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The recent Queensland school holidays saw the good wife and I travel to The Sunshine State for some grand-kid time in the Whitsundays, then on to Brizzy for the rellie circuit. It was well past mid-April by the time we made it up to the farm on Cressbrook Creek. The first day was spent working on guttering for the machinery shed, followed by barbeque and shiraz, and I was a little uneasy at the complete silence from any stags within the valley that evening and overnight. According to the locals they had been roaring their heads off up to the previous weekend, but the rut had finished just as I arrived! Damn! Usually I have the opposite problem, arriving too early!

Despite some overnight rain, the next morning was crisp and clear so at first light, with more optimism than expectation, I headed off up the main spur towards the divide. By keeping just off the western side of the ridgeline my ascent was in deep shade as the first rays of the morning sun began to warm the eastern face of the opposite slope. I hoped that any stags still damp from the cold rain would be out catching a little sun before bedding down for the day.

My vigilance paid off when a young 4x4 stag came into view sunning himself on the open hillside directly across from my position. I sat to watch him for a while and soon noticed movement further up the incline as a much better stag stepped out from behind a bush and began browsing on lantana berries. This was more like it! A big-bodied dark animal with heavy main-beams and visible top-tines so at least a ten pointer. He'll do for starters!

Judging the distance at around 200 metres or perhaps a little less, I left the range-finder in my pack and decided to just do it! With a rock-solid seat against a tree-trunk and elbows on knees, I expected him to drop at the shot but he immediately bolted straight downhill and was quickly lost to view in the lantana-choked gully. Uh-oh...

Absolute silence followed, so after a few minutes I climbed down into the steep ravine to look for the fallen quarry but my efforts were in vain. Scaling the opposite slope to the spot where the stag received the bullet did not reveal a single drop of blood, so I mapped-out a left and right of arc in the gully floor and spent the next 40 minutes or so searching under every lantana bush and rock-fall to no avail. With great disappointment I moved up to a small bench in the hillside preparatory to moving out and there he was, lying stone dead!

Not sure why the entry wound on the shoulder had closed up but it was a heart shot as it turned out, and he must have made a hard left when just out of my sight to end up where he was. Unfortunately my futile search of the gully floor had given the meat ants time to find him, and they made recovery of the venison rather uncomfortable to say the least!

Happening upon this stag so early on the first morning of my hunt, followed by meat recovery and returning to the big smoke to boil out the head, would essentially rob me of the next couple of days I had planned in the hills. ...so I sat for a long time looking out over the valley below and soaking it all in while the backstraps and rumps cooled in the shade. Wonderful stuff!

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Marrakai
When the bull drops, the bullshit stops!
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www.marrakai-adventure.com.au