A hunt for pigs and deer in the fallow rut of Australia - 2018

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EDIT: Video now uploaded.


I decided to make another thread about hunting in April in Australia, which is when our fallow deer are rutting. On this hunt I took my bow with me for the first time and hoped to get my first kill with it, but I also did plenty of stalking with my .308, and even more with my camera. The following will be some pictures and interesting things that happened for me over the 2 weeks.

I went out a few mornings in a row with my camera to get a bit of an idea of what was about. I was participating in a horse-riding course on the property I was hunting so it was convenient for me to go out and look at deer, and then be back in time for breakfast and catching horses. While I was out, I took photos.

This fella wasn't an impressive head but it was nice to see him keep rounding up his does.




I was stalking another buck in much thicker scrub and was having a hard time getting close to him for a good look because I kept running into his girls.


I made a good stalk in the fog one morning on this buck but just couldn't close the gap to where I felt comfortable potentially shooting him with an arrow.




This fella burst out of the scrub chasing a doe in my direction. She took off and he stopped and wondered what I was. Only a young fella but his croak was huge.


This one popped up in front of me by surprise as I was walking through the long grass. They can hide so well in the thick grass.


The morning after the horse course was over, I went out with my rifle, prepared to shoot some of the bucks that had ordinary genetics to try and improve the quality of the herd. I made a good stalk on this one and shot him with my .308 from about 50 metres. His rack is a nice size but the clefts in his palms show weaker genetics.


More to come later.
 
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OP
W
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That hilarious, mate. I don't quite talk like him but you can read the thread however you want. :cool:

I sat with my buck for a little while and appreciated being around him.


Plenty of scars from fighting.


Nice colour on his back.


What has he seen in his lifetime?


Butchered him up with a knife my friend made for me out of a rasp.


I left this property and went to another one which I'd only recently gained access to. A very different sort of place, in that it's mainly a lifestyle block and not used for farming. 850 acres of scrub and the only fences were the boundaries. I was treating it as mainly a scouting mission but was also keen to get a few more deer on the ground. The property owners also wanted some venison so I knew I'd have to get onto a few. The rut this year for us, as I understand, is similar to the rut you're going through right now in North America (September, 2018). We are in the middle of a horrible drought and the heat was insane, even back in April, so the deer were behaving oddly. I knew it might be hard work finding some.

A picture I took when I first pulled up at my camp.


Plenty of sign was found on my first walk.
 
OP
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I found my first ever cast antler on the morning walk around the property.






At this point, it was late in the morning and I wasn't really 'hunting'. I was just getting to know my way around the place. I was crashing my way up one of the many big hills and spooked a bunch of deer that were bedded next to the fence. One of them hung around long enough for me to get a shot away. A nice young doe that I head shot from about 15 metres so the shoulder meat was kept nice.



I only had my little daypack with me (this was pre-Exo5500 perchase) so I gutted the deer and left her in the shade so I could walk back down to camp and grab my big hiking pack to take her out later in the day.




I found another castie on my way down.


When I came back up later in the afternoon, I spent a while dressing her out nicely. My hiking pack is a heavy-duty canvas Australian-made pack and it fit all of the meat from the deer in it fine. It took me a little while as I wanted to enjoy it all, but I still had my rifle with me. As soon as I filled my pack with the venison, I stood up with it and saw a few more deer within about 100m, feeding towards me. Luckily I was concealed by trees so I had time to sit down and take my pack off and get my rifle ready. I ended up making a nice shot on an old buck with an interesting head. He was only about 20m away when I shot him and I was using fairly tough bullets in my .308 so he ran off at the lung shot and piled up on a ledge.
 
OP
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He had a really unusual set of antlers, and some of them had been busted off in fights. He's my favourite fallow I've shot so far in the last few years of hunting them seriously.


Plenty of age on him.




I whipped off his backstraps and put them in my pack, and then cut his head off and carried it down to camp with me. I know it seems like I'm talking about going between camp and the mountain easily enough in this report but this property is in the mountains and it was hard going. I got back well after dark. I left his back legs up on the mountain in some cloth and planned on getting back up in the morning to retrieve them.

I got a fire going that night and enjoyed soaking up the bush.


I was very hungry.


I got hit by a little bit of rain the following day and got some nice photos.




There are a few creeks on the place. Not much water in them at the best of times but they make walking around easier if you don't want to climb the mountains.
 
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The neighbouring property is a huge station. I don't have permission to shoot there, so when I was walking the boundary and saw this, I just had to watch them. Frustrating!


In this photo, while they may be hard to see, are multiple pigs and deer out in the open.


Some rough country on my way back.




I then went back to the original property I was at to get onto a few more deer and hopefully get my first ever kill with my bow. They also have horses there and I enjoy riding them throughout the middle of the day when the hunting is slow.




Having given all of the venison from the last 2 deer to the property owners at that place, I took the rifle for an afternoon stalk on this property and got a nice young doe on the ground for myself and this property owner.


Kangaroos will pop up from nowhere and wreck many of your stalks.
 
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On one of my last mornings I decided to take the bow out and I wasn't coming home until I'd got something. I messed up some stalks on deer in the thick stuff and got annoyed at myself and started making my way back to my vehicle to drive to another spot on the property, when I came across a decent mob of pigs in the open. There was one good boar in the mob and he was rutting fairly hard. Doing his best to mate with all of the sows while chasing off any of the younger boars who looked at a sow sideways.

From the time I originally saw them, it took me about an hour to get close enough to consider taking a shot. I got this picture of the boar mating a sow when I was getting well and truly within their zone.


The wind was perfect and the boar running around fairly occupied meant I could stalk carefully and make decent ground, but he caught a glimpse of me moving and crouching behind a tree. He must have thought I was another pig as he started trotting towards me and was smashing his teeth together. When I saw him coming I drew back and as he circled around me at about 15 metres to get the wind right to smell me, I let my arrow fly. As he turned and ran off I saw blood pouring out of him but as it was my first bow shot on an animal, I was still very nervous and unsure as to how it would all pan out. I took a few deep breaths and regathered myself and then started to follow the direction he ran, only to find him piled up about 100 metres from where I shot him.

I was absolutely ecstatic that my first ever bow kill was such an impressive animal. Not the biggest boar I've killed by any means, but a very fun stalk.

A photo with the lens on 12mm.


A photo with the lens on 40mm.


The arrow was still in him when he ran and he broke it in half when he died and rolled over.




Not a bad little trophy.


That was the last animal of my hunt, although I did find this absolutely fantastic fallow buck skull. The buck had tangled himself in barbed wire and died a few weeks beforehand.




I then finished hunting entirely, even though I had a few more days off, as I met a girl who I've fallen madly in love with. Hahaha. Funny how things happen sometimes.

I know it was a long post but thanks for reading, everyone!
 

FlyGuy

WKR
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Cool write up and great photos. I've always wanted a fallow deer but seems like high fence is about the only way to do it here in TX. Maybe I'll make it down your way one Spring.

I really need to take my camera out with me more instead of just using my phone. Well, 1st I really need to learn how to use my camera, then I need to take it with me more. HaHa!

Sent from my SM-G610F using Tapatalk
 
OP
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Cool write up and great photos. I've always wanted a fallow deer but seems like high fence is about the only way to do it here in TX. Maybe I'll make it down your way one Spring.

I really need to take my camera out with me more instead of just using my phone. Well, 1st I really need to learn how to use my camera, then I need to take it with me more. HaHa!

Sent from my SM-G610F using Tapatalk

I almost prefer taking photos to hunting, mate. It's great fun and I like capturing the action with my friends having great pictures to share around afterwards.

Great post! Looks of opportunity to hone your bowhunting skills. And enjoy the rut!
Rut is obviously next April but I can't wait. I've been trying to hone my bowhunting skills over the last weekend but all the pigs, goats and deer have evaded me. Haha. Stalking mobs of fallow in relatively open country is hard work.
 
OP
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Hi all.

I've recently uploaded some videos that I edited from footage taken during this hunt. Have a look if you're interested.

Part 1 of the deer hunting.

Me shooting the boar with my compound bow.

Part 2 of the rut will be uploaded in a few days.
 
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