Thread: Three Legga

Saturday morning and the alarm went off, 3.15 am, the joys of summer hunting. I got myself sorted and got to Beeman's place about 4.45 pm shortly after we were on the move, heading for a spot we check early morning by doing a quick drive by.
This morning it was obvious the night stalkers had been out as there were fresh wheel marks every where, we even found fresh dog prints so there had been mid week activity as well.
Nothing doing there so we shot over to another part of the forest for a look, finding a bit of sign, but not a lot, maybe due to the hinds staying close to there fawns.
We decided to check one of the last two cameras that needed to be checked as we hadn't been out and about as much as Beeman was busy with his bees.

We took the camera gear and walked in the 10 or so minutes to the gully the camera was set on. It's a neat spot in a little gully with a wee trickle of water which draws the deer in. Since the last visit in late September there had been 860 odd triggers , most were deer.
Camera done we were about to move on and Beeman got caught by the call of nature so I followed a deer trail up to a saddle that looked down onto a overgrown skid I call Spiker skid, an area I have shot a couple of deer before, with nice grass below I waited for Beeman.
Several minutes past and nothing stirred, mind you it was about 9.am by now. I moved further along the ridge to a spur that ran down to the road. It's a nice open ridge so I stopped for a look and listen, while there I thought I heard something , just then a flick of movement of the right side of the spur then a spiker ran up onto the open ridge but he had his head/neck and shoulder behind a pine tree.
The seconds ticked by, I lined up in a gap in the trees and held level where his shoulder was, then he made a break and I touched off a shot hitting him through the lungs , dropping him on the spot.

I made my way down to the stag and low and behold if it wasn't " Three Legga" a stag we had picked up several months earlier on another camera. We always thought he would probably get hammered by the pig hunters who's dogs tend to chase deer as well.
He was in very good condition, the bullet that we presumed had taken his leg off by the joint had healed perfectly.
Beeman soon found me, he had been trying to figure which way I had gone when my 300 went off, as he came round to the spur he spotted me and the rather large spray of blood that had leaked from the stag.
After the photo's we gutted him and then had an easy drag down hill to the road for pick up. Beeman had to watch out as he dragged the stag it took off on the pine needles and near bowled him over a couple of times.

It's amazing how resilient deer are, injuries like that for us would most likely kill us especially without medical treatment but they tend to get on with it and survive,