It's been a journey in itself just to get hunting access for this property. I know the land owners wife through work, her husband and father in-law own the property, getting access to camp was easy, permission to hunt took a gentle, respectful approach spread out over more than a year that actually turned out much, much more rewarding on a personal level than an an easy “yes” would have been. The number of foxes on the game cameras I have set out helped in conversations about the need to control feral animals.
I know they're here. They mooch past my game cameras just frequently enough for me to not lose interest, but not frequently enough for me to have any level of confidence that I might actually see one, never mind have an opportunity to put one on the deck with the bow. The landowners say they haven't seen any, but apparently their neighbour shot one a few years ago…………he says he hasn't seen one for years…….
The bush is dense, with a few clearings which are likely feeding areas compared to the open cleared paddocks of the adjacent property which offer little cover to retreat back into. After half a dozen or so visits over the last two years I still haven't seen one. I was here a couple of weeks ago, I think I heard them croaking in the distance but I'm not sure. I found some scat that I thought was what I was looking for, but I'm not sure. There's so many kangaroos I have no chance of telling if a bedding area is just kangaroos or not.
I haven't been shooting my bow enough lately to be 100% confident in making a good shot so I made the decision to do this hunt with my rifle just in case I see what I am now thoroughly convinced are just phantoms. The bow hunter in me is more than a bit disappointed, but I know I have made a solid ethical decision. I don't want to shunt the odds against myself, more importantly, I definitely don't want to make a poor shot on an animal.
I find a couple of saplings that have recently copped a flogging and my hopes go up a little. I bump kangaroos that I hadn't seen, and know that I'm not moving quietly and slowly enough. My confidence fades again.
A fox snuffling along the other side of the hill grabs my attention. It's a long poke so I take my day pack off and sit it on a stump, and lay my rifle over the pack as a rest. Unzip the pouch on my rifle stock, retrieve the small mirror and piece of styrofoam I use as a squeaker and give it a few rubs. The fox completely ignores me. I grab my tin whistle and let out a couple of wails. The fox doesn't even look up, it just bolts. Clearly someone has muffed it before and the fox knows that sound is nothing but trouble.
I move down to the bottom of the hill and place a camera on the junction of three game trails that lead into a small dam. By this time I've all but given up hope of seeing what I'm looking for, and wish I'd taken the long shot on the fox when I had the chance.
I move slowly up the opposite hill. It's approaching 8:30 am and I've been out here since before first light. Yesterday was a bust. I know that my chances just get lower as the sun gets higher in the sky. My meat freezer is empty, Rinella would say I'm in a meat crisis, and I start wishing I had headed north to one my goat properties where the odds are largely in my favour. I decide it's time for a cup of tea and find a nice flat spot with a view and get out my thermos.
10 minutes later I feel refreshed but decide it's pretty much over, and I might as well head back to camp. I stand up, sling my pack, bend over and grab my rifle. I move about 20m and something moves slightly to my left about 30m away. Antlers move behind the scrub, a buck bolts out of his bed and runs across in front of me from left to right. My heart rate goes nuts. Holy crap, I nearly walked onto him. He runs behind a series of small bushes and trees and I think “no shot, I've got no shot” then he stops about 70m away right between two trees, quartering just slightly looking right at me. The ground falls away a little and I can't see the bottom part of his legs, but I can see all of his chest and can't believe I've got a clear shooting line. The hill rises again behind him so I know I've got a safe backstop. The rifle comes up, I see the spot that will push the bullet through the triangle. Aim for a spot, aim for a spot, aim for a spot BOOM. He lurches forward and goes straight down, his antlers momentarily above the fallen timber. Now I can't see him. I quickly cycle the bolt just in case he stands up. It doesn't happen. The bow hunter in me tells me to wait and I force myself to stand ready for a follow up. Holy crap, did that really just happen? I can't really believe it, surely that didn't just happen, did it? I bend over, pick up the spent shell and move my way around to get a line of sight, no movement, he's down and out.
I make my way over, drop the magazine out, cycle the bolt and put my rifle and day pack down. I can't believe it, I've just done what moments before I had written off as “not going to happen today”. He's not going to make any record books, but I just don't care. FKOS, unsupported, on my first really serious attempt and in the first rut I've ever hunted. Damn it would have been nice to have done that with a bow but I know it wouldn't have happened, the shot was more than double my comfort range.
Now the real work begins, ohh crap. My meat bags are back at the car. I drag him into the shade and gut him to help the carcass to cool, noting that the bullet went in the front shoulder, through both lungs and the lead core of the projectile from my 25-06 stacked up under the skin on the off side. On the upside, now I'm damn sure I know what fallow scat looks like. I place my shirt over the cavity to keep the flies out, mark the spot on my GPS and hightail it back to camp and then back again.
I have read that “fallow are just big goats”. I call horse poo on that. The legs and back straps I take off of this buck are substantially larger than anything I've ever taken off a goat. Either the goats I've been shooting are small, or this buck is big, and I know that neither of those things are true.
Four legs and the back straps make a lot of weight to carry out but I'm determined to get this meat back to the car as soon as possible. My head and body hurts just at the thought of breaking down and then carrying out an elk or a moose in bear country. Another return trip is required to swap out the SD card in a nearby camera, and get the skull and skin. I look at the skin, think about the work involved and decide I'm stuffed already, I've got to work tomorrow…. So I decided to leave it, I know I'll probably regret that decision one day, but not today.
The meat is in my fridge aging a bit before I bone it out, cut it up and then bag it for the freezer. Meat crisis temporarily averted. The work of cleaning the skull is underway…….
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Time to rustle up some recipes….. I
I wonder if my goat pies will be as good when they're made with venison…..
Thanks for reading. Cheers