Well this year I decided to take a week off work for the roar and spend it up in the Hills chasing Stags and dreams, camping the whole 9 yards.
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Well this year I decided to take a week off work for the roar and spend it up in the Hills chasing Stags and dreams, camping the whole 9 yards.
So we had planned to get into our block in time for an afternoon/evening hunt on Monday.
The weather was less than ideal it was blowing 40 bastards nor west, not ideal tenting weather.
We also were a lot later getting in than planned, so had to search for a sheltered valley out of the wind and set up camp in the dark, not fun but part of the experience.
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The wind blew until about 330am and at times even in our sheltered camp I thought the tent was gonna lift off. Then all of a sudden it just stopped and I drifted off to sleep listening to Stags roaring.
That morning at about 0730am we walked around the ridge we were camping on about 300m from camp to glass the face we thought the stag we heard the night before was on.
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View from the tent
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The face we were glassing.
The Stag was no where to be seen and had gone silent, we spent about 15 minutes glassing then caught glimpse of a dark fallow doe feeding out into the open.
Well hadn't shot a fallow on this block before let alone a deer for a few moths so the decision was made to harvest her.
Ranged at 250 yards my mate lay down using his pack to shoot off and the 270 sent the medicine bang on target the fallow was pole axed on the spot.
A quick side hill mission and she was recovered whole and we took a couple hours to take her back to hang in the chiller. She was probably around 2 years old so great eating less than 1 hour after crawling out of our sleeping bags. No stag but a great start.
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If you look real close you can see my hunting partner on the recovery mission roughly center screen
So after dropping the fallow back to the chiller to hang we decided to visit another face that I had shot my first boar on some months ago.
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We waited and watched for about 40 minutes, nothing no roars no pigs no deer.
Then just out of luck I saw a familiar orange hue. I had looked up just in time to see his arse dissappear into the scrub.
We waited and watched knowing he would come out again and probably feed onto the tussock face opposite us.
Well about 30 minutes later he did and we quickly ranged him at 450 yards.
By my standards a long shot a very long shot, but having successfully shot my rifle out to over 500 yards on steel to confirm my drop charts. Then be dipped into the scrub again..... Oh the frustration.
We waited and waited and waited.... 40 minutes go by and nothing.
We started discussing setting up camp as it was getting late in the day and we didn't want to set up in the dark again. I Decided to have one more quick cursory glass. Literally put my binos to my eyes and couldn't believe it I was looking at a nice healthy red spiker still at 450 yards.
It was my turn to shoot, I consulted the drop chart and dialled up the elevation, lay down across my pack and chambered a round, my mate was spotting so when he was ready I squeezed a round off....... The spiker dropped on the spot, not a single step literally his legs just folded under him and he never moved again.
Now of course the problem with shooting an animal at 450 yards across a valley is it's a bloody long way to go and retrieve it, luckily we could drive around the ridge and drop in on the face from the other side, when we got there it was going on 430pm and we knew we had a long hard slog to get fown there and back before dark. We packed our head torches just in case and started the decent, it was steep slippery tussock face but we made reasonable pace and were on the spiker @ about 5.30pm.
Work to do....
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The prize
We made a plan to be headed back up the face by 6pm and my mate set to quartering the spiker taking off the fillets, back stakes and anything we could trim off into our packs.
Here's a quick pick of the entry wound a little high in the right front shoulder
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And here is the exit wound lower on the left shoulder
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But here's the real damage a 145 eldx can inflict at 450 yards split the left shoulder in 2 and snapped the bottom off it completely.
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The biggest supprise was the hydrostatic damage to the lungs they were completely destroyed.
Sorry I'm waffling here's a couple quick pics of my mate quartering the spiker, he makes it look easy and he's strong as an ox.
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Then to my supprise he puts all 4 quarters into his tatonka bison pack and only the fillets, back steaks and trim go into my pack, I can't say it enough my mate is a beast he throws the pack on and we start powering up the tussok face steady pace at first as the light was as already fading, then 20 to 30 meters at a time, then 5 minutes rest then the next 20 meters. Small achievable goals
Here we are on one of many rests on the way up.
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Not far from the top...
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Then finally as the sun was setting we made the top had a drink and a feed to replenish our tired bodies.
At the top
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The last time I attempted a decent and climb like this I had a bad fall and had to be helicoptered out.
This day was a huge confidence builder. We made it.
We made our way off the hill and hung the quarters in the chiller.
2 deer on the deck in one day was a pretty good effort we slept in our own beds that night after a hot shower planning to go back on Wednesday but unfortunately some animals had busted through the fences on our block so we had to stay off the hill whilst they were mustered off, we were worried about the effects of ag bikes and barking dogs but it couldn't be helped and we would go back on Thursday.... To be continued
Can't wait for part 2
Thanks for the read
Quote:
Originally Posted by Sako851
But wait there's more, unfortunately I'm operating on about 3 hours sleep in the last 48 hours and I'm making a few mistakes, I'll finish this story off tomorrow :thumbsup:
man thats an awesome block you have got onto....keep mum about its location and look after the landowner,come hell or high water... enjoy your vennison and have a go at a roar or two....in a spot like that it might just get stag to poke its nose out into open....your shooting is spot on and he could be in power of trouble.
Cheers @Micky Duck yup it's a pretty good block and not too far from home, I've worked hard to build relationships and trust to be able to use it, it's not got huge numbers but there are enough on there.
It's certainly not easy paddock hunting but that doesn't appeal to me anyway (nothing wrong with easy ones, just wanna hunt the tops whilst I still can).
Any way as mentioned last night I was tired and making a few mistakes, here is a pic of my mate carrying the fallow he shot the last few meters.
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So whilst having Wednesday off we boned out the red spiker I shot and dropped everything bar the fillets, back steaks and heart off to be processed into sausages the fallow was already at the butcher and received the same treatment.
So after a rough night getting nearly zero sleep thanks to a mouse in our bedroom (which we finally managed to trap @0430am my alarm went off @ 0500am signalling it was time to get up and get ready for another day's hunting. By the time we packed the truck and sorted our gear we were on the road by 7am a little later than we wanted but OK as we hit the block just on sunrise.
Awesome mate, great result......:thumbsup:
So our intentions for the day where to hit the tops and search for one of the many stags we had heard. After our success with the fallow the other day we decided to stop and glass a couple faces around where we shot the fallow on Tuesday. Normally we wouldn't even look and just head straight to the tops.
Literally still in the truck and we spotted 2 dark fallow below us, the wind was light to non existent and in our favour they hadn't spotted us or heard us and were head down feeding.
My mate made a comment about how odd it was to see a sheep feeding with the 2 fallow... Then realisation hit, it wasn't a sheep but a white fallow buck we ranged the group at 250 yards, an absolute gift.
Now it was cold maybe only a couple degrees and we had the heater cranking in the truck and the mag for the rifle had been sitting on the dash getting very warm.
We were totally unprepared and I fumbled trying to load the magazine but due to it getting heated up it had expanded just enough that the force of the spring kept pushing the rounds back out past the feed lips, funny but not ideal and lesson learned.
I decided to top feed single rounds as we didn't have time to muck around as the fallow would be on to us any moment we were out in the open and clearly visible.
I chambered the round and once again the 270 delivered a devastating blow, the white buck tipped over on the spot, I quickly fed another round incase we could take one of his girlfriends but they bolted and there was no ethical shot, so we went about sidhilling around the open tussock face to drop down the 200m to retrieve the buck, not the worst recovery but I did question why we never manage to shoot animals on the flat or above us (oh well).
A quick descent and we were on the buck. Not a record breaking trophy but a nice representation with an even rack, I was stoked as this is my first buck and my first animal with proper antlers (I must stress I'm not a trophy hunter by any stretch but it was still pretty cool to get a nice head) we decided the whole animal would be carried out, he was considerably larger than the fallow earlier in the week but we wanted to use everything off him, the skin will be tanned and gifted to my mates parents and I will euro mount the skull, all the meat will be harvested.
Not even 20 minutes into our day and here I am sitting with my buck
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Here again my mate makes short work of field dressing
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A better shot of the head
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Well it only took about 10 minutes to drop 200m down the steep tussock to the buck but with my mate again taking carrying duties we spent the next hour climbing back out to the trucks.
My mate the pack horse
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The view from the top
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Good shit @dannyb you're doing well out there!
Excellent breakfast reading! Well done!
I really appreciate the photos of the ELDX performance. Always good to see how animals are poleaxed on the spot which is so important in the kind of country you're hunting. Yes it might of been a bit high but that high shoulder shot position is a guaranteed bang flop every time. Some will say you lose meat, which is a fair comment, but it's a lot better than losing the whole animal to a long dead run in shitty terrain which is always a risk with tradtional behind the shoulder shots, especially if you're a dog-less hunter.
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This picture is taken with no zoom from the shooting position where I shot the red spiker
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Excuse the crude editing I'm not that tech savvy.
This shows our mission.
The red X at the bottom right is where I first spotted the red spiker.
The blue X is where I shot him.
The purple dotted line is our route down and back up the face, it's a lot steeper than it looks especially the top 1/3.
The orange X at the top right is where we parked our trucks just behind the brow of the saddle.
Awesome. Pretty cool to see the white stag
So in summary.
I've had a great week, I've gained trust in my ability behind the rifle and that my load and drop charts are spot on.
This is very important as @Flyblown has mentioned, a runner in this terrain would be less than ideal. We don't hunt with dogs so bang flops are ideal.
Every shot I took hit exactly where I wanted it to, results speak for themselves 3 bang flops no runners.
The confidence this has given me is great, we have passed on animals at similar ranges to the red spiker I shot because we weren't confident in our ability to make an ethical shot at that range.
I will point out I have spent a lot of time practicing my technique, confirming my dope chart and shooting paper or steel out to over 500 yards, I do not condone practicing on animals at all. This has taken time and experience gained from this forum and through friends much more experienced than me, you can buy all the fancy gear you like but that doesn't mean you can shoot at longer ranges ethically without putting in the time and effort to become consistent at those ranges.
Sure we heard a lot of Stags, but I'm a meat hunter first and as much as I'd have loved a stag I'm happy with my weeks efforts.
We did get to sit and watch a few stags within easy shooting distance but they were on the wrong side of the boundary of the block we hunt on and we are not poachers.
It was bloody awesome just to sit and watch them for a while and even throw a couple roars at them to watch there response.
Well that's probably all the deer hunting I will do till after opening weekend on the ducks, after a bit of a dry spell my freezer is full and my soul is recharged. Warm barrels everyone.
I'll leave you with some wise words given to me before I went on my roar hunt that really helped me.
"Never pass up an animal at the begining of your hunt that you would be happy with at the end"
That's some long shots bro, but great to see you are doing it in a controlled and practiced fashion. :thumbsup:
Very well done fallas.
What an excellent week you guys had, your mate is a legend doing the hard yards. Excellent results with those 145 gr ELDX bullets, they work a treat. Enjoy your venison and the antlers of the Buck, who knows there could be a bigger one waiting next time you are up there.
great stuff....if I can offer one gem of wisdom???? your mate is a machine of a pack horse......look up and learn about the Alex Gale carry strap method of carting out an animal....a 8 foot length of seat belt works a treat and makes the carry out in open country MUCH easier of old backs.
Thank you I'll look in to thatQuote:
Originally Posted by Micky Duck
What a great read on Sunday morning,well done Dannyb.Enjoy yr veni.
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Quick boil up and water blast
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Before bleaching
And during bleaching
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After pricing up buying a shield @ $100 un sanded or stained I decided to make my own, cut out a template and then jigsawed it out of untreated ply, quick sand and a couple coats of trueoil
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All up this euro mount cost me $0.00 as I had all the materials but realistically it would cost less than $50 if you had to buy everything, I would normally seal it with a mix of pva and water but I'm not entirely happy with the bleaching, will leave it a week or 2 and see if it needs another dose.
It's no record breaker but it's my first buck so I'll always display him.
