Well I'd been talking to my mate Matt about getting out for a hunt at some stage close to the end of last year. Swifts Creek came up in the conversation and I had mentioned to Andy about a possible meet up to hunt there around September. This did not work out and my mate said he would be busy until after Christmas.

He calls me up late in November telling me he had some tentative dates after boxing day. I start getting excited about the possibility of some venison on the table. Then in early December my mate lets me know there has been a change of venue and we will be pig hunting in Yarrawonga on a 3,000 acre property. Now I was both excited and disappointed as no venison but the prospect of offloading many rounds on a pig infested property was rather exciting. Proceeded to buy 60 rounds for my Winny 670 that would be a perfect pig rifle and start to get my smaller calibre rifles ready for some serious shooting. Got another call two days before the trip to advise me that the trip to Yarrawonga was canned and we were back to Swifts Creek. Again excited and disappointed but more excited as the prospects of venison after a 2 year drought (due to move from Queensland to Victoria)were mouth watering. Out came the 303-270 and the 8x57 Mauser. Still packed the Winny as ferals were a plenty in the bush wherever you go.

We headed up the morning of the 27th December in my mate's Mitsubishi Triton twin cab ute. Picked up his brother-in-law Barry who is not a hunter but was up for the experience. Very nice fellow. we were supposed to meet his workmate at the property. Another friend from Matt's church, John, who is an avid deer hunter, was supposed to come but cancelled to spend more time with his family before he went back to work.

We rocked up to the property expecting to be camping out and quickly realised that the vacated shack on the property had running water and electricity. So a quick decision to camp in the house was wisely made. Here are some pics of our luxurious accommodation. One should be most grateful as it was much better than tenting it. This one is the master bedroom. The dude who lived here must have left in a hurry as he didn't bother taking some of his clothes, bedding and other personal items.

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This was where we set up our sleeping quarters

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This was the dunny we used kanga style (translation: squatting over) as it was mighty gross but again better than a squat in a dug hole out the back where the snakes were lurking. No reverse kangas were allowed.

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There was a kinder surprise in the kitchen sink. A bird must have got in and couldn't find his way out, thus perished in the sink.

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This is Matt hanging out the front of the shack.

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Me out the front with my trusty Win 670.

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It was a bit chilly at night being in the high country so we set up a fire in an old washing machine tub we had found last time we'd come here, about a year ago.

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Barry did most of the cooking and the first night for dinner we had some nice steak and bacon with some rice. It was a treat. There was a lot of bacon consumed that weekend. Here is a sample of Barry's cuisine.

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We head out for spotlight the 2 nights we were there with mixed success. We had a few misses on a couple of deer but Matt took a beautiful shot at a fox with his Howa 308 Win at about 100 meters. All he could see was two red eyes and he nailed it with a head shot.

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On the final night after taking that fox we decided to get up at 4 am the next morning to see if we could secure a deer in our final outing. I was on the spotty and Matt was the designated shooter. Barry handled the spotty and drove the ute mighty well during our outings but was the designated driver on our last morning there. Now for you guys that have not spotlighted deer before, the roos and foxes normally have a red tint to their eyes when you flash a spotty in their direction. The deer have larger eyes and have a tinge of green in their reflection. I found this most interesting as i have never spotlighted deer, except once in Qld where I didn't take notice of this.

As we were driving through a 4WD track with hills on either side, where we had spotted deer on a previous night, we spotted two eyes on our right side near a tree. We quickly realised they were deer and my mate proceeded to let off 3 quick shots. One was still there and appeared to be hit. Matt turns to me and tells me he has no more ammo. I gave him the spotty and proceeded to retrieve my Winny from the back seat and fired three quick shots as the deer was staring to move. It dropped on the spot on my third shot. We took a quick look and saw that the deer was down, it was a young healthy looking spiker. We continued to spotlight in another area and would come back for the deer at daylight.

We returned at daylight and this sight was waiting for us.

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On inspection we saw that my mate's shot had hit it in the stomach which assisted in slowing down the deer and my shot put it down on the spot. Here is a shot with me and the downed spiker.:grin:

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I proceeded to field dress it taking all 4 legs and the back straps. I cleaned up the legs and bagged and iced the meat back at the shack. Once that was done we proceeded to pack up and headed home with my first Sambar deer taken in Victoria and an esky full of venison.

I will try to get more pics of the surrounding hills that were taken by my mate so you can appreciate the terrain we hunted in.

We had a great time and Matt's brother-in-law, Barry was quite a funny guy and we all had a good laugh giving each other heaps.

Cheers

Jorge

Sounds great, but there are no pictures associated with this post, I assume boxing day is a big deal over there. Regards, Rick.

Sorry Rick, bad editing from my part.

Try again.

Looks like a classy joint. My kind of camp! Good luck. Regards, Rick.

Wow, nice work, Jorge. Didn't know spot lighting deer was legal in VIC (it isn't here in NSW) but venison is venison!

It's legal on private properties but not in state forest.

Ahhh, same here I think but only when the property owner, etc is doing it for pest control. Still, spotlight or daylight sambar is THE best venison, easily better than red and even better than really tender fallow venison.

Here in Victoria if you are doing it on behalf of the owner, who in this instance is not a licensed firearm owner then it is fine as long s you have been given permission, which was the case for us.

I must say I grew partial to red deer, but I have only had a couple of meals so far of Sambar and I have yet to savour the difference. I guess it has been two years since my last taste of red deer venison. I'm yet to taste fallow deer.

Great write up Jorge. Good to see you out and hitting the bush.
 Maybe next time some free range Sambar trophies could be on the cards?
 
 Was someone squatting in the house before you arrived?

Quote from: 22hornet;130314Great write up Jorge. Good to see you out and hitting the bush.
 Maybe next time some free range Sambar trophies could be on the cards?
 
 Was someone squatting in the house before you arrived?

Thanks Scott. Going back possibly in May for just that reason. Neglected to mention we missed taking a shot on a massive stag that crossed our path. I was on spotlight duty at the time and cursed severely in my own head as we watch that boy boy waltz past.

Even when you have a spotlight it can pay to have a small LED torch mounted above your scope, like Andy does. Helps for those "one off" things like you mentioned.

Wow, 22h, you make me feel like a paragon of hunting wisdom!

Very cool!
 
 Hard to get used to seeing hunters in short pants. Even if it were warm enough in hunting season, the bugs would eat you alive.
 
 Looking forward to hearing more from this spring's hunt!
 
 Paul

Summer, Paul. It's January.

Yeah, we hunt in "summer" too, but it's rarely above 10 degrees C (50 degrees F).
 
 Paul