Mt Tanilba Bush Bull
Well that’s what I thought the attitude was. My mate managed to shoot a Wapiti bull on that trip, not quite up to today’s standards though. Five years later, I drew the same block. This time my brother came with me and we flew into the southern tops of the block. We glassed those tops high and low, heard stags roaring and the odd hybrid bugle, but we did not actually lay eyes on a deer in the three days of fine weather we had. We then spent the next four consecutive days lying in our tent in torrential rain.
In between these big rain storms, we ventured out to the edge of the bluffs above a valley. In the head basin below, we could hear the roar of a stag drifting up periodically before we were banished to our tents again in more heavy rain. I said to myself at the time ‘I bet no one hunts that valley because it’s so hard to get to – and it doesn’t look like the kind of place for a good bull anyway…’ How wrong I was.
After the last six years of being extremely lucky with the ballots and drawing blocks like the Lower Glaisnock, Wild Natives and The Narrows and a few other less favourable blocks, we were starting to get a better understanding of Wapiti behaviour. We very rarely saw any big animals in the early years but as time has gone by, we have definitely noticed the improvement in the herd.
My son Caleb realised his hunting passion at a very young age andabout hunting as my good mate Casey and I have been all our lives.
