Went out for a look around for a Red the other day, mainly to see if they had rubbed out yet. Saw little sign, and the ground was cornflakes, but I managed to miss a rabbit, and l tried to get the eye in with a few shots at tussocks.
Was picking up an arrow from a shot and saw three young Red stags across the gully, on the edge of a clearing. I slowly got my camera out and snapped a couple of shabby handheld pics (need to take the tripod out).
As they fed down into the gully I crept down to try to intercept them. I set up with a few wattles around me to break up my outline and let out a hind call. I heard some movement in some blackberries off to my right, not where the stags should have been. I let out another call, thinking it might be an older stag apart from the young ones, and received an alarm bark for my effort.
Ten seconds later another bark, and a hind and her yearling broke cover and paused broadside at what I quickly guessed at 35-40m, held over and let rip. I saw the arrow pass over her back right where I was aiming and crash into the blackberries behind. That caused what seemed like a stampede as around 20-30 hinds, yearlings and young stags erupted out of the gully below and took off.
I had a young stag and some hinds prop broadside to me, but it was a bit too far and I was dirty on myself for fluffing the first shot and didn't want to take a risky one.
I was positive I missed but still followed the escape route for a while to make sure no blood was drawn. I had a token look for the arrow, as without a machete, I was not going to get near it. I paced out the shot and it was only 30m. Ah well, The Thunderchild will have to wait to draw first blood.
I was pretty happy to at least get a shot in, and here's hoping those Hinds bring a few big boys out of the hills come late March/April.
Cheers Memo.
