Cheers mate, yeah it was a bloody good week, on Saturday we hooked up with a hound crew who our mate down there usually hunts with, so we joined them for the day & they cleaned up another four too.
Apparently between some pro shooters and 3 dog crews down there they’ve nailed around 400-450 in the last several weeks. Even after that there were still plenty about. We had 400 acres of private land and about 10,000 acres of lease we were running around in. We’re going to make it an annual trip from now on.
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Bit jealous. Not so much of the hound crew. I don’t like being told that I have a pretty mouth, but never the less, haven’t been out hunting as much as I’d like this year.
Mmmm I have a feeling that they may have accidentally add an extra zero 
I know that there are issues with too many deer but, but the culling of more deer than you need for food just seems to go against my grain.
First time hunters are now able to find and have a successful hunt without too much problem.
A good read.
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@juststarting They’re big numbers hey, i met 2 of the groups, one lot had 44 under their belts for the month and the other had 62 just for that week, plus they were all talking about another organized group that had about 80 hunters rolling in and out of their camp over a couple of weeks who took over 300, and that’s just the people they know…
Those hound hunting crews seem to rack up some big numbers. We got 5 in a week just shooting with the help of spotlighting private land, and our mates hound crew of who only half turned up (4 blokes) nailed 4 for the day running only one team of dogs.
Plus the pro shooters who were paid for pest control on a few of the properties out there.
They all seemed to know everyone who they were talking about so i feel pretty confident they were real numbers.
Sambar is not a heard animal. And there’s pecking order between adults and young, who’d venture into new land… At night, along the tree lines, perhaps a handful… If we are talking helicopters, maybe. But a crew on foot in a set region, say 50km^2 shooting 500 in couple of weeks - sounds a bit suss. Never say never, of course, but I say it doesn’t pass the sniff test. Either the quantity or the time.
Righto
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Not so sure on the statement @juststarting that Sambar are not a herd animal. I have observed over the last year a herd of 8 deer (was a little bigger ) that came down to a certain place nearly every late afternoon for about 3 months. I think there regularity might have attracted more than just my attention and the family was disturbed. But given the chance I think they do / would stay in family groups several females with calves at foot adolescence deer and a main Stag and perhaps a junior Stage waiting his turn getting the left overs.
Family group is not a heard though… It’s exactly that, which will separate as they mature or like you said, shot at or separated for whatever reason. Anyway…
I agree.
Herd * 
Heard a herd 
I understand what you are trying to get at by the Herd comment but really a lot of Herd animals are just a family group with the one Alpha Male and then down the chain as I described. Given the chance I think deer would even fill your definition of Herd animals. There are certainly lots of other wild deer species that do travel as a herd and live as a herd in its true size of the word.
If you ever see one Sambar you can bet your left nut that there will be another one in very close proximity. I still have my left nut.
I’ve seen a huge herd of fellow. With big crew, I recon 500 could have been done in hours. But, I’m specifically taking sambar.
Herd is the word.
Everybody talking about the herd…
I did get to shoot this beast. Shooting cheapo S&B fmj ammo. Muzzle device promptly fell off within first 10 rounds. I had tightened it with a spanner. I hand tightened it back on and it stayed put, go figure.
Put sixty rounds through it. Quite a few people had a shot, general consensus was it was accurate and easy to shoot.
Just a shake down run with cheap ammo but it’s already printing sub minute groups at 100m and 200m.
Overall I would give the Howa Bravo package a thumbs up. Now to brew some ammo for it.
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Also fired the K11, new Winchester 357 and the unsurprisingly big hit with the kids , the Ruger precision rimfire.
Ruger went well, kids help me season the barrel a bit putting 100 or so rounds through it.
The magazine got sticky after a few hundred rounds. Like wax build up maybe. Occasionally had to poke or tap a round to make it feed to the top. Dialed in pretty well. The laser was fun, especially at night. Shot well with CCI mini mag which is handy.
Winchester was nicely dialed in from factory and shot well. Nice and smooth, was popular as well.
K11 did well with factory Swiss ammo. 300m zero is… challenging. Figured it out soon enough. Fair bit of hold under.
It was a long weekend here, managed to convince myself that I should take an extra day off and took a good mate out for his second hunt. Took the new buggy for a good long run
I managed to put him in front of a few decent goats and brought home an extra esky full of meat so the freezer will full for a little while.
Nailed a couple of billies to fill the dogs freezer up too
My mate shot a nice little nanny. By the time we had taken the legs and backstroke there wasn’t much left…
There was even less after the crows and a couple wedgies had a chance to pick the carcasses over for a few hours…
Found an old cemetery out the back of the property. Must have been incredibly tough out there in the early days…
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