Thread: Mates first deer escapes unharmed

As I’m sure eventually happens to all deer hunters, I have found
myself in the position of trying to put a new hunter onto his first deer.

Once the weather lined up with the weekend, it was off into some public land for an evening hunt.

After dragging my mate through a fair bit of gorse, we reached our hunting area and settled in to do some glassing.

After maybe 20 minutes, we saw a red stag about 500m away. Before we even had time to get our packs on, he was out of sight, unknown to us, tucked in a small hollow out of the wind.

We knew he was around there somewhere, so we dropped below the ridge line and made a quick stalk in to where I
thought we might be within a 200 yard shot of the stag if he popped out again.

Popping up onto a small knob, I told mate to get his rifle laid out over his pack and get a good rest ready for a shot. Not even two seconds after saying that, stag walks out directly in front of us 100 yards away.

We both chamber a round. I’m lined up on the stags shoulder. He’s broad side but looking back at us. Mate is lined up on him as well.

“Can you see it?”

“Yeah”

“Shoot it”

Mate wants to get a bit more comfortable as he is feeling the nerves and wants to make a good shot.

Crack goes the branch behind his foot and the stag legs it up and over the ridge.

In the silence I can hear mates heart break in two. Oh well that’s hunting. Bugger I didn’t shoot it but wanted mate to get his first one on the deck and couldn’t have asked for a better set up. If he wasn’t hooked before I’d say he is now. The only way to get rid of the nightmares is to dream of the next one!