Ultralight Ultracheap Deer Hunting & A Ripping Yarn or Two

First: Gear Advice

I am often approached by prospective deer hunters for advice, particularly about what they need to acquire before beginning hunting. How little both in weight and dollars do you need to spend (supposing you already actually own nothing – unlikely)? I have put together here some suggestions (with relevant links to previous posts).

Here is a photo from many years ago (c1992) of me with a young stag taken off my foxhounds at the bottom of Deep Creek near Walhalla, Gippsland. Note ex-army boots, woolen trousers (patched), Aussie Disposals shirt & hat. The deer would have been shot with my old SMLE. One shot. Thirty yards. It is dead right where it was running. Lesson: You don’t need to spend a fortune to (successfully) hunt deer.

More Deer Hunting Adventures Below Article:

1. Pack: 260 grams: US$ 14 (May 2020): Such a pack as the Superlight Hunting Pack just stripped down from its bought weight of 305 grams to 260 grams, less if you have some sewing skills. Some other cheap backpacks. In whatever case your pack should never weigh more than 4-500 grams. You are kidding and punishing yourself if you think you need more. I could easily hunt for a weekend camping trip with such a pack. Read Backpack Tips and Tricks and A Lazy Man’s Guide to Hiking and Hunting.

2. Tent/Shelter. You don’t need much. A warm fire is more important. Perhaps this Ultralight Ultracheap Rain Fly 308 grams and US$28.43 (May 2020) would suit you. It comes with guys and pegs (at a total of 403 grams). Some other cheap tents. I have suggested before how useful a $10 blue poly tarp is. You might even need a $2 space blanket as a ground sheet too! Or you can use an opened out garbage bag from the cupboard. One of these (carried in a pocket will also make a fine emergency poncho too. I have often used one so. You could even stow your deer meat in it (but not after you had used it for these other things)! You definitely don’t need any more than this (except sometimes an ultralight head net) and something for the things that bite. NB Tips for avoiding leeches.

3. Sleeping Mat. Perhaps this R4.2 Vertex mat  at 450 grams and US$39.99 (Feb 2020). Of course if you have to you can make do – but your (warm comfy) mat is your best investment in a pleasant trip. For years I used the 2 1/2″ thick  Thermarest Neoair X-Lite Womens at around 340 grams and an R-rating of 5.4 which I still think is a great pad, but am now using the Exped Synmat HL Winter which is nearly 4″ thick of wonderful comfort, has a great surface and has a similar R-rating (5.2) even though it is a little heavier. My back you see. I really recommend it.

If you are going to spend big bucks on anything at all spend it on this mat. A great night’s sleep makes all the difference. As does a great wife/husband! Check out mat R-ratings here. Tip: You can repair holes easily with cuben tape. BTW I find that I can buy things in the US cheaper and have them delivered by Shipito.

4. Sleeping Bag. I like a bag that is around 500 grams and around -1C. If you have some warm clothes, and a warm mat that is usually enough. I have been using my Montbell for years and years. I carry a light down coat and a down vest (worn on my lower body in bed), also down socks, a buff, long johns and long top (wool) and of course I have my ultralight DIY mocassins.

The clothes make a bag warmer in winter but you can still use it in the warmer months. This cheap down bag is worth considering. You can buy an approx 0C  600 gram 800 FP down bag from Aliexpress for around US$80, but I really recommend the Montbell. Pillow ideas here: DIY Ultralight Pillow & etc – follow the links.

5. Gun. All you need is something in a legal deer calibre which will knock down sambar deer. Likely more deer have been shot with a 303 SMLE than any other calibre ever invented though probably few use them now. can’t imagine why. It is just about the best action ever invented.

The sights are superb and the whole thing is practically unbreakable. i think you could probably attack it with a hammer yet afterwards it would still work pretty well. You can carry some spare rounds in the (hollow) butt. They are available quite cheaply though and are just about unbreakable and have terrific sights. Sporterised they are quite a good weight too. People used to be trained to accurately hit a man-sized target with one at 800 yards. Practice.

Its equivalent, the ‘enemy’ 1898 Mauser is another option. Ex-army versions of this are still around for $100 or so. I have one in 30:06. The Mauser is another unbreakable, unbeatable action. Again the iron sights are good and strong. the whole gun is tougher than your are. it will kill deer again and again inexpensively. It is interesting to contemplate whether the two above competing firearms I own were ever fired in anger at each other, and what the outcome was. Well the Germ,ans lost WW2!

Another cheap alternative is a Winchester 30:30 lever action with those excellent buckhorn sights. They may be considered a little light on but if you hit a big guy in the chest he is not going far.

6. Cookset. I think I have covered this in the post: Cookset Solutions. You can buy a cheap aluminium billy anywhere or a cookpot from Aliexpress for a couple of bucks.  You may make your own Windscreen from some aluminium flashing (or I have used the sidewalls from some soft-drink cans glued together with something like JB-Weld) and it is certainly also fun to make your own alcohol stove pretty much for free – such as the Super Cat Stove, (one minute) Soda Can Stove, Garlington Stove  New Fancy Feast Stove – the Egg Ring Stove wood burner is also a must.

7. Rain Gear: All you need is one of those $2 disposable plastic ponchos. That is all I carried in my breast pocket for many years in the bush. It will be pretty trashed after a long day pushing through the wet bush (but often it doesn’t rain). Coghlans have one made of space blanket (mylar) which is even warmer in wet cold weather. This one might even save your life! A tough nylon poncho is a better idea as it makes a more reliable shelter. Aussies and Mitchells used to have them for a bit over $20. Aliexpress still do. I think Sea to Summit has a petty good one for around $80. You can make your own.

8. Boots: No, I don’t think you need special hunting boots. That’s just silly. A tough pair of runners is fine. Be careful where you put your feet so as not to spike, bark or sprain your ankles. A pair which does not get much heavier when wet is good. I have found Keen’s Targhee 2s suit me fine. They are light (around 400 grams) so you can walk all day in them. A little heavier the Redback ‘Alpine Walker’ lace-up boot (about 600 grams from memory) for a bit over A$100 is just excellent. They only add a bit over 50 grams in weight when wet.

9. Knife:  Just be sure you know how to sharpen it. Here are some ultralight sharpeners which are also very cheap. I carry a 30 gram $20 Gerber pocket knife all the time, every day.

For deer hunting the Olfa knife is a cheap (around $30) replacement blade alternative, so you don’t need to learn how to sharpen a knife – a high art anyway!. It is just wonderful!

10. Saw/s: You can buy this wonderful Fiskars pruning saw from Bunnings for $30+. I make a one ounce one like this. All I usually carry is some embryo wire that only weighs a few grams. Why not throw in a one ounce Ultralight Fishing Kit? Fresh trout is always nice.

11. Communication: Take you mobile phone. It may work, particularly if you walk uphill. Using 112 may help in an emergency. If you can’t afford a sat phone or a satellite messenger – you should when you can,  then here is a cheap radio (less than $40) which can use existing repeaters on a number of different frequencies to get a message out. PS; Learn what the emergency channels are)

12. Navigation: When you can afford them the Vicmaps Topo maps are the best. They only cost around A$8 for quite a large area (in 1:25,000), more than you can usually hunt in a day anyway. You can (though not legally- duh!) share them with others when you have downloaded them. Be sure to save them. You can use Google Maps, but it is difficult. If you can’t these are free. You should have them and this Paper Maps App on your phone and you need never get lost.

13. Clothing: Don’t wear cotton. It will kill you if you get wet and cold. Quickly! Really! I have seen it! Wear wool or synthetics which will dry quickly. A warm woolen coat or jumper which will keep you alive (along with a couple of pocket-sized space blankets – and a Bic) are a (minimum) must in case you ‘get bushed’ and have to spend a night out. It will happen eventually!

With a bit of cord in your pockets or in your bum-bag or day pack you can pitch a space blanket just like you can a poncho, like this. This is the enormous advantage of a poncho as a piece of rain gear over a rain coat – even though it is less convenient in the bush.

PS: I repeat, always take a Mini-Bic, a short length of bicycle tube (as an indestructible fire starter) and read this: How to Light A Fire In the Wet

Just enough room for a man and his dog – an essential on a cold night!

Aside – Camo: I am totally opposed to camo. Not only is it just one of those unethical ‘devices’ intended to deprive the deer of its natural advantages (like telescopic sights – and so much that goes on especially in hound-hunting  today) but it just frightens the deer away which ‘normal’ clothing will not do. See ‘Fair Chase‘ and ‘Silence of the Deer‘ and ‘Avon River Walking Track‘ for some thoughts on ethical hunting practice.

Can the deer Survive?

Some groups today are taking over ten deer on a weekend (regularly) and some ‘hunters’ expect to take a deer every trip – by whatever means! Mostly lights! I notice the posted photos too. Far beyond what they could meaningfully utilise or need.

Why, I found sixty freshly killed dead deer on one weekend along a three kilometre section of the Wonnangatta River from which no meat at all had been removed.  The resource will not forever sustain this level of pressure. This is pest management, not hunting.

The fallow catastrophe: Before WW2 people hunted fallow deer (which were then widespread and numerous) in just such an unsustainable way. Eventually they became so rare that hunting them had to be banned for fifty years before they recovered to a level which would sustain any hunting at all. Do you want that? Soon (within probably less than a decade) they will be back to where they were when the ban had to be implemented. None. People are shooting them off forestry tracks around here every night. Sambar can be driven to the same point quite quickly too, especially as Government ‘game management’ is now helicopter  shooting and poisoning them as well. The decline has already begun. Last summer’s bushfires didn’t help them a lot either.

Summing up: I hope the above gives you some ideas about starting deer hunting on a budget If you follow the advice you should be able to come up with a complete kit for weekend (or longer) backpack hunting for under $500. If it costs you more you have’t been paying attention.

Self-Sufficiency: All our lives I/we have been on a budget. We are pretty good at it. We haven’t earned a great deal but what we did earn we still have because we did for our selves and made do. Saved our money. This is always a good idea. That rainy day will come along some time.

We have been pretty much self-sufficient here on our farm for over thirty years. (Of course in the meantime we have owned and worked a number of other farms too, which are now sold). We have a large vegetable garden and more fruit trees of more varieties than you have probably ever heard of – have you ever eaten a Chilean Guava or a Mountain Paw Paw for example? Much of our produce is preserved or frozen for future use. For meat we have oodles of sheep (and deer) to eat. We (Della) cook most all of our own food.

I have always built and repaired all our own vehicles so that our net cost per car (including purchase) over thirty years has probably been less than $300 each per year. We have a wonderful backlog collection of such vehicles and spare parts – enough to last us the rest of our lives even if that was another thirty years.

We built our own house with our own hands (every stick of wood, every nail) including making most of the building materials ourselves from resources on our own land (mud-brick). I recall a neighbour once (no doubt proud of a huge mortgage of his own) 0nce scoffed at our ‘cheap house’ as he styled it. It is warm, very comfy and suits us well – and I promise Della (often) to one day (soon) to finish it!

Over the years we spent all our available money on paying off debt,  raising the children as best we could and helping set them up in life as well as our means allowed. They are all home owners and standing on their own two feet now at least. Since we sold the farm/s we invested all the money in an SMSF and now live off the income from superannuation – apart from some small earnings from the 25 acre hobby farm we retained on which we run a peculiar breed of sheep which we developed (Finnsheep). This is another one of my websites.

We do not take money from others (including the Government) a practice which others might well emulate. Curiously since we retired we have been slightly better off than we have ever been before such is the cost of farming! Besides the children are off our hands. Neither of us has the cost of going to work & etc. Still we have always lived within our means. It has just become a little easier to do so – which is good news.

You too can be financially independent, not a burden on others and still have a wonderful life if you don’t waste your money and keep wanting things all the time. Things do not make you happy. Cheers.

Some Hunting Adventures:

Back in the 1990s (a long time ago now) I often used to hunt on the Stoney Creek side of Deep Creek (where the photo was taken – this is west up along the North side of Thomson River from the Cowwarr Weir via Traralgon Vic, if you want to use a map to check out the many locations I mention in the story) whilst Kevin Borman hunted the other (Walhalla) side. We seldom saw each other or got in each other’s ways, though sometimes we returned the other’s hounds and talked on the radio.

DELWP have recently closed all the tracks on ‘my’ side for utterly mysterious reasons so that it would be even harder to hunt now than it was then. They have ‘really’ closed them – digging ten feet deep ‘tank traps’ at their beginnings! They have even closed the T8 (but no ‘tank trap’) which enabled access to the river for fishing and one-day canoeing trips (a pleasant spot – walk down to take a look, then feel free to re-open it!) but there is another way. See: Thomson River Packrafting Day Trip

Back then I did not own a ‘real 4WD’. I used the family’s 1983 Subaru Leone (4WD) station wagon. I bought it for $300 as a rusty wreck and drove it for many years. I had some (Toyo) mud and snow tyres on it. I had two cheap sets of snowchains. I have pulled Landcruisers out of places they could not go with it! It is still mouldering in the paddock with perfectly good mechanicals aboard, which I will probably one day put into a sound Brumby body I also have (for free) – a fine hunting vehicle, particularly with a $400 lift kit – or one I make myself for nothing!

I had made up a plywood dog-box which fitted neatly in the wagon compartment (It’s still in one of the old ‘Subies’ in the paddock) which could hold five foxhounds, believe it or not! Mostly I took only two or three, beginning with just Harpoon and Belle. (I hope to fins more photos later).

I know they were both there on this day but I can’t remember who else was – just one other, I think.  Perhaps Mike (the dog that is). I often hunted alone during the week, though I could take 2-3 others with me, as I clearly have on this occasion, as someone else is clearly taking the snap with probably a Fuji ‘Quick Snap’ disposable camera.

They took surprisingly good photos, though I confess I haven’t many as I couldn’t really afford the developing! I’m not sure who the other two were, perhaps my friend Brett Irving – who may have taken the snap.

The Stoney Creek Road is enormously better today than it was then. Indeed recently DELWP (or whoever) have done huge works along it . It is much wider and faster now than the main road, McEvoy’s Track or Springs Road, the original path to the Jordan Goldfields (once the richest river in the world) where the Gippsland gold rushes began: a ’12’ x 12′ ‘paddock there in the 1860s yielded on average 200 ounces of gold! Over $3 million in today’s values! For one man!

When I hunted along there in the 1990s it was definitely a back-track and little traffic passed along it. The ground slopes away steeply to the Thomson from the T1 track to the T9 and to Deep Creek from the T10 up to the Walhalla turn-off (Binns) – from where you can also walk down the long ridge which separates the two branches. There were a number of other tracks then which led down towards Deep Creek though none arrived there – as it is far too steep. Officially most of these tracks are now closed though some may not be. There used even to be a track which started at Binns and ran down the ridge separating the two branches of deep creek – and very handy indeed it was!

Many will still provide good walking access and there are a number of good ridges which will get you down to the bottom too. In many places in between these ridges the valley side is so steep that you can only crawl back up the first 100 metres or so. Even then it used to take me nearly an hour to walk back out from the bottom of the creek to the road.  This steepness and the fact that it is ‘hungry country’ kept many hunters away, so that I pretty much had ‘my’ side (definitely the worst side) to myself. Certainly during the week there was never anyone else there so that I and the dogs had many enjoyable and interesting adventures there! Sometimes on the weekends I would take the kids – usually on Sundays to avoid other hunters.

I was only one of two Victorian hound hunters who hunted alone. My father had hunted alone every Saturday when I was a kid in Central NSW. He would hunt wallabies, foxes, hares – whatever the dog would put up. How he would have loved to hunt the sambar, but he died when I was only 13 and since then I have had to shift for myself in all things. He had this sport from his own father, and he from his. There was even a previous generation of solitary hound hunters in our family. I was the fifth. We have been doing this since the 1820s.

Along the valley bottom it is quite beautiful and well worth the walk all the way from the Thomson to the Walhalla corner (Binns). Along the way there are numerous small trout in the deeper pools and even blackfish. There are a few pleasant flats particularity on the ends of ridges where one could spend a pleasant night camping and watch the deer quietly creeping down to feed. I must do that again some day, though it is fiercely steep county for a 71 year old. I could perhaps go down the old T10 and come back up the old D1 track or the unmarked one at the 30 km post. I could even take my wife. So many things still to do…

It is very dry country along the hard Stoney Creek road. Very difficult ground to find a mark to start the dogs on, but I became proficient at using wily tricks of the light that would show up the slightest scuff. Once off the road the marks became easier to find in the leaf litter.

Even if the mark was a couple of days old Belle could find a scent in it and was keen to be off. She was an old bloodhound. Well she wasn’t always old. I had her from a pup – I bred her myself . Of course she was very slow and patient. She would place her long drooping snout  in the bottom of a deer mark and breathe in deeply. Then she would trundle on slowly to the next one. And just sashay along.  The foxhounds would howl and whimper around her with impatience, waiting for her to find a scent that was fresh enough for their lesser noses.

Eventually after perhaps a kilometre or two they would start up. Belle would have been moving along slowly enough that I could mostly keep up with the dogs when I was young even on that treacherous terrain – but not when they really got started: if you have only seen beagles you will have no idea how fast a foxhound is.

On the flat it can  hit 40 kph easily and keep it up for up to seventy kilometers, losing half its body weight in the process! A couple could bring a deer to bail fairly quickly. The trick was to get there yourself soon enough before they tired of the game and let it go on its way again – as they would never savage a deer. Mostly this strategy was unsuccessful, but occasionally not, as you can see above. Still I used only to shoot a handful of deer a year, just enough for the pot. It is easier if you have someone to chase the deer towards.

Usually you could tell the dogs had ‘broken bail’ and just let the deer walk away. You could hear this change had happened, and when you arrived at the spot you could see what had happened from the tracks. The dogs would usually just mooch around waiting for me to turn up. On a couple of occasions though something else entirely happened.

There is a large deep pool downstream of the D1 somewhere where a stag would sometimes bail. For a couple at least the last thing they did. But on at least two occasions a deer had bailed in that pool, and had not exited. The dogs swore that it was still there, but the water was so stirred up, black and muddied it was impossible to see.

The dogs had not killed it. They never did, besides there was no blood (or hair) on the ground (or water) or on them – but no deer. In India there is a deer, there is a deer, the barasingha which will walk along the bottom of the river to avoid tigers, wolf packs and the like. I often wondered whether there was a sambar there who had learned this trick?

A Solitary Stag:

On another occasion I arrived near Binns Corner (Walhalla turn-off)  around 9:00am having dropped the kids down the road to the bus-stop around 7:45 on the way to school. I had come up McEvoys – much quicker though longer then (not now), Bizarrely enough, though there is a school bus shelter right near our front gate my kids never got to use it as the bus used only to return them there, not pick them up in the mornings! The vagaries of bureaucracy!

I traveled down the road towards Porters, tracking – and found a deer mark crossing at the saddle before the mine, coming out of the Glenmaggie Creek side. I parked the car near there.

The dogs were quite happy to start it in the ‘brush’ below the saddle whence it plummeted away towards the West Branch. I headed down the old wooden (Yes, ‘wooden’) railway track (it is on the north side of the downstream ridge) – the mine had a battery down on the Deep Creek where its ruins, the old boiler, various railway cars etc lie scattered in the forest thereabouts. Worth a look.  This was a C19th mine.

Somewhere along the track (smack in the middle of it) there is/was a huge gum tree over ten feet in diameter, as wide as the track. The size that folk would say, it must have long predated European settlement. They would be wrong! I have one I planted thirty years ago (I won’t be planting another – but that is a story for another day) which after ten years was over three feet in diameter and today seeks to rival those mightiest trees that ever were anywhere in the world that grew in Victoria in times past and maybe still do hidden away in secret nooks, over 120 feet tall. This one is already half that after only 30 or so years, and still shooting up.

The deer shot over the ridge into the east Branch (with me following slowly), went up it for a ways, then came back down where I just missed it near the confluence of the two branches, then headed downstream. The hills fairly ringing with hound song. During the day it went up and around every gully on each side of the Deep Creek with me and the dogs following – no stopping for lunch or breath. This is a distance of many, many kilometres altogether.

Often it would slow to a walking bail, but it never actually bailed. A doe would have. I knew it was a stag and an old one at that who had beaten the dogs many times because of this. Every time when the dogs were about to give up on him as they will in a walking bail because nothing is happening, (no doubt the reason for the strategy), I would arrive close to the scene and he would bolt away again.

Just on dusk he was properly bailed at the end of the steep gully upstream on the Thomson from its junction with Deep Creek, and I took him there from above with a single shot through his heart in the crimson sunset. It was horrible footing going up over the ridge and down into that little gully in the failing light, and even worse on the way back. If I had not come upon him there I doubt I could have gone another step further anyway.

In those days I never used to take out the horns as you could not eat them, and I never liked ‘trophies’. I thought they demeaned the animal I hunted. I took only what meat I could carry to feed the family. ‘There’s no such thing as a tough rissole’, my dad used to say. It was a long slog back to the car anyway.

I crossed back over into the Deep Creek in the gloaming, climbed up to the T10 Track, followed it out 3-4 km to the main Stoney Creek Road in the dark, left my pack at the corner of the track (I could retrieve it later) and walked the twenty kilometres up the Stoney Creek Road to my car in the dark.

The dogs just quietly followed me along in the moonlight grinning as they almost always did after a good long hunt. There was never any traffic on the road in those days, so there was nothing to worry about, save being run over by another deer! Or swooped by a frogmouth!

I used to try to have a quick hunt after I had dropped the kids off at the bus and try to be home for them when they were dropped off from school in the afternoon. They could let themselves into the house and look after themselves until Dlla returned from work. But not this day. I guess it was around midnight before I drove in the front gate. I had no phone then, so no way of letting Della or anyone know where I was, alive or dead, though I probably had a CB with which i could access the emergency channel, though in all these years I have never needed to. God knows how she put up with it! But I always turned up. The bad penny.

A few days later one of the kids said to me, ‘How come you haven’t got any heads or antlers on the wall?’ S/he must have heard me telling Della about this stag. The very next stag I shot soon after (in the Flourbag Creek) near Brunton’s Bridge (by myself again) I brought the head home and spent the enormous (to us then) sum of money necessary to have it mounted. I hide it in the passageway out of sight so that most people who visit our house have probably never seen it either. I don’t like trophies, but the kids wanted to have one, so they got that one – a story for another day. About the size of the one in the photo is all – for those who are interested. Trophies mean nothing to me.

The kids’ stag. Flourbag. Poono and Belle (right) c 1991:

Just one, that was enough. It isn’t half the deer that this stag on the Thomson was that day. I had no camera so I have no photograph of it, only a golden memory, as it should be.

Some weeks later when it was warmer I canoed the river and thought to perhaps bring the antlers home so Della could make something out of them. She does all sorts of crafty things with them and other things. Some other canoeist most have already souvenired them. I should think it was well over thirty inches though, if that is important to you, maybe even a yard. I don’t know. I was busy harvesting the meat, and thinking about how far it was back to my car. A long way. A really long way.

Grandmother of the Deer:

Another great hunt there I put up an old doe down near the bottom of the Deep Creek in the morning. She went up and down the creek a number of times, circuiting the side gullies, going back on her own tracks, walking in the river, etc. A host of stratagems she had practiced over the years to fool the hounds.

She did not fool old Belle though. She just kept plugging on, booming away with her great throbbing voice. Eventually she came out of the Deep Creek and traveled up and down the Stoney Creek for quite a while. My oldest daughter, Irralee was with me at least part of the day. I may have left her to hold a position nearer the main road while I went down to the creek, I can’t remember.

I know it was not the day she was really annoyed with me because I called (her) on the radio just as this big stag was creeping close to her. He heard my voice on the radio and took off just as she was about to shoot. God, she was angry with me. Probably still is to this day. I think I would remember if she was furious with me the day I chased this old doe. All the kids used to come hunting with me when they could when they were young, camping out and so on. It is great experience for the young.

Anyway, after several hours the three hounds brought the old doe to bay in a well-nigh soundproof side-gully in the Stoney Creek. It was only the merest chance I heard the dogs there, as you could only hear them from a single spot on (I think) the Stoney 3 Track. The old doe obviously knew that too. She had survived many many times. Irralee and I went down and I shot the old doe with a single shot from above between the shoulders blades deep in the gully late in the afternoon. She never heard me coming and was gone instantaneously (as it should be) to the last believing she had beaten the dogs again. That is the way I too would want to go.

She was so old all her teeth were quite worn down like an old sheep, yet she was in splendid condition. She must have been so full of knowledge as she still knew where to get enough good feed even in that hard country when she barely had enough teeth to eat with. She had beaten man and the dogs many times over a long life, perhaps fourteen or so years. No doubt I had chased her a number of times before.

I had a sense wistful of achievement that I had at last managed to take her, but sadness too that she had met her end. Curiously enough, though she was old as Methuselah and had run from the dogs for many hours that last day (though she was neither beaten nor exhausted at the end), she was as tender as a young lamb. There is no telling. My friend Brett whom I mentioned before, shot a young sleeping spiker one day (while eating his lunch no less – some get it easy!) yet he was as tough as old leather!

We used almost always to have a cook up at the end of the day and a quiet yarn around the fire, (it was a ritual) sometimes while waiting for the hounds to trickle back in one by one grinning and sidle up to you for a smooch. More often because it was apposite. Just the very best conjunction of things.

A warm fire. The sun sinking slowly over the Baw Baws. Sausages, roast potatoes, a cold beer or a cup of tea. Listening to the currawongs and kookaburras calling to each other. A manic lyrebird in the gully. Stars beginning to peek out. A friendly chat at day’s end after an energetic day in the wonderful Gippsland bush.

Family cook up waiting for hounds c 1992.

Two ‘Undeserved’ Deer:

Hardly anyone ever came by, so it was very peaceful. However I remember two weekends in a row: This was most unusual I must say. Brett and I were sitting by the fire near one of those mighty hairpins up towards the end of Stoney, near McEvoy’s when a veritable convoy full of unsuccessful hunters came by. Seeing that we were just two (with a very old Subaru) they stopped to niggle at us.

‘Doing any good?’ they asked sarcastically.

‘Yes, we got one’, Brett answered them cheerfully. Brett is always cheerful.

They were so over-equipped and cocky. We had no need for their company. ‘No company is better than bad company’ I always say. But they insisted rudely on getting out of their vehicles – the whole army of them – to check if we were lying. None of their business. And there on the back seat of the Subie were the back legs etc of the deer Brett had shot way down in Deep Creek earlier in the afternoon.

Apparently we weren’t entitled to a quiet beer and a cook up as a reward. Or a deer. They grumbled about for a while then shot off. Hoo Roo!

Next weekend they did exactly the same thing. Again the veritable army of them wandered by, unsuccessful.  And as luck would have it one of us had again shot a deer and again the evidence was in the back seat of my old and very down-at-heel Subie – nothing like the flotilla of shiny new Land Cruisers they were traveling about in. A car that I had obviously repainted (white from red) with a 4″ paint brush. Yes, True. They just got back in to their cars and roared off without saying a thing – as if we had done something wrong to them.

Next weekend when Brett and I turned up in the morning these guys were already there parked in our spot. We just drove on by and found somewhere else to hunt further up towards Binns. They trawled around exhaustingly in that terrible country all day without seeing sight or sound of a deer and were even more annoyed when we ran into them at the end of the third day.

We hadn’t shot anything either but we said, ‘Of Course’ we had when they asked. They never even bothered to look in our car the third time. (Luckily) but were even more annoyed. This time we went quietly on our way. We never saw them again. Good riddance.

Many a frosty night I camped out after our cook-up (mainly by myself – I have had the not inconsiderable pleasure of a great deal of time just like that ‘waiting for the hounds’ along the Stoney Creek Track – and many other places in the Gippsland mountains. I have camped out in these mountains for one reason or another (and elsewhere) I guess (collectively) for a year or two of my life – sleeping on the eternal earth, at one with the millions who have gone before me, like them gazing up at the endless stars, and wondering. I just love the solitude.

Back then we had our names for every gully, every corner of the track. Private names. Each of my kids had a ridge or a saddle ‘named’ after them. Della and I drove past the other day. It gave me quite a jolt of sentimentality to be recalling, Bryn’s Saddle, Merrin’s Gully – and so on. But time moves on.

Bryn’s Saddle c 1996

My youngest Merrin (c 1992) helping look for ‘lost’ dogs in the snow near Mt Useful – and hating it!

Many years ago now I had to give up my beloved hounds. My back and my hearing would not allow me to continue. The poor things had stood around in their yard (a large yard- they had nearly an acre to run around in, and each other for company, and were well fed and cared for, even had a bath to swim in – I loved my hounds) for nearly two years I think and been nowhere. It was cruel. Cruel to me too, in so many ways. Hound hunting is I’m afraid a young man’s sport. I was nearly sixty and had at least thirty great years of it. But a young friend wanted them and would put them to good use. So off they went. Shudder.

I shed many a quiet tear, (and another now) but they enjoyed the last years of their fine lives hunting the mighty sambar deer in our glorious Gippsland mountains. No finer destiny could they have had. I remember them all with a great longing. Their names, their lively faces, their soulful eyes.

But they are times past. Wonderful times, but they are not to be again. Nonetheless I am glad that I have recalled them tonight and shared a a tiny part of them with you.

Good hunting.

Oh. I forgot. You want to know about this hunt:

It is a bit of an anti-climax really. It was one of those days when it has rained overnight. The deer have not moved around so there are no tracks or scent on the tops. Some folks don’t go, or go home – empty handed at least, without a ‘start’..

Learn where the deer camp when it rains: There are these sort of ‘perched gullies’ or landings down the side of the ridges towards the valley bottoms. I don’t know: there may be springs there. Anyway it is more lush. The vegetation is a bit more dense. Better shelter. Some feed. Anyway out of the worst cold, wind and bad weather. A trick of the ground. Sometimes there are salt or clay licks. If you have never found a ‘lick’ look out for them. Deer will visit them more than any other thing. They can hang in such spots for days at a time sometimes  as if they have vanished off the planet.

I had walked the dogs on leads steeply downhill for more than two kilometres. This is hard work with big dogs. I couldn’t do it now. They sensed this deer within a hundred yards of the river. He jumped into the river with me and the dogs in hot pursuit. He went perhaps 150 yards and bailed pretty much around the first corner. I could hear that he was bailed before I came around the corner. I put a round in the rifle before I stepped out. As soon as he saw me he sprang for cover, but he was too late. Bang. End of story Bambi. Ten minutes to bone out and cut him up. Divvy up. One dog each. One hour out. Back at the car for morning tea. Home for lunch. Most unusual But very pleasant actually. Probably took the kids to the pictures in the afternoon…Cheers.

An Amazing Escape:

Another similar bail-up occurred one day below the D1 track . Harpoon had been on a stag all morning from somewhere up near Binns. Around mid-afternoon he had brought this mighty denizen of the forest to bay with his back against a sheer precipice perhaps 30-40 metres high. Again I had loaded the gun before I came around the corner just as I had this day. I never walk with a loaded gun. A round in the breech is too like to lead to some awful disaster. I have seen it happen.

However, as I raised my riffle the deer sprang upwards onto the sheer cliff face and the hound sprang after him. I confess his sheer effrontery at hurling himself against the impossible caused me to hold my fire. It was not fear though, but a savage delight in his skill and strength that threw him at the cliff. He skated up it like a spider. With a lever action (I carry now – not then) I could have easily take  at least two careful shots at him as he flew up it, but I was so transfixed with wonder at his astounding aerial skill I withheld my shot.

The hound scrabbled again and again to ascend but could get no more than ten feet up he before he tumbled to the ground again. Meanwhile the stag achieved the pinnacle of the precipice and quickly and quietly disappeared, living to fight and flee another day!

Another Remarkable Hunt:

Sambar are remarkably strong animals – and so too are foxhounds. Every real hunter deserves one great dog like Harpoon once in their life. I must have anyway. I recall one day hunting in Ross Creek (near Woods Point) we put up a large stag in the early morning. He crossed over into Dry Creek with first Harpoon and then me following. He circled the vast Blue Jacket valley, then crossed the main road over into the Aberfeldy.

Baby Harpoon far right Tarwin Lower 1986

I climbed up the old pack-track out of Blue Jacket, jogged the couple of kms back along the road to my vehicle at Mt Victor Spur and set off in pursuit. I had to take one of the steep tracks that plunge down off the Woods Point Rd into the Aberfeldy, I’m not sure which one,  stopping every now and then to see if I could hear the dog. I could, far ahead.

Harpoon in deep Creek West Branch an area he loved c 1990

He had a remarkable voice, as if a whole pack was howling behind the deer. You could make him our miles away on a clear windless  day. Around and down the Aberfeldy he went with me bumping along over rough 4Wd tracks, through vast boggy puddles, up steep precipitous slopes after him.

20-30 km later when he reached Binns Road he crossed over into the top of Deep Creek, ran around the West Branch then came out again near Porters and plunged into the Glenmaggie Creek. I dropped down Porters Track and followed him along  the East-West Divide track as he plunged southwards. I finally came out again onto McEvoys Rd then went back down Huggs Track to the bottom where I came across Harpoon at dusk walking slowly up the Glenmaggie Creek from where he had finally broken bail (as I had not come!) on this great-hearted stag.

He and the stag had run over fifty kilometres as the crow flies! God alone knows how far in the twists and turns, ups and downs of their flight. Over eight hours of continuous chase without any let-up. The mighty hound had lost around half his body weight and was nearly staggering, but he still had a glad grin on his face and was undaunted. No doubt the stag was too.

We only ever took one to three deer per year (per hunter) – just such as met our family’s need. We could have taken many more but it would be indecent waste and greed to do so. Many’s the day I could have taken a deer after a long hunt the dogs and I had enjoyed, but I called the dogs off and  they came, well content anyway with a job well done (by all) having pursued a wily foe for hours through trackless wilderness and having at last brought him to bay in some quiet, solitary place.

In the mornings when I started the dogs was always the ‘best’ opportunity for me to take a deer as sh/e would not necessarily know which direction to take and might well run right back past me – and often did. I never took that easy shot though as it would have deprived the dogs of their day’s sport – and the deer needlessly of its life, which I didn’t need – and ‘fair chase’. Most important.

I was ever there for the sheer joy of hunting, not for the taking of needless quantities of deer nor mindless trophies. The greatest trophy to me was the warm feeling at day’s end walking out with the dogs wagging their tails beside me, that we had had yet another wonderful day chasing a truly noble foe in our beloved Gippsland fastnesses.

PS: I could have been anything I wanted to be – and I have been. I confess I found it ridiculously easy to top the year at a large university in the sixties whilst only ever at best scanning the set texts and scarcely bothering to attend lectures – even though all my full-time university studies were conducted at night after I had worked full-time all day.

Instead of a career of academic laurels or outstanding public service, fame etc, I chose instead to wash up here on this shoal – our small farm at Jeeralang Junction with the beloved of my life, Della. A life spent in field, stream and forest. One of simple homely pleasures, with her ever at my side has always seemed preferable to me to every other life that could possibly have been.

I have enjoyed it deeply. I regret nothing. I have preferred what I could do with a good pair of hands and a (once) strong back to all the affectations of so-called civilisation. I eschewed the vulgar throng (Horace’s profane), the hurly-burly and haste for a simple quiet life mainly of rural penury if you must know, but it has been a life rich with experience, enjoyment and quiet contemplation. If you want more you are (probably) a fool, and almost certainly wrong.

See Also:

Backpack Tips and Tricks

A Lazy Man’s Guide to Hiking and Hunting

https://www.theultralighthiker.com/2020/04/30/superlight-hunting-pack-193-grams/

https://www.theultralighthiker.com/2018/02/17/ultralight-ultracheap-backpack/

https://www.theultralighthiker.com/2020/04/26/ultralight-ultracheap-rain-fly/

https://www.theultralighthiker.com/2018/09/17/two-great-cheap-tents/

https://www.theultralighthiker.com/2017/02/01/poly-tent-by-the-ultralight-hiker-on-the-cheap/

https://www.theultralighthiker.com/2020/02/23/another-cheap-hiking-mat/

https://www.theultralighthiker.com/2018/09/10/make-your-sleeping-pad-warmer/

https://www.theultralighthiker.com/2020/01/14/sleeping-pad-news/

https://www.theultralighthiker.com/2018/08/15/womens-are-great-in-bed/

https://www.theultralighthiker.com/2018/06/30/exped-synmat-hl-winter-m/

https://www.theultralighthiker.com/2020/01/01/cheap-down/

This post continues a series about budget hiking. Here are some of the others:

https://www.theultralighthiker.com/2019/11/30/best-5-spent-on-camping-gear-ever/

https://www.theultralighthiker.com/2018/03/03/ultralight-hiking-on-a-budget/

https://www.theultralighthiker.com/2018/03/24/budget-pack-mods/

https://www.theultralighthiker.com/2019/09/07/60-diy-ultralight-hiker-ideas/

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2 thoughts on “Ultralight Ultracheap Deer Hunting & A Ripping Yarn or Two”

  1. Hi Steve really enjoying all your posts. Was just wondering if you have ever canoed or pack rafted the Aberfeldy river. I’ve just started deer hunting at the age of 41. Really enjoying it. Been on my 7th hunt and haven’t seen one yet. But enjoying the Bush. Me and my daughter canoed from coopers creek to bruntons a few weeks ago. Your old Thomson river post with the river heights helped us out immensely. We really enjoyed it. Was wondering if it’s possible to do the section of the Aberfeldy river from Merringtons campground to maybe fultons creek track. I’m keen to spend a few days in there to see if I can see my first deer. Regards Shane

    1. Thank you for your praise. You will start to see them soon. There is still probably a lot of dogging along the Aberfeldy which would make them shyer and scarcer. It is also fairly thick country to see through in places but I have seen a lot of deer over the years along that river. I had a number of favourite spots along there many years ago. Get away from the popular camping spots. You should (next) try an overnight on the Thomson from Bruntons Bridge down. People sometimes canoe from the Walhalla Rd Bridge down to the confluence thence to the Thomson River bridge. It is about 25 km and takes around 8 hours so definitely an overnight trip, but you needs fair bit of water on the Coopers Creek gauge(at least .5, probably more -but not above .9) if there are no discharges happening from the dam. There used to be an old hut in there about half way down. which I have walked in to but that was thirty years ago – there is a long ridge off the Walhalla Rd. The upstream sections you are talking about would usually not have enough water or have too many snags I think. I have walked along in there years ago looking for deer but don’t remember a lot of places I thought it was very canoeable but maybe sometimes it is. I seem to remember a lot of whippy overgrowth along the edges too. I would have though particularly below Fultons Track but it is a long while ago since I walked in there. I have been moving East – don’t know why actually. Just new places I guess. I have to confess that my recent experience with the Morwell River and before that with the Tanjil leads me to be interested in exploring some of these smaller streams. I want to canoe the section of the Latrobe from Noojee (Toorongo Bridge) down the Hawthorn Creek. (There will be plenty of deer in there too) I know there is (more then) enough water to canoe it at the moment (above .9 or 1 metre on the Willow Tree gauge). I know people have canoed sections of the Tyers upstream of Christmas Creek which I would not have imagined and have even come down the Tara Bulga River, so who knows about the upper Aberfeldy. Someone has to be an explorer! There is a rain event coming later on in the week which might put enough water in the river. If you have a pack raft you can always give up after a while if the going gets too tough and walk out. I trust the daughter is a teen at least. Could be some tough going. Good luck. Please let me know how your trip’s pan out. Cheers, Steve.

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