Thread: A Few Firsts

Bella the 10 month Lab has never been deerstalking. Ive held her back getting the basics right. She hadn't been on a quad or spent the night in a hut. Ive never dragged a skin and had her trail it. But she has very strong genetics. She did everything better than I could have imagined.

Ive never shot a deer with the Arken Zulus day/night 'scope. It was great. 2 daytime deer and one at night. Its on my Tikka .223 sighted in for 77TMK's.

I'm seeming to be having some covid bounce back so will keep this brief. The 1am bedtime this morning probably hasn't helped.

Bella was hard case and great company. Very relaxed and playful. Close all of the time. Here she is while Im glassing.



It was after 7pm when we spotted the first shootable deer. Bella and I shagged around quite a bit to get a clear shot at 200 yards. Angled shot into the lungs and probably a bit far back. It bolted 80 yards but I could see where it ended up. The scope clear and easy to use and I shot her on 20 power. The shot flushed out 2 more and it was easy to pop one of them through the shoulder at 230 yards or so.

We went to the 2nd one first and Bella cautiously tracked us to it. Her first deer. Tentative but perfect. Ive got some nice vid of it which I will try to load later.



For the next one I took her lead off and let her walk in on her own. She was wonderful, working the wind like a pro.



It was nearly dark by the time I had lugged them out to somewhere accessible for the quad.



A cool feature of the Zulus is that you can hunt about an extra hour into the dusk than with an ordinary scope. I was very impressed by that, but I wanted to get a deer using the IR. I had lots of opportunities but settled on one that seemed to be at about max IR range, about 250 yards. It was a shame that I had mucked the settings up and couldn't use the built in range finder. Anyway I smacked it over no trouble. A dry little doe. Bella did another nice little find.



It was 11pm by the time that was all fixed up so we headed for the hut.

I will add some pics to show what Bella and I got up to at the hut. We left at 9am this morning. To sum up, Bella was wonderful. Tracked 3 shot deer. The Zulus scope is very cool. A bit fiddly but thats technology I guess. I would happily use it in the daytime out to any ethical range.