Reaching the parking point, I grabbed the heavy pack, shouldered the rifle and headed off into the cool but sunny day with a perfect breeze. Slowly poking my way down to a little knoll 100 or so meters from the car, I wasn't seeing any sign in the open tussocky grass. Reaching the minor watershed that is the top of two sister gullies, I moved slowly down the upwind side of the main ridge, glassing every few steps into the dappled sunlight on the calm opposite face - if I were a deer that's were I'd be, out of the wind and in the sun! Nothing was happening, nothing was seen and I was starting to get a bit uncomfortable with the heavy pack and steep steps I had to take. By the time I'd made down into the gully, I still hadn't seen any sign and decided to return up to the watershed and move down the other gully where I had busted a hind and calf the last time I was there. Again, no sign was seen and the wind was starting to get a bit squirrely and I was feeling a little more uncomfortable, so I turned and headed back up to the car passing the only fresh sign I'd seen - a set of fallow tracks and some freshish droppings. Reaching the car just before lunch I decided to head home, have some lunch and re-asses. Having a bite to eat and watching some ABH on the TV, my dad dropped in briefly and we got talking about said issue and he told me he'd suffered similar in the past and sometimes pain killers weren't really an option and you just had to 'harden up and keep going'. Neither of us are macho types, but we both have very high discomfort thresholds so after he left, I did a bit of escouting with the predicted winds and decided to follow his advice and at least do a sit 'n' wait over a set of gully junctions I could get to fairly easily in the last few hours of the day.
Re-packing my ultra-light day pack, I threw in my big packout pack and game bags just in case. Pulling up at my secondary parking point (after a few unforeseen and annoying detours), I again grabbed the bag and shouldered the rifle and headed off uphill with the aim of doing a bit of scouting of some gullies ahead of me on my way to the intended ambush site. There wasn't much to be seen, even the line of rub trees that had been smashed last year at the same time weren't in use so I kept going and rolled over the ridge and into the main creek basin. Reaching my intended point, I unpacked and sat down behind a large stump, just a perfect rest if the deer approached from the side gully opposite me as I expected. I've spooked/seen a number of deer here over the last few visits, so I was hopeful of seeing something even if no shot was offered. Shortly after I sat down, a young wallaby full of beans came racing through on the opposite face. For a moment I thought he was being chased and wondered what I'd do if a dog was chasing it. Prophetic thoughts...., but it just turned out he needed to work of some energy and did a few laps back and forth, up and down before stopping and beginning to feed calmly. After about half an hour, another wallaby came busting through from downstream of where I was sitting. He passed the other wallaby and they both raced off at speed. 30 seconds or so later, I caught movement and colour out of the corner of my eye and on the same game trail and orange form loped along obviously in pursuit. Fox..... WTF? A large blocky dog with solid front end ran into the clearing and suddenly saw me and stopped. I had a blaze orange beany on so he must have spotted that as I was sitting motionless with cover behind me from his view. After 10 sec or so in which I couldn't get a shot of either the camera or gun, it turned and raced back down gully, and when I blew a few quick blasts on the button whistle took off even faster.
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Thinking that the evening was likely a bust at that point, the scent of the dog would have spread all the way up the likely source of deer movement, I decided to follow it down and see if I could get another look at it and if/when I started busting prey animals I'd slow down and stalk my way back to the car in the last hour of light. I couldn't pick up any dog tracks, and after about 300m I spooked a wallaby above me in the tight gully, I slowed down and began to creep along with some fresh deer sign beginning to show. Easing my way around the outside of a bend, I saw movement and picked up a big blob of brown at the same
time. Freezing, I saw a 3/4 grown calf on the opposite face about 60m away. It new something wasn't quite right but couldn't figure out what it was. Waiting patiently for 5min or so until it stepped behind a tree, I quickly sat down and slid to a place that gave me a better shot opportunity and waited with rifle on my knees for it to step out again. While I was waiting, I saw white movement on the other side of a wall of blackberries about 20m from the calf and watched the tops of some antlers moving around as the stag fed on the new blackberry leaves. I couldn't quite see the head, only the antler tops so I split my time waiting for the calf to step out watching the antlers move about. The calf was still a little nervous and jerkily stepped out but behind some twigs not giving me a clear shot window. It was almost skylined at the same time and behind it was a public road on the top of the main ridge behind so I had to wait for it to move further down the face for a safe shot. After another 5min, it hadn't moved into a safe shooting lane, when I saw that the stag had stepped out and was now facing me completely unobstructed by anything about 45m away, quartering heavily towards me. He was staring in my direction, but still chewing and seemingly calm but I was sure it wouldn't take long for it to work out that the black stump hadn't been there 10min earlier. Lining up with a neck shot where it meets the body, I gently squeezed off the shot. There was a cloud of dust and he dropped like a switch had been turned off and rolled end over end into the blackberries below. The calf turned and bolted at the shot, so I slowly stood up, reloaded for a follow up and waited but there wasn't even a rustle from the blackberries so I unloaded and made my way across my face towards a crossing of the creek below me. As I did, the calf suddenly jumped a step or two on top of the ridge, but by now the angle had moved enough to give me a safe shot, but despite some toots on the sambar call, it didn't want to come closer or move into a clear area, so with the light fading fast I gave it in and pushed on over to have a look at the stag. He was a smaller than my first impression, but it didn't matter, my first ever sambar stag was down!!
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Another victim of the 30-06 150gr Corelokt combo
Grabbing a couple of photos and a quick drink I ran through my eerily similar options to the first sambar I'd shot (co-incidentally only a few hundred meters from where I was now). At least this time I had a backup in the car, so I hoofed it back to the car in the near dark, slipping and sliding through the blackberries, tussock grass, steep slope and briars nearly ending up arse up a few times and finding at least one wombat hole unseen. Reaching the car I dropped the micro pack, loaded up the few extra things in the big pack and headed back up the creek. In the dark it was hard to pick a good track and I took a couple of tumbles trying to get around the blackberries that loomed in the light of the headlamp. Arriving back at the stag, I unpacked and quickly took of both front shoulders. One I stashed in the tree and the other went in the pack. Not really looking forward to a 600m walk through the rough terrain in the dark, I decided to leave it as it was and come back the following morning, it was forecast to be cold, windy and overcast - perfect for meat care. On the way out I caught the glint of eyes in the trees and lost a bet with myself that it was a possum (was a koala). The glint of the roadside post only 50m from the car was a huge relief! On the way home, I nearly hit a wombat who left it's crossing to the last second. Arriving home, I hung the first quarter and the backstraps and headed inside for a shower, a beer and some dinner.
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Waking early after a pretty crappy sleep, I organised my extra gear, loaded the mountain bike and sharpened my butchering knives again. After the family was awake and going, I headed off again. Unfortunately there had been a shower of rain overnight and I was a little worried that the mud/dirt on the stag would now be wet and sloppy making things difficult. Parking the car as close as I could, I unloaded the bike, loaded the pack and started off. I was able to ride to about half the distance up the bush track, leaving me about 350m to walk across the steep slopes and up the gully. On the way into the stag, I bumped 2 more spikers and a hind, one of the spikers and hind I probably could have shot if I'd taken my rifle. Reaching the stag I checked the game cam I'd set up to see if anything was interested (not), and pulled out the knives and started on the back legs. What with the blackberries and steep slope, there was a lot of pulling, pushing and swearing before I was able to get them both off though I was surprised that I hadn't ended upside down in a tangle of deer and blackberries as the footing was poor at the best of times. I wasn't able to piece together the outcome of the shot as the carcass had slid down into the blackberries and I had no option to get it out/roll it uphill by myself. There was a clean hole right where I'd aimed, and clearly a fair amount of damage internally including a clean fracture in the spine halfway along, but the stag must have taken some stick at some stage as there was a fresh wound on top of his head which I initially mistook for a waaaay off bullet hit and some scars on his neck and head.
Loading the pack with the first of the back legs, I slowly made my way back to the bike and then rolled back downhill to the car to drop off the leg. Returning to the same spot with aching legs, I dropped the bike again and made my way into the stag. Loading up the second back leg, I didn't like the thought of a third trip to retrieve the second forequarter, so I took my last concrete pilled, hardened up and slung the game bag over my shoulder and headed slowly off for the last time. It actually wasn't as bad as I expected, though the couple of times I had to double back and go up the steep hill nearly killed me. Arriving at the bike, I balanced the shoulder precariously on the crossbar with knee and one hand while applying both brakes on the steep downhill descent, I finally made it back to the car for the last time and aimed the car back to the house. Unpacking and hanging the legs, I was amazed that I didn't feel completely bushed, a 4km round trip, half of it loaded to the gunnels with sambar.
The hind I shot last year disappeared completely in about 2 weeks, as in nothing, not even a bone was left so I'm now wondering if the dog(s) are responsible, so I left the game camera up over the carcass so I'll be able to see if anything comes calling for a chew. Makes me kind of glad that we don't have to deal with bears coming into kills!!
Thank you for posting.
