Managed to get out a few more times over the long w/e despite nursing a sore throat and general fatigue and ******. I ended up walking back into the large open patch I found recently, which was a lot harder than expected as it is VERY dry at the moment, and I saw nothing other than a wombat and a stack of black wallabies. Monday evening I quickly bashed in to drop off the game camera where the goats appear to be bedding/moving and then jumped over the ridge to hit a wallow I know of. Bumped and was honked at by a pair of hinds walking in on an old road in a clearing not far from the main bush road - was very surprised as it was still quite early. A little further on I'm pretty sure I bumped at least another two lots of deer as they didn't sound at all macropod like. Finally reached the point above the wallow and v e r y slowly eased my way the 200m or so down off the road through the leaf litter. As the wallow came into view through the brush between me and it, I could see a wallaby standing on the very edge looking intently downhill. It moved off almost immediately and shortly after a young sambar spike in velvet climbed up into the wallow. He mooched about a bit, smelling and feeding on the surrounding grass/bushes/blackberries, some of which were so long he completely disappeared into about 50m below me. I couldn't quite line up a shot I was happy with, and being so dry and noisy it was almost impossible to move around without making noise so by the time I got into a position I could shoot, he'd moved and I had to move again. After maybe 30min or so of this, I could hear another animal higher up in the wattle thicket that splits the two wallows, and eventually a young hind came into view as well. Again I couldn't quite get a shot I was happy with despite some slightly noisy footwork. The light was fading quickly due to the overcast sky and smoke haze, and further up the top of the gully which was quite open I could see a large mature deer. A quick flash of white had me hopeful of a stag, but I wasn't ever able to see it's head unobstructed as it moved off feeding so perhaps it was just the white tips of those big bat ears. In the end I made a few quick calls on the reed call which drew no response, so I stood up and started to walk back to the road which caused a bit of an uproar. One of the younger deer started honking immediately, and after 30sec or so the mature deer up the top of the gully started to honk as well.
Next time I'll drop of the game camera over the wallow and spend a bit of time finding/making some shooting rests so I can hopefully catch up with a bit of walking ivory one evening soon
