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While fixing some old broken links came across these old images. My second ever fallow buck. While not a monster mounted for my wall and still there. Actually I think I shot this one, thinking it was a much larger buck seen minutes earlier in the early dawn light which disappeared and then this fellow appeared instead, and I shot it. Nevermind, I am not an "inch hunter".

From a fair few years ago.

Cattle and deer feeding in the field.

This area is near the Southern Ocean with very strong sea "breezes". Trees bent by the wind. One day I hunted there the winds were so strong I had trouble standing up and sheltered behind a tree for a period.

View across a paddock.

View towards the Para River, the same Para River my own property straddles, but some 60 kilometres downriver.

I remember once, sort of crossing the river, theoretically the boundary line to circle around some deer on the right side of the river, keeping the wind in my favour. Shooting a doe for meat, and then thinking, the bang may bring some attention, maybe I need to get back across the fence. Took a leap off the bank into the water, only using my brain afterwards that it was quite high, a huge spash, no other damage other then getting very wet. Some venison for the home table harvested.

View towards the Southern Ocean. Swamps, 'mangroves" and flooded salt pans lie in between the sea and here.

The deer would hide in these paddocks. The low bushes were sufficient to cover most of the deer, offhand shots were required, but the deer were smart enough to spot a person and keep their distance, so longer shots were needed. From a standing offhand shot, prone shots being impossible. Perfect later for shooting sticks, which I did not have at the time and were largely unknown here then.

Another time the deer outsmarted me, fleeing to hide on the islands on the other side of the flooded salt pans, we crossed the knee deep water, only to find the deer again watching us from the next island ... enough. Try again another time.

My second ever fallow buck.

Should have been left another year or two, but shot by mistake. But my best fallow buvk to date at the time. And was also good eating.

Some young dude with his fallow buck.

Haven't been to this place for a decade or more. North of Adelaide. At one time in the 1960's and 1970's more than 1,500 fallow deer inhabited the place. By chance when cleaning out old yellow newspapers in a shed, I found an article featuring "Buckland Park" where the number of deer was mentioned. No idea if the herd is still there, but the area nearby has since been developed into another "urban desert", a urban housing development, with a major new "city" also being planned there right now. One day houses will infest the lands where once wildlife roamed the plains, the tussock paddocks, the salt pans and islands, and 'mangrove' swamps.

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John aka NitroX

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Govt get out of our lives NOW!
"I love the smell of cordite in the morning."
"A Sharp spear needs no polish"

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