Thread: How to sight in a rifle - the right way

Originally Posted by JoshC

Well done, you did better than me last night. Hunted for 2 hours before seeing an animal, a young fallow buck, too far away to stalk. Then after another hour finally bumped into another deer, a fawn. Left it, and round the corner bumped into its mum. Didn't see anything else until last light when I was climbing up out of a creek and 20m away was a young stag peering down over the scrub at me. No chance of a shot. Hunting's just like that sometimes.

Mate that sounds bloody successful to me! Seeing deer is a treat, now you know where to ninja back in tonight What colour was the fallow? When I first saw the goat I thought it might be a black fallow yearling but there aren't any in that block.

Very fun night and I am quite knackered today! Lots of butchering. Oh and thanks @7mmsaum for my Christmas present of a gimble for the rafters in my shed, even with it I really had to yank hard to get that big red up on the hook. Very cool set up though thanks!!! Worked a treat.

Also PS - this was a bloody big spiker. His body was as large as the 12 point stag I shot a while back. What's up with that? He had very minimal fat on him, so surely isn't that old? I thought maybe they were brothers, hanging out together but the velvet was only just stripping on my mate's spiker and mine was completely hard with huge coronets. Is that typical to have two deer in much a different antler state?

Originally Posted by Dougie

Mate that sounds bloody successful to me! Seeing deer is a treat, now you know where to ninja back in tonight What colour was the fallow? When I first saw the goat I thought it might be a black fallow yearling but there aren't any in that block.

Very fun night and I am quite knackered today! Lots of butchering. Oh and thanks @7mmsaum for my Christmas present of a gimble for the rafters in my shed, even with it I really had to yank hard to get that big red up on the hook. Very cool set up though thanks!!! Worked a treat.

Also PS - this was a bloody big spiker. His body was as large as the 12 point stag I shot a while back. What's up with that? He had very minimal fat on him, so surely isn't that old? I thought maybe they were brothers, hanging out together but the velvet was only just stripping on my mate's spiker and mine was completely hard with huge coronets. Is that typical to have two deer in much a different antler state?

Any hunt is successful. I know the block well, I hunt it several times a month. Just strange not seeing as many animals as usual on such a nice evening. The fallow was black as...and fat, had beautiful antler form and good palmation. In 2-3 more years he'll be a cracking trophy, if he hangs around/doesn't get shot in the meantime. The hind and 6 point stag were fat as mud!

Both of those deer are spikers (obviously), most likely the same age, in their first year as a juvenile stag. Most likely brothers from another mother. Other than the fact they have spikes and not antlers, you can tell they are young by the height of the coronets, they are very high above the skull and quite narrow spacing between them. As a stag ages the coronets grow larger in diameter, lower to the skull, and wider apart. A "mature" stag with a decent head will have coronets that are massive, like diameter of a coffee cup or bigger and they'll almost be hard against the top of its skull. Don't take too much notice of stages of velvet, at this time of year it can be only a matter of a few days between hardening off and polishing up. Spikers can do some weird sh*t when it comes to velvet.

Variations in body size between animals is very common (same as humans), especially wild ones. Age doesn't necessarily mean bigger animal. I've shot 8-9 year old stags smaller than a year old spiker...but shape and composition of the body is much different. Size could be as simple as the tucker they've been on, one mum/or dad being more of a hybrid than the other (red vs wap vs sika cross), fawn being conceived earlier (1st cycle vs 2nd cycle), fawn losing mum early, mum drying off early etc.