When lambing is over and some grass is growing 2 things happen - I'm allowed back into my farm spots and the cockies start complaining about the number of deer they are seeing.
So last Thursday I went up to where my hut is for an evening hunt and to give the floor a second coat of polyurethane.
The scrub block I went out to is quite hard and the deer don't seem to appear until November, but by 7pm I had seen a couple of velvet Red but they were not what I really wanted to shoot. So I quickly shifted to another area that looked down onto a scrub edge where the cocky was complaining about deer numbers.
As dark came in a hind and yearling materialised out of the scrub. Just what I wanted. They were about 600 yards away.
So I quickly closed the gap to 250 yards and quietly edged into sight of them. They were settled and the hind was broadside so I carefully lined the hind up for a lung shot and let rip with the 6.5x55. She was visibly hit but had enough in her tank to run into the scrub 30 yards away, and then came tumbling down into the creek. The yearling saw what had happened to Mum and ran up the creek towards where they had come out, and in so doing had to run around under were I was. She stopped to look back at 140 yards and got hit in the high shoulder for her trouble.
Two hinds down - the cocky would be pleased.
Attachment 182039
I have a good charitable outlet for venison so having 2 deer was no problem. It was going to be a reasonable carry in the dark, and 2 trips to boot so I decided to deal with them there and hang them up, and then bring the quad back in the morning and get as close as I could to limit the carry.
Attachment 182040
The next morning I painted the floor and got the quad and headed back to the deer. I got within about 30-40 mins from them so in 3 loads (the yearling was a big lump and a bitch to carry) I had them at the bike.
Tilly topped off the load and off we went :)
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I had just got back to the woolshed and my phone rang. The cockie: "have you retrieved the deer yet - if you have and seeming you are here I might as well get a mob in and we can dock for the rest of the day". Bugger. So I spent the rest of the day docking until 5pm and then went for another hunt. I saw quite a few but 2 were quite enough so I just watched and enjoyed. I was pretty buggered the next day - age catching up. And the next day I was another year older.
