Had a cracker of a meat hunt with @Flyblown last week.
Spent plenty of time relaxing and sitting around in front of the fire due to some unsettled weather but woke up on Wednesday to a clear day. I was up at first light making us coffee and Flyblown was enjoying a sleep in as I glassed the nearby hills. I spotted a mob of fallow in the foot hills and a second mob of reds higher up and grazing there way up to the ridge. Rather than waking the sleeping princess with a boom (he needs his beauty sleep;)) I opted to film them as they dissapeared over the ridge at about 400 meters.
After a good cooked breakfast and a few coffees Flyblown devised a plan to stalk up closer to them over the ridge.
So we packed light and geared up to climb a steep face to a spur position that over looked the clearings he suspected they would be heading to.
A short time later we got to the top and Flyblown had predicted correctly and were looking over the clearings with the reds visible from 200 to 300 meters away.
I got set up with the Desert tech and my new lightweight 19.5" long 6.5 Creedmoor barrel running 147gr ELDMs at 2730fps. Flyblown ranged them and I dialed them in..
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The 147s have confirmed themselves as very suitable hunting bullets to me and these two were no exception. Both dropped with a shot to the boiler room and did a great job at not destroying the fore quaters with over explosive jelly making properties. They passed through leaving a 50c sized exit wound but gave plenty of lung damage.
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We made our way over to them along the ridge and got to work boning them out and packing them up to walk back.
In most cases Ive recovered whole animals with the help of a quad bike but the location of these ones meant a reasonable walk out on slippery ground so I was pretty keen to try the "gut in" boning out method on one which worked really well. I managed to take the back straps, hind and fore quarters and even the tender loins without busting into the gut which saved a bit of time and weight for sure.
Flyblown went for the gutting first option on the other animal.
With heavy full packs and a tribal style long stick between us over our shoulders with 4 hind quarters threaded on we made our way back to a track where we could get access with a 4x4 side by side. For the ride back for a feed and few cold beers.
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The following day was another wet one but cleared enough in the afternoon for a great varminting session.
We spent a couple of hours on a hillside over looking a rabbit and hare hot spot with my .22 TCM CZ 527 Varmint rig with 40gr Z-Max's at 3100fps and Flyblown behind his .223Rem Tikka super varmint with 50gr Zmax.
Had an absolute blast popping bunnies out to 160ish meters with the .22TCM (limited by my 6 power scope Id just fitted for pest shooting around my section) and Flyblown made some cracker longer shots of 280m on a couple of hares.
Starting to get dark we headed back on the quad and picked up quite a few more while also mastering the countdown double kills..
Flyblown decided it was too much fun to go back for dinner so we continued to about 10pm with his LED torch while driving the flats and cleaning up about another 50 rabbits and hares with the .22 TCM.
A very fun little rifle that was pretty much perfect for this job..
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Another big thanks to Flyblown for his well educated guiding skills that put is in front of deer and his spotting/ranging that made for a fun week and filled the freezer once again! :thumbsup:
