A SOLO FALLOW RUT

FEATURE Rupe Hoskin

Sometimes we hunt hard and well and just don’t find what we are looking for. Yet we still have the satisfaction of our endeavour and the simple pleasures of being out there – good company, using equipment we have carefully selected and cared for, exerting our minds and bodies, breathing fresh air, and grounding ourselves in nature.

Sometimes we just mess things up, and there are many ways to do this – failed stalks, missed shots, or, worse, wounded animals or misadventures such as bogged vehicles or getting lost. Then we have to face ourselves, accept our humanity, learn and grow. Often, a painful failure teaches us something we need for a greater success later.

And then sometimes we have the joy of what French hunters call Une belle action de chasse– a beautiful hunting moment. We plan well, stalk well, shoot well, and achieve our aim. This too has many forms – a long campaign pursuing a particular trophy, a well-executed spot-and-stalk, or a satisfying quick shot on a fleeting target. These are the moments we yearn for and savour.

In the 2025 fallow rut I had all three in one trip. The previous year had been a bit of a washout, both literally and in hunting terms, and we couldn’t get the usual suspects together for a deer camp in 2025, so I was solo this time. That was all good – sometimes I enjoy the focus and quiet solitude, time out from a hectic life. I had three days, and was after a good trophy buck, something better than I’d taken previously. Pre-season, I’d been able to lay out four trail cameras and check them every few weeks. There was one particularly good buck frequenting the fringes of a large clearing (400x600m) surrounded by forest on three sides. His broad palms, good length and spread were distinctive and earned him the nickname ‘Snow Shovels’. His pattern wasn’t a daily commute exactly, but he was definitely working a reasonably defined area, and he became my primary target.

I’d put a lot of thought into my preparations this year. I’ve been hunting for over 40 years now and never stop researching and learning. For me that is all part of the hunting experience. I’d realised I needed to be better at long shots out to 350 metres, so I’d worked up some Barnes 110-grain TTSX hand loads for my Sako 85 Bavarian .270 Win, measured the velocity and got a CDS turret etched for my Leupold VX5HD 3-15 x 44mm scope. This setup allows me to range a target, dial the scope to that distance, then always hold dead-on. It’s a marvellous system.

Over the summer I got plenty of practise on targets then pigs, fallow does and foxes. This developed good habits and really improved my confidence, as well as filling the freezer and helping the farmer. I went back through my journals from multiple fallow ruts and identified a confident start date for this particular property, though recognising that it does vary according to weather and lunar cycles. I made up a special map of the property (using free downloaded pdf mapping) and plotted where known leks (rutting stands) and doe concentrations were. Combined with regular checks of the Bureau of Meteorology website for wind and sunrise/sunset times, this allowed me to plan my approach routes and how I would use my time.

After accompanying my bowhunter friend Ben on trips to the Northern Territory for buffalo and North Queensland for chital, I’d finally decided to get more serious about camouflage, including face covering. I’d set up some cast antlers for rattling and re-read a lot of material on fallow habits and rutting behaviours. I resolved to be selective, which meant taking only one or possibly two good trophies, and felt excited and ready to hit the field.

I arrived pre-dawn and headed straight to where Snow Shovels was active. Through a wispy mist I was thrilled to hear multiple bucks croaking. I paused to savour the moment. I’m showing my age here, but this was a Sale of the Century, “Let’s go shopping, Delvine” moment. I could see two groups of does, and they were grazing freely, not yet being mobbed up by bucks, but I could hear at least two bucks croaking deeper in the mist. It seemed they were still competing for feminine attention.

I crept forward and the first buck appeared, too small to shoot, so I sat down and started rattling. There was a good reaction with another buck coming in for a look, though he was also too small to shoot. I waited a while, rattling more, and glimpsed a decent buck on the hill beyond the mist. He wasn’t Snow Shovels, but was a potential shooter, so I slowly stalked towards him with a gentle wind in my face. Unfortunately, he kept moving and disappeared into the scrub. It quietened down after that but there were no complaints from me – what an exhilarating start.

I moved on, checking out some known leks and enjoyed sitting for a while watching a game young buck corralling four does and starting to woo them. Later, I circled back to Snow Shovels’ area and crept up the wooded hillside by the trail cam he’d starred on multiple times. Lots of tracks and droppings and several well-scratched leks – aha, I’d found his rutting stand and went on full alert.

Moments later there was a loud thrashing of tea tree and thundering steps away from me, so I ran forward to see that a large buck had burst out into the clearing and was racing off. I dropped to the ground and pulled out my bipod, hoping he’d stop and give me a shot. Through the scope I could see that it was definitely Snow Shovels, but he was flat strap and disappeared into the treeline 320 metres away without stopping. Bugger! I decided to hunt elsewhere for a bit, to let him settle back down in his home range.

That afternoon I checked out a couple of nearby properties for future hunts, then set up a simple camp on the other side of the property and barbecued a venison steak over the fire. I was treated to lots of croaking close by in the night, so next morning I rolled out of my swag and hunted straight from camp. I crept pre-dawn into position on a ridgeline where I’d previously seen does and bucks in velvet. I could hear one croaker in the forest nearby, so sat down and started rattling. Within a couple of minutes, a beautiful spindly young buck appeared and came straight up to me. When he got close, he winded me and leapt back in alarm, but then settled again, and we watched each other for a few delightful minutes.

I kept going, following the fringe country and using a powder puff wind gauge regularly to guide my direction. As I dropped over the ridge into a new valley, I heard strong croaking and followed it up slowly through open forest. The rut is such a great time to hunt. I spotted a tight mob of does then a buck herding them about. Through my binoculars from about 80 metres back I had difficulty getting a clear view of his antlers, so was undecided. I dropped the legs on my tripod and made ready, then kept peering through the intervening scrub. Eventually he lined up and I could see he was a shooter, with long even antlers and OK palms – good enough, though not quite Snow Shovels calibre.

Sadly it had taken me too long. One of the does got a whiff of me, and they all trotted off. I followed them in the scope and took what proved to be an unwise running shot as the buck ran through a gap. On the follow-through, my call was that I’d probably shot over his back, and sure enough there was no sign of blood or buck.

That afternoon I staked out Snow Shovels’ clearing, sitting at the base of a tree, well back downwind on a high knoll with great visibility. It turned out to be a beautiful evening, very still, and I had plenty to look at. Firstly, an unattached mob of does grazed out, then a couple of foxes appeared, zigzagging around in the long grass and pouncing on mice. No bucks this time, though, so I withdrew quietly on dark.

The forecast wind was perfect for me to set up pre-dawn on a knoll overlooking the same clearing, with visibility out to 350 metres in multiple promising directions. I wanted to get into position early and quietly, so I parked my 4WD a little way back and rolled out a swag. Another night of croaking all around me, so it was easy to get up early then creep forward onto the knoll.

The good news was that I could hear three different bucks croaking around the clearing. The bad news was that it was too misty to see any of them. I stayed in place, hoping the break of day would lift the mist, but it got worse, so I decided to stalk forward. I crept up to about 100 metres from a buck who proved not to be Snow Shovels, but was still pretty good. On my last day I would take what I could get. He was moving around his does, undisturbed. I wasn’t confident of an offhand shot, so I dropped my daypack and leopard crawled towards him through the wet grass, with the mist finally lifting as the sun rose. I thought I was onto a good thing, but he just disappeared, I’ve no idea how.

There was still one other buck croaking in the mist, so I turned towards him and started to creep forward. I hoped he was good as I was on my last chance. I never found out, because I glanced up onto the high scrub line to see a very welcome sight: Snow Shovels, glowing in the sunlight, looking majestic, surrounded by does. I lay straight down where I was, dropped the bipod and set the sights for an estimated 230 metres. I had the presence of mind to just pause a moment and take some deep breaths, then pushed the set trigger forward, carefully aimed for a heart-lung shot, and squeezed it off. It felt good on the follow-through, and he leapt upwards promisingly as the thwack of a solid hit reached me. Then he and the does ran downhill back into the mist. A moment later, the does all ran back up again and into the scrub without him. Sure enough, when I got up there, there he was, stone dead with a big antler sticking up out of the grass.

His rack was as good as I’d hoped, though his antlers showed signs of hard living since I first saw them on the trail cam, being chipped and worn from fighting and digging leks on his stony hillside. No matter, that is all part of the trophy’s story.

I could not have been happier: no matter how much you prepare, the outcome of a hunt is still dependent on luck and your own performance in the heat of the moment. Fortune had smiled on me, and on this occasion, I’d played my part well.