Headed out to the olds on sunday night with the 97k and managed to head shoot a rabbit kitten at 25m. Was pretty happy with that, now to find a pop up blind so I can sit anywhere along the fence line and wait for them to stick their heads up.
Today I managed an early mark and decided to duck out and grab the game cam I'd hung over a gully top that looks to be getting a lot of activity. I tossed up with taking the 30-06 and the air rifle for a bit more practice in the bush and decided in the end to go armed ready for any possibility. After parking the car I had about a 150-200m walk into the gully head through some open forest with patches of thick brush underneath. The camera was on the far side of a Y junction, so as I made my way across the first little gut I stopped and gave a couple of quick toots on the sambar call. I'd busted a heap of deer out of this vicinity and it looked like good bedding country. I went to take a step and was immediately honked on the other side of the gully back towards the road. I quickly blew out a couple of calls and scanned the brush, picking up a pair of ears and some movement which turned out to be mumma sambar who took off almost immediately followed by a calf. The honking kept ringing, so I kept scanning and picked up a young hind in the brush. Quickly sinking to my arse, I took a bead with off my knees and slid a 168gr TSX in a factory round into the chamber and my ear buds into place. The hind took a few steps and as she came into a clear space with a safe shot about 70m away, I blew again and she stopped scanning around looking for the source of the noise. With the crosshairs on the centre of her shoulder I took the shot and she bolted with that serious hurt look. Flicking the earbuds out to listen, I heard a bit of crunching then a loud crash and silence. Down or out of the postcode?
I decided to let her lie for a bit made my way over to pick up the camera before returning to the area she was standing. Picking up the tracks, I followed them downhill before she veered off the game trail she was on onto a smaller one going up hill. Uh oh!
Another 20m or so on I saw a dark shape on the downhill side of the trail and confirmed it was a deer down
On the uphill side, a small sapling had a large spray of blood, but other than that there was only a few drops that I could find, despite the two holes and large pool of blood where she lay.
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Wouldn't have wanted the shot placement any further back, there was a bit of dark blood indicating liver hit. Grabbing the knife and game bag I'd thrown in the bag I got to work only 50-60m away from the road I'd just driven along minutes before. A round trip of about 200m from the car (ignoring my detour for the camera). Gotta be pleased with that
