After bagging that good stag on the first morning of my hunt, I was itching to get back "up the hill" but the forecast for the next day was for heavy rain all day. When I awoke next morning, it was clear the met bureau had got it right! I just couldn't motivate myself to step out from camp into pouring rain so drove back down to Brizzy to cut up the venison and boil the head.

The following day was forecast for "scattered showers" however, so I took the plunge and drove back up that evening for an early start next day regardless of the weather. Luckily the gods were smiling and I managed to dodge most of the rain all morning, but had walked my butt off without seeing or hearing a thing. By mid-afternoon I was clambering up the furthest ridge on the neighbour's place when I heard a stag roar! The first one I had heard so far this year, and back towards camp from my position, so off I went at my best pace!

Cutting a fairly straight line through that steep hill country is virtually impossible, but luckily the stag kept roaring so eventually I found myself within about 150 metres of the randy red. In front of me was a lantana-choked gully with vertical banks, so I moved forward to an opening at its edge and sat down to glass for the stag. He was in a dense thicket and I could only get glimpses of his body and rack, a big dark animal with heavy 4x4 antlers. Nice!

Try as I might, I just couldn't find a window through the scrub for my bullet. He was moving around quite a bit though, bashing-up any small trees in his way, so I was happy to sit there with the wind in my face awaiting an opportunity.

As I looked around through the binos I was suddenly shocked by the sudden appearance of another stag, just inside the thicket, and between me and the roaring stag! OK, so no chance of making it through the gully without detection. ...and I couldn't go around, because of wind direction. Hmm.

Well, I had come here for the roar, hoping to have a conversation with a rutting stag, so here was my chance to make something happen. I closed the bolt on the Ruger, pulled out my piece of poly-pipe and let rip!

Well the big fellow completely ignored my outburst. In retrospect I can only assume he thought it was the smaller deer roaring at him from my direction. The young fellow however nearly jumped out of his skin! He bolted straight out of the thicket towards my position and propped at about 40 metres, staring a hole straight through me! I was sitting completely in the open. The jig was up!

So I shot him instead. Venison is venison...