4 Attachment(s)
A lot can change in 3 days
Last night at 6pm, I walked out of the bush after spending 3 days running round the hills chasing deer. I turned my phone on and for the first time in my life thought I was popular! It beeped and chirped and made all sorts of noises, turns out that since I walked in the country changed. I'm glad I got my trip in and it was a bloody good one.
6 years ago a mate of mine took me on my first ever hunt, that weekend we saw 5 deer and I got a chance to shoot my first. I missed but he knocked it over so at least it wasn't a complete bust. Since then hunting has become my greatest passion and at times it can be said it takes over my life. After missing the entire roar due to injury last year I decided this year was going to be different, I put in for every ballot I could and well bugger me, didn't get one. I wasn't going to let that stop me, I decided I would be out every weekend and for the past few weeks the missus hasn't seen much of me.
That hunt 6 years ago was up a valley that I had for no particular reason not visited since. It's somewhere that I had always wanted to go back and finally decided that it was time. I packed my gear and and with a sense of excitement parked the truck at the car park threw the pack and hit the bush. It's funny what details the mind can forget over time, I remembered the access point into the bush and remembered it was a long hike uphill, but had forgotten that there was an easy way and a hard way up. The start was nice and easy, then I hit the windfall. In the space of 90 minutes i only managed to move a couple hundred of metres. Up, down, left, right I scrambled, climbed over and crawled under all manner of shit. At one point I nearly pulled the pin and turned round before eventually sidling across a couple of hundred metres to find a new clear line up another ridge. Finally I made the bush edge and looked up. The memories started to flood back. I made camp just inside the bushline in the same place as all those years ago, and I'm bloody glad I did. With a few hours of light left, I took what I needed for an evening hunt and heading up the valley. I climbed for about half an hour and lifted the binos for the first time and started to glass. It didn't take long to pick up the first animals for the trip, on the face up to my right a group of 6 hinds and fawns had just started moving. I smiled to myself and took that as a good sign. I continued to glass and it wasn't long before I picked up more animals, this time a group of 8 deer. A mix of hinds, fawns and spikers. I considered my options but due to the open ground between me and them and their advantage of being higher I gave them a pass for the night and looked elsewhere.
The sun disappeared behind the hill behind me signalling there wasn't much light left for the day. I was hoping a stag might show its face towards the end of the day but none did. However, with about half an hour of light left, the I spotted a hind feeding below me. I checked the range, 450 yards. A bit far, but I had the advantage of a couple of guts between us for cover. Slowly I crept down into the first one, out of sight I covered the ground to the next ridge quickly, scrambling up just before cresting the ridge I dumped my pack and crawled up to just peer over the edge. The hind was still there but staring straight at me. Shit. Not sure what I did wrong i slid backwards out of sight again and got the rifle ready as time was now not on my side. I placed my pack on the ridgeline and loaded the .270. I checked the range, 300 yards. A comfortable shot for me. The hind was still looking straight at me and hadn't moved, she was standing face on not presenting a shot. I waited for her to move but it wasn't happening. Fuck sake. I was getting annoyed, it had turned into a Mexican stand off and there was a chance she would bolt any second. I wasn't going to take a running shot at that distance and was almost pleading under my breath for her to turn.
With my patience just about to wear out, out of the corner of my eye I saw a red shape slowly moving through the tussock. I shifted the gun and looked through the scope to see a spiker feeding up the ridge in front of me. Happy fucking days I thought. Quick range check. 248 yards. The rifle settled on it's shoulder and I started to breathe slowly ready to shoot. I was just waiting for it to stand still for 2 seconds when all of a sudden, the hind barked. I nearly shit myself. I was so focused on the spiker and wasn't expecting it. It threw me slightly, I lost sight of the spiker for a moment before finding him again in the scope but he was now on edge. The hind barked again and he looked ready to bolt. I knew time was of the essence. I settled behind the scope again and as the deer stood still for just a moment, squeezed the trigger and the shot rang out. I heard it hit and knew he wasn't going far. I looked up and saw the hind the scarper but no spiker to be seen. He was down somewhere. I gathered my gear and started making my way over to the spot he was standing when I fired, as I did the hind continued to bark at me while running away, she would run for about 50 metres, stop and bark. This cycle continued until she finally buggered off over the top of the hill and silence descended on the valley.
I arrived at the spot where he was standing and looked round. Typical, the bloody things had fallen down the ridge and ended up in a stream. Just fantastic I thought. I dumped everything and walked down, and grabbing the deer by the front legs dragged him out of the stream and back up the ridgeline to where last stood. With the sweat pouring off me I set about butchering him, the back legs and back steaks come out along with the eye fillets. I took what meat I could from the front shoulders, the bits which didn't get blown to smithereens by the bullet. With it all in my pack I strapped on the torch and headed for camp. The extra weight slowed me down a bit but I made it back about 9pm, hung the meat in the trees, scoffed down a feed and hit the sack. I slept pretty well until about 4 in the morning when I was woken but the sound that we all love to hear. A stag roaring somewhere in the bush. He only roared a couple of times but my excitement levels grew.
I spent another hour in the tent, having a feed and a coffee waiting till just before light to leave camp and start the day. I climbed up the hill but not as high as last night as I was hoping the stag I heard would continue to make noise but it wasn't to be. He made no more noise at all. I even let out a roar to try and get him going but nothing. I spent the morning glassing the surrounding hills and picked up the same group of 8 from the previous night but they were up high. Really high and still no stag with them, having already secured a meat animal, they were safe from me. As the morning progressed, the weather deteriorated, the cloud came in, the wind picked up and the rain came down, I found a small rock cave to take shelter in. I spent 3 hours in there before finally admitting defeat. Visibility was pretty low and the wind and rain was only getting worse. I sucked it up and made my way back to camp.
I made it back to the shelter of the bush and had a coffee and a feed to warm up. The weather didn't improve much for the rest of the day, in fact it got worse. It started to hail and then snow. I kept hoping for a break but it wasn't to be. I kept myself occupied by boning out the legs of the spiker I shot before having dinner and retiring to my tent for the night. Just as it got dark, the rain let up and not long after, a stag made himself known on the ridge opposite me. To say I was annoyed would be an understatement. I couldn't believe it, it was too dark to do anything. He let out a few more roars as I could hear him moving up the valley and then silence.
Sleep didn't come too easy that night, partly due to being fucked off about hearing a stag and not being able to do much, partly because the temperature dropped considerably. I scrambled around and found all my clothes and layered up, finally warm enough to sleep comfortably. I woke when the alarm went off and again had breakfast in bed before begrudgingly strapping on wet boots and grabbing my pack for another crack. The weather had eased and there wasn't a breath of wind, I settled in as the light returned and it didn't take long for me to spot my first animal for the day. A nice young 8 pointer feeding away quite happily. It was great to see the first stag for the trip and it had me wondering if he was the one I heard from the night before. I was tempted to let out a roar but thought better of it. I wasn't going to shoot him so didn't want to give myself away to any other deer that may be around.
After sitting and watching him for a while I decided it was time to move on and see if I could find anything else. Just as I stood up, I couldn't believe what I heard. A bark. Then another. I swung my head around and up on the opposite ridge was 3 hinds staring straight at me. Fuck. More deer, it was great seeing more animals but it was getting hard when there were so many eyes on me. Thankfully they buggered off pretty quickly into the next valley, the 8 pointer didn't seemed bothered in the slightest. I continued to climb to the head of the valley and glass, over in the distance I picked up another mob of 10 deer and this time there was a big stag with them.
My excitement levels grew, they were miles away and it was hard to see just how good he was. I pulled out my camera and zoomed all the way in. It took a while to get a decent look but I finally was able to assess him. Turns out he had 1 1/2 antlers. 4 points on the left side and the right was hardly there. I didn't know what to think or do. I wanted to get closer to see if I could tell whether or not he had broken half of it off or was just the ugliest head out there. This proved a bit of an issue. There were 900 yards away over open country. I couldn't drop down and across and come up below them, the wind was ever so slightly blowing uphill and with some many eyes around I wouldn't be able to get close enough. I decided to try and go high, it looked as if it was possible to cross above them high up in the rocks. I scrambled up to a ledge but couldn't find an easy passage, it was too icy and steep. I did managed to spook a chamois in the process, well spook isn't quite right. He saw me long before I saw him and he gave a whistle as he ran past me. After that encounter and another half hour of trying to find a clear route I finally realised it wasn't going to happen, I couldn't get closer to the ugly bastard.
Sitting on a rock I thought what the hell, I let out a roar to see if he might come a bit closer. Well he did the exact opposite. I had barely finished making noise and he was off like a bat out of hell. Not stopping once I watched him run around about a kilometre along the top of the valley and over the hill. I was slightly surprised. I don't know exactly what I was expecting but that wasn't it. I guessed that he knew he had a crap set of headgear and was never going to win a fight. The hinds didn't bat an eyelid and just carried on feeding.
With that done and dusted, my thoughts turned to heading back to camp for the pack up and walk out. The 8 pointer from earlier was still sitting in the same spot from this morning, I decided to see if I could get in close and get some photos. I scrambled down a couple of guts and ended up behind a rock 300 yards away from him. With nothing but open ground in between us I pulled out the camera and started to take some photos. He even had the decency to stand up for me. I sat and watched him for a while, I even set the rifle up and sat the cross hairs on him, didn't load it but did this just to prove a point a to myself that if I had wanted to shoot him I could've. He finally wondered off into a gut and I decided it was time to pull the pin.
I got back to camp and packed up, my pack considerably heavier than before and headed down the hill. I managed to find an easier way down and a couple of hours later I emerged from the bush and reached the truck. I dumped my gear, threw a fresh set of clothes on and turned my phone on to get back to reality. It was a bit of a shock to find out what was happening, my first thought was should I turn round and go back into the bush, a lack of food put paid to that pretty quick. It was a great trip and I'm glad I got to do it, all up I saw over 20 deer and 2 chamois. The valley will always be a bit special to me and there's so more more in there to be explored
So now like everyone else it's 4 weeks at home with no hunting, nothing can be done about it. What is fucking me off though is I can hear stags roaring on the farms not far from home. For now though it's going to be doing some landscaping in the garden and sorting the garage out. Will have to keep the fitness up, luckily I have a hill I can do sprints up and down and guess can fill the hunting pack up to act as some weights. Hopefully the deer will still be in the same valley in a month.
