My roar and more

Spend close to 2 weeks up in the kaimais this roar with the aim of shooting my first roaring stag up there. Have shot few but never a roaring one so gave it a good nudge this year in 2 spots either side of easter weekend.
First week
Day 1, walk up the hill and set up my fly camp in a handy spot next to a stream I occasionally stay. Have an evening hunt until dark and just when it gets too dark to see hear a stag start smashing a tree too bits not 50m away, Bugger!
Day 2, The rain starts. Stalk all day seeing nothing and having 1 bark at me then on the walk back to camp bump 2 Hinds off the track.....then another...
...then another. Bugger again
Day 3, my old mate crafty arrives at camp and the rain continues. We catch up and then head out on our own missions. After a few hours of stalking saturated i walk past a bit of fallen over log/deadfall and think "hmmm that looks like the perfect bit of shelter for a deer" and stupidly do nothing about my thoughts.nek minnit- after I walk past hear a rustle so turn around and see a hind leg dissapear so as quick as I can load and lift the rifle just as a hind breaks cover and runs across the 2m of open ground into the bush and I make a quick shot that I instantly regret- way too far back. Let it settle for a minute then have a look and find a dinner plate size pool of blood so start tracking 70m on my hands and knees later I find the last bit of blood I can, a single drop on a bit of grass. Grid search the area and backtrack to make sure I havent missed anything and a couple hours later I give up my search absolutely fuckin gutted no so much for losing the meat but for my bad choice leaving a deer to die slowly and in pain. No more snapshots at running deer for me. Back at camp a while later after having a feed I'm sitting there motivating myself to get up and have another try and I hear movement and look up and see crafty waltzing on into camp with a fawn/yearling on his back "you fuckin beauty!" Backsteaks for dinner
Day 4 and 5, the rains still going and not much to report. See a couple of deer and hear a couple more bark and some fawns mowing but nothing presenting a shot I want to take
Day 6, I wake up and the sun is out! Finally! After almost a week of being soaked through it feels bloody good to have some warmth and steam coming off me. Now to make the most of the day. Did a massive stalk for 5 or so hours and only spooked 1 so I head off to check out another old haunt. Another few hours and I'm almost giving up hope. Sit on a log in the sun take my boots off and try to dry out a bit more while motivating myself. Half an hour later boots back on and I continue my stalk. The area is littered with stag sign and wallows so I'm sure there must be something around. As I'm crossing a grassy patch I hear something get up and move so I look over and at 10m I see 2 pungas with a grey punga in the middle 'that looks like a deers shaggy mane' so I move and get a better angle on it and identify a stag standing there as hes trying to identify what I am. Mustve had the sun in his eyes or something because he stood there long enough for me to put a 308 in his neck and flatten him. I walk over to him and to be honest I couldn't believe it after one of the hardest weeks of stalking I finally had my reward. A massive bodied 7 pointer was lying at my feet. Easily the biggest bodied deer I have ever shit. Took a few photos and butchered him up and hung up the meat to cool for the night.
Attachment 167726

Get back to camp with the head and crafty greats me with a "you fuckin tin arse!" Big venison feed that night and a big sleep in prep for the carry
Day 7, boned out my stag and ate all the rest of the food I had left and packed up camp. Luckily we had eaten a whole lot of craftys deer so he helped me out and carried some of mine. Bloody legend
Back at the car we finalized our plan for after easter and it was see you next week and off home to dry out and recharge batteries

This turned out way longer then I thought so will write up week 2 later on
Hope you enjoy the yarn
Peewoks

Cool yarn, thanks for sharing.

Persistence paid off for you, a well earned animal. Well done that man.

Well done :)

Bloody good Sunday read over coffee and venison, tomatato sandwiches.Good effort in the shit weather for a week.Enjoy yr rewards.

Looking foward to the next instalment :thumbsup:

Awesome:cool:

HNice going , you won in the end.

shooting hinds on roar trips usually doesn't help bagging stags.nice bush stag you got there tho.

good on you for persevering.... and doubly good on you for being honest about ballsing up the shot,you did your best to find it,you can do no more than move on and learn from it..... I did it last year and even with dog spent two fruitless hours looking...LUCKILY the dog didnt lie when she had told me it went uphill...and that was our way out...4-500mtrs later we bumped it again and I made good....
enjoy your venison

Good effort on the stag mate - persistance pays off eh!
Bummer about the hind, never a good feeling!

awesome story, and def worth the wait!