Early Evening Fallow

AS sunrise broke through the cool morning mist, the tree line around the well sheltered valley we’d be hunting became more visible. With just enough light through our binoculars to see the silhouette of a distant deer, our spirits rose and so too did our hopes of finding a mature buck. Although the Fallow rut was well underway, the bucks, for some reason, weren’t as vocal as in previous years but none the less were in with the does, as we’d seen them over the previous few days hunting.

Dad and I had also been keeping an eye on some fallow deer on a smaller block we have nearer to our farm and knew they were rutting there, as I purposely took a malform out of the heard only a week or so earlier. The buck had a swollen neck, with wellformed antler on one side but little more than a big dagger on his other, so I