This is my first hunt report on Rokslide so not sure if this is the right spot to post it… Doesn’t seem to fit in the other sections. Chital deer are an introduced species in Australia and there are good populations centred around Charters Towers in North Queensland. There are no seasons or bag limits on them.
I did this trip back in September. I hadn’t hunted Chital before and when the opportunity arose with a week off between jobs I booked some flights to catch up with a mate in Townsville – it’s about 21 hour drive from where I live so I decided to fly. We hunted on his mate’s cattle station north of Charters Towers in North Queensland. It is a good sized place about 250,000 ha and the deer don’t see too many people.
We headed out to the station from Townsville first thing in the morning and on the way there we spotted a number of herds of deer from the side of the road.
We arrived at the property mid-morning and within 15 minutes had spotted some hinds drinking at a dam with some cattle. We stalked in on them and suddenly 3 hinds turned into about 30 hinds and a few spikeys scattered amongst the grass surrounding our location. In the absence of a stag I took a hind for meat for my mate. The deer were very quiet and even after the shot some slow ones were just standing up and walking off casually. Not many people hunt here.
As the day went on and the heat increased to over 40 degrees (Celsius that is) the deer were a bit harder to spot but they were still about – mainly bedded up in the shade. We found a few brumbies about in the heat of the day but they weren’t shot. That evening we stalked through some semi open country which had deer everywhere but not too many good stags. I finally found a stag not long before last light which I took. He was missing one of his top inner tines but I decided to take him anyway as this was my first Chital stag. I took the shot from about 50 yds as he fed out of some long grass. A rough measure pulled him up at 28 inches.
The next morning we were up in a new location before sun up. Immediately there were deer surrounding us as the light began to reveal them. We decided to split up to cover more ground. There were deer everywhere. I spotted a number of small stags which I left. After about an hour of walking and glassing I spotted another mob of deer with 2 nice looking stags. I stalked in on them and got to within about 100m’s being careful not to spook any deer that might have gone unnoticed in the long grass. I approached them slowly and got within 30yds when I took the better of the 2 stags. He was no monster but a nice shaped animal. I got this one mounted and he is at home on the wall.
My mate also took a stag of similar size to my second one that morning and a meat animal which wandered by as I was caping my stag out. Without exaggeration I would have seen about 300 deer over the two days that I was on the property. Surprisingly we only saw one small boar that made himself scarce when we drove past the creek bed he was in.
I used my Browning Mountain Ti in 300wsm with 180gn Barnes projies.
Cheers,
JWB
I did this trip back in September. I hadn’t hunted Chital before and when the opportunity arose with a week off between jobs I booked some flights to catch up with a mate in Townsville – it’s about 21 hour drive from where I live so I decided to fly. We hunted on his mate’s cattle station north of Charters Towers in North Queensland. It is a good sized place about 250,000 ha and the deer don’t see too many people.
We headed out to the station from Townsville first thing in the morning and on the way there we spotted a number of herds of deer from the side of the road.
We arrived at the property mid-morning and within 15 minutes had spotted some hinds drinking at a dam with some cattle. We stalked in on them and suddenly 3 hinds turned into about 30 hinds and a few spikeys scattered amongst the grass surrounding our location. In the absence of a stag I took a hind for meat for my mate. The deer were very quiet and even after the shot some slow ones were just standing up and walking off casually. Not many people hunt here.
As the day went on and the heat increased to over 40 degrees (Celsius that is) the deer were a bit harder to spot but they were still about – mainly bedded up in the shade. We found a few brumbies about in the heat of the day but they weren’t shot. That evening we stalked through some semi open country which had deer everywhere but not too many good stags. I finally found a stag not long before last light which I took. He was missing one of his top inner tines but I decided to take him anyway as this was my first Chital stag. I took the shot from about 50 yds as he fed out of some long grass. A rough measure pulled him up at 28 inches.
The next morning we were up in a new location before sun up. Immediately there were deer surrounding us as the light began to reveal them. We decided to split up to cover more ground. There were deer everywhere. I spotted a number of small stags which I left. After about an hour of walking and glassing I spotted another mob of deer with 2 nice looking stags. I stalked in on them and got to within about 100m’s being careful not to spook any deer that might have gone unnoticed in the long grass. I approached them slowly and got within 30yds when I took the better of the 2 stags. He was no monster but a nice shaped animal. I got this one mounted and he is at home on the wall.
My mate also took a stag of similar size to my second one that morning and a meat animal which wandered by as I was caping my stag out. Without exaggeration I would have seen about 300 deer over the two days that I was on the property. Surprisingly we only saw one small boar that made himself scarce when we drove past the creek bed he was in.
I used my Browning Mountain Ti in 300wsm with 180gn Barnes projies.
Cheers,
JWB
