G'day guys,
Thought I might bore you with a little thread here. In Australia we are lucky in the respect that our seasons are long (most 12 months) and in my state there is quite a bit of public land.
We have one species though with a lottery tag system, the elusive little hog Deer! The "ballot" as we call it is a lottery draw that's been running for 27 years, many people have entered every one of those and never been drawn. This year (my seventh year applying) I was drawn. We have two areas, one is located on the mainland with a healthy population that is hunted by treestands as the deer cross back into the designated public land from the private land they feed on overnight. The second area is an island off the main body of Australia with no improved pasture and no fresh water. The only place where deer get water is from old wombat burrows that have reached the water table. Here they get about 2" of clean water they lap up so people sit up trees and stands over these water holes. The first area has 5 five day periods, each with 4 hunters, the second 3 five day periods with 4 hunters.
This year I drew first period on the second area. It's about a 7 hour drive but I was determined to do every bit of scouting I possibly could. I went a little crazy, chasing up forums and contacts of people whod hunted there before, ringing the organisers and people whod written articles and books on hog deer. Firstly I wanted to defy the odds, on the second block between the 12 hunters each year the generally average only one stag, but also hog deer have been my number one goal along with sika since I was a little kid.
The other things is the island is about a 10km (6 mile) boat ride and the island has no water, electricity, toilets or anything like thayt so you literally have to take in everything you need for the week there.
I did a few days scouting, set some gps points, found some good waterholes and some nice feeding areas and set up a ground blind over the pick of the waterholes.
Before too long, mid February came around and I was off! We had a female and male tag and they say on boole poole if you see anything whether it's a stag or hind to take it because generally you only get to see one animal, I was after a stag but this played on my mind.
Hog deer are completely different hunting to any other big game animal I've chased. A mature stag is around the size of a fat lamb but what they're famous for is their flightyness. Once they get few wifs of people they go to ground and become completely nocturnal and in that country once they do that you never see them. For this reason the keen hunters use a push bike to keep their scent off the ground and get out further. We have a designated camping area in the middle of the hunting zone. It's about 5km (3 mile) each way.
Anyways they'd just come off some hot weather which is best for drawing them into water and the day we got in the temperature had plummeted.
As I got off the boat, unpacked my gear and waved off the mate who dropped me off in his boat I settled myself in for a week of good hunting.
For all the hours spent trawling over google maps, talking to people over the phone and studying past success I was about to cop one early on. I loaded up my pack, slung my rifle and set off on the sandy track to my blind to sit out the day. I hadn't gone 500m from camp when "BANG!" my bike chain snapped in half, I was gutted. After some swearing and a quick think I decided to still sit on the bike and use one foot to push myself along just keeping a little scent off the ground. In the sandy hills it was tough going I tell ya! I got down to the bottom of one hill and really had to push to get up the top. As I did it created a corner and there i suddenly was, face to face with an 8" stag.
Before I continue, in Australia with our Asiatic deer (chital, sambar and hog deer, also rusa) when we talk about inches it's length of the longest main beam.
Before I had time to think he was bounding off into the thick bush and was swallowed up. I got an intense burn in my stomach that hung around for a few hours with the words echoing in my mind that most people only see one deer for the trip if theyre lucky. I sat till 5pm over the water but nothing came. From where I sat over water it was another couple of kilometers to the feeding area, mostly made up of a succulent called pitfall. Inot wanting to scent it up by walking I headed back to camp and decided to walk the full three miles to the feed area knee deep in the ocean by skirting he island, that way keeping my scent off the ground. Unfortunately nothing showed.
The next day it rained most of the time, as expected no deer showed. Come 5 o'clock, I decided to get into the feeding area from the original route. This day one of the other hunters decided he didn't want his bike and leant it to me. I got out to the feeding area and began glassing. A couple of hours rolled by without so much as roo showing. It was then I remembered a little open area around 1/4 acre covered on three sides by a wall of tea tree. I stuck back through the tea tree thicket I was leaning on and threw up the glasses. No sooner had I done this that I spotted this fawn coloured thing feeding. My immediate reaction was "no this can't happen to me, it's got to be a roo " but sure enough there i could see velvet tips flicking back and forth as he fed ferociously. I snuck back and grabbed my gun. The problem was he was 140m away and in succulent half way up his back and nothing in between to lean on. So I grabbed my camera tripod, chucked off the camera and used that to rest the gun off. At 140m and on 12x zoom I was physically shaking so much I couldn't keep the cross hairs on the animal let alone the chest. I tried a deep breath, set the trigger and as soon as it danced on his last rib for a quartering shot I fired. At that he threw his head up and I got my first proper glimpse of his set of antlers and they were nice! I stood and chambered another round thinking the odds of hitting a deer of his size on the run from this distance shaking like I was would be near impossible. Fortunately the shot spined him and he was down for the count. He ended up taking out at 13" on the long side and was a non typical 7 pt. Ended up being the biggest stag for the ballot and the only one from my zone.
After taking a hog deer you have to immediately attach the tag and then have 24 hours to get it to a checking station where you get some paperwork to verify it was taken legally.
I shot him at around 7pm and had to carry him the 3 mile back to camp, some of which was through teatree thickets with visibility of 6ft. The other thing with hog deer is that you can only gut the animal but it has to come to the checking station full bodied. My stag ended up dressing out at 34kg, the average is 25-30kg so he's quite heavy. Half an hour in it was dark and another 15 mins later my head lamp died. So here I was carrying a wonky load over my shoulders through thickets of teatree in the dark without a head lamp, to add to it Gippsland has crazy humidity at that time of the year. I got half way home and just had to stop. I was swimming in sweat and heaving and had ran out of water hours ago so was really struggling. Fortunately I made it to the track and managed to get in contact with one of the hunters at camp who happily met me.where I was with his bike. I caught my breath while I waited for him to.arrive and once he did tied the stag to the bike.and.wheeled him to.camp.
The next morning I got picked up and took him to.the checking station then came back that arvo hunting with my muzzleloader for a hind for the rest of the week though I never saw one.
To date it has been the greatest hunting of my life outdoing my tahr trips and local red and fallow hunts by a long way. The isolation of the island and the complete reliance of what you bring to the field mixed with hunting Australias most coveted animal made it the trip of a lifetime and I'm grateful to have had the opportunity.
I also set up a trail cam during my scouting and got some nice photos of some hoggies as well as some wild pigs and a couple of rogue sambar!
Cheers
Gsp
My 2015 hog deer stag
Hind from scouting weekend
View of waterhole from my blind
Waterhile
Tagged out!
Geared up!
On the boat to checking station
End result!
Mexican standoff! The one antleredstag frequented my hole right up until a couplr of days before the hunt and then never returned. Turned out it'd goned dry, I never went near it during the week not wanting to scent it up.
Thought I might bore you with a little thread here. In Australia we are lucky in the respect that our seasons are long (most 12 months) and in my state there is quite a bit of public land.
We have one species though with a lottery tag system, the elusive little hog Deer! The "ballot" as we call it is a lottery draw that's been running for 27 years, many people have entered every one of those and never been drawn. This year (my seventh year applying) I was drawn. We have two areas, one is located on the mainland with a healthy population that is hunted by treestands as the deer cross back into the designated public land from the private land they feed on overnight. The second area is an island off the main body of Australia with no improved pasture and no fresh water. The only place where deer get water is from old wombat burrows that have reached the water table. Here they get about 2" of clean water they lap up so people sit up trees and stands over these water holes. The first area has 5 five day periods, each with 4 hunters, the second 3 five day periods with 4 hunters.
This year I drew first period on the second area. It's about a 7 hour drive but I was determined to do every bit of scouting I possibly could. I went a little crazy, chasing up forums and contacts of people whod hunted there before, ringing the organisers and people whod written articles and books on hog deer. Firstly I wanted to defy the odds, on the second block between the 12 hunters each year the generally average only one stag, but also hog deer have been my number one goal along with sika since I was a little kid.
The other things is the island is about a 10km (6 mile) boat ride and the island has no water, electricity, toilets or anything like thayt so you literally have to take in everything you need for the week there.
I did a few days scouting, set some gps points, found some good waterholes and some nice feeding areas and set up a ground blind over the pick of the waterholes.
Before too long, mid February came around and I was off! We had a female and male tag and they say on boole poole if you see anything whether it's a stag or hind to take it because generally you only get to see one animal, I was after a stag but this played on my mind.
Hog deer are completely different hunting to any other big game animal I've chased. A mature stag is around the size of a fat lamb but what they're famous for is their flightyness. Once they get few wifs of people they go to ground and become completely nocturnal and in that country once they do that you never see them. For this reason the keen hunters use a push bike to keep their scent off the ground and get out further. We have a designated camping area in the middle of the hunting zone. It's about 5km (3 mile) each way.
Anyways they'd just come off some hot weather which is best for drawing them into water and the day we got in the temperature had plummeted.
As I got off the boat, unpacked my gear and waved off the mate who dropped me off in his boat I settled myself in for a week of good hunting.
For all the hours spent trawling over google maps, talking to people over the phone and studying past success I was about to cop one early on. I loaded up my pack, slung my rifle and set off on the sandy track to my blind to sit out the day. I hadn't gone 500m from camp when "BANG!" my bike chain snapped in half, I was gutted. After some swearing and a quick think I decided to still sit on the bike and use one foot to push myself along just keeping a little scent off the ground. In the sandy hills it was tough going I tell ya! I got down to the bottom of one hill and really had to push to get up the top. As I did it created a corner and there i suddenly was, face to face with an 8" stag.
Before I continue, in Australia with our Asiatic deer (chital, sambar and hog deer, also rusa) when we talk about inches it's length of the longest main beam.
Before I had time to think he was bounding off into the thick bush and was swallowed up. I got an intense burn in my stomach that hung around for a few hours with the words echoing in my mind that most people only see one deer for the trip if theyre lucky. I sat till 5pm over the water but nothing came. From where I sat over water it was another couple of kilometers to the feeding area, mostly made up of a succulent called pitfall. Inot wanting to scent it up by walking I headed back to camp and decided to walk the full three miles to the feed area knee deep in the ocean by skirting he island, that way keeping my scent off the ground. Unfortunately nothing showed.
The next day it rained most of the time, as expected no deer showed. Come 5 o'clock, I decided to get into the feeding area from the original route. This day one of the other hunters decided he didn't want his bike and leant it to me. I got out to the feeding area and began glassing. A couple of hours rolled by without so much as roo showing. It was then I remembered a little open area around 1/4 acre covered on three sides by a wall of tea tree. I stuck back through the tea tree thicket I was leaning on and threw up the glasses. No sooner had I done this that I spotted this fawn coloured thing feeding. My immediate reaction was "no this can't happen to me, it's got to be a roo " but sure enough there i could see velvet tips flicking back and forth as he fed ferociously. I snuck back and grabbed my gun. The problem was he was 140m away and in succulent half way up his back and nothing in between to lean on. So I grabbed my camera tripod, chucked off the camera and used that to rest the gun off. At 140m and on 12x zoom I was physically shaking so much I couldn't keep the cross hairs on the animal let alone the chest. I tried a deep breath, set the trigger and as soon as it danced on his last rib for a quartering shot I fired. At that he threw his head up and I got my first proper glimpse of his set of antlers and they were nice! I stood and chambered another round thinking the odds of hitting a deer of his size on the run from this distance shaking like I was would be near impossible. Fortunately the shot spined him and he was down for the count. He ended up taking out at 13" on the long side and was a non typical 7 pt. Ended up being the biggest stag for the ballot and the only one from my zone.
After taking a hog deer you have to immediately attach the tag and then have 24 hours to get it to a checking station where you get some paperwork to verify it was taken legally.
I shot him at around 7pm and had to carry him the 3 mile back to camp, some of which was through teatree thickets with visibility of 6ft. The other thing with hog deer is that you can only gut the animal but it has to come to the checking station full bodied. My stag ended up dressing out at 34kg, the average is 25-30kg so he's quite heavy. Half an hour in it was dark and another 15 mins later my head lamp died. So here I was carrying a wonky load over my shoulders through thickets of teatree in the dark without a head lamp, to add to it Gippsland has crazy humidity at that time of the year. I got half way home and just had to stop. I was swimming in sweat and heaving and had ran out of water hours ago so was really struggling. Fortunately I made it to the track and managed to get in contact with one of the hunters at camp who happily met me.where I was with his bike. I caught my breath while I waited for him to.arrive and once he did tied the stag to the bike.and.wheeled him to.camp.
The next morning I got picked up and took him to.the checking station then came back that arvo hunting with my muzzleloader for a hind for the rest of the week though I never saw one.
To date it has been the greatest hunting of my life outdoing my tahr trips and local red and fallow hunts by a long way. The isolation of the island and the complete reliance of what you bring to the field mixed with hunting Australias most coveted animal made it the trip of a lifetime and I'm grateful to have had the opportunity.
I also set up a trail cam during my scouting and got some nice photos of some hoggies as well as some wild pigs and a couple of rogue sambar!
Cheers
Gsp
My 2015 hog deer stag
Hind from scouting weekend
View of waterhole from my blind
Waterhile
Tagged out!
Geared up!
On the boat to checking station
End result!
Mexican standoff! The one antleredstag frequented my hole right up until a couplr of days before the hunt and then never returned. Turned out it'd goned dry, I never went near it during the week not wanting to scent it up.
