A wee chat with the apprentice and the deal was we meet up in the mountains at noon tomorrow, I was going in first to recon the area as to how many animals were still around as I'd been told that the govt had been shooting the area with a helicopter to mainly knock down the wallaby numbers. A couple of hours stroll and I'm climbing up onto a low watershed, it's half an hour before dark and the old enemy the rain makes an appearance, normally it's no biggie in a north westerly as it's far out past the main devide and sheltered, I ignore and drop down the other side to strike the matagouri in the bottom, a wallaby hops around a bit then sits on his haunches and watches me walk by, yesteryear it would have died of lead poisoning but I've decided that it wasn't my job. Only cover another fifty yards and spots some deer ears floating above the scrub and now and again a bit of its head, it's running to my left so I sprint for some open country and quickly sit down as the spiker charges across the stream and up the hill, I wait till he stops but very awkward for the 223, but can just see the shoulder bone protruding and this became my target, smashed him good and on three legs he swirled around twice but as he slows down giving me a clear shot for the lungs I let strip again and In another 4 seconds he's dead. Now that's much better I thought. Cut the back wheels and whipped out the backsteaks, threw them up into a coprosma bush and strode down the valley to where I knew there were two old tarps to hopefully get some shelter from the wet stuff. Unfortunately this became my second worst nite out in the mountains as the tarps leaked, still I survived.
