With an eight-hour drive ahead of me to get to Bondi State Forest from Port Stephens, I was up and out of my house by 8 am, breaking up my journey with a quick stop at the Silverdale range to get my new Tikka 3006 sighted in, something I hadn’t had time to do previously.
After a long day of driving I pulled into Bondi Forest lodge around 9 pm, said a quick g’day to members already there and called it an early night.
With not an early start the next day I headed out to have a look around mid-morning.
Exploring the northern fringes, there was plenty of feed and water around and I picked up some fresh sign below a dam; there had certainly been deer through there the previous night.
Of course, after deciding to carry my rifle on my shoulder and just have a check of the area three fallow crossed a track up in front of me, accompanied by perfect wind. Naturally, they got the better of me.
The next morning’s plan was to be at the top of the same track looking down (morning thermals going up).
Arriving nigh on 5 am I waited and watched for a few hours before making the call to try another area I had a looked at the day before.
Determined not to be caught out again, I checked everything — the wind, my rifle, everything — before going down this track.
On entering I spotted fresh scat I had not seen there yesterday.
Stalking down, I followed the bend in the track and stuck to the left to get a bit of cover.
Approaching a fallen dead tree, I glassed two fallow through the leaves grazing in my direction at about 100 m.
There was a dirt mound in front to my left at about 10m; I thought I could get to it for a rest.
The two fallow were grazing, but coming into clearer view as I dropped down and belly crawled to a log about three metres in front of me.
Placing the Tikka across the log, I had time to think about the shot as the front animal was grazing straight towards me, head down, head up, head down.
I waited until he put his head down and took the shot with the reticle focused on the centre of his neck at shoulder height, knowing it would be an ethical shot. It was and he dropped on the spot.
A young spiker the second morning of a week-long hunt, what a great start.
Given I could get the car to where he was, I walked back and drove the Prado back to him. After several photos and gutting the spiker, it was into the back of the Prado and back to the lodge.
Contributed by Geoff Esquilant.
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