Twin Elements E19: The Stag of a Lifetime - Hunter Valley
Written by Venture Hunting Staff. Story by Twin Elements.
03.02.2026
The Silence and the Roar: Chasing Ghosts in the Hunter Valley
The difference between hunting Red Deer in Southeast Queensland and the steep, timbered hills of the Hunter Valley in New South Wales is absolute chalk and cheese. In Queensland, you are inundated with action; you might see ten different stags in a single day, sifting through them to find one of quality. It is a game of management and selection. But here, in the Hunter Valley, it is a game of ghosts. The genetics are incredible, arguably some of the best in the country but the density is punishingly low. You don’t sift through stags here; you grind for days just to confirm they exist.
My brother James had moved to Armidale and immediately set to work securing access, facing ten "no's" for every "yes". He eventually unlocked a 7,000-acre property where the owner thought there might be a few deer, mostly Fallow, but admitted no one really hunted it. We were going in raw, and the stakes were high.
The Wet Welcome and the Broken Lens
Our first foray into this new country was a lesson in resilience. For the entire weekend, the skies opened up. It pissed down rain, creating miserable conditions that tested every piece of gear we owned. In the chaos of the weather, we actually broke one of our heavy 150-600mm camera lenses, a piece of kit we desperately needed to document the rut. But the rain brought a silver lining.
James had scouted two main areas where the farmer had locked up paddocks for winter, preserving good feed in an otherwise hard season. While trudging through the downpour, we stumbled upon a wallow. It was well-established on a dam, a muddy scar in the landscape that screamed stag.
We set up right then and there. The rain was our ally, dampening any scent we might have broadcasted to the wind. I began a series of hind calls, testing the air. To our disbelief, a spiker materialized. He wasn’t just any spiker; he was a "super spiker," a two-by-two with long tines that hinted at the monstrous genetic potential of the area. He stood eight meters from me for five minutes, completely unaware of our presence, letting out soft calls looking for the hind he thought he heard. We left that encounter soaked but energized. We knew the Red Deer were here.
The One That Got Away: "Clubby"
We moved to a different property closer to home, hoping to turn up something mature. That’s when we met "Clubby." We spotted him from a high ridge at first light—a massive 14-pointer with a distinct limp in his back left leg. He was a true giant, arguably the biggest Red stag I had ever seen in the wild up to that point. But he was frustratingly over the boundary fence.
The situation was precarious. We had a tiny sliver of land to play with in the corner of the property, and the wind was sucking down from the ridge, making our approach a nightmare. I threw a few hind calls across the valley. He responded immediately, roaring and moving toward the fence. We scrambled off the ridge, trying to loop around and cut the distance before he crossed.
Then, disaster struck. A mob of kangaroos to our left caught our wind and exploded out of the brush. The stag froze. He saw the roos bolt—a universal sign of danger in the bush—and the spell was broken. In that split second, I made a tactical error. I chose silence, fearing that if I called again, he might wind us and vanish for good.
In hindsight, I should have called. In these low-density areas, a hind call is incredibly powerful. A stag might go days without seeing a female. If I had reassured him that the "hind" was still there despite the spooked roos, his drive to breed might have overridden his caution. Instead, he faded back into the timber. We never saw Clubby again.
The Long Grind: 20km Days and Goat Meat
We left New South Wales for a week to hunt the peak roar in Queensland, experiencing incredible success. But when we returned to the Hunter Valley in mid-April, the woods had gone dead. For days, we heard nothing. No roars. No breaking branches. The post-rut silence was deafening. We fell into a routine of grueling hikes, covering 20 kilometers a day, hiking up in the dark at 3:30 AM to reach glassing knobs before sunrise. We were burning calories faster than we could replace them, resorting to shooting nanny goats just to keep meat in the camp.
We spent our mornings on a high knob, glassing into tight pockets of timber, searching specifically for hinds. Our theory was simple: find the girls, and you find the boys. One morning, we located a group of five hinds and five yearlings. We watched them for hours until, out of nowhere, a young 5x6 stag appeared. He was shadowing them, lip-curling and checking scent, but he never let out a single roar.
Later that afternoon, we returned to the same area and set up. I let out a hind call, and from 700 meters away, that same 5x6 came on a string. He closed the distance to less than 15 meters, completely silent. I was glassing when I heard a metallic "clink"—antler on wood or rock. I grabbed my bow, whistled to James, and there he was. He wasn’t a shooter, but he proved that even in the silence, the stags were still susceptible to the call.
The Final Morning: A "Half-Arsed" Roar
It all came down to the last day. We had to leave early to pick up our dad, Nick, from the airport at 10 AM. James and I decided to do one final, quick run up a ridge, more out of habit than hope. We dropped into a gully, let out a sequence of calls, and... nothing. We were defeated. Tails between our legs, we started the long walk back to the truck. It was the first time in the entire trip we hadn't even seen a deer.
But James, always pushing, decided we should take a slightly different route home to check a dam and some feed areas we hadn't walked before. That decision changed everything. As we trudged along, a roar echoed through the trees. It wasn't aggressive, just a "half-arsed" moan. But it was close, maybe 300 meters away.
Instantly, the fatigue vanished. We checked the wind; it was a perfect crosswind. We cut up the ridge, moving fast but silent, and found a stand of white poplar gums and iron barks that offered excellent cover. "I'm going to set up here," I whispered to James. "I'm going to call him in".
The Clock System and the Double Approach
We picked a tree with multiple limbs that broke up our outlines perfectly. James set up with the camera over my shoulder. We established our communication system: the big tree directly in front was 12 o'clock. If the stag appeared elsewhere, we would call out the time on the clock face.
I let out a few hind calls. Silence. We waited a tense minute. I called again. He roared back. He was interested. Another call. Another roar. He was closing the distance fast. Then, chaos ensued. A kangaroo hopped through the scene at 100 meters. Then, James whispered, "One o'clock. There's a stag coming". I looked left. "No, there's a stag at 11 o'clock," I hissed back.
We had two stags coming in at once. The one on the left was a spiker, racing to beat the competition. But the one on the right... as he crested the little ridge and moved through the spindly brush, I saw mass. I saw white tips. I saw a heavy four-point crown. He was moving aggressively, throwing his body around. I needed to know if James was on him with the camera.
"Do you think he's a shooter?" I asked, my voice barely audible. "Yep," James replied through the viewfinder.
The Shot and the Silence
The stag was charging in, quartering toward us. He let out one final, angst-filled roar at 30 meters—a sound that vibrates right through your chest. He stepped behind a large tree, and I seized the moment to draw my bow. It was textbook; as soon as his vision was blocked, I was at full draw.
He emerged from the other side, still coming. I needed him to stop. I let out a sharp hind call. He froze, ears swiveling, looking for the female he was sure was there. My pin settled low on his shoulder. I squeezed the release.
Thwack.
The arrow struck hard, punching through the shoulder and straight into the heart. The stag launched himself into the air and made a mad death run of about 30 meters. I immediately followed up with a few soft, calming hind calls. It’s a trick I use to stop them, to make them think, "Wait, the hind is still there, I'm just hurt".
It worked. He pulled up, pinned his ears back toward me, and then his legs gave way. He collapsed, his antlers clashing against the rocks. In a bizarre twist, the spiker—the competition—ran in moments later, closing to within 10 meters of us. He looked around, confused. Where was the hind? Why was the big stag down? It was the raw reality of the rut.
Reflections on a Mega Stag
We walked up to the fallen king. He was even bigger than he looked through the peep sight. We estimated him at five or six years old—not an ancient warrior with worn teeth, but a stag in his absolute prime. His antlers were magnificent, carrying a 7-point frame on one side and a heavy, bladed top on the other.
We had ground it out for weeks. We had broken gear, endured storms, walked hundreds of kilometers, and eaten goat meat to survive. We had faced the silence of the bush and the frustration of missed opportunities. But in the end, a single decision to walk a new path home, and a textbook setup in the white gums, resulted in the stag of a lifetime. That is the game of low-density hunting. You work for the 1% chance, and when it happens, you have to be ready to execute perfectly.
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