havgunwilltravel
Active member
Had a couple quick days off and decided to make the most of them to get up high into sambar country with a good keen mate. The country was looking very lush and green as we have had a very wet spring and there was feed everywhere. At the elevation we were hunting.
We were a few kilometres out a big ridge searching for stags when an insane lightening and thunder show rolled in, it was quite close to us and we were pretty happy we weren't on an open ridge with no trees. The hail stones that came down were relentless.
But like most of these storms they passed quick and we ended up doing a big loop hanging a trail camera up on and spending the rest of the evening glassing and hunting benches. Not a deer was sighted and sign was pretty scarce. We put it down to still a lot of feed all through both the lower country and up high and walked out with the headlamps on.
We shifted locations that night, and spend the morning glassing female sambar on a dry ridge. There was great feed a couple of gullies away, but sambar being sambar they wanted to be wherever they choose for their own reasons and we failed to sight a deer with antlers.
I was pretty keen for some summer venison and we changed locations mid morning and went into some very remote country.
Straight away we found good deer and stag sign and this wallow was getting worked hard.
I hung one of my homebrew trail cameras up over it, but it took a while to build a secure rest for the TC out of fallen logs. It will probably get knocked over by a stag, but there was no other options for a tc to be hung watching this particular location.
We walked a few more kms in this area and found more wallows to hang some extra cams i had brought up and then i picked up this old antler. Its always good to find sambar cast antlers.
We were happy with our tc effort so punched it further out and found a big clearing, sitting off it for a while we were undecided whether it was worth our time to wait until dark, but eventually decided to move back through some nice country we had seen earlier in the day. We came across another wallow and we found a pair of cast antlers which had been there a few years, that was a good sign and i picked up another antler on a clearing.
In the thick stuff with 30 minutes until dark i located this stag in hard velvet and i knew he was a bit uneven and on the way downhill with antler growth. I put the crosshairs on his shoulder and sent a 175gr Berger into him. He ran around the hill a short distance and fell over.
He was in peak condition body wise and his hooves were quite beaten up.
Eventually we got all the meat out, rolled the landcruiser tray 4x4 back down the valley floor and found a nice campsite. By now it was quite late and we had enough energy to have a few beers, cook some chops and i stripped the velvet off the stag.
Come daylight we packed up quick and had a look for more deer along the river. None were seen, but were content, it was a great trip away, the freezers were full and we had scratched the sambar itch that will resurface in a few days time and no doubt we will soon be looking for free days to get back into that big country.
We were a few kilometres out a big ridge searching for stags when an insane lightening and thunder show rolled in, it was quite close to us and we were pretty happy we weren't on an open ridge with no trees. The hail stones that came down were relentless.
But like most of these storms they passed quick and we ended up doing a big loop hanging a trail camera up on and spending the rest of the evening glassing and hunting benches. Not a deer was sighted and sign was pretty scarce. We put it down to still a lot of feed all through both the lower country and up high and walked out with the headlamps on.
We shifted locations that night, and spend the morning glassing female sambar on a dry ridge. There was great feed a couple of gullies away, but sambar being sambar they wanted to be wherever they choose for their own reasons and we failed to sight a deer with antlers.
I was pretty keen for some summer venison and we changed locations mid morning and went into some very remote country.
Straight away we found good deer and stag sign and this wallow was getting worked hard.
I hung one of my homebrew trail cameras up over it, but it took a while to build a secure rest for the TC out of fallen logs. It will probably get knocked over by a stag, but there was no other options for a tc to be hung watching this particular location.
We walked a few more kms in this area and found more wallows to hang some extra cams i had brought up and then i picked up this old antler. Its always good to find sambar cast antlers.
We were happy with our tc effort so punched it further out and found a big clearing, sitting off it for a while we were undecided whether it was worth our time to wait until dark, but eventually decided to move back through some nice country we had seen earlier in the day. We came across another wallow and we found a pair of cast antlers which had been there a few years, that was a good sign and i picked up another antler on a clearing.
In the thick stuff with 30 minutes until dark i located this stag in hard velvet and i knew he was a bit uneven and on the way downhill with antler growth. I put the crosshairs on his shoulder and sent a 175gr Berger into him. He ran around the hill a short distance and fell over.
He was in peak condition body wise and his hooves were quite beaten up.
Eventually we got all the meat out, rolled the landcruiser tray 4x4 back down the valley floor and found a nice campsite. By now it was quite late and we had enough energy to have a few beers, cook some chops and i stripped the velvet off the stag.
Come daylight we packed up quick and had a look for more deer along the river. None were seen, but were content, it was a great trip away, the freezers were full and we had scratched the sambar itch that will resurface in a few days time and no doubt we will soon be looking for free days to get back into that big country.
Not much of a tradition of that here.
