Managed to make myself absent from work friday last week with a plan to properly hunt a new patch i'd been looking over.
I'd had one stalk in there a few weeks earlier, and there was plenty of sign about so i struck up a plan to get down near the fringes and wait to see what ventured back up.
The fog was terrible on the drive up, and trying to text back responses from 3hunj made me late getting to my spot.
Slight change of plan now, as it was already daylight, i'd have to slowly stalk all the way down. The fog was just below me, and every now and then, it wafted up through the trees. Mischief had her work cut out for her with all the up-drafts, and kept wanting to go over to the other side of a small ridge. I wanted to follow her, but wanted to see what was in this gully first. So we pushed on.
All the sign we crossed was red hot, all on the move, and all stags following doe's. With all this sign, and knowing there was at least one good one in there, we passed up the first 4 doe's we sighted. Reasonably unalarmed, they pushed off and we got deeper into the gully.
We crossed another 2 sets of doe, followed hard by big stag marks. Here i decided that because i could now glass the bottom, (albeit covered in dogwood), and with a great gentle breeze coming from where the marks were going, we would follow the better set and see what they would bring.
The perfect breeze blew the fog back toward us, and plenty of deer scent. I could smell it, and so could Mischief. She pushed ahead, and gave her new tell tale "show" simply sitting down, and looking back, like "oi, over here!!" Looking with the bino's, i couldn't see anything, i looked back to her, she just gave me the, "here, its bloody here" look..
I moved closer to her, and whoosh, a doe took off from about 15m away. I jumped a bit, through the gun up, then watched her run down into a small gully. Bugger, i thought i'd blown it. As i looked to roughly where she'd run, i noticed a small movement further out. I through up the bino's just in time to see a stag get up out of his bed and look in my direction. No time like the present i thought, so without winding the scope up, or resting, i shot him through the neck from around 130mish. He just flipped over and fell back in his bed.
As i neared him, i started to think, "gee, he's better than i first thought" so stopped Mischief from tugging at him.
Never before have i seen a stag so badly beaten up, he was bleeding out of a wound inbetween his coronets, and had fresh scars all over his body and down the backs of his legs. Looks like the other set of good marks i saw earlier may have been his bigger, stronger 'sparring partner'..
I took a series of pics, and caped him out, (best one i've shot with Mischief) and carried him out. Then proceeded to msg everyone in my phones memory, and celebrated with a counter meal at the local pub, and a couple of coldies..
I'm pretty stoked with the stag, and the way Mischief is hunting. And just a little bit excited at the prospects of a better one being close by!!
As he fell

I've been thinking about this other stag for the last few days. Yesterday i found that i had nothing to do at work in the morning, (woe is me) So i planned to hunt this other stag.
I also found out that after loaning my 300wsm to a mate saturday, he had taken the magazine home with him to Shepparton.
So decision was made, the carbine pump 35 Whelen was coming on its first real stalking trip.
Arriving super early to the spot, we found the fog to be extremely thick, i thought it may help, but after an hour of visibiltiy to around 40m, was on the verge of giving up when we got roared at by a hunk of stag, and me a Mischief were left standing on the side of the hill shaking. He's a snotter!! But the fog swallowed him up fast. Deciding not to follow, we walked out to the car.
As it was still early, and never having shot a deer stalking with the pump, i went to a spot with heaps of dogwood etc. I got out of the car and we headed in.
Sneaking along, just above the dogwood it was still foggy, but better. The other problem i was having was my regular boots were still soaked from Saturdays hunt, so i'd taken out the inners and put them into my second pair. I'd never worn them with the inners before, and it wasn't till i was in the bush that they started to squeak with every step. The inner was rubbing on the bare sole!! It seemed as loud as a mega phone this morning.
I picked a spot over looking a small gully and sat down. We'd only been there for about 5 or 6 minutes when Mischief got the imaginary fishhook stuck in her nose. She went from gazing down into the valley to on full alert, staring behind me and sniffing like mad.. I slowly looked around, and there was a doe, about 20m away staring back at us.. Beauty. One shot from the whelen, and it was all over. Being only a few hundred metres from the car, i managed to get a great deal of the critter out with minimum fuss, which should keep a mate from the gunclub happy, as he's been harassing me flat out for some venison. And Mischief is pumped, cos she got herself another deer!!

Great report and photos mate.
Looks like ya on a winner with mischief. Have never been deer hunting with a hound I imagine it would be pretty cool. Doing dens and fox drives with the various dogs was great. Awesome to see really good dogs and how easy they make life for ya on a hunt. Simon o has had some of the best dogs I have ever seen for hunting. Milly (rip) his den dog was unbelievable.

My good mate Mal has been watching some very nice red deer of late. just waiting for that little text message to come through and off I go.
Is it just me or does everyone in oz now have a 300wsm?
Keep up the good work mazza. Many of us here love seeing those photos

Yep, i think every household has at least one 300wsm. Its sorta like having a shimano reel!!

Hunting with a gundog can be really rewarding, when it all goes right. But it can be really frustrating too..

Just to clear it up, without sounding picky, she's not a hound. She hunts with me, in my control, and if it all goes well, she'll point me the deer. Or at least find it when i shoot it..

A hound hunt is entirely different, and something that needs to be tried before it gets knocked, (kinda like trolling vs casting. Lures vs bait) I also run a handful of beagles on most saturdays, and its of lot of hard work. (for minimal results at the moment) You rely on your teamates and the dogs way more, and generally cover a lot more ground. Its also way harder to get the actual deer you want, as the hounds will chase the freshest smelling deer, not necessarily the biggest!!

Top stuff Mazza, love reading those type of reports and the pics .

Keep up the good work

Cheers...Brett

great work mazza my boy nathan (10) has just come back from brads after a four day trip but no luck presto got that set of antlers scored they go 250 3/8 not bad at all !

Great report and pics mazza
Its got my trigger finger itchy

millsy

Gr8 stuff Mazza, luv hearing your reports mate.

Well i reckon i can figure out from the photo where you were hunting. Looks like its been burnt in the last 5 or 6 years, so that narrows it down to about 1.5million hectares!!!
Great deer mate, well done.

Took a mate out today. He hadn't shot a deer with his new pointer yet. I dropped him off and went down to the next spot to hunt myself. Hearing a gunshot as i got out of the car, i called him on the radio. Turns out there was a doe about 70m from where i dropped him off. He missed her!!

I hunted my spot, seeing 4, 2 stags, 2 does. Got a few pics of one stag, with my pointer 'pointing' it. And a few pics of a doe. No need for me to fire a shot, as i've got plenty of meat, and the small stags were hardly worth shooting.

Then i hear boom, boom. Mate called me up on the blower. He's got himself a doe, perfectly pointed by his young dog.
Top day out for us. Pics to come..