Ive just spent a couple of nights up at my hut to get some peace and quiet while I wrote some materials for a contract.
The evening I arrived I went out for a hunt and while stalking through the scrub I shot a little spiker Fallow with the .223 that was having a nap at 30 yards. So that was meat in the bag and I could get on with the main event of getting the work done. When I got back to the hut I hung it in the shady bush were it would keep until I went home.
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About 4pm the next day my friend the cocky called in as he passed with his dogs for a yarn and a coffee. After half an hour he set off on his way and as we stepped out of the hut I noticed a chewed shoulder laying on the ground. Closer inspection revealed the bottom torn out of the meat bag and all of the contents consumed :) While the bag had been out of the reach of my old Tilly it wasn't for the 2 agile, leaping, heading dogs :) I'm a slow learner because its the second time its happened :)
The cocky was very apologetic and said "you will have to get another one tonight"...
In the hut for a "yarn & a coffee".
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So at 5pm I set off down into the creek, up the hill and around the corner to try to get another one. It took about 1.5rs to get to where I needed to be to hunt into the wind. I set up opposite a nice face and after a bit of glassing I spotted 2 Fallow up on a steep little face. I was looking into the west and te sun was terrible, but I was pretty sure the bigger one looked like a pregnant doe - nice meat and no fawn at foot. Great assessment - yeah right.
I cut down the hill and got opposite them at about 230 yards hoping the light would be better but I still couldn't get a really good look or sight picture. Oh well, a bird in the hand...
So I settled behind the Rem M7, got the best sight picture I could on the lungs and sent a .223 69grn Targex.
At the shot the deer lunged a bit, did a wobble for a few seconds and bowled down the hill. Yay! Retribution and meat in the bag again (albeit a new bag).
"and bowled down the hill" The deer had been in the top green bit.
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Tilly and I crossed to the deer and I did the butchery thing.
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"the butchery thing"
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The observant reader would have noticed that the deer was actually a buck, bugger it. But the redeeming feature was that I think I had seen the deer in thhe same spot a month ago in te hard, and it was pretty spindly. And it was made of yummy fat meat anyway.
I decided to go home the long way by cutting up the face to the ridge in the hope that I would get another one (double retribution). It was 8pm by the time I got up there and dropped my load to head in the opposite direction for a quick scout. I did see another Fallow and stalked it but the wind was wrong and it disappeared. I had a good load of meat anyway so I wasn't too worried.
It was a long walk home and I was a bit buggered so when I was about 40 mins from the hut and 2 more climbs in front of me I hung the meat on a gate to collect the next day.
"I hung the meat on a gate" (I had come from right around the sky line above the bush and out of sight).
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I got back to the hut well after dark and the camp oven was still warm on the stove. Hoggett shoulder chops, a tin peas, an onion, and instant gravy. My standard fare. I was too tired to do instant mashed spud (lazy old bugger).
I slept like a top.
