The buck will provide many meals of prime venison.
FEATURE Daniel Brogden
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I was lucky enough to join some of the Brisbane branch members on the recent ‘Winter Hunt’ at Nundle at the start of June. After a few false starts I was finally going on my first R-license hunt and what a ripper of an experience it turned out to be. I arrived at camp at Sheeba Dams near Hanging Rock on the Thursday afternoon. After setting up camp and getting a fire going, I cooked some dinner and settled in for the night. Chris and a few of the lads turned up during the night.
Friday greeted us with heavy fog and low cloud but off we went. I focused mostly on Hanging Rock State Forest, at least the bottom southeast corner anyway. Having never hunted state forests before, I was just happy to be in some new country. If I saw any sign, well that would be a bonus!
I parked the car and set off along the logging track as the fog was too heavy to see much and I knew that I needed to drop down into lower country if I was going to have a chance of seeing more than 50m in front of me. There were fresh tracks all along the road so I was hopeful.
After a few hours I finally dropped down low enough to do some glassing and found an open plateau above the creek. Binoculars up, wallabies, wallabies, more wallabies, Deer! There was a spiker fallow buck about 150m away, broadside but with a bit of cover in between me and him. I slowly crept up to about 70m with the wind in my face, dropped to my knee, put the crosshairs behind his shoulder and squeezed off the shot. He jumped forward two steps and fell over.
I cycled another round and sat there watching him, half expecting him to jump up and take off, but he was down for the count. My first state forest deer, and my second free range wild shot deer, was down. I sat there looking at him for a while feeling grateful for the opportunity to harvest such a wonderful animal and that my shot had done the job quickly and was as humane as possible…which is what we all strive for.
After a couple of quick photos it was starting to rain. I field dressed him and loaded the hind legs, shoulders and backstraps and as much of the meat as I could fit into the backpack, and set off for the car. It was only 11 in the morning. With the meat on ice, I headed back to camp to catch up with some of the lads for a bit of lunch and some congratulatory handshakes.
The next few days were wet and foggy, with heaps of sign, but I just couldn’t find my buck’s dad or big brother, but not for lack of trying. Sunday was clear but it was blowing a gale in my patch, so it was more of a sightseeing day than anything else. If you get down around the Hanging Rock Area, make sure you check out the lookout, it is truly worth the drive.
Thank you again to Chris and the lads for making this a wonderful weekend with lots of laughs and stories around the campfire. I can’t wait for the next one. And on a final note, these branch hunts are a great way of introducing yourself to state forest hunting and deer hunting in general while being surrounded by friendly like-minded people who are extremely inviting and generous in helping a newcomer.
“I cycled another round and sat there watching him.”
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