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Theres some good people on the forum.
Following off the back of @bigbear making a post about his deer dog coming on heat a while ago, I threw my hat in the ring for my dog to do the deed.
A couple of weeks later him and his family were down in HB and away the dogs went. Obviously both being keen hunters we began to talk shop and being the good sort he is he invited me up the East Coast to see his neck of the woods!
I wasn’t going to say no so last weekend I made the drive up Gisborne way to take @bigbear up on his offer.
It was stinking hot and after seeing a couple of deer on the road in the middle of the day I arrived at his place.
A few hours later we were standing on the deck of his hut overlooking some very cool country.
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As the temperature cooled off into the evening we sat over a few bushy guts where the deer sometimes bed during the day. The dog was winding every so often and it wasn’t long before we started seeing a couple of animals filtering out to raid the odd paddock. Some were miles away but there was a hind and yearling that were within 400 or so metres.
While I was keen to get on my feet and start making my way towards them , @bigbear and his local knowledge said we’ll just wait a bit longer yet, and wait for a closer opportunity. As we began to close the gap on the hind and yearling @bigbear happened to look back to where we had just sat down to spy a hind in a patch of sun under the canopy.
She knew we were there and after a quick shuffle into position I got the green light to shoot and a 200 yard shot to the neck put her down for the count. A small group of hinds and yearlings began to move off from where she was and @bigbear had a crack at one and ended up with a narrow narrow miss.
He was unfazed though and so we went down to sort the deer out. She was a big hind with plenty of fat on her and I was very pleased to have gotten her!
@bigbear was keen to check out one more spot and so right on last light we sat over another bush edge to see another handful of deer milling around not far from cover but none were taken.
So back to the hut it was to spend a few hours spinning yarns and solving the worlds problems from our bunks!
We had an early start the next morning and after an hour or two we finally spotted three hinds filtering out of some tall totara. They weren’t offering much in the way of a manageable stalk so we elected to cross a large gully and cut them off from their escape routes back to another bush block @bigbear knew they would head to.
The dog indicated on a big hind at about 20 metres as we climbed a slip to get out of the bush but we were both a bit slow to react as she crashed off into the gully bottom.
As we reached the top of the bush edge the dog was pressing to get a long way out in front as the scent of deer filled his nostrils, and I had to work hard to keep him in close as we entered an open paddock. The next fold in the hillside held the deer we had spotted before plus a couple more perhaps 100 yards away. As they moved in single file back to cover we lined up on one each.
Once again @bigbear gave me the go ahead and I fired. The hind I fired at leapt up and kicked out hard in the way a heart shot deer always does and @bigbear dropped his one with a very handy neckshot as it tensed up to leap into cover.
The dog went to work but the scent trails of the mob of deer sent him the wrong way before he led me to a patch of blood at the fenceline. It wasn’t long before I found this one dead in the thickest patch of ongaonga on the block as the dog mucked around while @bigbear gutted his one.
A few hours later we were back at the hut and heading for home with a couple of deer on board destined for the chiller.
It became apparent that I was only going to fit the two deer I had taken in the back of my Suzuki and we had both had a good trip so I loaded up and shot back home with a very tail heavy car full of prime East Coast venison.
Massive thanks to @bigbear once again for your hospitality mate, it was second to none and I feel bloody lucky to have been able to get up your way!
Theres some good people on the forum alright!
