Thread: Where Deer show up.

Down on the East Coast culling goats..........came across a Rusa Hind just on dark and scored some venison. While my mate was dressing it out I headed off in the dark with my lenser to fetch the quad. As I walked through a narrow steep cutting about 10m from the quad I heard a noise so I stopped, luckily for me I did cos if i had kept walking the Rusa Stag that fell 30 feet down the sheer bank on my right would have landed on top of me and probably killed me. As he lay on the ground less than 2m in front of me we eyeballed each other for about 20 seconds..........then all hell broke loose..........me frantically unslinging my rifle, at the same time fumbling for the loaded mag in my pocket and him digging holes in the ground with his feet trying to stand up. He beat me by about 4 seconds, turned and ran, jumped the quad and disappeared into the night. Took 20 minutes for my heart rate to drop from 4000bpm to something like normal............


Back a few years another mate and I were duckshooting on the Kaipara in my fully camo'd 13' boat. We were drifting silently up a narrow winding creek near Tauhoa with the incoming tide, hugging the bank which was about 8 feet above us. Heard some ducks quacking around the next corner so we got set to 'spring' them. Saw a dead mangrove tree out of the corner of my eye slowly move and turn to look at me..... turned my head to see a 16+pt red stag at the top of the bank looking down into the boat. Had time to notice the ear tag as I shouldered the 1187.
We stared at each other over the barrel for about 30 seconds as we drifted past each other and my mind was going through the 'shall I or shant I'......In the end he bolted........Later found out he had escaped from a local deer farm and they had been trying to get him back for 6 months, then gave up and he was fair game...... Glad I didnt take the shot as thinking back on it, if he had dropped off the bank into the boat he would have probably sunk us............