Rusa Deer in the Six Before Five Series
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We arrived at Owen's place and were greeted by a smiling face, Owen introduced himself to me and then to El, El being shy took a minute to settle in but once over the shyness, didn't stop yapping. The next day Owen took the both of us out for a look at the fallow herd he guides on. What a shock! I had never seen so many deer in the one place, and still to this day have not seen such a large number of deer; all wild and all very, very alert. I did a bit of filming and El enjoyed seeing all the deer. That night Owen made a call to a close friend Clint Magro who has access to wild Rusa deer in NSW I was interested in getting some footage, Owen said he see what he could do.
The next day at 2am Owen woke me and said time to go, grab your gun and gear we are going after Rusa! I was in shock Owen had arranged with Clint for me to go and hunt Rusa with El for my birthday. We arrived at Clint's house at 5am on arrival through town we even saw a wild Rusa hind eating someone's lawn.
Clint came out, introduced himself; I said that I would be happy to take photos let alone a Rusa, his answer was "no way mate you're all the way from Vic your gunna shoot a stag". So off we set. Before the sun came up we found ourselves at our destination, a quick check over that El was strapped in, gun was safe and most of all video was working. I refused help from Owen and Clint wanting to carry all the gear I would usually carry; I struggled up the hill.
It was warm, being so close to the coast the humidity started to get to me. This was the complete opposite to the high country temperature wise; it was very similar though when it came to the hills. They were steep and it wasn't long before I was sweating terribly, with sweat pouring off my face I struggled to keep up with Clint. All of a sudden "CROAK" a Rusa bark……it had startled me. We started to climb up a hill for a better look, when we reached the top we quickly glassed the opposite hill, Rusa were everywhere on the opposite face. So twice as fast as we had ascended the hill we descended the hill, we needed to get there before the sun rose to high and they sheltered into the lantana.
Clint was amazingly fast but that may have been to the fact that El had grown a great deal and put on weight, making the pack heavy and the humidity was driving me crazy. Rushing up the opposite face hoping to catch the deer unaware I was exhausted. Reaching an old wooden fence Clint and Owen classed the herd of deer. Both of them agreed to which deer was the taker, since I was not fussy I was just excited to be there. El and I watch the deer for a few minutes until Clint said time to "rock and roll". At 200m with El on my back I needed to sit down to pull off a clean shot. Once again with an unalarmed deer I placed the crosshairs on the deer's imaginary backbone, breathed out and pulled the trigger. The stag literally folded up on the spot.
Both Clint and Owen congratulated me "what a shot" was echoed more than once on the hike up the hill. When we arrived at the deer it was high fives all-round, and time for more photos. To make any father proud El stood up and held the deer's antlers for his own photo. I was so happy, elated really, El and I had accomplished another feat together, a wild Rusa. In the heat, humidity and hills I had shown El another deer species and cleanly harvested it for the video, which Owen had recorded the entire hunt. It was all starting to come true, 3 species; halfway if I was a dreamer……….maybe I might get the opportunity to take all six………
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Chris Boon
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