He Measured:

• 31 inch spread
• 26 R/h
• 25 L/h
• Brow tines fairly even at 10 inches

Rifle was a Browning A bolt .300WSM. Projectile 180gn Woodleigh PP. Double shoulder/spine shot which dropped him on the spot.  The shot placement I read so many times in your articles and books worked perfectly!!! 

Unfortunately technology failed me on the day so I don’t have a photo of the stag. However I would like to tell you that I learned from your magazines and books.

Firstly I located the gully over 6 months ago where I eventually harvested the stag. While monitoring the area but not seeing him, I took notice of changes in signposts in the area like rub trees, game trails, grasses that had been eaten and wild cherry trees that had be stripped of lower branches and foliage.

I also discovered two wallows, one that both the stag and hinds were using and one only the stag used. As I discovered more in the bush I read articles in your magazines that explained them. It was like a cross reference!!

About a month ago I travelled to Corryong with a friend and found the same signposts in a gully head there as well. We put up a nice stag but he crashed away through the bush never to be seen again.

To quote your teachings, these animals are hard wired to act the same way like a blue print. Once I got this in my head it opened up a whole new world and I WAS blown away at what had been in front of me for months.

After going over pics on my game camera I worked out that the stag came to his little gully head to rub a large Cherry, wallow and eat, so I made a hide about 40 yards from the tree.

I sat in the hide from 3.50pm on a hot afternoon and had high expectations that the Stag would turn up about 5 to 5.30 because that’s when the shade would be over his little penthouse in the forest.

Around 5.15pm I could hear something in the bush behind me and at about 5 o’clock as a reference. I heard an occasional crunch or stick breaking. I stayed completely still for about 20 minutes and then I heard a swishing sound, something I never heard before. The sound was coming from a position to my right further down the gully so I carefully moved and bent a few of the branches that formed my hide to discover a black object silhouetted against a large blackberry bush. I raised my rifle to take a look and to my surprise there was the stag I had been chasing.

I took the opportunity to watch him un-alarmed for a few minutes. I placed the cross-hairs on his shoulder 1/3 of the way from the top of his withers. I fired the rifle and the stag dropped on the spot.  Shot placement was spot on - the stag didn’t move. 

Regards

Tony Quinnell