Just returned from OZ, chasing the red deer stag during the roar, my third year in a row to spend a birthday there, turning 62 the 6th. Still a little groggy after passing through 14 time zones and a mail queue filled up with tales of Mussatto having sport with me on this website. I reckon he ain't the only one.
It's a wonderful experience in the rain forest mountains of Eastern Queensland not far from the Barrier Reef, a place full of wildlife and birds of every hue, size and description. Especially fond of cuckaburras cutting loose in the low light of morning and evening. They sound like Northwoods loons with operatic range, all recently escaped from the asylum, celebrating their new freedom. Red deer stags roar their loudest and hardest in the evenings and mornings, too. Stalking close to a stag who sounds like an enraged lion while having a family of cuckaburras go off the deep end makes the skin on your neck shrink and your hair curl.
You may know the European red deer as the Hartford Insurance stag. That's him. Bigger than a whitetail, smaller than an elk, very much resembles an elk in his habits. During the roar (rut), he is more vocal than our elk. He gathers up hinds just like a bull elk gathers up cows. The hinds are silent except for their alarm bark, so red deer stags do not respond to calling as well as elk. However, on this trip, I witnessed two occassions when stags got so worked up roaring back and forth that they charged one another and had at it. Once I was screened off by a gully full of lantana (which is like multi-flora rose) and couldn't get to them, and the other time they were too far off for me to close the gap before the fight broke off. With reasonable practice, you can do a good mouth imitation of a red stag's roar, especially if you have a bugle tube or some other hollow apparatus to growl into and add dimension to your voice. Nevertheless, I seldom imitate the roar myself, preferring to stalk in silently and take my chances without betraying my position. Can't resist the temptation now and then to play challenges with them, though, especially at the conclusion of an evening's hunt.
When the stags turn on, they roar at sufficient intervals to allow you to pinpoint their position and ease in on them while they move between bedding and feeding areas. Stalking at its finest. Very exciting. I hunt early in the roar, before the good ones have gathered many hinds. Hinds of course act as body guards, keeping their stags from harm. The first year there I was lucky enough to get through three hinds following a good stag and get an arrow to him. This year I got through to one chasing a hind and made a good double-boiler running shot. Tried to grunt him to a stop as he sped by, but no success, so pulled back and let loose. Fella took a few more bounds down the mountain and then leapt into the air in that graceful slow-motion arc you see African plains antelope exhibit when they want to fly above the crowd. He never gained wings, or if he did, his magnificent soaring leap likely crowded the sun, melted his feathers and then crashed him back to earth. I was more spectator than participant.
Had many other stalks blow up on me, one notable close encounter lasting several hours on a humongous, vocal 5 by 5 with five hinds in tow. You gotta wait out a situation like that as patiently as you can, not making any mistakes, staying close but not crowding the situation, aware of each pair of eyes, counting on your quarry to make at least one big mistake. He never did, and they always win in a draw, even if you do everything exactly right. Of course, you win, too.
Thassit. Or at least the abbreviated version. Have spent a total of about 8 weeks hunting Australia now, from the Outback to the rain forest, for goats, pigs, red deer and a few russa, too, and want to say that if there were small game to hunt, OZ would be the premiere residency for anyone who loves the bow and arrow. I'll be back next year, looking to the Northern Territory for barramundi, boars and bulls with my mates Glenn and Harry, and for as many more years following as the money permits and the breath survives.
Now back to Ostrander. The garden needs plowed, the hen house readied for a hundred chicks. The grass needs mowed, too, and bidness needs taken care of, all of it this week so I can go chase turkey birds and hunt mushrooms with Lew next week.
Good luck to the new website, TradGang.com.
Topic: Story from OZ (Read 4499 times)
