First walk in a very long time
I've been out of the game for while due to injury. 9 months in fact. Bloody hell when you write it down you realise just how long it is. 9 months, bloody hell the missus could've gotten up the duff and popped a sprog in that time. Thankfully she didn't. Anyways I was desperate to go for a walk. Still not being anywhere close to fit and limited to how much I could carry I knew it wasn't going to easy. Luckily I know of a genuine good bastard who gave me access to an area where I could drive most of the way up the hill to the hunting spot. With the truck loaded with more than what I needed (near enough everything hunting related i own seemed to get loaded) I set off with great trepidation and a sense of relaxation just getting out again.
After what can only be described as a leisurely drive to the spot and an easy drive up a track I reached the end of the road. I'd saved myself 90 minutes of walking and about 6 litres of sweat. Packing as light as I could for a night I made my way slowly up the hill to my chosen campsite. Bugger me the lungs were not happy in the slightest. This was by no means a massive climb and with minimal gear, it's official. I'm unfit.
I set up the tent and grabbed just the rifle, knife and binos and headed out for an evening hunt. I climbed a bit higher to found a beautiful glassing spot lying down where I could overlook a large valley down below. With 90 minutes of light left I was getting excited as to what the night may bring. Well the answer for is sod all. I didn't spot any animals down the in valley or on the opposite faces. With darkness upon me i trudged back to camp for a feed and a brew then with nothing else to do hit sack at 7.30 and surprisingly slept pretty much all night.
I got up at 6.30 had a coffee and porridge and some chocolate, packed the gear for a day hunt and left camp just as it was light enough to see without needing a torch. Again I didn't have to walk far to another glassing spot where there is all day sun and I have shot deer before. But again after a couple hours there I hadn't spotted any animals and was wondering if it just going to be one of those enjoy the scenery trips.
I have hunted this area before and the last couple of times I had been here I had noticed more sign and animals on the other side of the ridge where at this time of year there is no sun but I thought fuck it what's the worst that can happen. So over I went and got settled in the cold and started to glass. Instinctively my binos went straight in the direction of where I had a seen a decent stag about a year ago but he gave me the slip. I thought you never know. But he wasn't there. So I carried on glassing into the darker no sun area's going very slowly and methodically while trying to mentally figure out how I could afford some real nice binos as the ones I have now are at the low end of the scale. But they do still work as down below I found a red hind just sitting in the tussock not really doing much. I scanned round and could not see another anywhere with so had assume it was it's own. By 10am it hadn't moved and by 10.30 the same.so I figured she was going nowhere for the day and I had a decent chance. Range 786y. Far too far for me. Now to close the gap. Looking around I decided my best option was to back track slightly and walk the other side of the ridge where I would be out of sight and could close the gap by coming the inside of a ridge a bit in front of her to still keep me hidden. Luckily the wind was ok.a very slight breeze down the mountain but if I managed to keep to my path I should be ok. It took a while about 45 minutes to get to the second ridgeline where I thought I maybe get a shot off. I popped my head over and there she was still sitting down facing away but over 400y away. Not ideal if I couldn't get any closer than I could from there but would prefer to get the gap down to 350 or less. As luck would have it the ridge I was on angled down and towards the deer so I dropped down again and followed it. I looked over at what I thought would be 250y. Bugger it plateaud in front of me and there was a bush in front obscuring me from the deer. Sod it. I couldn't see.the deer so it couldnt see me. Wind was still good.so I slowly crept towards the bush. I crawled the last few metres to peer round and there she was still sitting down facing away. Range finder out 125y. It's on. I slinked back picked up the rifle and chambered a round in the new .270. I grabbed my pack to use as a rest and inched my way forward. This time as I peered round my cover bush there she was bloody standing looking at me. Fuck. I don't know what got here attention but she knew I was there.
I froze. Expecting the deer to fuck off, but she didn't. I slowly moved my pack in front of me and lay to get a good rest but there was too much tussock in the way. I slowly got to my knees and found the deer in my sights. Controlling my breathing I decided to back myself. Breathing as slowly as I could holding the rifle as solid as I could on my knees I let the safety off and pulled the trigger. The new rifle has a suppressor so doesn't have the big 270 boom just that lovely suppressor noise that I can't describe. Anyways I heard it hit, looked up and the deer dropped on the spot. Fuck yeah. New rifle 1. Deer 0. I was pretty bloody happy to say the least.
As I stood up to grab my gear and head down I couldn't believe it but no more 15m to the left was another deer just feeding away. I think she was last years hind and obviously had no idea what that noise was or her mother had just died. I thought she would bugger of the moment she saw me but no. She stood stared at me till I walked with 10m before she barked. I barked back and as stupid as it sounds then had a barking competition with a deer for the next 5 minutes. Only after a tossed a rock in her general direction did she finally move on to just out of sight where she then spent the next hour and a half barking at me and stamping her feet.
I sat down next to dead mum and had lunch. I figured better to eat first before getting covered in blood. The cheese salami and crackers done the job and I set about butchering. Now I'm not the best butcher in the world am not entirely sure how I managed this but removed the back legs and back straps and in the process took just about all of that meat and made passage where I could see the eye fillets without having to completely gut it. Will have to try and do this again. It wasn't till this point that I realised just how big this bloody hind was. I had deboned the back legs and it weighed shit loads. I took what meat I could salvage from the 1 good front shoulder and tried to lift my pack.
Fuck that. It was heavy. There was no way I could carry it all at once in my not so fit and desperate not to do anymore damage to myself state. especially up 250m vertical climb to camp. I made the decision to do it in 3 shuttle runs. I divided the meat and gear into 3 easier to manage bundles and set off moving 50-60 vertical metres. Stop, drop pack contents go get the next lot and so and so on. It wasn't as bad as I thought it would be and 90 minutes later returned to camp for a well earned brew.
After stuffing my face I made the call to pull the pin and return home. I could've stayed another night but the weather looked like it was closing in and the last report I'd seen for this area wasn't all that flash. I broke camp and packed up this time dividing everything into bundles. It was a relatively gentle walk to the truck and figured it too heavy could always do more runs. Turns out 2 was ok and I returned to the amarok just as the sun was setting. Absolutely buggered but with biggest smile on my face. Luckily I had plenty of clean clothes food and drink in the truck so had good feed of chocolate nuts and coke and headed home.
As I'm sitting here writing this every muscle in body is aching, it's amazing how soon you forget just much hunting can hurt. But it also brings me so much joy. Hopefully I can get out a bit more now.
Only got 1 photo and not the best i was too busy making sure I didn't do anything dumb and 're injure myself. And for some reason can't upload anyway. Will later.
Cheers
