I have not had much luck on our syndicate’s ground this roebuck season. It is usually like that in April and as the forestry is on the hill it is much colder and all is delayed in comparison to lowland. Roe rut is later than anywhere else and also bucks really start moving in May. I have not seen any fraying marks since this past weekend.

Weather really was not promising with bitterly cold easterly wind I was not too optimistic. We have easterly wind very rarely, but when we have, usually hardly any deer are moving about… I was out very early, maybe 16:30 and soon bumped on the first clean buck this season. He gave me no chance of a shot, but it was good to see him anyway.

I went for a long walk as strong wind was making stalking easier. I bumped on a few roe, some red deer as well, but that was it. I was on my way back to the car when I spotted a roe just behind the bend of the track. I set the camera on a tripod, but it looked like a young doe, however as soon as I switched the camera on I noticed movement behind the deer. There was another one coming out of the woods, and another one that looked like a buck. I had to leave my camera as it was, dropped on the ground, and then moved a bit to the right to have a better view.

Just as I thought, there was a doe and a buck. They looked like 2 years old siblings, but they could see the camera on the tripod and possibly caught my movement, but because there was a roe feeding between them and me, the doe soon calmed down and the buck also started feeding. He never stood broadside clear off the doe, and to make things worse the roe that was close, got even closer and started catching my wind…

Only at that time I had a good look at it and to my surprise it was a button buck! I was too busy looking at the other deer, when I had this little yearling closer all the time… 🙄

I would not feel good taking a better buck of the two, so when the button buck stood broadside I squeezed the shot just behind the shoulder. He jumped high in the air and dashed to the trees. The other two also did not hang around… It could have been much better video, but unfortunately the camera was focused on the second buck, but the one that I shot actually got much closer than expected and went out off frame… well… this is one person hunting and filming…

Speer 180gr SPBT second sample

The buck ran only 10-20m. The bullet went straight through the ribs and made really little meat damage and bruising. I was quite please with that. Little buck was only 7kg larder weight and had quite a few ticks, but apart from that was healthy.

Video

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