Last of the light

There’s a spot I go to every few months or so, for a ‘lazy man’s hunt’. Otherwise known as an ambush. It’s on the bush edge, up the back of a hill country sheep farm, where well used game trails are used by reds, fallow, pigs and goats to access some sheep food.

I’ve hunted up the main game trail into the native twice before – once you’re through the scrub and under the native canopy, it’s surprisingly open. But the gradients are very steep, and it’s usually wet and damn slippery and hard to get around. Right now though, the leaf litter is as dry as a new packet of cornflakes, and unless the cicadas are going full bore, every step will advertise your presence to anything within 200m. On both the hunts into the native, I shot massive old billy goats, they were probably deaf and blind due to old age, as everything else had seen or heard me coming 10 minutes ago… I think I could actually hear them laughing at me.

This spot was the scene of the best deer interaction I’ve ever had, in April last year. Me and the wife walked up the track one evening after supper in our PJs, just to stretch the legs and enjoy the birdsong; it was such a beautiful evening we kept walking further uphill than we intended, and we found ourselves near the end of the track. The wife spied some deer behind the old macrocarpas, and we crept in with the wind in our favour, which is rare in that spot, more on the wind in a bit.

Long story short, we ended up commando crawling (in our PJs) within 20 yards of the animals, and watching the hinds browse while a magnificent 14 pointer stag sniffed their bottoms. The oldest hind spotted some movement and came around to see what we were; the stag was completely oblivious as he closely followed her tushy. That old hind came right up to the scrub where we were hiding, to almost within touching distance, before she caught a whiff and legged it up the spur opposite, honking like mad. The stag, he just stood there staring. He was a bow hunters dream.

Anyway, in all I had shot three deer in that spot, all using the same method… ambush. So I thought I’d give it another go. Normally I will bike up on the quad to within about 300m, well out of sight and largely screened noise-wise by a steep spur. I’ll park up and walk in about two hours before last light. Sometimes, animals will be out there all day, especially fallow, so first up I climb a spur that gives me a good field of view to glass the area before I move in. This time there was nothing doing, so I advanced to one of my normal ambush spots, under the first macrocarpas.

These photos were taken on previous hunts. I would expect to see deer emerge from the native a bit to the right of the red arrow, behind the suppressor, about 150m away.



Here’s the same deer hotspot seen from my other shooting position under a stand of macrocarpa.



In the next photo, you’re looking back to the shooting positions, either under the first tree with the red arrow, or as on the occasion when this photo was taken, from the second position marked by the blue arrow. It all depends on what the wind is doing.



This time round the wind was being a complete arse. From the red arrow macrocarpa, I kept getting across me, but I wasn’t happy that it wasn’t then turning back towards the bushline. It was really fickle, so I moved down to the blue arrow position, but this was even worse, it was steadily blowing from behind me. So I abandoned that position too and stealthily snuck back to open ground, and up a spur to gain some height to where I had reasonably consistent wind blowing across me from about 10:00 so to speak. This was completely at odds with what the clouds were doing, which was blowing straight across me from 03:00.

This photo from the final shooting position shows what the wind was actually doing, and how hard gully winds can be to get right. My worry is that once the gully wind turns around against the face and blows back across me, that it then blows up the windup wind face of the spur and around back to the bushline.




D’ya like the stag in the photo? Cool, eh. Took me ages to get him to pose like that.

So I sat and waited. And waited. I scanned the bush edge and slowly counted 1 to 10 as my eyes moved from point to point, left to right. The position was uncomfortable as hell, falling sharply away from under me to the left, thistles everywhere. I knew I was exposed and movement would give me away, but I had to stop various bits of me from going completely numb.

Here’s a sequence of frames from the GoPro to show the progression in the light. I knew I had to wait until the last of the light, and patience was the key. But I also knew that in the past I’d shot animals here well before the last of the light, and to be honest I wasn’t expecting to have to wait that long.



As the dusk darkened, I started to struggle to see, I was painfully aware how much my previously excellent eyesight has deteriorated since I turned 50. But there was nothing doing, and at the point at which the skyline started to merge with the bush, I gave up. That was the first time I’d drawn a blank here and I was properly disappointed. So I cleared the rifle, packed up my gear and put the torch in my pocket, stood, put on my.

Before I walked off down the spur, I wondered how much light the Zeiss Duralyt could acquire, so I wound out the mag to 3x and pointed it at the hives. Gotta say, the Zeiss does a damn good job, the hives below me were way more visible through the scope than they were with the naked eye. I shouldered the rifle and clipped the 3 point sling, and reached into my pocket for the torch.

As I took a step forward, I pulled out the torch and my finger found the switch. I glanced up to the bush line one last time, glancing left to right, and… I froze. Right on the main game trailhead there was a stationary rufous coloured object that hadn’t been there before. It could only be one thing... A deer. I unclipped the sling, grabbed the rifle and dropped the bipod legs, and hit the deck like a sack of spuds. Fortunately, I was on quite an easy lie, and I was able to find a good position with the bipod within a few seconds – the tilting function of the Harris is worth every penny. As I pulled my right eye into the ocular lens, the Zeiss lit up the clear outline of a fat red spiker facing directly towards, dead still and staring right at me; I could just make out the two straight ~30-40cm antlers. I took deep breath, quickly chambered a round, wound in the mag to about 6x, reacquired the target, aimed for the top of the brisket, exhaled, and let one fly. From spotting the deer to pulling the trigger, it would’ve been more than 10-12 seconds at a guess.

Milliseconds after the suppressed muzzle blast, the sound of the 165gr Speer striking the animal came back as the loudest, most satisfying THWOP I have ever heard. With the naked eye I could just make out the rufus colour slowly tip over to the left and disappear. No more movement, no thrashing around, just utter stillness… Complete silence for a few seconds, before suddenly the roosting magpies started madly squawking.

 

[User00033]

I knew I’d hit it hard and I was 90% sure I’d dropped it. Now I was glad for the big Maxtoch torch, what a great tool. It lit up the clearing as I stumbled over the rough ground and panted my way upslope. I found the deer right where I expected it to be, lying right where it had been shot, very dead.



I couldn't think of think of a more terminal, lights out, drop on the spot bang-flop, a more emphatic put down, in all the years I've been shooting. So I allowed myself a minor self-congratulatory pat on the back, as the shot had poleaxed this deer when I really needed it the most.

The animal was a perfect fat spiker, an 18 month old or thereabouts. There was a calibre sized entry wound right on the top of the brisket in the front of the chest, and no other visible signs of wounding. I rolled and dragged it down the hill to the hives, hoping the bees would be asleep, then wandered off to get the bike. It was a moonless, crystal-clear night and the Milky Way was stunning. I was well pleased.

Do not leave your knife at home – I did and all I had with me was a gut hook and a Mercator lock knife, not ideal. But at least it was sharp, and I did have by sharpener at least. Oh, and the bone saw. Using the lights on the bike to illuminate the working area, I set up a "hyperlapse" video of me gutting the animal and spending a good while looking through the organs for the bullet. I never did find it, which was a shame.



The bullet had entered dead centre through the top of the brisket, run through the middle of the critical "junction box" of pulmonary and aorta veins and autonomic plexus, pulverising the surrounding lung tissue, then straight through the heart and into the rear lungs. I found a small hole in the front side of the liver, but no bullet. There was no obvious entry into the rumen. No idea where it ended up.

There isn't that much written up about these Speer 165gr bullets - they are known to be soft up front, fragmenting easily, but with a thick base, and are regarded as emphatic killers. But they don't really get much attention. They are essentially the same as Sierra GameKings I think, with a slightly larger soft point, and probably a bit softer overall in this weight. In three shots on game, I've hit hard leg bone and T2/3 vertebrae at 240m, and smashed them, and now the full monty vital zone strike, running lengthways through all the vital organs, from 140m. So very impressed with this bullet so far. I wouldn't use it for anything lesser than stout reds, sika or sambar though, its way too much for small deer and I suspect it would wreak carnage on the front end of a fallow or roe.

As I cleaned out the animal I couldn't help think how unlucky it was. That deer was 2-3 seconds away from escape. When I saw it, I had my hand on my torch, just about to turn it on. The deer would have been gone in a flash, and I would have returned home empty handed having never known it was there. After pondering the bang-floppery and the mechanism of such instant death, working through the organs and noting what was damaged, I wondered if I had ever shot a deer on the absolute very last of the light like that. I concluded I had not, not that dark, and for that I gave the Zeiss a pat on the back too. Quality glass that.

As I worked I also thought through my process of ambush hunting, the scanning and counting thing. There is definitely something in it, the way the brain becomes accustomed to moving from known feature to known feature, so that when something disturbs the pattern it immediately signals "ANIMAL". In poor light it just works. Time passes surprisingly fast, I am always surprised how 90 minutes just evaporates. If you are able to concentrate for long enough, in well-travelled game hotspots this type of hunting can be a high percentage game.



I had to lash the deer up onto the side of the bike and ride side saddle down the hill, which was quite exciting. I can't lift a deer now, the sternotomy has put paid to that for a while. As I approached the homestead, I was collared on the road by some local shepherds, beers in hand and one of their giant bush ciggies being passed around, they were having a rowdy party to celebrate the return of two of the cuzzies back from Aussie. I promised to join them for ales, but not before I’d hung up the spiker by the shed to cool off in the cold night air, lifting him using the Hilux's winch, a very handy tool indeed.



Several beers later I rolled into bed, exhausted. It was well after midnight and I stank like red deer meets jock strap meets pub carpet, and I couldn't have cared less.

 

[Klenchblaize]

Great read and a breath of SD fresh air.

K

 

[devonair]

A good combination of kit, luck and hunting drive paid off, great result and a great read.

 

[sikasako]

Great write up.
Really enjoyed it.

 

[User00033]

Sorry about the typos. Some errors with copy and paste and too much haste!

 

[Klenchblaize]

This is worth a thread in its own right and I don't mean the ability to use PhotoShop:-

I have the good fortune to stalk an uncommonly precipitous piece of woodland in SE England that is a delightful challenge to read the wind correctly. The above being just the tip of the iceberg in terms of 'tricks' it will play.

Somewhere on SD there is a thread about the best material to use in a wind dropper bottle and how its deployment will reveal many surprises. If you haven't got one in your kit bag of the type that uses ultra fine powder, smoke or soap bubbles get one.

K

 

[Scapegoat]

Enjoyed that immensely.

 

[User00033]

I do have one @Klenchblaize, a wind dropper made from a camera lens cleaner, the "puffer brush" type. I removed the brush and replaced with a nozzle, and added a little hole and rubber stopper so I can fill the puffer with the very fine ash I collect from the fireplace.

Only problem is, I routinely forget it. Along with my boning knife.

 

[User00033]

I'll have another go at the wind bit. What I meant to say was:

My worry was that once the wind turned against the face at the back of the gully, and blew round and down across me, that it would then blow along the upwind face of the spur I was on, and around again back to the bushline, to the point where the deer emerge (i.e. vortexing).

What I observe in a lot of these gullies, or small valleys, is that the winds can basically do a full 360°. In the picture above it was blowing from the south, a welcome but unseasonal cold blast. But at the blue arrow shooting position it was blowing from the north-east, and at the position I ended up in finally, it was blowing north to south. By observing some of the scrub between me and where the deer were expected, I was pretty sure the wind was blowing from the west, meaning that the wind was vortexing anti-clockwise in the head, or uppermost cleared part of the could potentially blow my scent straight up the olfactories of my quarry, not a good idea.

These vortex winds are very common in the steep country. Air is pushed down over a ridgeline, falling into the valley and then guided around the valley by the faces on either side, particularly near the head of the valley where there are basically three valley sides. Looking at what the clouds are doing can be completely misleading. Within the valley / gully, the winds can be blowing from any of the four quadrants, depending on your position with respect to the geography and the prevailing direction wind above.

In this particular spot, the prevailing wind is actually westerly, so it is usually blowing straight up the gully and into the deer's faces. The days I've picked to go there previously, the wind has been dead still or slightly northerly. This was the first southerly wind, and it was a problem. I've often assumed that the reason this clearing and others like it, with the same orientation, are so popular with the deer, is that they can stand back in the native and have a good old sniff before they come out. There's zero prospect of a deer if you have the wind blowing from behind you.

One of the NZ Forestry deer cullers wrote a paper on how to sidle around valleys into the wind, how to learn to read the wind in the valley with respect to contour and gradient, and how to plan your hunt accordingly. I think it was Phillip Holden, I must try and find it. Excellent advice.

I was serious the other day when I said that on tricky wind days, we'll rub ourselves in smelly old deer hide. As long as you haven't used Hoppes #9, Brut, your wife's soap or Persil (or equivalents), and you've paid attention to be basics of BO, smelly socks and fresh underwear, a bit of deer stink rubbed into the clothing goes a long way. I've also learnt to shower without using soap between hunts, and to wear the same outer clothing as the day before after hanging it out to dry in the wind overnight. Minor comfort deprivations make a massive difference to your detectable-ness in the bush.

Just don't forget what you smell like when its time to go home.

 

[John Gryphon]

I found by experience at one place that I lived on and hunted often was after purposely lighting a dry grass clump fire (safe season) on seemingly windless evenings and watching the smoke that 'wind in ones face' means jack schitt in the hills and gullies with down and up drafts. Or after burning off log piles and seeing the smoke in the early mornings how anabatic and katabatic breezes can be read.
One evening as i was on the hill looking down at the smoke the wind was hard in my face yet below a few 100 yards it was going in the opposite direction.

We would all enjoy being better deer hunters if there was no friggin wind lol.

 

[Klenchblaize]

I'll have another go at the wind bit. What I meant to say was:

My worry was that once the wind turned against the face at the back of the gully, and blew round and down across me, that it would then blow along the upwind face of the spur I was on, and around again back to the bushline, to the point where the deer emerge (i.e. vortexing).

What I observe in a lot of these gullies, or small valleys, is that the winds can basically do a full 360°. In the picture above it was blowing from the south, a welcome but unseasonal cold blast. But at the blue arrow shooting position it was blowing from the north-east, and at the position I ended up in finally, it was blowing north to south. By observing some of the scrub between me and where the deer were expected, I was pretty sure the wind was blowing from the west, meaning that the wind was vortexing anti-clockwise in the head, or uppermost cleared part of the could potentially blow my scent straight up the olfactories of my quarry, not a good idea.

These vortex winds are very common in the steep country. Air is pushed down over a ridgeline, falling into the valley and then guided around the valley by the faces on either side, particularly near the head of the valley where there are basically three valley sides. Looking at what the clouds are doing can be completely misleading. Within the valley / gully, the winds can be blowing from any of the four quadrants, depending on your position with respect to the geography and the prevailing direction wind above.

In this particular spot, the prevailing wind is actually westerly, so it is usually blowing straight up the gully and into the deer's faces. The days I've picked to go there previously, the wind has been dead still or slightly northerly. This was the first southerly wind, and it was a problem. I've often assumed that the reason this clearing and others like it, with the same orientation, are so popular with the deer, is that they can stand back in the native and have a good old sniff before they come out. There's zero prospect of a deer if you have the wind blowing from behind you.

One of the NZ Forestry deer cullers wrote a paper on how to sidle around valleys into the wind, how to learn to read the wind in the valley with respect to contour and gradient, and how to plan your hunt accordingly. I think it was Phillip Holden, I must try and find it. Excellent advice.

I was serious the other day when I said that on tricky wind days, we'll rub ourselves in smelly old deer hide. As long as you haven't used Hoppes #9, Brut, your wife's soap or Persil (or equivalents), and you've paid attention to be basics of BO, smelly socks and fresh underwear, a bit of deer stink rubbed into the clothing goes a long way. I've also learnt to shower without using soap between hunts, and to wear the same outer clothing as the day before after hanging it out to dry in the wind overnight. Minor comfort deprivations make a massive difference to your detectable-ness in the bush.

Just don't forget what you smell like when its time to go home.

Have a bump on me.

Here's one of my puffers and currently filled with lycopodium powder:

K