PLAN B BUCK

Despite a dismal weather forecast of single digit temperatures with wind and heavy rain, we packed our gear and set off. Arriving in the mid-afternoon, we caught up with the station owners who informed us that the pigs were causing trouble and needed a touch up.

With a storm on the horizon and bitterly cold winds, we opted to drive the tracks checking trail cameras and seeing what was about. Beau successfully rolled several pigs, which was appreciated by the station owners, and I took a fallow doe for the table.

The next morning it was fresh, but we donned our winter gear and did a 12km hunt through steep, heavily timbered country checking trail cameras along the way. It was mid-morning and we were at a well-used wallow. We stopped for a spell and I slipped the SD card into a card reader to check the pics. “Not a bad stag, Beau” I said as I zoomed in. Instantly Beau replied “Dad, it’s the stag you shot and lost in the roar. Look at the drop tine.” The young fella was right. Regrettably, I had previously hit and lost this exceptional stag. That’s a story for another day, but fortunately the hit was not fatal and he was alive and healthy 4 weeks later.

We pressed on, seeing the occasional red deer but nothing we were interested in taking. The rain started to set in well and truly, so we headed back to camp. Over the next 36 hours we had some fun (insert sarcasm), but it taught my son some good life lessons. Getting bogged, a tyre coming off the bead, changing tyres in the field in unpleasant conditions and crossing swollen rivers, just to name a few hurdles we come across. We also squared away a few chores for the landowners, which always goes a long way.

The last night I looked at the forecast and saw the weather window in the morning did not look too bad. I suggested to Beau we should get amongst it, even if it meant getting wet, as we would be heading home around lunch. In his true spirit, he was all for it. We awoke early, had a solid breakfast, and were up on a high ridge as daylight broke. It was an overcast morning with the occasional shower. We were only a kilometre into our walk and a small mob of fallow does were making their way back into the timber a few hundred metres in front of us. We closed the gap and had them 180m above us. Beau got steady on his shooting sticks but unfortunately a shot did not present. We pressed on bumping red hinds and a few fallow. We also found an awesome new wallow, which we set a camera up on.

We had traversed roughly 8km and were on the return to the car. We were contouring along a well-used game trail with plenty of red stag sign, when good mate Billsy tried to phone me. For obvious reasons I did not take the call but as we popped out onto the ridgeline, I quickly dropped him a text. I put the phone back into my pocket and peered over to my left to see two fallow spikers standing there looking straight at us. Sprung on the edge of the fringe country and with Beau in no position to set his sticks up, I said to him “I’ll take one to add to the sausage count”. It was too good an opportunity with car only 500m away. I knelt down, cycled the bolt on the Kimber Select in 280ai, lined one up and slipped my finger onto the trigger. At that moment, they both broke and ran to the fence line. To our surprise another half a dozen bucks appeared from behind the crest in the hill. The fourth buck was a great even model around the 225-230 DS mark, but our attention immediately turned to the last buck. He was like nothing I had ever seen, the type of buck you only ever dream of seeing and one you would expect to see overseas. At around 120m they were in full flight. They hit the fence and decided to turn and run parallel with it, up and over the skyline out of sight.

Beau and I turned to me instantly and said “Dad did you see that buck. He’s like a Hungarian”. To which I replied,“ I know mate, how big was he!” I told Beau they only had two options: run down the fence line to the car and drop into the semi timbered gullies in the paddock below, or jump the fence and find cover within the heavy timber.

We sat for five minutes and then made our way along the fence on the ridgeline, slowly scanning with our binoculars as we made our way along. They were nowhere to be seen. I expressed to Beau that they must have jumped the fence and made cover. I told him we would have to go slowly once in the timber, as the foliage would be noisy. Beau suggested I go by myself. Knowing they were already on high alert, I said “are you sure mate?” To which he replied, “yes Dad, I want you to get him.”

I removed my pack and dropped down off the ridge into the timber. It was a bowl-like face that was heavily timbered, leading down for 200m onto another pasture paddock. I found a good game trail and was slowly stalking along, scanning every 5 to 10m with the Swarovski El range finding binos. I had contoured 150m and was two thirds up the face. I looked ahead to the fringe floor when I saw the mob break cover and take off into the paddock towards the river.

Knowing the country well, I knew they did not have many options. The swollen river below they surely would not cross. They could either make a small cluster of timber just above the river or make it all the way across the paddock to the next large timbered section. I cut back so I could use the cover and run down the spur to the fringe, hopefully catching them out before they made decent cover. As I poked out over the cover, I scanned the paddock. There was no sign of them at all. I looked briefly into the small cluster of timber 150m in front of me that rolled over down to the river. Nothing. Thinking they had beaten me across the paddock I put the binoculars into overdrive and tried to pick them up in the timber 400 to 500m across the paddock. Again, there was nothing.

Several minutes passed, then two of the younger bucks started coming up through the timber above the river. They paused and were looking about. A third appeared. He looked mature amongst the foliage. I dropped the binoculars, shouldered the rifle against the tree beside me. He was mature but I was sure he was not the exceptional buck we had seen 20 minutes earlier…or had I misjudged him in the moment?

Looking at the buck standing there perfectly broadside, I then saw the two long palms of the monster buck appear above his back, turning left and right. The big buck was obviously scanning for the danger within his domain. My heart rate increased. Trying to compose myself, I took several deep breaths. I honestly can’t recall if he stepped forward or the smaller buck moved, but I now had full visibility of the giant’s head and neck. I cycled a round and put the cross hairs on his neck. I had buck fever like never before. He was quartering towards me and I realised his front shoulder was now just clear of the slope in the hill. I lowered the cross hairs and lined up. The 280ai barked and a Barnes 145-grain LRX projectile was on its way. The deer scattered and they all instantly disappeared. It felt like an eternity, but was more likely 15 seconds, and the bachelor mob spilled out the side of the timber in full stride, one by one. As they ran up the hill, the big fella was nowhere to be seen.

I chambered another round, flicked my safety on and slowly made my way down. I had made it 80m and then saw one of the satellite dish antlers amongst the undergrowth. I made my way to him. This was one deer that did not have ground shrinkage. I wanted Beau to experience the moment with me and raced up the hill to the car as it was closer than the ridgeline Beau was on. I kicked the car over to see Beau on the skyline 300m above me. I put my hand out the window and fist pumped, to see Beau jumping up and down with elation.

When I got to Beau, he ran up to me and gave me a huge hug. “I’m so glad you got him Dad. You deserve him”. I had a sense of guilt that I didn’t let Beau have the shot, but he emphasised to me how happy he was for me to take him. We drove down to him; Beau was gob smacked when he first laid eyes on him. We took the moment in, followed by the usual photo session and then began caping him out.

To take a buck of this calibre was the stuff of my wildest dreams. To experience and take him with my son is just the icing on the cake. It just shows you never know what is over the next hill, around the next corner or on the next hunt. ‘Plan B’ was not a bad option after all. A few great life lessons for Beau were also learnt along the way.

We packed camp and headed home where curiosity got the better of me. Not being an official scorer but having a vague idea, I scored the buck in the high 250s on the Douglas scale. I spoke to a few friends who are scorers for some clarity. I was advised to get in contact with Rob Graham to have him officially panel scored. Rob is an absolute gentleman who arranged to pick him up, waited the 60-day drying time, and got a panel together to score the buck officially. When I received the news that he went 266 4/8 DS, I was absolutely thrilled. The score though does not reflect what this buck truly means to me. He represents all the years of hard work, the hours of field time both successful and in failure, the friendships I have created along the way and all the priceless memories I have had that I will cherish forever.

I’d like to thank all who have guided, educated and mentored me over the years (you know who you are), the station owners who grant me access, the ADA for supporting our way of life, Rob and the gents who scored him and most of all my best mate Beau, who selflessly wanted me to take the buck of a lifetime. It was a hunt I will remember and cherish forever.

“He was like nothing I had ever seen.”