Sometimes it pays to be flexible…..
Like today for example. My original plan had been to get up early (which I did), then head to a longish creek, deep in a south facing gully in which I had a close encounter with a sambar (most honks I've ever received), as well as a small mob of pigs - the first pigs I've actually laid eyes on in the flesh, on the same day. Unfortunately neither panned out, but I had a backup plan if nothing was showing on the open areas with a small speaker and a few pig calls to see if I could lure them out of the thick scrub.
While eating breakfast and drinking a coffee, a quick check showed SE-NE winds for the day, almost the worst kind for this gully as it would be swirling up and down all day long when the changes in local winds intermixed with the warming air as the day progressed. Fortunately, this was almost the perfect wind to stalk goats on an area on the opposite side of main ridge complex, although it would give me a wind advantage in one direction only, rather than my preferred katabatic morning winds down gully changing to afternoon thermals and usual NW up gully in the middle of the day. Time it right and you can get the winds in your favour in both directions and hunt two gullies in one trip. Still, nothing ventured nothing gained and I could always head up a second gully if I returned empty handed.
Picking my favourite gully as my target, the car made it's way up the dirt track from the main road in the first light of the morning. A red flash on the edge of the bush where the track doglegs around some farmland caught my eye. Car brake light? When it happened again I realised I'd seen a fox light, intended to scare off foxes from the newly born lambs. A 1.5km walk along a rough 4wd track from my parking spot surprised a number of kangaroos who were returning to the bush from the farmland they'd fed on overnight. By now the light had come on full, although the sun wouldn't crest the ridge I was climbing towards for quite a few more hours yet and in the distance I spotted 2 white blobs, one clearly a dirty white of a sheep (dead?) while the other was a clean white, not unlike a goat. While not what I was expecting, it wasn't unheard of for the goats to be down low in the hills early in the morning - only the week before I'd followed up a mob of goats up a similar situation from the bottom and they were well ahead of me when I got there at 9am. Following the road around to the start of the gully proper, I continued on a little further to glass back and saw a sheep (dead) and some household rubbish in a burn pile.
Turning up the gully I made my way through the thick wattle/grey box/red gum sapling forest to reach the open alluvial flats on the far side. This whole ridge has been mined/dug over/panned for gold in the past, and everywhere there are reminders, from small tracks running up to open mine entrances, collapsed reef channel diggings, water races and dams.
Passing through this little dam I made my way to the first choice of the morning - head left into the smaller/darker/deerier offshoot, or continue on up the main rockier creek bed. With the wind in my favour and just the occasional thought of a whiff of goatiness, I decided to sneak up the offshoot for 50-100m and see what the winds would bring. If the eau de capra continued, I'd keep going, if not I'd return to the main creek. Pushing on up the tighter darker gully gave no return on the nose, so I headed back to the main gully and moved on, slowly working along the tight creek bed, using each tree or patch of brush as cover where possible as I'd been busted too often in the open by an unseen animal. Passing through the sites of my previous 3 goat harvests in this gully, the scent of goat came and went on the wind, sometimes unmistakable and at other times absent altogether along with faint and intermittent but possibly fresh tracks and droppings. This is common when stalking goats from afar in hilly terrain, eddies of wind over the land can pick up their scent and carry it long distances down/up gullies. Reaching the middle ground which is a series of granite outcrops over which the now running creek tumbled was unusual, normally it is truly ephemeral for it's whole length with patches of water appearing then disappearing under the gravel until forced up again by the granite bedrock underneath. I'm sure these patches of gravel held by the granite were what the old time gold panners were looking for, areas where the heavy gold would accumulate.
Arriving at my next decision point came quicker than I anticipated, making better time than usual was down to the recent rains leaving the usually chip dry leaves and twigs nice and moist making walking quietly much easier. From here I had a few choices: head left up another dark and damp heavily deer marked gully which took me further away from the car, head right up the nominal main creek which was a continuation of the rocky gully even though it was smaller than the other branch, cut across into a smaller gully off to my right and head back towards the car or simply turn around and head for home. Deciding to head up the main creek bed for a short distance to another fork before making a final decision, I climbed the point of the converging creeks and stopped for a bite to eat and drink. Unstrapping my unused and until then unneeded trekking pole, I extended it and shouldered my pack, quiver and grabbed my bow.
Side hilling into the creek bottom, another waft of goat slid past me and vanished. Using my nose to trace out goats is something I've had a fair bit of practice, so I kept heading upwind, following the direction of the occasional goat tang. Usually it's a faint tinge to the air, but occasionally a full punch in the face of a rutting or group of mature billies is smelt and at times almost tasted. I've long joked that I'm part goat as I used to love climbing small rocky bouldery creeks as a boy fishing for trout, and I've been drinking goat milk as an adult as well as enjoying fresh goats cheese from a couple of local producers and now enjoy chasing the real thing in the hills with bow in hand.
As I reached the next fork, the scent came from the left, a wetter and darker gully. Normally my experience has shown that goats prefer the drier sunny rocky faces, but not one to pass up data that suggested otherwise, I hedged my bets somewhat and climbed up the point of the fork zig-zagging a little to both ease my tiring legs, as well as keep an eyeball on both sunny faces (the north facing of both gullies). I was sure I would see/hear them on the sunnier and dryer right gully, but when I got a face full of goatiness again on my left, I dutifully turned upwind like a bloodhound and crept towards the dry prickly coprosma, grass tree and box covered slope. When the aroma of goat trickled out to nothing, I crossed again into the main creek. Passing another small offshoot gully on my left, my nose told me to turn right. Climbing up the finger ridge separating the two gullies again, my nose was in the lead taking me back and forth but no further smells were forthcoming, and I spent some time glassing, listening and smelling. I moved onto a small mining track and progressed towards what looked like a pair of mine openings in the side of the hill while glassing the opposite sunny side. Reaching the collapsed shafts, I stopped to water the horse (and me) when I heard a crack off to my left. Climbing back up to the crest of the finger ridge, I bumped a pair of wallabies and a mob of kangaroos. As they moved off, the wind switched and a gust blew up behind me - clearly the warming face of the upper ridge was now beginning to overpower the still consistent east wind. Recognising I would be lucky to get helpful winds heading up higher, I was just about to turn and head back across the top of the right gully and head towards a return trip down another gully I hadn't visited for some time, when I half heard a baa off to my left. Hearing goats at a distance can be problematic and not entirely without issues, I once spent an hour stalking a rubbing limb that "baad" most convincingly. When I didn't hear it again, I wrote it off and was looking for an easy passage through the thickish scrub, when from my right came another trace of goat.
Thoroughly confused, I was certain that they could be anywhere and resolved to simply follow any scent, surely it would take me to where they were: wherever that was!? Slowly making my way as each gust of wind brought more information, I quartered like the before mentioned bloodhound, simply stopping and waiting between gusts. Suddenly off to my left again I heard a clear baa.
Contact.
A further couple of calls confirmed it beyond doubt. Guestimating that they were just higher than I was, I quickly made my way through the small gully between us losing elevation as I went and slithered my way onto the point of the ridge behind a large burnt stringybark. These trees are the main reason I often wear black and grey, the burnt bark and trunks of trees are everywhere, particularly on these dryer faces and I'm convinced they help my vertical form fit in. Poking one eye out to scan the slope in front of me immediately gave me a result in a white form feeding 40m ahead of me. Watching it for a minute or two confirmed it was heading towards me then a second, third and then forth animal stepped into view appearing out of nowhere. They were all young kids, old enough to be free from mum but certainly not old enough to be wandering the hills unsupervised. Ducking back behind the tree trunk, I collapsed and packed my trekking pole and drew an arrow from the quiver over my shoulder. Nocking the arrow I again cautiously peered around the trunk to see an adult, but still young nanny in attendance. With five pairs of eyes at least, the odds of getting busted went up, but at least four sets were of young inexperienced kids so I hoped my chances were still good. As I watched, they all turned and dropped out of site behind a fallen long dead tree some 15m away from me. As the last kid vanished, I quietly and quickly crept parallel with the fallen tree into a tangle of limbs, which if the goats continued their path down the gully would give me a 10-12m broadside shot. As they moved into view on the other side of the fallen tree, one of the kids fed in against the trunk, and looked like climbing over which would put it about 8m away, but with the tangled rubbish between me and it, the chances of a good shot were low and the chance of discovery high but it turned at the last minute to follow it's fellow kin around the top of the fallen tree.
As the first two kids (a neat grey/white and a light tan/white, both unusual markings for this area) crossed towards me, the young nanny followed along as the third animal. The first kid looked towards me as I readied myself. Keeping still, it's patience wasn't of an older animal and it soon lost interest and when the second kid came up behind it, they both pushed on level with me downhill. While I certainly wasn't above shooting a young kid like these, the smaller target they made and the promise of the perfect table goat coming next made me hold off. Just as she stepped past the top of the trunk of the fallen tree, the two kids who were now a little past me flicked their heads up and took a couple of quick steps in alarm.
@*$*%& it, not again! I've lost count of the number of times I've been busted in close proximity before a shot could be got off.
The nanny took three or four quick steps and stopped broadside in a clear shooting lane just as I came to full draw. Hitting my anchor, I picked a clear spot centred on her rib cage, expanded and released the arrow which sailed through the air, through the lower part of her chest and I heard a thunk, as I discovered later, it hit plumb dead middle of a small wattle sapling and stuck there. Side note here, this is the 3rd of 8 shots on goats I've had stuck into trees afterwards, not that you'd guess it as there is a lot of space between trees here!
The goats all took off downhill at a run without a sound, until 10 seconds or so later I heard the familiar final bwaaaarrr. The nanny was hidden by the numerous wattle saplings, but I was sure she was down. The young kids with her began to call, and across the gully on the far side a mature billy headed towards them and they grouped up and moved to the top of the ridge. As I stepped forward to go and check out the site of the shot and find my arrow, off to one side was the startled face of another young kid. It took off at a run to join the main mob, and they continued up the ridge and out of site. Reaching the site of the shot, I immediately found good amounts of foamy lung blood.
Turning to look for my arrow, I wasn't surprised to find it stuck into the trunk of a sapling below her, what with all the rocks and sticks below I hadn't heard the familiar clatter of an arrow landing. What was surprising was that I was missing a vane, even more surprising was that it had been cleanly stripped off the base which was still attached.
Pulling the arrow free and giving it a clean up before returning to the quiver, I turned downhill and spied a motionless white form in the creek bed below. A quick check with the binos confirmed a downed goat. As practice I always follow up the blood trail even if I can see an animal because I learn something every time, even from modest and short blood trails like this. Following the blood trail showed she'd taken the straightest line diagonally across the gully downhill before a slide took her to the final resting place.
Dropping the gear I grabbed a drink and a bite to eat before unpacking my gear which consisted of: 1 knife, 1 game bag and 1 plastic bag and…..nothing else.
Stuff it, in my change of plans this morning I'd neglected to add another bag or two and my steel. Good thing I'd only just sharpened the knife shortly before!
Setting up for a few photos, I proceeded to take the back legs, front shoulders, back straps and some of the neck meat. As I took off the right (far) shoulder, I saw colour and found my lost vane.
A quick autopsy to check the health of the animal and see where I'd hit showed a perfect shot through one lung and the heart. With a low exit, the blood had freely exited, though I was amazed at the amount captured by the offside shoulder. I'd hit slightly lower than intended, but directly in line, punching through a rib on the nearside perfectly splitting the bone, before taking out the lung, heart and exiting the offside shoulder, somehow missing the bones in the foreleg.
My knife tip is in the hole made by the broadhead, the split was probably twice as wide as the head itself.
Packing up and staggering under a much heavier and poorly distributed load, I turned downhill using the creek bed I was in as a road until I reached the main gully where I contoured across the slope above the gully with the intention of reaching the hidden gully between me and the car. As I was stumbling through the grass trees and dry box on the scree-like face, two owls jumped from a tree and took off. Shortly after I joined a well formed game trail, and just 30m or so ahead of me another white form appeared on the far side of stunted multi trunked box.
WTF? Surely I couldn't just walk into another goat. But another one there surely was, and a quick glass showed him to be a mature billy with one horn. Dithering about whether to chase him or not only delayed me a few seconds. Dropping the heavy game bag, I nocked an arrow and slipped in close to the box tree. With small branches blocking an easy 12m shot through the trunks, I very carefully edged my way around to the right until his head dropped out of site when he took a mouthful of feed. He raised and lowered his head a few times feeding on the grass, before turning quickly to look towards me. From behind the tree I could just make out his horn, clearly he was facing me and alert. After a few minutes of stalemate, the unistakable sound of leaves being tugged on reached my ears. Huh? Risking a bust, I carefully leaned a little further out and found I been watching the root of a fallen tree directly in line behind him, it had the curl and all so I had been easily deceived. Almost as soon as I discovered my mistake, a rogue gust of wind must have taken my scent past him, as he quickly faced towards me for real, then turned and nervously made his way quickly off in the opposite direct. I wondered later whether in fact the tracks and smell I'd come across lower down belonged to this billy, and it was only co-incidentally that I came across the mob higher up. This billy looked a little out of sorts and may have left/been left by the mob which I've seen a couple of times before. His droppings were a completely different colour, and he moved stiffly when making his way off.
Returning to pick up my load, I slid down into the hidden gully past numerous deer tracks on the ridge and wetter southern aspect face before returning to the car on yet another innumerable mining track. Reaching the car, I was stuffed and was looking forward to a late lunch post clean up and meat care.
It's always nice to have a fridge full of game meat ready to go, goat curry, goat stroganoff, goat burgers and goat stew are all favourites in our household. I just have to remember to take ALL my kill kit, not just some of it next time…..
Gear used:
'74 Shakespeare/Root Warrior 58", 55lb @ 28"
Full length 500 spine GT Warrior
100gr brass insert
25gr brass footing
200gr Outback Stealth single bevel
3x 4" Trad vanes
Safari Tuff Quiver with custom arrow cover
Thanks for reading!
Steve
Topic: Sometimes it pays to be flexible….. (Read 1365 times)
