The hunt for this guy started a
few days before Christmas in 2013,
while out looking for foxes on my
deer block. I was in the paddock at
first light, heading for an old
cropping paddock to see what was
still hanging around from the
night before. Instead of foxes,
I spied eight bucks, all in varying
states of antler growth. They
wandered off the crop at first light
and I followed them into the bush.
I quickly closed the gap to about
130 metres for a better look and
some video footage. After 10
minutes, something disturbed
them and they came past me at
only 50 metres, then were gone.
I packed up with a smile on my
face and headed for home. My
smile grew even bigger when
I viewed my footage on the
computer – an unseen buck, most
probably from behind a big
downed tree, was caught on film
as they all ran off and he was
a cracker. I froze that footage on
just about every angle I could,
studying his antlers, he was easilythe best buck I had ever come
across. Well, that was it,
I had to get that buck.
The deer season didn’t start for
over two months, but that didn’t
stop me from keeping tabs on him.
The big fella and his mates proved
elusive in January, but I did finally
lay eyes on them on the 28th. My
brother was with me on that day
and we had a real challenging
hunt to get within range of them
for the camera. We got to about
150m and studied them hard. It
was definitely the same mob with
the big boys having grown out
their top tines fully and whatsurprised me was how much the
smaller buck’s antlers had grown
in a month, they were now fully
grown too, yet all were still in full
velvet. Some more photos and
video footage taken before the
wind changed direction and the
bucks were gone. The big fella was
still there, his spellars had grown
out and he was looking good.
Despite some serious searching
in February so I could get the drop
on him in March, he never showed
up. March rolled around and apart
from shooting a cull buck, not
much happened on the big fella
front apart from a brief sighting14 | SPORTING SHOOTER _ APRIL 2015
FA LLOW
DEER1
Instead of foxes,
I spied eight
bucks, all in
varying stages of
antler growth.”