Bush Stalking Winter Sika
This report was written by "TargetSikaStags" about our mid winter mission. I thought he was going to post the report on here, but he's shot off over seas so it hasn't happened yet. (So when it says "I" its actually ben not me)
Well during the roar I did a heap of trips into a lot of new areas, I got onto quite a few animals but had no sightings of any big stags. So last week me and a mate Nick M. decided to head to my favourite fly camp for 5 nights.
The goal was to secure some meat then look for that big stag. The walk in took us 3 hours, as we entered the bush we spotted a small stag who was too quick but a great start to the trip. As we came one of my camps there was already a solo hunter who had just arrived a few hours before us.. bugger. Unfortunately he had similar hunting plans too us over the next couple of days. So we had to go to an area I haven't spent much time in, the result was only a couple of animals spooked one being a stag. As we rolled into camp around lunchtime the hunter had some success shooting two spikers, so that was awesome as he had covered hardly any ground and was keen to head home. We packed up camp and headed to another fly camp, we saw a couple of deer on the way and spooked heaps.
The next day we split up and were hunting areas I have spent a lot of time in. We both got onto plenty of animals, and back at camp we were starting to get worried, we both had animals in our scopes but needed that's extra second.
The next day we decided to move camps again. What a day this turned out to be, what normally takes 2 hours to reach my next fly camp took as all day. We just kept running into deer, We saw 13 with Nick nailing a spiker.
http://i1176.photobucket.com/albums/...2/P1040413.jpg
We got onto a group of animals squealing there heads off, I was able to sneak into the middle of them which was bloody exciting and nail a hind at 30m.
http://i1176.photobucket.com/albums/...2/IMG_0398.jpg
We got to camp just as it was getting dark, the pressure was off now, today was the complete opposite of yesterday with all the deer giving us plenty of time to shoot.
The next morning we both agreed on only shooting stags now, so cameras were sent to the front pockets our jackets
Only 200m from camp I ran into the first deer of the day a spiker, I was able to get some cool photos and a bit of video footage.
http://i1176.photobucket.com/albums/...2/IMG_0403.jpg
http://i1176.photobucket.com/albums/...2/IMG_0407.jpg
http://i1176.photobucket.com/albums/...2/IMG_0409.jpg
http://i1176.photobucket.com/albums/...2/IMG_0411.jpg
Today turned out to be a cracker with both of us getting photos of animals and plenty more which wouldn't hang around longer enough while I tried to find them in the camera. Nick managed to shoot a 6 point stag.
http://i1176.photobucket.com/albums/...2/P1040477.jpg
http://i1176.photobucket.com/albums/...2/P1040478.jpg
Nick also managed to get some photos of the same stag before he shot it and also a photo of last years fawn.
http://i1176.photobucket.com/albums/...2/P1040460.jpg
http://i1176.photobucket.com/albums/...2/P1040439.jpg
After an intense hour of stalking in thick guts which had sign or through them I was rewarded with getting a photo of a hind.
http://i1176.photobucket.com/albums/...2/IMG_0417.jpg
We hunted the next day with plenty of animals seen and left and run into some more walking out. We saw a good mixture of animals, including a monster stag which I spooked at 20m, he was the biggest I've seen since the first stag I saw 8 years ago. Nearly all the animals were grouped together with some groups being 5+. 95% of animals seen were either standing in the sun or only metres away from the sun.
This was my last trip before I head to London for a couple years so was a great last hunt. We counted 46 animals for the trip with many more spooked, we thought about staying a little bit longer to crack 50. But the thought of a nice warm bed was enough to leave.
Footage of spiker:
Winter Sika #2 - YouTube
Winter Sika #3 - YouTube
Nick also got some footage of last years fawn:
Winter sika - YouTube
Cast antler
http://i1176.photobucket.com/albums/...2/IMG_0421.jpg
Cheers Ben
