The sun was fast departing, with only two hours of light left at most. My brother Stuart and I had been slowly creeping around the property in the Nissan Patrol, taking note of the landscape in preparation for the night of spotlighting ahead. The gully systems were exciting to look at, chocked with small sections of bush and blackberries, it was fox heaven. I was just about to suggest to Stuart about trying a spot of whistling, but a distant shape caught our attention. The shape was familiar, and a look through the Bushnell 10x42s confirmed that it was a fallow spiker. Stuart was eager to have a crack, and thanked me for making him bring his 30-06. The spiker was roughly 600yards away, feeding within the steep confines of a grass filled gully. 3foot long grass hid our approach, however the wind was playing its usual tricks and when we were nearing the top of the gully our chances were looking slim. I decided to have a breather and stay put, while Stuart ploughed on. A few minutes passed and I had lost all vision of Stuart, all I could do was hope that he was prone behind the Weatherby Vanguard about to take the spiker. Of course the realisation that this wasn’t the case occurred to me when I heard rustling and then saw the spiker quickly departing along a well used gametrail. It kept running until it reached the very top of the gully, stopping right on the horizon line about 300yards away. Fallow: 1, Gillahans: 0.

Once Stuart descended down the hill back to my position, I suggested about contouring around the gully into the next one, as I felt there was a good chance we would come across more fallow before nightfall. Stuart didn’t disagree, and excitedly led the way with eyes peeled. I slowly tagged along, 50yards behind, frequently looking through the binoculars. Through my naked eyes I noticed a very abnormal looking tree in the distance, it definitely needed confirming. So up came my trusty shape confirmers and the binoculars revealed a nice little fallow buck busily feeding along a small ridgeline. I whistled to Stuart and caught up to him, letting him know that the buck was like the spiker, unusually still in hard antler and definitely worth taking. A small washout enabled a concealed stalk right up until my Redfield 550 rangefinder was telling me that the buck was only 150yards away. Stuart confidently engaged the bipod and slowly crawled into a rock steady shooting position. I heard the bolt close over the 180gr Nosler Accubond handload and then watched the stag’s legs give way just before the mighty boom of the 30-06 caught up with my ear drums.

Fallow: 1, Gillahans: 1.

I gave Stu a big thumbs up and smiled, it was a good moment. Actually, about the only thing that could have made it better would have been if I didn’t leave my Nikon D60 camera at home.  Luckily I had a small compact camera, so some average quality photos were taken.

With trophy photos taken, I left Stuart to deal with the deer while I walked back to get the Patrol. By the time I got the Patrol to Stuart it was basically dark, so initial skinning cuts and gutting were done under torch light. It didn’t take us long to get the deer loaded up and the 30-06 locked away, so while waiting for darkness to properly set in we hooked up the 240blitz Lightforce spotlight, got my .220swift out, and had a bite to eat.

With half filled bellies, the spotlighting began. The huge gullies were carefully scanned, and it didn’t take us long to pick up a proud pair of glowing eyes. The fox was moving fast, so I hastily got out of the car and set up over the bonnet. Just before I was ready, Stuart yelled at the fox and it stopped to look our way, but I wasn’t quite ready and ended up rushing the shot, causing a very embarrassing 170yard miss. I naturally put the blame on my younger brother and ordered him to let me yell at any moving foxes.

The next fox we came across was well and truly educated, bolting for dear life as soon as the spotlight beam landed on it. This is how it remained for the next half an hour, we’d see the odd educated fox and have no chance at making a shot. It was getting quite frustrating, but eventually one of last year’s pups allowed me a shot. The fox was front on at 130yards, so I aimed low on its chin and squeezed the beautiful two stage trigger. I knew the shot was good, and the unique thump of the 50gr Vmax handload hitting home was a tell tale sign that it was a good solid hit. 

Unfortunately finding a relatively small fox in very long grass is not an easy task, not to mention the heavens opening up while I was searching for it. I ended up giving up and retreated back to the Patrol in a very saturated state.

The rest of the night didn’t get any better, it basically involved getting over 20metres of high tensile fencing wire wrapped tightly around the driveshaft. My pocket knife pliers weren’t up to the task of cutting it, so we had to burden Dad to make the long drive up with bolt cutters, heavy duty pliers and side cutters. It took us 50 minutes in the pouring rain to remove all the wire and we didn’t end up getting home until after midnight. Tired, cold and hungry, we found just enough motivation to hang the deer, clean and oil the rifles, then get some hard earned shut eye.

The next morning after boning out and bagging all the meat, we added the photos from the day/night before to our laptops. Stuart noticed it, excitedly pointing at one of the photos I took of his buck while it was feeding. At first I didn’t see it, but then I zoomed in and there it was, a bigger buck.

Next weekend we’re hoping to one up the fallow, hopefully it’ll be Fallow: 1, Gillahans: 2.