My First Deer

FEATURE Ash Howman

First deer over my own dog

The last Riverina Branch hunt I attended was in September 2022, a trip to Koetong in Victoria. The weather was very poor to start with, raining most of the Saturday. Despite this, we all went hunting, but only Chris was able to put a fallow on the deck. The Sunday was looking much better, and I decided to hunt with my young vizsla, Tess, in a nice gully with neighbouring fringe country. We left the ute and were immediately greeted by a thick wall of dogwood and prickly Coprosma. It took an hour and a half to cover less than 250m. 

Once we were through the thick stuff and on to the adjacent face, the bush opened right up and I immediately spotted a white bum moving through the natives about 60m away. I lifted the rifle and caught a glimpse through my fogged-up scope of a very nice, hard-antlered sambar stag, the antlers of which I estimated at 24-26 inches  long. My heart started to pound and within seconds he vanished between the trees, slowly grazing. I waited for 30 minutes with the young Tess by my side in case he was going to make his way back in my direction. 

He didn’t, so we decided to try and find him. We started to head to the area where I had originally spotted him when I heard ‘HONK!’. A hind no more than 15m away had been watching us from cover. After composing myself, we trudged on and soon after found the tracks of the stag. Tess was working very well, keeping in range, and tracking slowly. After no more than five minutes of tracking the ground opened up again and I caught movement from the corner of my eye. Tess was looking firmly in the same direction at three fallow does standing in the open, 70m away, returning our stare.

I decided to shoot at one and that’s where the fun began. We let the dust settle before going to take a look. Nothing! No deer and no blood, but I was certain I hadn’t missed. I took Tess to the shot site and she kept tracking the deer, which had run into the wall of dogwood. I kept taking her back to see if there was another scent trail. Finally, after an hour of looking around and taking the dog in the direction that I had last seen the deer run, Tess did a hard left turn and tracked up the hill . I followed her for 40 or 50m before I was finally greeted with fresh blood; the dog was right! Tess tracked the blood for a further 70m before we found the fallow expired in the long vegetation. A fatal neck shot and the doe had still run more than 100m to cover. This was the first deer I’d shot over one of my own trained dogs. We loaded her up and carried her out whole. A two-and-a-half-hour carry out had us back at the ute and me smiling from ear to ear. If I had not had the dog there was zero chance of a recovery. 

A lesson was learnt. Always trust your dog.