FEATURE Chris Flegler

A couple of years ago I entered the NSW Public Land Hunting Ballot and was fortunate enough to draw a reserve place for one of the hunting periods that I had nominated. I received a call from DPI in mid-March offering me a spot for April 2 to 5 in the ‘bow hunting only’ forest. I only had a couple of weeks to plan my trip, so I contacted another hunter who I knew had successfully hunted the same forest the previous year. I gathered as much information about the forest and about hunting fallow deer as I could before I embarked on this adventure.

I arrived at the forest after travelling for 15 hours over the previous two days and as soon as I hit the forest dirt, I was seeing sign of antler rubs on pine tree saplings. My excitement and anticipation for what was to come over the next four days grew considerably. The rest of the afternoon consisted of setting up camp and scouting the forest to get a lay of the land so I could formulate a plan for day one of the hunt.

The first day started before first light with me walking into the area that I wanted to hunt. As daylight broke, I immediately started to find fresh sign of game trails, rubbed saplings and deer scat. I was barked at within 15 minutes of starting the hunt but could not put eyes on any deer. Thirty minutes later I heard the first croak. It was my first experience of hearing a fallow buck croaking in the wild and I was almost paralysed with indecision. I did not know what to do next, so I tried everything. I tried to close the gap on where I thought he was located, but I had no clue how far away he was. Unfortunately, he was getting further away. I decided to set up in an ambush position and tried to call him in by using a croaking device that the guy in the archery store had promised me would bring a buck in to me on a string. The croaks got even further away. I tried to cut the distance by moving more quickly but the frequency of croaking decreased so I had a crack at rattling the fake antlers that the guy in the archery shop also promised would bring a fired-up buck straight to me on a string! A short time later the croaking stopped altogether.

After the realisation that I was not going to catch up with this buck I took the opportunity to sit down and have a think through the morning’s events and how everything had unfolded. I found a tree stump that gave me a good vantage point to look out over the pine forest and I took the opportunity to check in with family, have a drink and a snack. Five or ten minutes into my rest I looked down the hill and the biggest fallow buck (and also the first) I had ever seen walked out from behind a row of pines and stood in the middle of a crossroad of pines. He stood there for what seemed an eternity looking up and down the row.

I could not make a move as I was completely exposed to him seeing me if I did, so I waited until he moved in the opposite direction. I quickly moved to the row of pines to my right and made my way down the hill using the trees as cover. By the time I got down to where he was located the buck was nowhere to be seen.

Although I lost sight of him, I found a freshly tended scrape line and gathered more information about the area and the movement of the bucks in the forest. Although the amount of croaking gradually reduced the following days were filled with amazing experiences and interactions with deer; a fawn at 17 yards but no ethical shot presented, stalks on does from 65 yards and being busted by deer that I didn’t see as I closed the distance, deer at 40 yards but still out of traditional bow range, and my best stalk was on a white sleeping deer that turned out to be a log.

After four days of chasing bucks, stalking deer sitting over scrapes, setting up ambush sites on feeding routes, rattling, and croaking and trying to put together all the pieces of information my four-day period ended without a deer on the deck. It was without a doubt a fantastic experience in a wonderful public land deer hunting forest.

At the end of my fourth and last day I met with Adam, a hunter who had arrived earlier in the day in preparation for his ballot period. Adam had tried to draw a spot in this ballot for 6 years prior and had been unsuccessful until this season, so he was already very excited for the adventure that lay ahead. That afternoon Adam had been scouting a different part of the forest that I had not been to, and it turns out that even though I had been seeing around 20 deer each day I didn’t even get into the ‘deery’ part of the forest! He went on to show me video of young bucks chasing does and pictures of massive scrapes.

Although satisfied with what I experienced I was a little disappointed that I did not get into this area myself. I stayed connected with Adam over the next four days on my trip home. He reported many interactions with bucks with stalks being busted by does and other missed opportunities. Adam’s ballot period culminated in an epic hunt on a great buck that he was successful in taking.

For me, this public land ballot hunt was an opportunity that was too good to pass up and although I did not get a deer on the deck, I achieved more than I could have imagined.