My son CraigC and I flew in with Chris last week for 3 days. It was raining and foggy on the way in on Wednesday evening and still clagged in Thursday morning. But it started to clear at about 8am so we headed off in different directions. I pretty soon found a hind on a bit of a tute patch, and at 150 yds I thought she was as good as in the bag. But as I was at the point of no return with the trigger squeeze, she turned her body and I straight away knew it was a miss. She bounded away unharmed. It was a bugger of a slog to check for a hit, and a grind back up. But if you pull the trigger you owe it to them to check, no matter how sure you are of the miss. I reckon.
Meanwhile, Craig was up to the same game. He saw 3 for the morning and had a miss on a running deer that he said he should have held off on. He was pleased after checking that he had made a clean miss too. We hadn’t made a very good start.
That evening I spotted a red hind with a beautiful yearling at 100 yards or so, but they were let off the hook.
Grumpy old man...
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Camp
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The next morning we split again, and I headed for a favorite spot. Tilly was winding strongly, so I knew that there was something around, and sure enough 140 yards away there was a young hind scoffing tute. It wasn’t difficult to knock her over and send her bowling down the scree.
“Yup, there’s one pretty close alright...”
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The dead hind where she ended up, and the tute right at the top left where she was when I shot her.
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Tilly heading off to hide a leg bone.
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That night we hunted together, and Craig spotted a hind a fare way off. My old Bushnel range finder seldom ranges over 500 yards, and Craig’s Leupold is not much better. But low and behold, after not getting a range after several tries, it suddenly came back with a reading of “667 yards”. By now the deer had disappeared, but after 20 minutes it reappeared with a mate, and lay down in the open. Craig was ready with his 7mmMag set up. At his shot, the laying down one that Craig had shot at stood up, and they both gazed around wondering what was going on. The beauty of a suppressor. They should have scampered, because the next shot poll axed it...and the other one hoofed it.
Craig took Tilly to do the recovery, while I stayed back and guided him in with the radio. Tilly took him straight to it.
It was a great shot...
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The next evening Craig shot another deer, a young stag, from almost the same spot but in the other direction. 600 yards. It did a most spectacular cart wheel off its perch, and disappeared into a very steep gutter a couple of hundred yards below Once again, Craig took Tilly for the recovery but they were unable to get into the gutter and reluctantly had to leave it. It happens.
We then separated, and I got a spiker just on dark at 100 yards or so.
You can see it tipped up under the broadleaf tree...
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Where I shot from
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Loaded up
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That was the last one we got for the trip. Craig had another chance, but lucked out the next evening.
We saw 12 and shot 4. We had a good time together...its great to be able to share time together like this.
A few more pics.
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