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Another minter and more action
Another minter of a day. Decided to go over to another adjacent property and look for deer in the late afternoon. Found them no problem, but they were a long way away, on the other side of the gorge.
So I had a 45 minute dash through the bush to get to a decent shooting position. Just before I reached the open country where I had seen the deer, I ran into easily the biggest boar I’ve seen for several years. He’d heard me coming but wasn’t sure what I was; upon seeing my upright homo sapiens profile he made a fearful racket and came straight for me. For a couple of seconds I was quite concerned, but I think it was simply a mistake. He applied the brakes about 5m away and spun and legged it in the opposite direction, grunting and snorting, straight towards where I was hoping to find my targets. This spooked deer in the timber down to my left that I didn’t know were there, and the kereru feeding on the hinau berries above me. All up there was a tremendous bloody racket, birds swopping, deer crashing around, pigs grunting.
I decided it was probably a good idea to stand still for five minutes, and let everything calm the fuck down.
I slowly covered the last 50m or so to the edge of the native. I poked my head around the side of a large old rimu - my targets we’re still happily grazing heads down and bums up. Three red stags - two spikers and an older fat 11 pointer. As I pulled open the legs of my bipod I accidentally extended the one leg which made a horrid loud CLACK! I froze as all three stags stared straight at me.
So I waited another five minutes in a remarkably uncomfortable position, daring myself to not move a muscle. I was mightily relieved when the older animal finally turned to start browsing again… I slid back in the direction I’d come from and tracked around to a better position with a little bit of elevation. This required a commando crawl through the mud and sheep shit, but I could see a likely spot with good tussock cover. I slipped a round into the chamber, and I poked my head through the tussock only to stare straight into the face of the older stag, who had approached without me realising and was only about 10 m away. He definitely was not at all happy.
I knew I had about two seconds to act. I sat straight up, aimed and fired, clean bowling the stag straight through the base of the neck. The second animal did a full 360 and stopped to stare, whereupon he got exactly the same treatment. The third ran like the clappers across my line of sight and around to my right, behind the hillocks. Suddenly there he was, just shoulders, neck and head bolting away. I yelled “STOP!” which immediately had the desired effect (stupid animal). He got a 165gr softpoint through both shoulders. I found out a few minutes later that a single remanent manuka had stopped him from tumbling all the way down into the gorge.
Cool! Three big heavy deer down and now at the hard work began. I managed to get the back straps out of all three before it was too dark to see, then walked all the way back around to the bike hoping I wouldn’t run into that pig again. By the time I returned to the scene, it was cold as, with a heavy dew descending. But now I was armed with a head torch and the excellent LED lights on the bike so I could easily remove the back legs and the forequarters from the two I neck shot. Stashed the forelegs in a tree (not enough tie downs) and packed the rest onto the bike and made my way slowly down the hill.
By the time I got back to the homestead I was pretty bloody chilly and was grateful for the fire. I hung the legs in the shed and put the back strips in the fridge…. Phoned the wife and made a sandwich. Recorded this story for posterity.
Tired as now.
Sleep well fellas.
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