Sleepily I hit the off button on my phone alarm. Although I was already awake, it was that still dozy half asleep awake of 4:30am. First day off for two weeks - hunting time here I come!!!
Grabbing some breakfast, I scanned the local weather and made up a roll for lunch and started the car to warm up although it wasn't super cold and with a high of 17 or so it certainly didn't feel like the middle of May and my usual post vintage break for hunting/jobs/fishing and in the past cutting firewood. Loading the car with the last few things I headed out into the dark, a clear sky and 1/8 moon gave enough light for me to be able to just see without the use of a headtorch when I arrived at my starting point. Todays plan was a bit of everything and nothing. I was probably a little too late to catch the sambar returning from the open farm fringes, but still early enough to catch up with them or find them still in the warmer sheltered spots before the sun hit the west side of the slopes and started to warm them up too much. Anything was the target today, goats, sambar and foxes where the most likely with the odd chance of a fallow or pigs - and I've come close to stepping on a hare once or twice in this neck of the woods as well.
Moving slowly up in the pre-dawn, the bush was silent except for the odd call of a cuckoo in the distance. As I slowly made my way up the side of the steep gully face, the light began to appear and suddenly like a switch was thrown the rest of the birds fired up at once - a kookaburra, a pair of rosellas and an assortment of wrens and tree creepers. My idea was to push up to a pair of splits in the creek that are close together and sit on the dark side and glass the sunny side and wait for a while to try and pick up any target animals making their way into the first warming light of the day. Along the way, I picked up the fresh tracks of a pair of sambar, mum and calf by the looks of it and possibly a third (smaller stag or the usual family 3?). Following them along the steep hillside was difficult, especially as my pants ripped without warning when I took a large step up hill leaving me indecent to the rest of the public and a bit breezy around the nether regions and at risk of a scratching from the prickly coprosma/grass-tree spikes/thistles
Reaching my first destination I kept getting the odd waft of fecundity-animally smell, not quite goaty and not quite deery or rooey either. Electing to push on around the finger ridge in front of me, I slowly crept through the coprosma bushes scanning for any movement and colour, and eventually found myself staring at some newish pig diggings.
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I carefully scanned around and even moved up gully a little, before returning to the point where I could watch over the largest area and glass onto the far side as the sun slowly crept down the side of the hill. Grabbing a quick bite to eat and a drink, I waited for 20min or so with nothing coming other than the continuing occasional waft of animal from the side gully to my left. Shouldering my pack and rifle, I moved on up slowly, bumping a few roos on the way and crossing some more fresh deer tracks. Crossing a couple of grassy flats where minor side gullies came in, no more pig sign was seen and reaching another 3 way gully split, I sat down to rest my weary bones and take another sip of water and listen in the still morning air. After 5min or so, I heard a crack above me, then another and another. Pigs?? After a short while I spied some movement, but a family of wallabies pushed along the face of the ridge a hundred meters or so above me. Checking my phone, I could see that the next section of the mini creek was starting to get truly steep and serious. Just above me was a saddle into the next creek and possibly my favourite goat section so again I shouldered the pack and rifle and climbed hard to hit the top of the ridge. I'd made a conscious effort to slow down and stop occasionally as I'm often moving all the time and rarely stop so I found a nice flat spot and had another drink of water and handful of nuts. My back was also starting to feel the effects of the climb, so I lay down and practiced some Alexander technique for 5 or so minutes, which helped straighten me out and get my mind back into the right gear. Looking at my phone again, I realised that I'd never followed the finger ridge below me all the way down into the main gully below, so I dropped over the edge and began to parallel the ridge 50m or so below the highest point, both to pick up anything below and above me. Almost immediately I kicked over some fresh goat sign, droppings and faintly visible in the loose gravel and dust some prints. Casting around, it appeared that they had bedded there at some stage, possibly even that morning as it would likely be the first area to get the sun in the morning. Slowly zigzagging down the steep face, I bumped a family of roos and finally reached the creek bed where I crossed what definitely was fresh goat sign and from what I could see there were headed downhill i.e. likely to be still below me
200 leg and ankle burning meters later, I hit what has been the most productive section for hunting goats I've ever found. So far I've shot 4 goats with the bow, could I make it a 5th? Rounding a bend in the creek I heard and spied almost simultaneously a pair of billies ahead of me, about 150m away. A few calls rang out - I was on!! The billies moved off, speedily but not panicked and I wondered if my scent had swirled in the eternal battle of katabatic/anabatic winds that the mountains always throw up. Picking up the pace as quietly as possible I followed them checking the wind as I went - uphill....just, so as I contoured out I pushed uphill slightly trying to get above them. Crossing a mini side gully I lost the fresh tracks and everything was quiet. What the hey? No sign, no smell, no sound. Hmm, perhaps they'd turned up the side gully but I'd seen the bigger billy on the far side so I thought it unlikely. Slowly pushing my way through the noisy mix of coprosma, grass tree and mixed box scrub I luckily skirted a family of roos basking in the sun and cut fresh tracks again. Very slowly I followed along when I got a gust of goat smell from below. Casting around a little trying to work out which way to go, I heard a small kid bleat, but the tight gully walls made it echo around making it almost impossible to guess where it had come from. Another waft of goat smell from below and I decided to drop down and push along after them. Moving 20m or so downhill, I saw movement and picked up a mature billy below me about 40m away. On again
Almost immediately it moved behind a grasstree and into the thicker box saplings so I carefully slid downhill closer and towards him. Another pair of goats moved into view, a very young grey nanny and a young white billy.
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I would have taken the nanny by preference, but she pushed past the young billy and behind some scrub, so I took a stand behind a stringybark, checked the backdrop, chambered a round, lined up just behind the shoulder and squeezed off the shot. The rest of the goats bolted with more appearing below and in the bush behind the two I'd been watching as they always do. Dropping like it was poleaxed, the young billy rolled down very steep hill and vanished into the rear ravine below. Looking at the steep slope below me, I elected to backtrack a little dropping at the same time and made my way over to the site he was standing when I shot him. Looking around I couldn't find any blood or kicked up dirt, surely I hadn't been mistaken? Dropping a little further to get a clear view into the base of the gully below I saw a dried up snake skin against the base of a large tree but no goat. Hmmm. The ground got even steeper here, so I again decided to backtrack and drop down to the gully bottom and see what I could find which was a good decision as I took a spill almost immediately. Making my way down, I finally made out the white shape tangled up in a fallen tree below me. Success!
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Another victim of the 150gr Core-lokt
He couldn't have fallen into a better spot, there was a wide glassy bench 5m away with a couple of flat rocks to use as a table and with the sun at least an hour away from reaching the floor I had no rush.
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Grabbing my sandwhich I hand an early lunch then unloaded the pack to begin the butcher. I ended up leaving the offside shoulder as it was pretty well mush and I found that the bullet had hit the back of the near shoulder and a bullet fragment must have ricocheted up and severed the spine. Loading up I headed off, loaded and tired by happy. A quick walk back to the bush track and I made my way back to the car reaching it stuffed but happy. Got to be happy with a start like that!!
