Too Old For Tahr

I remember my first hunt with Steve. A mutual friend had put us in touch and he had made the long trip down from his home in North Queensland to my farm in NSW to have a try at deer hunting. The first afternoon we were following the croaks of a rutting fallow buck which eventually led us to the top of a rather modest stringybark covered hill. I recall being halfway up the hill and turning around to say something, only to see Steve lagging about twenty paces behind with a face as red as beetroot and puffing like a steam train. “This bloke is definitely from the flat country,” I thought.

Fast forward a few years and we had shared countless days in the bush either hunting the creeks and floodplains of the far north for pigs and buffalo, or the hills of the New England and Brisbane Valley in search of red and fallow deer. Steve could outwalk anyone in the dry season heat up north but down south us locals had the home ground advantage and conquered the inclines much quicker. However, deer hunting had certainly changed Steve’s lifestyle for