Thread: A fallow meat trip

An old work Mate from Auckland and I decided a trip down fallow country was overdue - we needed a few fallow for the freezer
We met up in Te Awamutu and he dragged my quad and tandem trailer behind his Mitsubishi Outlander – what an amazing performance from that 2.4 SUV – the load would have been 1500kg and through some steep hill country roads it never missed a beat
We set off on Saturday morning to travel about 7km to the back of the farm to see if we could find some bucks that were in bush blocks back there - so we drove past a hundred or so does with fawns – only to find the bucks were still back in the bush - we passed a block of bush on a neighbor's farm and found a good numbers of bucks were croaking their heads off when they heard us going past – the noise was amazing.
So we had to change our plans and select some easy meat animals accessible to the quad – I couldn’t bring myself to take adult does so I just shot a handbag yearling. My mate shot three good size does during the day – two of them were well back past where I could get the quad so he put two hindquarters in my mountain mule and suffered the pain for about half an hour going up a good slope to the quad – I told him not to go back there. Ironically – when I went back to get the Quad – the doe groups were back where we had shot at them earlier.
We tried a different valley on Sunday morning – I shot another handbag yearling while my Mate shot another good size doe – sad to see the fawn running off with its mates from the group and crying out for Mum in the distance.
Despite seeing close to two hundred does with fawns – the bucks were still not interested and staying out in their buck clubs – just the odd wee spiker with the does.
I spend much of my life killing pests but I have lost the urge to kill lovely does with fawns – but sadly many will be culled with a chopper soon.
So six deer for the trip and some nice meat for the freezer - back steaks in the pic