger and the sunday morning quiet was shattered. The shot felt good but the deer bolted. I threw another one down the spout and tried to hit it again but it was gone uphill and out of sight. I even tried to run round the hill to follow it but no. Shit, I missed. I turned round and the other 2 were standing there. Idiots. I took a standing shot and clean missed. Now who's the idiot? But they were still standing 100m away. I tried to calm down, got down on my pack again and fired. Boom. 1 dead deer. The third finally decided it didn't want to be standing around and finally bolted. I sat there both happy and annoyed. Happy I'd shot a deer but annoyed I'd missed the first, the shot felt good and it wasn't a great distance but nothing has ever run from the the old savage .270.
After catching my breath I grabbed my gear and wandered over to the animal. I was about 50 metres above it when all of a sudden I was stopped in my tracks. I looked down in front of me and there plain as day on a patch of scree was fresh blood. It couldn't have come from the deer i was about to cut up as it dropped on the spot. I looked around and found another patch of blood. Then, oh fuck. I found another bloody dead deer. Fuck! First thought through my head was a happy one, I hadn't missed, second not so much. I had 2 animals to carry out.
Bollocks. There was no way I was leaving anything behind, there was no need for 2 deer to die this morning but seeing as they had both are fully being used. Couple hours later I had finally boned them both out, the only bit of meat not taken was 1 front shoulder that was more than already minced. It was not easy cutting them up, i was on a 45 degree slope fighting gravity and the keas but eventually my pack was loaded up and I started the long and slow trip back to camp. Fuck me my pack was heavy, then i had to put my tent and all my other gear in it.
5 hours later I made it back to the truck absolutely wrecked but at least I had done the right thing by taking all the meat. It felt good getting the weight off my back and when i finally made it home weighed my pack. 55kgs. I celebrated with a corona and jimmy's mutton pie
