Mateship of the hunt is what’s missed most

2020 has been a year unlike any other. A year I thought was going to be full of hunting turned into a year of wondering when we’ll be able to cross the border again.

I know many people will agree there’s nothing quite like spending time in the bush, away from the hustle and bustle of town.

I never thought I would miss the cold, early starts or the long walks. Or even the times I asked myself, ‘what are you even doing out here?’. But now in times like this, I miss them more than ever. But there’s one more thing I miss even more than that.

There’s a different side to hunting that’s not just meat and bone: It’s hunting with mates. Hunting with family. Sharing a camp, talking dribble, the friendly banter and making lifelong memories.

One trip in particular that stands out was a weekend trip that Dad and I had with a couple of Dad’s closest hunting mates. No matter the outcome of our hunts, it was guaranteed to be a great weekend.

We all arrived on the Friday night and after a long overdue catch-up we all decided where we were going to go, then went to bed so we would be ready for an early start.

At 4.30 am I heard the cough and splutter of the generator kicking into gear, as all the lights came on in the hut. I pulled myself out of my swag and got ready to be out hunting just on daylight. After a quick coffee, Dad, myself and one of our mates set off hopefully to find a nice fallow buck.

When we got to where we wanted to be, we started to glass the fog-covered flats to see what was out feeding. As we glassed, we were able to see a few bucks out grazing by themselves. There were three mature-looking bucks feeding that we decided we’d try our luck at. We decided to sneak up the paddock, using the Mallee knobs to stop and look every so often to make sure they hadn’t disappeared. Once we were close enough, we checked out the bucks and decided which one we’d go after.

We started to make our way closer to the buck, which we were confident was just over the next rise. We were wrong. We made it to the top of the rise and the buck had vanished completely. I looked at Dad a bit puzzled and he suggested that we keep hunting further up the paddock to see what else might be around.

It was our first hunt of the weekend, so we had plenty of time to catch up with the buck we had our eye on. We made our way further up the paddock and decided to walk up a rise to glass what might be out on a flat, out of the wind.

The wind was in our favour but was quite strong. As we walked up the rise, a movement caught Dad’s and my eye so we both stopped dead still. A bigger fallow buck than the one we’d seen before made his way out of the Mallee knob to our right and made his way out into the paddock.

I slowly took the .308 off my shoulder and dropped to the ground to set up and get ready. I focused him in the scope and followed him as he walked further and further. Dad tried a few croaks to try and get him to stop for me to have a crack at him, but he kept walking.

I kept watching him in the scope until he stopped. I lifted my head up from behind the scope and watched as a mob of sheep came walking up over the hill right beside where the buck was standing. It was too risky to take the shot with the sheep behind him, so it became a game of sit and wait.

As the sheep coming over the hill started to thin out, the buck started to walk up the hill and sky-lined himself.

I looked up at Dad who shook his head in disbelief. I kept an eye on him until he disappeared over the rise out of sight, then we all hotfooted it to the top to try and catch up with him. We snuck up along the edge of the scrub and kept an eye out as we glassed with the binoculars. We stood at the edge of the scrub for a few minutes and, just as we thought we’d keep hunting, we saw the buck in the next paddock walking out of another patch of Mallee.

I dropped down on the ground and crawled up to the fence line. I watched the buck come closer as I tried to get myself into position to take a shot when he stopped.

The buck stopped and I had him in the scope but the angle I was on wasn’t great.

A wave of nerves took over and I started to panic. If I didn’t take the shot, the buck wasn’t going to hang around, but there was a chance that we’d be able to catch up with him again. If I took the shot, I could have the buck down. I had to decide.

As I went to move to get into a better position, I heard Dad behind me say, “quick, shoot it. It won’t stay there long; it knows we’re here.”

I laid back down and put the crosshairs on his shoulder the best I could and squeezed the trigger.

The roar across the paddock silenced Dad behind me as I looked up and watched the buck take off. I turned to Dad and gave him a look.

Our mate who was with us put down his binoculars and said to me, “you weren’t too far off, it just wasn’t meant to be. We’ll find another one, don’t stress.”

After that, we made our way back to camp.

We all shared our morning’s successes, talked about what we thought would be the best plan of attack for our evening hunts, then decided where we would go later that day.

I felt a bit disappointed that I’d missed the buck instead of taking a few extra moments to get into a better position, but it was good to talk about it with the others back at camp, who put it into perspective and made me feel better.

For our evening hunt, the three of us decided we’d go and have a look for any bucks over the other side of the block. It was our last hunt for the weekend before we went home, so if ever we were going to shoot a buck, this was our chance. But it just wasn’t meant to be.

We didn’t see a deer the entire hunt until we started to make our way back to camp. As we walked over a rise, we saw a young button fawn grazing by itself in a lucerne paddock. I looked at Dad, who nodded. We both snuck up and dropped to the ground. We got close enough to the deer and in a position for me to take a shot. I watched the deer in the scope as it continued to graze further down the paddock. I waited for it to stop, and as it did I squeezed the trigger on the .308 and watched the deer fall.

I stood up from behind the rifle and started to shake. The deer was nowhere near what you’d class as a ‘trophy’, but after missing a buck that morning, it was just as special.

We walked up to the deer and took some photos. We took as much of the deer as we could and made our way back to camp, all with smiles on our faces.

Once we got back to camp, I cleaned up the deer as much as I could and then listened to the others on how their day’s hunting went.

It is fair to say that we all miss hunting during the restrictions at the moment. But it’s also fair to say that we miss the social aspect of it too.

That weekend trip would not have been the same without the banter and laughs.

Now, not knowing when a weekend trip like this will happen again, it makes me appreciate hunts like this with good mates all the more.

If ever there was more of an example of there being more to deer than hunting, then this would be it. To me, hunting takes some beating; but there is nothing that beats hunting alongside good mates.

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Contributed by Michaela Shirley as part of her Hunting with Mic segment.