This was my first successful deer hunt in Australia. I have hunted for sambar deer in my resident state of victoria, but never hunted any other deer in Australia. Our group, which included myself and two friends were guided by Gerard Kirkum who has access to a large farming property that has not seen a lot of deer hunting pressure as yet. The conditions were very difficult for stalking as there had been very little rain over the preceding 4 years and the ground cover was very dry. The best results generally came from sitting out over fields that we found to be active and waiting for deer to feed out of the bush in the evenings.

I shot my deer on the evening of opening day. I expected a long shot as I was covering an open field with clear shots to 500 yards. When the buck came out of the cover, it was only 200 yards away. I used my 6/284 with a Lapua 105gn bullet at around 3200 feet per second. The Lapua entered the shoulder and destroyed the heart and lungs without exiting. The buck hunched down on its forelegs before running about 10 paces and expiring in mid stride.

Steve Gabrelidies took this deer right on sun set the second day of our hunt. The deer were spotted late in the afternoon as the sun was setting. After observing them for about 10 minutes, Steve decided to shoot the buck where it was bedded. Steve made a great 320 yard shot from prone with his 7mm Remington Magnum. The 140gn Nosler Ballistic Tip entered through the on side shoulder, took out the lungs and exited through the off side shoulder.
 

After three days of hard hunting, Mark finally got some good luck and took this buck after our guide Gerard and one of the farm hands drove a section of cover. Mark made a nice 50 yard shot on a running buck, dropping it on the spot with a 150gn Nosler Ballistic Tip from his Sako .308 Winchester.