Best sika so far

After a reasonable amount of persuasion and earning some points by doing some jobs for the kids bedrooms my wife agreed to a hunting pass for Sunday just been. Up at a sparrows fart I hit the road to meet up with @mawzer308 (James) in Sika country. She was bloody nippy and the country side was well and truly frozen solid.

Off we went to our chosen destination battling icy hills and frozen tussock until the sun started hitting some faces. It didn’t take long and James sharp eye spotted some stags feeding high up on a hill in the sun 800 yards away. We closed the gap as much as we could down to 580 and got setup for the shot. 5 - 10minutes later and the better looking stag hadn’t yet presented a good shot and they fed off into some scrub out of sight so we made the decision to motor up the hill and see if we could get right on top of them.

A heap of huffing and puffing later we found ourselves cresting over a rise expecting them to be right in front of us. I spotted a few hinds down below when out of nowhere but in plain sight the smaller 6 point stag broke and starting running. Knowing the better 8 was there somewhere we quickly saw him following closely behind. I’ve never been one to have a go at running shots but with the season of duckshooting having not long finished it must have came instinctively. I raised the 7mmRM led him a touch and sent a 162 ELDX through his neck at about 50m. I’m gonna call it a lucky shot but no complaints from me!

He is nothing amazing but my best Sika stag to date so as you can tell I am pretty stoked. After sorting him out we carried on doing a nice loop over the course of the day spotting a few more deer thanks to James sharp eye and later in the afternoon he made a nice shot putting a hind on the ground. Another cracker day hunting my favourite deer.

Excellent day out on the hill mate, plenty of animals too. Bring on the next hunt!

That head is amazing. Any fully equiped 8 point Sika is amazing to get. They are well earned. Well done!

Awesome result mate, only ever saw one 8 point Sika, he was far to clever for me.....

well done, good skills with the off hand shot. Damn nice head.

A good shot and a nice head. Well done.

Well done to even be up there now. Pretty bloody nippy in there even in full sun this time of the year:thumbsup:

The deer will be just like us this time of year: anywhere out of the wind and in the full sun

A great feeling when a shot like that comes off:thumbs:

Nice one team.

Great head and skin mate. Well done

great work on running shot....all that playing around with subsonics up close is paying off....standing shots is bread n butter to some....agree 100% that head IS a cracker. well done indeed.

Well done. Sounds like a great hunt. Looks like an old animal?

Very nice 8 pointer well done. Just remember that there are a lot of hunters who go a lifetime without scoring a decent 8 pointer. The smile says it all.

Well done and good timing, the stags will be casting in the next few weeks.

Very nice animal. Is it the photo or is his coat quite pale?

Nice one. Like Hebe said above, very light coloured coat for a Sika.

Good efffort.

Pale looking animal, and pale tops too. Could be an interesting back story to that guy.......maybe spentathe last little while in the open? :cool:

Awesome effort there lads. Good shooting and beauty head.

Bloody awesome. Wicked stag, nice work

Beauty. Well done that man

Thanks all, yup the coat was quite light. The deer in this area do tend to go quite pale and some almost white in the winter

Nice stag mate, its a pretty good days hunting when you get a good jap stag on a day hunt in the middle of winter. cheers