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Chital Stags are very vocal when they find a hind in season, with a hollow high pitched whistle, threatening any potential challengers to keep clear. Fighting is fast, vicious and often fatal, with antlers being broken in the conflict and all caution forgotten, it is possible to walk up close enough to photograph the contestants, bring your video.
May, June, July the deer skins are a full rich chocolate colour, highlighting the white bib and spots making a beautiful chital trophy a must for every trophy room. Usually there are a few more new antlers available in the wet season, January, February, March than other months plus the long green grass at this time makes for easier stalking, however big trophy stags are growng out their new antlers every month of the year.
We hunt early morning and late afternoon in semi cleared flat flood plains, to locate and assess a suitable trophy stag, then stalk into firing range of 100 to 150 metres to fire, when a deer has been shot and dropped, the hunter should not show his position, but remain hidden and reload then wait 5 minutes before approaching the deer, if the deer is sitting up or attempts to rise shoot it again in the chest. The guide can back up the hunter with his rifle with the consent of the client, should a deer be wounded and moving into cover.
The $500 trophy fee is paid in advance and refunded in full, in the unlikely event that no deer are killed or wounded.
Deer hunters need to be able to shoot a 6" diameter 5 shot group on a 150 metre target while taking a rest off a tree, shooting sticks or bipod, before going after the deer. Sight your rifle in to hit the point of aim at 150 metres and spend time practicing with your rifle before coming on safari. To prepare hunters for Chital deer hunting an audiovisual presentation is provided with specimen antlers and skulls to fully explain how to go about estimating antler size and best stalking practices the night before the hunt.
You need to wear full cammo clothing including face mask and gloves or wear one of my cammo full length nets to get up to 150 metres maximum shooting range, to place your bullet low in the stags chest to hit the heart/lung area and to break both front legs below the shoulder, remember a gut shot deer will walk around for hours and be a lost trophy.
We use a 7mm-08 calibre rifle, firing 120 grain soft jacketed hollow point bullets or a .270 calibre with 110 grain bullets on Chital deer, however a .25/06 rifle firing 100 grain bullets fitted with 3 to 9 power scope is probably the most suitable equipment for these medium sized 90kg deer. Heavier, larger calibre bullets will pass right through the deer and waste their energy on the ground or worse, kill or wound another deer in the line of fire, experiance has demonstrated that deer shot with these heavy calibre rifles have to be shot twice.
You need a pair of 10 power binoculars to assess the trophy shape from front and side plus estimate the antler length, a chital stag stands 30" high from the ground to his back line and the distance from his nose to the base of his antlers is 8" so when the stag is grazing you are looking for 8" inches of antler protruding above the stags backline for a 30" trophy length. Another way of estimating the antler size is to hold a match between thumb and forefinger at arms length, move the match until the top of the match is in line with the stags back line and your thumbnail level with his feet then lift this 30" measurement up so your thumbnail is level with the base of the antlers, then look at the top of the match to see if this 30"measurement is longer or shorter than the tips of the antlers. REMEMBER BE SURE, YOU ARE HAPPY WITH THE STAGS ANTLERS BEFORE YOU SHOOT AND ALWAYS TAKE A REST OFF A TREE OR BI-POD, TO FIRE WITHOUT THE RIFLE SIGHTS WOBBLING OFF THE HEART/LUNG TARGET AREA.
The deer usually start feeding out of cover at the eastern end of the property at 2.30pm each afternoon looking into the setting sun which makes it harder for them to see.
We have had many successful hunters waiting in cover for the deer to feed into rifle range, the breeze usually blows consistently from an easterly direction. We can stalk into the breeze towards the feeding deer, but will have to crawl the last 200metres, the deer will tolerate seeing you crawling towards them, because they don't know what you are, but as soon as you stand up, they will identify you as a human and take flight and they will see you they have eyesight comperable to 10 power binoculars. Movement is what attracts the deers attention, you need to move slowly and stop often and look around, avoid disurbing birds and cattle, if you have birds in the air and cattle on the run the deer will move away.
The deer are feeding out from cover looking into the setting sun which works against their excellent eyesight, there for most hunters get their trophy.
There are pigs and dingoes on the deer property, no limit or trophy fees on these, also Barramundi fishing and Mud crabbing nearby.
You will need :- Medium calibre rifle, Tall Bipod, Spotting scope, Binoculars, Range finder, Knee pads, Light weight boots, Camouflage clothing, hat, face mask and gloves, nylon parka, Walkie Talkie radios and Mobile phone.
We don't camp on the deer property but stay at a unit in Ayr and drive 20 minutes to the property each day, there are good motels in Ayr should you want to stay there.
Lance can remove head skins, freeze or salt down, boil the skull ready for taxidermy, butcher and pack venison plus supply you with a poly box and bag for air transport.
3 days is usually long enough for one hunter to shoot a quality trophy head, 4 days if there are 2 hunters or 5 days if 3 hunters. |
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Pauls 31'' Hard Velvet trophy
