- 20250413_195214.jpg (6.27 MiB) Viewed 1142 times
The effect of having the 'trophy' up for grabs is always in the back of our minds and is a constant source of amusement and good natured banter.
It also made all of us more choosy about the shots we were presented with and we all took care to improve things like our stalking abilities etc to minimise the chance of holding the trophy.
It also put pressure on each of us to not be the focus of the banter that followed. That changed on the 23rd March this year.
Junior decided he wanted to go for a hunt with his partner and so the 3 of us headed out. Got to the horse farm and the 20-25knot westerly wind was causing us all sorts of problems as the farm runs west to east. Junior was particularly after a white fallow skin while I was tasked with finding and dealing to a Fallow Buck that had been ravaging the freshly planted vegetable plot. I sent Junior off with a plan to enable him to stalk into the wind while I decided to sit and watch a patch of scrub/swamp where I had seen the ginger stag hanging out a few weeks before.
About an hour later I heard Junior take a shot and he confirmed it a short time later over the radio that he had dropped white Fallow spiker. As I looked up the hill towards his location about 900m away, the ginger buck broke out of the swamp and headed up towards him. I told him to look out for it and said that, as it had spooked. I would bring the quad bike up and take his deer back to the truck.
When I went over the hill, Junior called me and said the buck was about 350m away from him and hiding under a patch of scrub.
As It was getting towards dusk, I had already swapped out my Leica scope on the 243 for the Pulsar thermal. ( My first mistake)
Shutting the bike down I grabbed my rifle, left the pack ( second mistake) on the bike and walked up a steep slope to where he was......then we stalked another 200m to where his partner was watching the buck. It was easy to see in the thermal and was about 140m away. I crawled to the crest of the ridge and tried to get set up for the shot....unfortunately the grass was above knee high and laying prone wasnt an option.....no tripod and no pack to use to get high enough to see over the grass!
Picking a clump of lupins, I slowly crawled behind them then sat up and rested the rifle on my knees, poked the barrel through them and got ready to take the shot. The buck was clearly visible and sitting down facing away from us. I was confident of taking the shot and when it broke I heard what sounded like a good hit.
Instead of dropping its head the buck jumped up, ran about 50m further away from us, stopped, then turned and ran back towards us, stopping about 130m away and facing us almost head on......My second shot dropped him in his tracks.....( Not knowing where the first shot had hit, I chose to make a centre chest shot) ...............And thus I qualified for the meatwaster.
Bullet entered the centre of his chest and lodged in his left hand shoulder destroying the top joint of the shoulder.
I immediately told Junior that he had witnessed history lol and I had probably earned the Meatwaster.
So, we head over to his deer which he had said he neck shot, to find that he had hit it above the shoulder level with the spine .....wasting some shoulder meat and the front portion of backsteak.....which meant he had earned the meatwaster for 20mins ( from D) and only held it for 20minutes before I took it off him!
Heres a pic of his new white rug......a 2 yr old spiker
- 20250323_193103.jpg (7.37 MiB) Viewed 1142 times
- imagejpeg_2(58).jpg (33.74 KiB) Viewed 1142 times
It has been the constant source of amusement for the past couple of weeks to the others........until yesterday morning. Then One of juniors buddies shot a fallow buck through both shoulders with his 308 destroying the whole front end.......followed by another hunting buddy of Bh's shooting a buck yesterday afternoon with a texas heart shot.......( That one didnt qualify for the meatwaster btw as the deer was shot by his buddies 9 yr old son and was his first deer)
Oh, being a bit puzzled by what had happened to my first shot I went to the patch of scrub to have a look and found my first shot had hit a small branch which didnt show up in the thermal..
Duck season starts in a few weeks so I am looking forward to a reset and to not holding the MW trophy..............until the next time I do
