A red roar mountain monarch
By Brad Allen
It’s common for life to get in the way of just about anything we enjoy doing, as was the case for me during the last red deer roar. I could only manage a three-day hunt on my regular hunting property, which failed to locate any quality stags, so when my mate Terry invited me to accompany him to one of his regular properties, I grabbed the opportunity with both hands, as I’d often listened to him rave on about the abundance of deer, reds, fallow and chital on the property and was keen to see this gem-of-a-hunting area for myself.
Brad’s stag where he fell and slid back down through the scrub.
As we drove into the property, a mob of four red hinds drinking at a dam in front of the homestead eyed us off before leisurely wandering away. A promising start I thought, as we pulled up at our accommodation shed and unpacked the vehicle.
As mid-afternoon rolled around, we kitted up ready for our first armed bushwalk, both of us keen to see what was about. The odd red stag roar could be heard in the neighbouring property as we made our way along the track that dissects the main ridge running through the property. “You’ll only see reds above the track and the chital and fallow are always below it,” said Terry. One has to wonder why that would be, but it appears to make perfect sense to the deer, who didn’t disappoint, as it was only red deer that we ever saw above the track.
From our elevated position, we spotted a small mob of chital does in the semi-open valley, some bedded, some feeding. They were all safe for now, as we wanted to scope the place out for trophy stags before taking any meat animals. A short distance on, we bumped a young red stag (accidentally spooked it) with two does, on the uphill side of the track, of course. He was only a young 3×4 and we allowed them all to go on their merry, romantic way.
We moved slowly, stopping frequently to glass the gullies and clearings above and below the track before locating another chital doe out feeding in an open paddock. One moment she was slowly mooching along and the next she was gone! If I hadn’t been watching her at the time, I wouldn’t have believed that a full-grown deer could just vanish in the middle of an open grass paddock. For reasons only known to her, she decided to lay down in the long grass and all that could be seen of her was her large ears. It took several minutes for me to point her out again to Terry, even though he had also been watching her moments before. On the walk back to camp just before dusk, we spotted another mob of four red hinds out in the open country below, but no more stags of any persuasion.
Before dawn the next morning we were up and ready to go. We could hear several red stags in the neighbouring property roaring their heads off and a solitary chital stag giving the odd roar in the open country in front of the homestead. We again stayed up high on the ridge where we had a clear view of the open country below. As the sun crested the eastern horizon, several mobs of hinds, both red and chital were out feeding in the open country below, as well as one small band of fallow does. It’s amazing how well you can see from an elevated position with a good pair of binoculars – mine being 10x Leica Geovids and Terry using his 10x Swarovskis. After you have hunted with a good pair of binos, it’s hard to imagine how you ever did without them, and you appreciate them even more as you and your eyes get older. As we headed back towards camp, a lone chital stag, possibly the one we’d heard roaring earlier, let out a bellow in the open valley below. We both scanned the general area with our binos until Terry locked on to a reasonable chital stag, heading our way about 500yds out. He definitely showed promise, about the same size as Terry’s last chital stag, but wasn’t nearly as big as the one I’d taken a couple years earlier. It would have been possible to ‘ambush’ him, but we decided to let him go and let him grow. Maybe next year.
It was all fairly quiet when we got back to camp, when a couple red stags in the neighbour’s place started to crank up. We quickly made our way to a slightly elevated position not far from camp where we could glass the area they were in and used Terry’s electronic deer caller to see if we could call one out of the bush. A short while later, we located two separate mobs of deer, each with reasonable 5×5 stags in charge. They would answer the caller, but had no intention of coming any closer, let alone jumping the fence into our block.
When the afternoon hunt came around, it was time to decide if one of us would try for a meat animal, as we would be heading home the following morning. Terry located a lone, young chital stag feeding lower down and it was decided that he’d be a candidate for the freezer. We sidled the ridge a little further to get in front of him and to have the breeze in our favour before heading down a gully, one ridge over from him. As we crested the ridge about where we thought he’d be, Terry spotted him feeding about 100yds away. I had my old Ruger .270 up on the shooting sticks and, as he presented a clear shot, I gently squeezed off a shot. The Barnes Vor-Tx 130grn TTSX hit the young stag in the right shoulder, dropping him instantly. He was in lovely condition and, as anyone who has eaten chital knows, he would definitely be good chewing. During the walk out, with the stag’s antlers on my shoulders and his back legs slung from my shooting sticks, I felt a lump under the skin of his left hind leg, which we later found to be the Barnes TTSX 130grn projectile that had travelled through about 1m of flesh and bone, virtually in a straight line. It was a steep climb back up to the track and I was mighty glad when we reached camp at last light. It had been an enjoyable couple of days hunting, with fresh venison hanging in the shed and one more hunt left for the morning.
In the pre-dawn, several stags could again be heard roaring close by. Terry cranked up his electronic caller and, as we scanned the bush edge with our binos, we were both pleasantly surprised when a stag answered to our right, in a basin behind camp. As the light improved, we finally located him, bedded on an open ridge about 400yds away with several girls in tow. Even at that distance, it was evident that he possessed quite reasonable antlers and was at least a 5×5 with good tops. Terry didn’t have to ask me twice if I’d like to have a crack at him, so we backtracked around the hill to approach him from above.
As is often the case with deer, we were spotted by a hind as we tip toed towards his location. At no more than 70yds, he quickly rose from his bed and high-tailed it directly away from us across the open paddock, only stopping to look back to see what had startled him as he got to the bush edge. I took a rest from the top of a wooden fence post, estimating the distance at around 200yds. The ‘hunter hold’ reticule of the Trijicon ‘Huron’ 3-9×40 danced around a little before settling on his heart/lung area as I squeezed off the shot. I heard the meaty thump of a solid hit, as the stag leapt forward over the three-strand barb fence, uphill into the scrub.
Seconds later, as the noise of the shot dissipated, we heard the unmistakable sound of a big animal crashing to the ground and roll down the slope. “He’s down, Terry, let’s go and find him.” I ranged the shot at 205yds before walking down to where we saw him jump the fence. It wasn’t long before we found his deep gouged hoof prints going uphill in the soft soil, then a few splatters of blood. As I scanned the low scrub above, I made out his antlers sticking out of the grass. The 130grn Barnes Vor-Tx TTSX had given complete penetration, taking out both lungs, causing a quick and humane death to this mountain monarch.
Brad felt the Barnes projectile under the skin of a hind leg during the carry out.
I never grow tired of hunting red stags in the roar, as there’s something very special about their primordial bellowing that draws me back year after year, a connection that only a deer hunter could understand. Enjoy the hunt!
