Organised Friday just gone off work, planned a Friday / Saturday overnight hunt with a mate, but as Friday approached and forecast was checked, overnighter was down graded to a day hunt, left home 3am Friday morning in the drizzle, picked up my mate in Whakatane at 4.15am, Road end into DOC bush at 6.00am, just breaking daylight, still drizzling, off we head in different directions, was meant to be a south easterly, but bugger all wind that time of the day, bush stalked and got soaked all morning without seeing a thing, sat down on ridge late morning for early lunch at turn around point of hunt, was intending to start heading back towards carpark after lunch, Finished my sammies, packed up pack and had just started stalking again, when i spied some antlers with a face attached looking at me from about 20m away, close bolt on 308 as i raised the rifle to my shoulder, firedot on shoulder, bang. Stag ran off at the shot, found him dead about 50m away from where he had been standing. A couple of photos, then began job of boning out hindquarters and backsteaks, drop meat into pillow cases and into pack, pack was full of meat, hell what a load, look at GPS and consider easiest way back to carpark, 3 hours later arrived at carpark, where my mates got coffee on, just about killed me, thinking, im getting way too old for this carry on (58) home for dinner, slept well Friday night
