ADA WA Branch members hunt April 2018 Part 1

Travelling to Victoria and Day 1 hunting.

In Mid April Myself and two other members of the WA branch of the ADA headed off on a 3 day drive to Sambar land. We were meeting a 4th member that was flying over, in Albury and then continuing on to my house. We were using the house as a base for day hunts as it is only half an hours drive at the most from some prime hunting locations. Craig, Steve and myself set off on a Tuesday evening around 6pm and drove East for about 5 hours before camping at a spot called the Breakaways on the Hyden-Noresman road. We had a short 6 hour sleep, and awoke to a thick blanket of fog covering everything, we cautiously continuing on to Noresman to refuel.

 After refueling we continued on leaving the fog behind as we climbed the hills heading East and then traveling across the Nullarbor plain, we had a couple of stops along the way to change drivers and have a bite to eat. We stopped at the Nullarbor roadhouse where we saw a Dingo eating from a bag of rubbish by the side of the campground, a sad reflection on todays society, someone saw fit to discard their rubbish less than 50 meters from a bin. No to mention the Dingo reduced to being a pitiful scavenger. Whilst I understand such an animal must scavenge in order to survive during hard times it is sad to see such an iconic and elegant animal scavenging because of some thoughtless person.

We traveled on leaving the treeless plain behind us and entering the rolling hills of South Australia's Mallee country before arriving in Ceduna in the early evening. We had a quick stop to have something to eat and refuel again before continuing on to Minipa where we camped the night just out of town at the Tcharkuldu Rock campsite. We once again rose early and continued on our way travelling through Port Augusta, Renmark, Mildura and Deniliquin before arriving in Albury around 7pm. We made a quick stop at Aldi to grab some food then continued on to my house, arriving a little over an hour later.

We turned the oven on when we arrived and unpacked while a couple of Pizza's were cooking. Once we were unpacked we sat down to enjoy some Pizza and a couple of beers while we discussed plans for the following morning. Craig was to drop Steve and myself on a high ridge, then head to the airport to pick up Daren. Steve and I would drop down into a gully and hunt along it before meeting Craig and Darren on their way back from the Airport. With plans settled and belly's full we settled in to a good nights sleep.

We rose early and after a quick breakfast loaded our gear into the Landcruiser, Craig dropped Steve and myself high on the ridge before driving away to pick up Daren. Once things had quietened down and we had assessed the wind direction we dropped down off the ridge and began descending the hillside to reach what I hoped was some more open country with feeding areas for the deer. We quietly fought our way downhill, both of us loosing our footing at times and sliding downhill until we could stop ourselves, it was somewhat of a relief when we broke through the thick dog wood and emerged in some flatter more open country with grassy clearings. Things were looking promising and it wasn't long before we started seeing deer sign everywhere, we even found a recently used wallow hidden in the Blackberries and ferns.

A nice little wallow hidden away in a deep gully.

Steve and I had a quick look around taking note of the trails leading to and from the wallow and the height of the mud scrapes on the surrounding trees, to gain an idea of the size of the animals using this wallow. We continued hunting our way downhill finding more sign as we went. As this was Steve's first time hunting Sambar I took the time to point out every bit of sign I noticed, a footprint here and there, an old rub mark or scrape and even old browse lines. I pass on as much information as I can to Steve, as living in the West we only have a week or two each year when we can make the trip East to hunt these amazing Deer.

Mud rubs on a tree near the Wallow.

We continued on  hunting our way toward our intended meeting point, and as we entered the junction of two gully's we put up a big old Sambar Hind. I had the rifle to my shoulder and just caught a glimpse of her through the trees before she was swallowed up by the Dogwood and Wattle, Steve saw me shoulder the rifle then heard her crashing through the bush but never saw her. And so went Steve's first encounter with a Sambar, no Honk, just the sound of an animal making good her escape. We sat down and had a quick cup of coffee and went over what had happened and came to the conclusion she must have either scented us, as there was virtually no wind or heard us. In fact I very rarely do get honked, I started hunting Sambar in 1992 and it wasn't until 2017 that I actually got honked! I had put up countless animals and shot a few too but never got honked. One of my friends suggested I may be too quiet when I stalk (is there such a thing), maybe he's right as most of my Sambar encounters happen at less than 30 meters.

My first Honking came one evening as I was cooking dinner, I was camped on a ridge above an old logging coup and had finished hunting for the day. It was dark and I had a dim-able led light on a tripod over my table as I was cooking. When all of a sudden I got honked from all of 2 meters away, I was stunned! then the animal honked again and took off into the night. The next morning I looked at the hoof prints and could see that the Deer had seen the dim light and sneaked in to investigate what it was. Since that initial honking I have only been honked another 3 times and one of those was also whilst cooking.

We then continued on our way hunting into the wind as best we could while making our way to our pick up point, where hopefully Craig and Daren would either be waiting or arrive shortly after us. We saw nothing more that morning in the way of  Deer though there was no shortage of sign which was encouraging, and after one last gut busting hill climb we made it to our rendezvous point about 5 minutes before we heard Craig's Landcruiser approaching. Craig had Daren and his gear with him and had done some food shopping so we loaded our gear in and headed back to the house for some lunch and to hatch an afternoon hunt plan.

Over lunch we decided that Craig and Daren would hunt a gully system that I knew held good numbers of deer, while Steve and myself would hunt a gully system I had never hunted before. So after a good feed and a rest we headed out mid afternoon to hunt until dark. Craig once again dropped Steve and myself off and then headed off with Daren to hunt their gully, we arranged to meet back at the drop off point after dark. Steve and I crossed a creek and headed up the gully with the cool afternoon wind in our faces, we encountered plenty of sign but no deer and continued up the gully until we reached a flat area at the junction of two feeder gully's where we set up to wait until dark.

We could hear the birds becoming agitated as the sun set and we could hear animals moving around but unfortunately did no get a look at them, that's the way it goes sometimes. All too soon we lost the light and we walked out with our head lamps on to the drop off point where Craig and Daren were waiting for us.They too had a similar story in that they had seen plenty of sign and had put up a deer but had not had a chance to take a shot. We made the short journey back to the house and quickly showered before heading to the local pub for a counter meal and a couple of well earned drinks before retiring to bed eager to hunt in the morning.