Well time I posted these photos and short story. I know Gryphon is grinding his teeth about it!

I was heading over to Victoria for both the BGRC Nationals and then a week's hunting, before planning to attend the SHOW Show in Melbourne. Work got in the way meaning I couldn't make it to the BGRC competition and I planned to make use of the some of the days the next week to catch up on some urgent work, attend the SHOT Show and then hunt the following week instead.

I had arranged with Gryphon who generously offered to share some of his choice sambar spots with me and stay with him in his house. Gryphon lives in a region where sambar are resident in the mountain forests and he is always out after them with rifle or camera. A previous trip resulted in spotting a couple of sambar trotting off through the bush but no real chance of a shot, and neither were stags in any case. It would be interesting to see how this trip fared.

Typical forest scenes.

A rub tree.

The forest blocks abutt farm country with the deer making use of the good feed but heading back into the forest at dawn to seek cover during the day light hours.

The first morning saw a change in plans, a parked 4WD in the spot we planned to walk in at, meant someone was already in that area, so Gryph drove to another spot. A walk along a ridge through some more open country and we were away. Glassing the gullies along the spur and into the black berries and other bush. Along the spur the first sambar, two hinds and a calf could be seen bedded down under a low tree at about a hundred metres right on the end of the spur, the wind was right for us, but they had spotted us and off they went. Crossing the spur and following a downward gradient, later we were honked by another sambar. That makes four in close contact already.