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Getting shown up by a young pair of eys
Potentially the last hunt this year we made the most of a weather window before it returned to normal and shit itself again. Charlie is on school holidays and was keen to get the .243 out. We headed off on Wednesday and had a slow trudge in. 5 deer were spooked on the way in. He was on point and probably should have nailed at least two. Anyway 6 hours later we threw our packs off. I headed directly to the clearing by camp and first thing i see is a spiker mooching along the bush edge. Running back, I grabbed him and he lay down with his .243 and carefully lined it up. 170 yds and it never moved again. 100 gn slug straight through the boiler room.
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I quickly dealt to it with the knife and threw it on my back for the short trip back to camp. After getting the deer hung up, we got the fire going then proceeded to have a big ding dong trying to put up the new tent. If you buy a new tent it pays to put it up at home first, I guess. Not take it out of its packaging at 11 pm after a big day and expect everything to fall into place. Anyway we got there. Thursday was a sleep in and lazy day around camp. Swinging the Billy. Cooking venison sausages and eye fillets and butchering the deer.
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Thursday evening, we set off again up the valley. There was a fair wind blowing which isn't usually conducive to finding deer. The young eyes spotted the first one out feeding. We put a stalk on through the tussock. 40 minutes later we were scratching our heads as it had given us the slip. We carried on up and started glassing some new country. 2 stags were spotted a long way up the hill, but they were safe from us. 20 minutes i spotted another bum feeding in some matagauri. The wind was starting to tail off a bit so we began the stalk. We got to within 170 yds and it had fed out of sight again. When it re appeared, I wasted no time sacking it with my 7mm08.
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Taking the back steaks we headed back to camp. On the way back we saw another 8 deer feeding or running from our wind. We were just getting back when Charlie spotted a stag feeding 370 yds from camp. "Can I shoot it dad? " . I gave him the ok as long as he was prepared to go and retrieve the back straps. It was 10pm and we were fast running out of light. He lined it up and shot it with the 708. It took 3 steps and went legs up. He took Ruby over to retrieve the meat. The less said about his butchery efforts the better. Rain was forecast to hit on Thursday night and it did not disappoint. It pissed down as only Te Anau can. There was no point getting out of bed on Friday as it was steadily bucketing down. In fact I did not rise until 1pm . By then it had reduced to steady drizzle. The river was up and only a fool would've tried crossing her. It was the high track home. Getting the rain coats on and packing up we were gone by 2:30pm. We spotted 3 more deer out feeding across the river but with no way to get them they were safe.
Rounding the next bend the young eyes whispered deer. Sure enough there was 3 feeding back towards the bush. Dropping his pack and taking Ruby to Indicate Charlie did a great job of sacking the yearling at 10 yds in the bush. Great more weight in my pack.
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4 grinding hours later we made the truck. Grateful for some dry clothes and a drink. 25 deer seen , 4 shot.Hot barrels and have a safe and festive season. Team Ford over and out.
