Thread: Watercress hunting turned into a fallow stalk.

So i messaged a friend if i could get out for a walk and get some watercress from his property, i know has a few fallow which he's become very fond of them over the years. He generally doesn't like them hunted and he doesn't have any animals on his property and allows the fallow to roam freely. He also has some really good watercress on his property i like to get out to fill a bag every now and then. Unfortunately normally the fallow will clean it up in the warmer months when the grass isn't doing so well for them, luckily the grass is good at the moment and i was hoping to fill a bag.

I turned up to the property and straight away there's deer sign all over the grass near the driveway. I hop out of the car and look down into the little basin bellow his drive where i know there's a couple good watercress patches. 5 Doe's and a late Fawn.


Not wanting to disturb them I walk the track to the other end of the property and look across the other side of the little gully. 3 Deer high up on the pine edge and 8 more down on the clearing 160m away from where i was standing.


Now I wanted to take the track to the right of the deer to check some creeks at the rear of the property for watercress. I didn't want to charge on passed them and disturb them, i was just out to get some air and watercress. So i decided I'd use this as a bit of fun, stalk in on them to get some photo's. If i can get in it'll be fun and also its been 5 weeks of lock down! I thought it'd be a nice stalking drill, get the wind right, slow down, take my time, etc. If i did spook them then I'd carry on and fill my bag.

Well this was what happened. I got in to 15-20m down wind from them and sat for a good 10mins snapping photo's and a few videos.



https://youtu.be/CqPTCPcTIII

While this was all happening i heard something behind me walking through the long grass as i turned around there was a Buck who'd just walked straight up behind me he looked at me, backed up, turned to his left, you can see his ass end behind the tree down by the creek.


he walked down the creek a little to another trail up out of the creek slightly out of view came up, dusted up some long grass with his antlers, entered on the clearing to my left and climbed up to his girls and young ones on the clearing above me. Not really giving a fuck i was sitting there.
The wind was blowing slightly across me face onto the clearing behind to my left, so although he may not have winded my initially he would of walked straight through it to get around me up onto the clearing.

https://youtu.be/hUcpzwDTbOg

https://youtu.be/v5Emwq4Zo14



One of the prickett's got a bit too close for its comfort and saw me, spooked a little. But as they're very curious he stopped for another look and slowly made his way around the edge of the clearing to continue feeding behind a tree out of view from me.

https://youtu.be/QGIijVpfils

The drizzle was setting in a little more at this stage, i wasn't going to get any watercress by the looks of it as i didn't want to spook this group of deer. So i let them be and made my way back to the vehicle catching up with my friend for a quick yarn on the way out. Very cool to get a chance to sneak in on some animal so close to home. I'm not to sure it'd feel right putting one of these animals down to fill the freezer. I think I'd have to be desperate for meat.

Thanks for your photos and vids.What a priceless piece of land with fallow wandering around feeding,not a care in the world.

Thanks @Trout it really is a special place. The pine block neighbouring the farm was their sanctuary. Unfortunately the previous owner sold the block. The new owner went in and bombed up the herd (so i was told) and started dropping all the pines. This reduced the size of the herd and has cause them to split up. Hopefully the remaining fallow treat this property as a safe place for them to continue to breed.

Thanks for sharing, starting to forget what deer look like

Real Cool, nice to get in close and watch there habits.

Very cool & nice to see all those Old blood line Black Fallow !

Unfortunately I have a place like that but once people find out they want to kill all of them, have drones all over, then poachers all day & night from ever angle, Police do nothing, even after you do their job & catch them, other than threaten to prosecute the catchers !

@Scout yes, that is the same with this property. He has poaching signs up all over his property. He has camera's etc. The morning i went out he woke to no deer, where the whole lock down they'd been around all day every day. So he assumes someone might of been snooping around that night and spooked them back into cover. He was happy to hear they were still about.

What an awesome place great photos too I hope they can remain free to roam unmolested

Originally Posted by Projects

Thanks @Trout it really is a special place. The pine block neighbouring the farm was their sanctuary. Unfortunately the previous owner sold the block. The new owner went in and bombed up the herd (so i was told) and started dropping all the pines. This reduced the size of the herd and has cause them to split up. Hopefully the remaining fallow treat this property as a safe place for them to continue to breed.

the new owner is my neighbour, they did not bomb up the deer they moved out once the logging started. the numbers are very high as the poaching is very well managed now.... its just a pity they don't put the same effort into keeping the numbers at a sustainable level... they move about once they run out of feed, a few of them get hit by cars.

Originally Posted by kawhia

the new owner is my neighbour, they did not bomb up the deer they moved out once the logging started. the numbers are very high as the poaching is very well managed now.... its just a pity they don't put the same effort into keeping the numbers at a sustainable level... they move about once they run out of feed, a few of them get hit by cars.

Yes, i have heard stories about people hitting them on the roads around during dawn hours. I can understand how the logging had driven them to one end of the pine block, nice to hear the poaching is managed now. I guess the hear say of the bombing up was possibly just poachers or forestry workers?

What is a sustainable level for Fallow? They're a small animal which tend to graze farm land mostly, so they're a nuisance to farmers fences and feed. During the day time they tend to bed down in pockets of bush.
I guess if you reduce the size of the bush pocket they live in then the heard size must reduce to be sustainable?

Its one of those catch-22 scenarios, It'd be nice to leave the pine block as be and manage the heard privately through wild game food sales, or simple paid meat hunts. I'm sure any of us would love to have a property like that. But unfortunately not everyone has the same views as me and I could imagine selling fallow meat wouldn't pay the bills. But the land productivity after logging would be massive for the new owner, unfortunate for the herd though.

The local Fallow herd is one of the 25 original herds spread across NZ, covering Te Miro - Te Tapui - Karapiro - Maungakawa. You hear reports say the herd is struggling, etc. But, i think they only look at the doc blocks for their data and the little pockets of bush all around the region hold small groups of fallow i hope, positive thinking.

the bush/pines bit that boarders your pictures is safe, different owner, and the logging operations are done for now. i understand there is an operator doing guided hunts in the area, as well as a safari park breeding operation... we see deer all over the place the actual population is 95% on private land and alot higher than you would expect,can see 30 odd every evening from the dog kennels, heads are shithouse despite the release of trophy animals but i have seen the odd one with even palms just needing a few more years.