Earlier in the week I had made the call to let Rusky go down to the kaimais by himself as I had a tonne of work to do over the weekend. But what can I say, Friday afternoon rolled around and the devil on my shoulder started to talk a little louder. Up at 3.30am the next day and out the door had me and Rusky on the hill to catch the first light of dawn through the canopy. Rusky was going back to a spot he knew had a few wallows in the hope of getting a stag and I was off to a new area with the hope of putting some meat in the freezer. Things were going well to begin with as I stalked through some areas of good sign and the wind was playing its part. I wasn't hearing any roars, but I decided to give one when I came across a scrape but I got not reply. I gave a couple more throughout the day but nothing much was happening so I stuck to my usual stalking game. We had agreed to meet back at a track junction by 2 so when 12.30 rolled round I took a new bearing back to the track. I stumbled a bit up and out of a creek and looked down to find some quite fresh sign. I did a quick scan about with my eyes and spotted an odd looking thing through a gap in the bush. The first thing I made out were the ears then I realised it was a hind looking straight at me! Still as a tree she was, nearly fooled me. Up with the rifle, crosshairs on the neck, BANG, she disappears and I hear a deer crash off to the right. So I now I'm thinking "did I miss or was that another deer?", but I walked over to where she was standing and look what I found
Next stop, Kaimanawas to chase those Jap stags
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