Decided to head out this evening, just because I can
Actually, I've had a fairly stressful/hard last 2 weeks, so an evening out bush seemed just the ticket. I was hoping to cross paths with either of the two F's (fallow or fox), any Sambar I saw would have to be special for me to pull the trigger today.
My original destination appeared to be possibly compromised when I got there as there was another car parked up, so I headed back to the main road and diverted to the top of the legally huntable land of the same area and hoped if the other car was a hunter they hadn't made it all the way up. I snuck down a finger ridge to meet the creek bottom a couple of hundred meters below the forest track. As i approached the bottom, I caught movement of the dark kind and picked up a young sambar hind looking at me from 50m or so away. I stopped and held my ground and she stared hard towards me. A young calf pushed past it's mum, and after a moment or two a young stag caught up behind the hind and began sniffing around her. The hind held her nerve for a minute or two, before turning and making her way back downhill following the trail they had been following up. The other two quickly followed and vanished into the thicket of wattle and dogwood. I kept moving down to where they were, hoping to pick up the game trail and when I looked back down the trail, I could see a dark form on the other side of the mini gully and managed to glass the hind, and shortly after the stag. They were moving off, feeding as they went so I watched them for a short while before they dipped into a hollow and vanished.
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Reaching the creek bottom, the other side opened up nicely and I could see a fair area up and down the creek as well as somewhat along the same side I was sitting on. The cooling air was drifting downhill, so I knew there was a fair chance of more animals moving downhill on my side of the creek. After a couple of minutes, I again caught movement and a young stag stepped into the clear and slowly made his way down to the creek bottom. He must have caught movement as he stared at me for a few minutes, before stepping down into the gravel. I thought I might have piqued his interest enough that he would try and stalk me, but he had a drink from the creek then began to feed on the blackberries and ferns growing on the edge of the bank and in the creek. By this time I had my binos up even though he was only 40m away, both to have a better look and to break up my face.
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Yet again movement caught my eye and I was able to pick up an old grey/brown hind slowly making her way through the dogwood on the same face as the young stag, but further down the creek. She vanished fairly quickly, always keeping to the thicker stuff. After maybe 15min of feeding, the young stang slowly turned and climbed back up the trail he'd descended on before turning and following a game trail parallel to the creek about 50m away. There were a pair of black wallabies in the same area, and it was clear the stag was king and they immediately moved out of his way when he walked towards them.
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He slowly fed/mooched off over the brow of finger ridge where the creek turned a corner below me. Shortly after a shower of rain began to fell, so I decided to pack up and very quietly make my way up the creek following the game trails in the hope of finding a fallow/fox on the opposite face in the large opening where two creeks met just above where I was sitting. Pushing into a patch of dogwood, I was thinking it would be nice to see another sambar and make it a neat half dozen when a strange shape made me stop. Sure it was a root of a fallen stump, I raised the glasses to stare into the face of another hind about 40m away. She stomped a few times, before slowly moving off after I gave a quick couple of blasts on the Flexmark, so I began to work my way forward through the dogwood when a honk rang out higher up the hill. I couldn't find anything either with eyes or glass, so I pushed on slowly before being brought up by another deer honking at me on the game trail I was on. Raising the glass, I picked up a really young spike with just nobs on his head (so small I thought it was a hind) and after a bit of searching managed to find the other honker which again was an old grey hind above me in the see of dogwood. I played with them for a while with the flexmark before I pushed on and they turned and took off, honking as they left.
I made my way up the game trail a little further before turning to head back to the car, happy with the outcome - 8 sambar of which I could certainly have had a safe shot at 2 at less than 50m, pretty good return for a couple of hours 'work'
.i stalk in on likely spots where i know they hang out , but deer/pigs pop up when you least expect them at times . usually when i'm driving back for breakfast after walking/stalking 10 kays from dawn 
The rusa in particular looked very sad, large areas of hair missing and rather skinny. It was interesting to see them in the flesh though, they are obviously related to sambar but were smaller than I was expecting. The other interesting thing was the 2 free ranging sambar (young hind and what appeared to be a spike) were constantly on alert and somewhat nervous unlike the fallow that followed people around begging for food. The hind in particular looked very edgy, though they weren't at all contained and could have easily left the farm if they wanted.
), and I think the mini patty had barely touched her tongue when I got a "that's sooooooooooo good dad" 
