The mountain forecast was looking pretty good for the weekend. My mate Chris and I were keen to harvest some meat for the upcoming summer and replenish our freezers. We planned on a quick trip in, two nights, and back out again before the norwester was due to pick up in intensity later on Sunday. We loaded up the trusty Terrano and hit the road.
I’d taken a punt on a totally different part of the country the weekend prior, and overall it was a disappointing experience. I hadn’t done enough homework. The area was steep and badly overrun with wilding trees and broom, making it a real struggle to traverse and certainly gave me little chance of glassing it or moving quietly through it. I’d abandoned the trip early in disgust, so I was particularly keen on turning around my hunting fortunes and hitting some good country.
The grassy flats and cool beech forest were a welcome change. En route to our target area, we planned to stalk a catchment that promised a good mix of country: river flats, benched terraces and forest with occasional swampy clearings. Up early, we were walking by headtorch for an hour or two the next morning. We dropped our packs off and began scouting for sign at first light. We had a very gentle zephyr of Norwest wind in our faces, and things were looking promising. It was clear that the spring flush was providing a good amount of lush green growth on the flats. A moderate amount of fresh sign was observed, but not as much as we were expecting. We left the flats and moved through the forest to some swampy clearings we knew. Game trails were everywhere, but much of the sign was not particularly fresh.
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a carex-dominated wetland
Where were the deer hanging out? Had another party been through here recently? The swampy ground sucked at our boots as we moved further up the catchment in search of drier ground. More forest, more clearings, more flats. By mid-morning the sun was heating up - our best opportunity had passed - so we headed back to our packs for a brew. I always enjoy ‘bush philosophy’ over a cuppa. Chris and I yarned about what we could have done better, aired speculative theories on where the deer are hiding, and joked about how many tails a decent deer culler would have collected by now if they weren’t being hampered by a mate making a racket.
We pitched our tents among the scrub and began the long wait until we could target the prime area we wanted to hunt that evening. The sandflies were relentless. They drove us back into our tents…yet the sun quickly turned these into nylon furnaces. The air temperature was warmer than we expected, and there was a cloudless sky. You could doze inside and sweat, or doze outside and be eaten alive. The evening couldn’t come soon enough. Chris couldn’t stand either option and went for a quick snoop around a leafy creek head in the hope of finding some resting animals. I finally relented and moved my tent into the shade which made the wait much more bearable.
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Swamp Musk flowering by a stream
By 7pm we were fed and ready to hit a clearing Chris had successfully visited before. We’d had a good look at the map and - given the wind direction - chosen our approach angle. As we got closer to the clearing, we started glassing the wider area. Oh dear…our path in via a beautiful winding creek was blocked by a flock of Canada geese. Their noisy alarm call had the potential to completely ruin things. It was time to consider a Plan B. We crept through the dry beech undergrowth parallel to the creek and hoped that we would skirt around them unnoticed. Eventually we reached a finger of forest that extended into the clearing, conveniently giving us different viewing channels across and upwind of us. Chris set up position, and I crept about 20 metres away to scan the other direction. I pulled down my balaclava and hid any exposed skin as the pesky sandflies predictably came in for a feed. Unfortunately, the wind strength was picking up out of the Norwest, but hopefully not enough to deter deer from leaving cover. Three different viewing channels were available to me, and I spent my time glassing between then. 45 minutes passed. Suddenly, in a relatively small bush window on the other side of the creek, a red walked out of the trees and into frame, side on. This quickly woke me up. Would it stay still for long enough? I picked up the 25-06 and looked through the scope. A spiker, ranged at just over 100 metres. Just what we were after…perfect! He paused and stood still. I squeezed the trigger on his front shoulder and …the animal disappeared! Did he run? Surely I didn’t miss him?! From my vantage point, the bush window was small, the terrain sloping away and uneven…I just couldn’t be sure of the outcome. I decided to remain still and wait a minute or two. A tense thirty seconds passed. I had quietly chambered a new round and was contemplating the turn of events when a nervous-looking spiker head and neck partially walked back within the same small viewing window, quartering towards me. Thankfully, I now had another chance to get him. A pill to the neck saw him rear up and a hit was confirmed. Chris had crept over to investigate by now, so we crossed the creek to inspect the site. A healthy-looking spiker in good condition was lying on the grass near the bush margin. He had dropped on the spot. A handshake from Chris was interrupted by the somewhat unexpected sight of another spiker lying poleaxed about five metres away! Initially unbeknownst to me, this was a second spiker, who must’ve been utterly baffled when his mate dropped dead beside him. He bravely hung around the crime scene, like a cervine Columbo piecing together the evidence, and got 117 grains in the neck for his troubles. I’ve noticed this before when hunting with a suppressor, animals often can’t pick the noise direction. Both animals had a near-instant demise and Chris thanked them both for providing some beautifully tender meat to feed our families.
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