Well that's what they say anyway!
I definitely consider myself a red deer man, just can't get enough of their antler structure, their roaring in the rut and a free range mature red stag is about as hard an animal to hunt as any.
But if you ask your average aussie hunter what the number one deer is it will normally be "sambar".
The attraction to many, including myself is that in my state there's a few million acres for public sambar hunting, no closed season, no tag or bag limit, and no weapon specific seasons which means you can pretty much head out with any legal weapon at any time of the year and hunt to your hearts content.
It's beautiful country, very rugged and quite often dry and really just somewhere you can pack in for a few days and forget about all your troubles.
I'm getting married next month and with the honeymoon as well I haven't had leave to take for hunting. So it meant I only had one chance to hunt them this year.
So in early June, a good mate, myself and our gun dogs headed out for a backpack hunt chasing the mighty sambar.
Here's a bit of a story on how it went.
We loaded up our packs got our gundogs and drove the 8 hours to hunting country. arriving at 2am we slept at the car until 06:30 and then hiked in a few kilometres to spend 4 days amongst the great Australian sambar.
We made it to camp, sleeping under a rock ledge on the side of a cliff and headed Out to do some glassing and get a feel for the country. My goodness was it cold! It rained early in the day until around 11:30 when the snow kicked in. That wasn't so bad but the bitterly cold wind just cut through like a knife.
My gsp Ellie with her experience of snow, not happy!
We found some good country and waited out until late in the evening without seeing a thing so headed back to camp, struggled to get a fire going for about half an hour and settled in for an early night.
The next day we headed out in the morning and glassed but with freezing temps and that freezing wind nothing was out. We decided that they must be down at lower elevations getting away from the terrible weather so there was nothing to do but get down.
We dropped either side of a spur and early on both our dogs were indicating deer below us. I followed my gsp Ellies lead as she followed the scent of the deer below. I felt I was getting close and was constantly stopping and glassing through the thick bush. Ellie started getting more excited so I knew we were right on him, and right at that moment I slipped down the steep hill sliding 2 metres before being able to stop. When I came to rest I heard crashing about 50m away. I mad it down and saw the tracks of a mature sambar stag. Bad luck but I spose thats why they call it hunting!.
Stags tracks from where he took off as I slid.
We continued on and 15 mins later I heard a gun shot, "great my mate has taken a stag"; I thought, wondering what it was I continued on. Not long after Ellie began indicating again, this time down low in the bottom of the Gully.
We slowly moved along and all of a sudden I heard a crash down in the Gully. "bugger he's on to us" I thought. I moved to a clearing with a bit of a view of the opposing side of the Gully hoping to see him contouring up the other side while making his escape. After a few moments I did catch movement, nearly 200m away a stag was moving up the next spur, I chucked up the trusty old 270 in remmy 700 with 150gn super x pills and Squeezed off the shot as he came into a clearing between two trees.
At the shot he jumped and immediately ran down hill, a sure sign of a hit. The shot felt great but 200m offhand on a moving deer I wasn't sure on just how good. We got over to where I shot and I couldn't find a drop of blood, a bit perplexed I looked over to Ellie and she was sniffing down in the bottom of the Gully so I figured he had to be down there. I got down to the bottom and almost instantly found a great patch of blood.
Solid Blood
About another 100 metres or so there he was, the shot had been on the money breaking his leg and taking out the lower heart. He was certainly no monster being quite a young animal and I've passed up bigger glassing but taking him bush stalking over my gsp made him feel like a giant.
First sambar over Ellie
Once I removed the head and as much meat as I could carry I looked up. I was currently 35m from the river bottom and according to my Gps had 1.2km to camp with around 700 metres of elevation. Something along the lines of 4 feet up for every 6 feet horizontal. Needless to say it was a mammoth pack out back to camp with many stops on the way.
I eventually got there and though my mate and I forgot the flask of whiskey we celebrated that night with fresh sambar stag back steaks cooked over open flame and dipped in sweet chilli sauce and man was that amazing.
Stag backstraps smoked over gum tree,
He took a nice stag himself over his dog and we both packed out with some bone and some great memories.
Mates stag
Bone at camp
Ellie packing out her share of the gear!
Sambar country, huntable for as far as the eye can see.
I've been a red deer hunter my whole life and never got the allure of sambar, until now that is. It's not the animals themselves it's the adventure and the absolute rough rugged and unforgiving country that they live in that draws you in, needles to say I'm addicted.
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