AUSTRALIA: Hunting The Three Year Wait

bluey

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3 years ago i was visiting my father for the weekend, and there being a few fallow deer over his way (western victoria)
i took my 2 young blokes for a hunt on public land which backed on to improoved pasture. we seen a few does and managed to put a
little mongrel spikey in the oldmans freezer.
the next day we were driving in the area and i seen the biggest fallow stag ive ever seen alive. he was in full rut and had lost nearly all ratoinal thought.
he was out in open farmland with 9 of his girls grunting his heart out, herding his ladies and chasing of any and all challengers only to come back and find another one had appeared.
i actually went and asked the farmer for pre mission to hunt on his land. which didnt end nicely
we kept looking for a few new hunting spots but pretty much everywhere we asked got the same result too many fly by nighters over this side of the state aswell or they used to let hunters on but either stuffed up in one of a dozen ways or there friends did.
the next day which was our last we went to the oldmans marbles (lawn bowls) club for lunch before the long drive home (61/2 hours) when out the blue a mate of dads was doing the same thing, who happened to be a cow cockie to the west of portland and had deer on his place so i kept buying him beers and ask the best opoening question yet to get on propterty
do you eat fish mate ?
bingo.
so after lunch we headed 25 minutes the opposite way of home and had a look see over his farm and seen a few deer one of which was a young white fallow stag but needed to grow some more as it was rutt he was trying but was getting a whooping and eventually was driven off by the bigger boys
old mate asked if we wanted to take a couple of deer while we were here so we made a couple of call to friends of my father and ended up getting the go ahead so we took two spindley mongrel stags and a nice young doe for them and started to try and gett rid of the crappy stags here and over the next three years my daughter and both my sons have been taking the lesser heads off the property.
i had put dibs on the white one and was surprised that he was still alive in janurary this year when the girl was over spending time with pop. while was there she shot a couple of does for friend freezers and managed to get a photo of blondie running off on her iphone.
and hadnt he grown well.
i guessed him to be six years old now and as iwas going over the second week end of march to help clean the oldmans shed out as he is thinking of selling up and building some thing smaller.
so me and my little brother have been haggling over who was getting what for the past 2 months, much to the amusement of father.
got there on friday night,and started first thing on saturday,we were both dissapionted as all the good stuff seemed great when we were kids but now it was just junk.
long story short 90%ended at the dump.
that arvo l grabbed danny and said lets go deer hunting,his idea of hunting was shot em style and wanted to kill every thing we saw.
so as it was getting dark on saturday evening we hadnt seen much and i was wondering if blondie had been hunted or moved on as they should ve only just rubbed out in the last couple of weeks or so. and the fact the property borders state forrest /national park so hunters i would think have to hunt on the public land.
we went down the the house and had a cuppa with the owner and thanked him for the access and i told him i would like to come again in the morning which was no worries. he was eating the fish i dropped off on the way in. he rekoned it was a good deal as ive kept the fish up to him as often as i could since i met him (i reckon ive got the better end of the deal). and the fact that the kids have been shoot the crappy heads and does over shooting all the good ones. (that has planted the deer management seed in his head)
all the way home little bro is sayin we shoulda shot a couple of the does and he is shattered that we never shot the 2 foxes we seen and i could get stuffed he wasnt getting up at 0430 in the morning to walk around looking at shit and not shooting any of it. i tried to explain that if we went blazing away at everything we saw the deer would be gone in a wink and i came here to hunt blondie.
next morning a went to see if he was comming or not
i got there at 0600 and went in, in the dark to where i could see the paddock he gets in alot of mornings and as it was dawning a huge menil stag waltzs past on his way to where ever he was going. he wasnt eating, he was on a mission. he was bloody good and if danny had of been there i would of made him shoot this guy,he is a wall hanger to be proud of in any ones eyes and if wasnt so dark that the flash on my camera wouldnt have gone off i would of taken some photos of him as he passed with in 60 metres of me
there was some deciding going on in my head whether to take him or wait for blondie the whole time im procrastinating this, l can hear the twilight zone theme song in my mind (do do do do do do do dodo) watching him walk away i can feel a satisfaction knowing that ive waited a long time to hunt blondie and im pretty sure letting this stag walk is the right thing.
anyway i will be back in june as danny is getting married (again) then not to far away from here. and if im lucky to get a chance it would put me in the good husband books if my wife (joysie)was fortunate enough to take him.
as its lighting up pretty good now im out of the breeze and i can see a couple of does feeding theyre ways out of the open to push through the fence and feed away from here.
but no blondie i wait anothe 20 minutes, then decide to go walk about and see if i can locate him.
i have to laugh at the thought of letting that big one go and what if i dont see blondie. that would be a memory to re live around a campfire for sure.
just after 0800 im in bush side of the fence line moving slowly and glassing a lot with my boots tied around my neck stalking in sox as its so dry its like crushing light bulbs every step and a lot thicker in here than i thought.
so double back and thought i would go to the ute and drive around the other side of the property
diesel stalking all the way stopping to glass every dam on the way. its starting warm up now and the dew is burning off pretty quick.
ever time i see a deer which by now ive seen a dozen and a half does spikeys and 2 mature stags but not blondie i decide to to park and go for walk alond an old dry creek/run off system and are blown away at the rabbit population and make my mind up that if i dont get blondie im comming back to thin some of these bunnies out with the oldmans 22 to night.
then about 3/4 of an hour later i turn and look up the hill ovr my right shoulder and in the sun light i can see i white animal near glowing about 700 metres away if i didnt know him i wouldve though it was a goat, he was heading for a bunch of bush on top of the hill.
being on the wrong side of the breeze which was steadily stiffening, i had to walk my way around the other side to begin climbing.
when i was half way up off came the boots and my bloody phone started vibrating ing my pocket. it was the farmer and he said when i went through the last gate i crossed over onto the nieghbour property and its okay to keep hunting but its gunna cost more fish next time im over here (shit hot another property). i told him i was sorry. and the fish wont be a problem. as it was they have been getting some of it ever since the start.
when i get up near top i stop to glass from behind a stump and about 160 metrs away i can see antler so this is what ive waited three years i sneak down hll a bit and aroun to the left some more and get in to 120 metres and can see blondie has in deed beddded up in the best possible position. seeing everything and four escape routes. each time he lifts his head my heart skips a beat and i decide to try and get to the next tree and see if i can get some photos of him before i take his life (strange how thats been occuping alot of my hunting time in the past few years)
i load the . 243 with 2 bullets and silently close the bolt i lay flat and place the gun in front of me and ever so slowly slide the 10 metres or so to the next tree once im there i get the camera ready and im just taking the lense cap off when he stands up looking directly at me so drop the camera and throw up the weatherby and place the cross hair at the base of his neck. crack and he drops dead right there in his bed.
i sat there for a couple of minutes thinking about how many times ive thought about this moment in the past few years and how complete this dream is right now.
there he is just as bueatiful in death as in life, a rare and very special trophy to me
rare in the fact that a white deer like a beacon in the bush and dont ussually live long enough to reach maturity
special in the sense of how long ive waited for him reach this age and where he lives there is quiet a few hunters. legal and otherwise. and the fact that this place borders public land.
after the shot the owner and the nieghbour came up to see what he was like and to watch me cape him out
i think he will go around 220 douglas pionts not that it matters,if it mattered i would of shot the red one as he was definately bigger than fallow any ive shot before
after caping him out and busting him up and putting him in the esky it was lunch time so i went down to the house and had a coffee and some tomatoe and onion sangers.
before leaving to go say bye to my dad and stir up little bro
the . 243 i used this week end was bought to take to africa this year to try for some of the smaller antelope and has sat in the safe for a few months and i havnt even made a load for it yet and the only crackers i could get for it were some federal power shoks which i went out to the gravel pit and put 6 shots through at 150 metres and imhappy to say they have impressed me as they preformed well at targets and flawlesslly in the field. it is a weatherby vanguard and ive had the barrel floated and the trigger lightened off to 3lbs. i bought the gun second hand. it has an olivian scope on it 3-12x50.
after this week end it is now cemented in my mind that letting them go and waitng until they grow is the best way of hunting our introduced deer species.

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Thanks for the great story! Nice trophy!
 
Stupendous trophy!

Great persistence and patience.

Thanks for the write up.
 
Pretty deer in awfully pretty country there bluey! Thanks for sharing......between you and Paul the itch for an Aussie adventure is growing.
 
WOW That's nice! Good story telling, too.
 
thanks fellas he is certainly a special one .
the place is certainly nice and scenic with its rolling hills phil it looks alot nicer when its green .they certainly have missed thier summer rains over there aswell.
the whole state is tinder dry .
now if the gods would be good enough to give me some gale force winds after this week end so i can hopefully get a chance to hunt my tasmanian fellow tags that would cap it off .
as the stag season in tassy only runs until the 31st of march.
not that i will be dissapionted if i dont get to hunt them again this year .
(hmmmmm but a black one to give me all three color phases would be nice .)ha ha
 
Congrats Bluey, super nice Buck ! well done.
 
Congrats for the trophy Bluey, nice story !
 
Nice write up Bluey. Great looking stag. He will make a great mount. Thanks for taking the time to write it up for us. Bruce
 
By geez cobber that big red buck in the first pic is a bottler too!

A big white fallow buck is the top of the tree in Fallow hunting,onya blue!
 
Congrat's Bluey! Great story and great Fallow buck!
 
Great Hunt bluey! Looks like it was worth the wait, going to have to put a white one on my list now never seen one that white before. Congrats!
 
I love it when a plan comes together! Congratulations on a fine deer.
 
Great write up and a fantastic animal!
Thanks for sharing it with us.
 

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