Thread: Introducing Larry

It's kind of embarrassing to relate in a forum full of accomplished hunters and some beginners with half a dozen deer racked up, that this is my first.
Oh well, better late than never, I suppose.

I've been out, but been an armed tramper, and come back empty handed every time.

In the last few years I flagged hunting away as too frustrating( I had lots of other frustrations at the time and one more was one too many) and learned to use a pistol instead.

A good friend knew I'd yet to shoot any deer and offered to take me hunting where he knew I'd be able to find something to zap.
We were out of the Hilux about 50 metres when his son's GSP pointed into the scrub. I snuck forward for a look, and saw a small mob 150-200m away on a small spur. All of them promptly disappeared except for Larry the spiker, who stayed to eyeball me.

I lined up for the shot, and had one of those " I'll sit down- damn too low, I'll kneel- damn too wobbly " moments where I tried both.

I went with kneeling, and put a hole in his chest with a 7mm08 120gn Nosler.

There was a loud smack, and I was confident I'd hit him. He disappeared downhill into the scrub. We went back to the Hilux, and drove to the top of the spur, then combed downhill from above the site where I'd hit him.



We found a patch of blood from a lung shot on the ground where he'd rested, but was still mobile at that point, had heard us coming and wasn't interested in hanging around.

We searched downhill awhile assuming he'd slid into some scrub, but found nothing, then we decided to follow the contour of the hill across instead of straight down.

Larry was lying off the track across the gully from us. He'd travelled 200m or so from the initial point with a lung shot.

The other two advised me to put another round into the crease of his neck to turn his lights out, so I did.

I was interested to see what damage the Nosler through the chest had done and found that it had basically whistled on through and come out the far side without doing much expanding at all. The exit wound was pretty small, not the crater that I was expecting.

There was a 20mm hole going into the rib cage where I presume it had zapped through a lung.



I named the spiker Larry 'cause he was my first deer. The next ones will not be similarly honoured.

We took the back straps and back wheels off him, and the head, which I will keep the the antlers from.



The only reason this photo's included is that the picture of the red eyed dog amuses me.

If I'd known he was like that, I'd have turned around and performed an impromptu exorcism on him.