I’d been on the phone all day, leaving messages, trying to get hold of the property owner. I really wanted to get my mate Darcy Hooton (Hooters) out to a section of property to try take a good fallow buck that I had seen a week before. Our chances were starting to look slim, my heart was slowly sinking.

I was just about to give up when suddenly the phone rang and I heard the farmer’s voice on the other end, my heart leaped out of the depths into fast beats of excitement. Unfortunately it sank again, almost straightaway, when the farmer told me that another person was hunting on that section of land for the weekend. He kindly offered us access to another part of his property, which we had hunted before with plenty of success, so I gratefully accepted.

My brother Stuart and two best mates; Hoots and Clarky, arrived late Friday afternoon. Our standard procedure of driving to our 100yard shooting range and checking rifles was undertaken and once they were all properly zeroed, we headed home for a bite to eat. With full bellies, the spotlight was hooked up to the Landcruiser and a relatively quick spotlighting trip produced 5 bunnies and a fox, the bunnies taken by Hoots and his Savage .17hmr and the fox taken on the run by Stuart with my glass bedded Ruger M77 .220swift.

By the time we finished cleaning the rifles, the clock was almost reading midnight, so we all happily agreed to get some Zzzs.

My annoyingly trustworthy alarm sent me flying out of bed and into a coffee making frenzy at 4.40am on Saturday morning. After preparing the brews, I woke the boys by making various immature noises to alert them that is was time to get up and smash down a strong coffee. With eyes wide, we packed the Cruiser and made tracks.

On the way out to the property we drove past a mix of fallow does and spikers, seven in total. Our chances of bagging one were looking good!

With the car parked and rifles at the ready, we split up. Stuart and Hoots heading to the right of the property towards a lucerne flat, while Clarky and I headed to a feeding flat on the left. Clarky led the way with his Ruger M77 Hawkeye 7mm Rem Mag and I had my Nikon D60 with 70-300mm lens, both at the ready, hoping for the same thing, to shoot some fallow!

It didn’t take long before I noticed Clarky’s body language change, hunching over, moving slower, his eyes locked on something ahead. I slowly caught up to him and he whispered that he had seen a doe walk across the opposite hill face. I advised that we should get to the top of the ridge, as I knew there was a grassy flat just below it that would probably hold a feeding fallow or two.

Once at the top of the ridge I noticed two barely visible does walking along a game trail on the edge of the feeding flat, but they were obscured so I opted to take some photos while Clarky smartly folded out his bipod and went prone, ready to shoot if an opportunity to do so presented itself. Clarky’s early preparation paid off, because a nearby swamp wallaby spooked and took off, sending the two does down to the feeding flat.

Funnily enough, once on the feeding flat both deer didn’t seem at all alarmed and started casually having a nibble on the fresh green pick. This gave Clarky and I enough time to carefully examine both animals pregnancy status, deciding that the one on the left was clearly pregnant and that the one on the right appeared not to be. Clarky closed the bolt and sent a 150gr Remington Corelokt on its way towards the doe on the right, dropping it on the spot.

The other doe and another unseen doe scattered off into the bush while I tried to take a few quick photos of them departing.

I shook Clarky’s hand and congratulated him on a good shot, then we proceeded down to the flat to take some photos and gut the deer. While gutting the doe, we confirmed that our judgement had been correct, it thankfully wasn’t pregnant. Once finished, we positioned the deer in some shade so flies couldn’t get at any meat, then walked back to get the Landcruiser.

On our way we heard two shots, and immediately knew that Darcy had at least one deer down. But we would worry about that later, as our main priority was driving the Cruiser over to Clarky’s doe and loading it up into his massive esky as quickly as possible. Once we had the doe loaded up, we drove towards where we heard Darcy’s two shots. Unable to see Stuart or Darcy, we decided to park, have a snack and then walk around the general area. It didn’t take us long to locate two blaze orange hats bobbing along dragging a spiker each. Clarky and I laughed, as it’s the second time on this property that Darcy had taken two young spikers in a day. No wonder we haven’t taken many good heads here!

Clarky and I made our way to their position and Darcy told us about the hunt, explaining that they saw nothing on the lucerne flat so they opted to backtrack and head over into a relatively thick gully that none of us had ever hunted before. This is where they noticed the two spikers and observed them for quite awhile, obtaining some pretty good video footage before Darcy decided to take the larger of the two.

The spiker dropped on the spot from a well placed 180gr Nosler Accubond handload from Darcy’s Weatherby Vanguard 30-06. The other spiker looked up, alerted, but had no idea that Stuart or Darcy were there. Stuart asked Darcy if he wanted to take it, as all our freezers were quite deplete of venison. With the thought of venison burgers on his mind, Darcy reloaded and sent another 180grainer on its way, punching straight through both shoulders. The spiker only made it a few metres before its legs went out from under it.  

Clarky and I both congratulated Darcy and Stuart on their hunt and then helped them load the spikers into the Landcruiser. We all stood back and agreed that we wouldn’t need any more venison for awhile!

It was time to head home, so Darcy jumped in the pilot seat and turned the key, sending the Cruiser into its happy state of idle. I couldn’t believe it when the clock display lit up, it was 8.30am. In less than two and a half hours we had managed to take three deer, that’s not bad going in my books.

The drive home was one of laughs and good energy, prompted by our successful and rewarding morning hunt.

Once home, we got to work on hanging the deer and covering them with large fabric bags to prevent flies ruining our hard earned venison. I then poured cold water over the bags until they were completely saturated, knowing that it would help keep the meat cool. I also decided to set up our industrial fan and let it beam some cold air onto the meat too.  

With the deer dealt with, it was time to properly fill our bellies and watch some hunting DVDs. The afternoon soon approached and due to girlfriend commitments I had to take off, leaving Stuart, Clarky and Darcy to fend for themselves.

Later that night I got a text from Stuart, saying that he had broken my 381yard shot on a fox record. I was a little disappointed, but still eager to hear what distance my Redfield Rangefinder had read. His next message said the number; 400yards exactly. My .220swift hits 11inches low at that distance, so it wasn’t a bad effort considering what Stu told me next, that the fox was laying down. I congratulated him and made sure he’d remembered to take the scalp for the bounty. Then I turned off my phone, layed down in bed and fell asleep thinking about the great weekend of hunting I’d just had.