Thread: The first of the year

I arrived at the hut around 5pm, gobbled up dinner, and headed across to a spot where I could glass the flats before night rolled in. I caught a glimpse of a deer (could've been a hind or a spiker) ghosting between two bits of scrub too quick for me to draw a bead on it Oh well, I thought at least this bodes well for the rest of the trip.

The next day I spent in the bush and spooked two before making it back to the hut.

The forecast for the following day was a supposed to be showers chance heavy but the morning was an absolute beauty so I had high hopes of getting some good hunting in. But as I'm sure lots of you have experienced, the weather can change quickly in the hills. Some quite heavy rain rolled in so I thought I'd sit in the shelter of a tree for a while to see if it was just a brief shower. 30mins later it was still going strong and whats more it had been accompanied by thunder strikes every few minutes. Scratch this, I thought, every deer is going to be well bedded down in this weather and I thought it best to err on the safe side being out there alone. It took me about at hour to get back to the hut and what do you know, the weather had improved by the time I got there though there was still the occasional shower. Feeling a bit soft, I chilled out at the hut till the late afternoon and headed back to the glassing spot I mentioned earlier. This day had been unusually cold with hail falling twice already and by about 8.30, shivering, that cold had gotten the better of me. I left one in the spout with the bolt open as I knew there was a decent chance of bumping into a deer on the walk back as there was fresh sign all over the track. I came around a bend in the track where a nice little gully opens up and two deer spooked! They boosted from below the track to on the hill above it and I dropped the bolt and raised the rifle - SHIT it was still on 9 power!!!! I pulled the rifle down and fixed that up whilst giving the deer a mew to try stop them - and it worked I could hear that the two deer had stopped but they were obscured by the tree in front of me. I took a step to the left, saw a young stag looking back at me, raised the rifle to my shoulder and popped him one in the heart-lung area. He dropped on the spot and kicked his feet up in the air I tried to find the second deer but he was already boosting it, and in hind sight, it was a good thing - my pack was hella heavy on the walk out! Here's a pic



I gutted the fella where I could roll the gut back down a hill well away from the track. Made a pikau out of him and hoffed it back to the hut in the darkness. I was stoked! I know he's nothing huge (only 4pts) but this is my first stag anyway.

Hot barrels fellas, cheers for reading