Thread: Fallow and the 6mm Creedmoor

The previous day’s activities taught me a lot, so the following day I arrived in the same spot at the fence to take stock of the wind. I was earlier this time, and I was a bit frustrated as on the drive over the hill past the tractor shed, I’d already glassed far out towards the bush and could see deer everywhere. Far out they must be hungry, feeding out in the open in the early afternoon. This meant a wholesale change to tactics.


The wind was fickle, blowing this way and that, gusting quite strongly. That meant that just one gust contrary to the dominant flow could wreck the hunt. I decided I would be either seen and / or winded if I took the same approach as the day before; this time I would walk in through the boggy lowland between the ridges, using the topography as cover. The risk of doing this was that the higgledy-piggledy nature of the terrain meant the wind could be funneled in just about any direction, which proved to be the case!


On my way down into the bog, I glassed ahead and spotted a mob of does and yearlings resting in a small paddock next to an old shed down in the bottom of the valley. This was totally unexpected, and potentially quite lucrative, so I double checked my route and made it to a ridge overlooking the shed from 250m. I had another higher ridge behind me hiding me from the fallow I was originally targeting – they wouldn’t have been too far away. Decisions decisions. I decided to have a shot at a doe near the shed and see what happened next.





Up until this point on this trip, I hadn’t bothered filming the shots. But after the success of the previous day I’d thought hmmm, a video of a couple of fallow commencing their journey from bush paddock to my plate would be good. So I cautiously set up the camera and the rifle, got ready but not in a particularly systematic kind of a way, steadied myself, and took the shot...





This is one of the reasons I like hunting on my own; when I screw it up, there’s no audience to feel embarrassed in front of and make excuses to, and it’s easier to try and find the root cause for the miss. First things first… make the rifle safe, then settle in to watch my new video of me missing. I had clearly shot just over the top of the spine, as the splash behind the animal was obvious and I could see the divot with the binoculars.


Now for me to have missed by that much at that range, something quite serious must have gone wrong. Point of aim was the midline of the torso for the hilar shot – with the steep downhill angle of the shot and the bullet’s trajectory that should put me bang on the money. It did the day before…


I knew there was nothing wrong with the ammunition, so quick check of the scope mounts, double check I’d remembered to screw the suppressor on, adjustable check rest was good, parallax was set correctly… oh bugger and shite there was nothing more to it, I’d simply screwed it up.


When you drop a shot like this to poor technique, it’s really annoying. I did a dry run to try and repeat how I’d set up, which if you could see the hummocky ground on the ridge would probably be quite funny. I realised that the line of my body was angling away from the line of sight, with my midriff draped over the break in slope, my hips dangling with both legs scrabbling for a grip, whilst my right elbow was in an odd place relative to the rifle. Everything was wrong I had been in a rush, I was really worried about the wind and that ultimately was my downfall. Rushing. I’ve done this before and the poor body position has a massive effect on the point of impact.


Oh well. Time to take a harden-up pill and get over it. I had time on my side, and even though I knew the other mob of fallow would be gone, there was still plenty of time for them to come out again. I turned back to the ridge behind me and scrambled up. With no sentinel eyes on me (that I knew of) I took the time to find a spot on the ridge that afforded me a degree of cover from tussock, plus a straight body and line of sight, with good foot support. Once set up, with a bullet in the chamber and the bolt ready to cock, I settled in for some patient glassing. After 45 minutes or so, a really nice old buck came out further up the ridge, but after some hard winding, he turned and buggered off. He didn’t like the atmosphere at all. Another quarter of an hour later and two young bucks, a doe and a yearling came out in the exact same place as they had the day before. The bucks were chasing the doe which was strange to see but at least their pursuit of poontang meant they were less interested in self-preservation.


At 370m I gave them a chance to settle down and starting browsing – once they had their heads down they slowly ambled down the face getting closer and closer. I really wanted the doe and the yearling, but they disappeared into a hollow and I could only see the two bucks. At exactly 300m they both found some feed worth stopping for, and that was the last thing one of them ever did.


At the shot, the other three deer bolted – the doe straight back into cover, the yearling stuck to the other buck and ran towards and across me. They made for a track taking them up into cover, but as is so often the way, right at the last second they stopped for a quick look back for their mate. There was no time to waste, I’d already dialled back to zero as they ran (good habit that), now I acquired the second buck in the sight picture and guesstimated the range at a couple of hundred-ish. Slight hold over, bang, flop. It was all over in a flash. The yearling simply vanished.





That was pretty gratifying. I packed up and worked my way up to the second closer buck, checked him out and took a couple of pictures. A rising 2-yr from the antler development. He was smaller than the fallow over our way, but fat as which was good to see. I moved him to a better position then went and found his mate. Same age, just as fat. I dragged him down to the other one and set about cutting them up.








Neither 108gr ELD-M had exited, hardly surprising as both shots were strongly quartering towards and in through the chest. This shot placement destroys the lungs and top of the heart and 9/10 will drop instantly like these two. But it is also likely to puncture the rumen, which it did in both cases. I’m not worried about that as I don’t need to recover the whole deer, a quick check and it’s yup, messy, so plan B which is leave the guts in and bone it out after skinning the animal from the spine down.


A good haul of meat from these two animals as the shoulders were untouched. The pack was well heavy as I turned to hike back to the truck. It was just starting to get dark, so the timing was perfect. A satisfying all over tiredness came over me when I got back to the house, all I could manage was a beer and a slice of toast, then into bed. The weather was changing, it was warm as, the high “mackerel sky” clouds at dusk had hinted strongly at coming rain. And rain it did, from about 3 a.m. onwards, sheets and sheets of unseasonably warm rain. So that was that, time to go home via just one more quick farm visit in the northern Taranaki to try and shoot a problem boar…


And the final step before the story is complete...