I went down to Pureora yesterday, raining when I got there, but set up the tent, put on the wet weathers and off to check out a couple of handy gullies the deer seem to like. Some very fresh sign but nothing seen. A bit of a late start this morning, partly because I had to change a flat tyre. It got wetter and wetter as the morning wore on. After a couple of hours I was working my way across a knob and had two deer run up to me, a hind stopped to my left, but the front end was behind a tree, a young stag was about 15m directly in front looking at me. Flipped the alumina caps, cocked the Bergara and sent a 160gr FTX on its way. The deer ran off. The dog started tracking as soon as we got to where the deer had been and tracked perfectly for a reasonable distance right to the deer. I could see no blood (not surprising with a front-on chest shot), and it would have taken me quite a while to find it without the dog. MD’s mantra of trusting the dog was running through my head.
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After taking the back legs, backsteaks and one shoulder off I opened him up to get the eye fillets and heart. I couldn’t feel the heart in the chest cavity, but when I pulled everything out I could see why - the heart was torn to bits!
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It took a bit under an hour back to the car with the boned out meat
@bigbear
