Twin Elements Podcast · Hunting Stories

Pegasus: The Two Month Search For A 32 Inch Chital Stag

I wasn't even hunting the day I first saw him. No bow in hand, just the tripod and camera. I was scouting new country, searching for stags as part of my guided hunting business, Spotted Safaris in North Queensland.
As it always seems to happen, when you don't have your bow. You see a chital stag of a lifetime. Luckily, I did have the camera and telephoto lens because i was able to share a magical moment with this deer. Observing him undergo behaviour, that in ten years of hunting chital had only ever seen, never record on film.

In This Report

1. The First Encounter
2. The Search
3. The Shot
4. What It Meant

The First Encounter

A Marvellous Sight

Ill never forget what transpired next. The first encounter presented with around one hour of light left, late in the afternoon. I like to refer to this time of day as the golden hour. When the sun begins setting and its rays create a magical warm hue across the landscape.
Out of the shadows, this stag emerged.
He was with numerous other stags as part of a mixed bachelor mob. Some in velvet, some recently cast their antlers, others still with hard antlers.
Seeing a few stags, including this noticable animal with hard antler, I moved closer to get some footage and create a profile, becoming more familliar with any of the mature stags.
Thi is something I have taken extrme joy out of, putting in the time to document the stags that live on this property. Keeping tabs on them as they mature each year, looking at thiings such as antler traits, rips on their ears and location on the property to identify them.
With plenty of long grass and vertical cover, I was able to sneak into around one hundred metres of the mob. Watching as he thrashed bushes, rubbed trees and postured with other stags, I thought to myself that he was showing a bit of rutting activity. likely having a rush of testosterone due to being in close proximity of a few other rival stags.
I let out a hind call, and his ears pricked up immediately.
Within a minute or two he had meandered into around forty meters. The range that he would stay within for the better part of the next forty minutes.

Bellowing Stag

This particular bellow sounded like an old friend.
His last bellow, would be his downfall.
The bellow came from an anger within, a guttural groan of aggression sounding like something from Jurassic park.

Thats when he did it, he looked straight through the camera and started bellowing!
A sound that few hunters get the privilege of hearing, let alone seeing up close.
His bellows were guttural, coming out like a raspy trumpet like roar, sounding like something from Jurassic Park.
Following this sequence, he started thrashing trees, and preaching, rearing up onto his back legs to rub the preorbital glands beside his eyes high into the bark. I've hunted chital for nearly ten years and I'd never seen a stag put on such a thorough display like that, let alone from that close.

At the time, I wasn't even looking at his antlers properly. I just knew, in the way you know these things after enough seasons, that he was old and impressive. It wasn't until I got returned to camp after dark and watched the footage back that it hit me.
This was the biggest / longest chital stag that I'd ever filmed in ten years of doing this.

Dating back to when this hunt transpired, I was studying Veterinary Science at University. Declaring that I was going to put in every bit of available time to hunt this deer. My routine became this; Leave Townsville Friday afternoon when university inished. Set up camp that eveing, hunt all day Saturday, Sunday, drive home Sunday night, start uni first thing Monday morning. The rest of the week was spent looking back at that footagge from the first encounter, racking my brain as to exactly where he might be hiding.
that cycle transpired over eight consecutive weeks. I don't know how much time i had spent watching that forty minutes of footage back, hoping I'd find him again.

The Search

Have you ever wanted something so bad, that it's all consuming. It's all you can think about.

Scenery & Other Stags

C obvious statement, but chital are all individuals. What I mean by that is that they're unique in a way that people who haven't spent time with them don't expect. Each stag has its own brow tine shape, its own antler spread, its own set of rips and notches in the ears from fighting. Some are dark, some lighter, some carry themselves differently to the rest of the mob. Once you've watched enough of them, they stop looking the same. They start looking like people with familiar faces.

Over that eight week stretch, I hunted extremely hard and was very focused on my goal. That happened to put me in a great place to be able to see plenty of deer and experience some unreal chital hunting. I observed plenty of other beautiful stags that would've been a representative / shooter on any other day of the week, had i not known that my target stag existed. I would send my brother James and father Nick, images and footage captured of these stags id found and I'd tell him, honestly, great animal, but it's not him.
Every day that went by without finding him again, my head went to places of doubt, beginning to question whether I'd ever see him again. This stag walked in and out of my life. Had he been shot by aerial culls, caught and killed by wild dogs, shot by another hunter, killed fighting for hinds? Maybe he'd moved location and now lived on the the neighbours property. Maybe dingoes had got him. Maybe he'd been hurt fighting, or picked off by a helicopter shoot happening on the neighbouring block. Maybe he'd just drop his antlers and I wouldn't even recognise him if we had crossed paths. Would he look the same come next season or be a totally different deer? As stags get older reaching their prime and maturity, their body pours what available nutrition they have left aside from survival and maintenance, into growing a rack that might come back wonky given how old and worn down he was.

For months and months I stared at this image, watched back the footage and thought what if… Just when doubt had started to creep in I reminded myself. "Hunt hard, the time will come. Find him and you have the skills to kill him". Visualise it and achieve it.

It took roughly two months of weekends before it happened. Needless to say our paths crossed and the rest is history.

In The Zone

The Shot

I remember the exact moment. I'd basically given up hope for the day, heading back toward the car, watching a few hinds feed and wondering why there weren't any stags with them. I cut back on a whim, the wind was good, and it was on the way anyway.

That's when I heard it. A distant bellow.
The same sound from that first encounter two months earlier. It sounds corny to say out loud, but it was like hearing an old friend call out to me at great distance. In my heart I knew instantly it had to be him.

It was late afternoon, a similar golden hour atmosphere to when i first saw him.
Whilst it was beautiful for watching deer, it was a different feeling knowing that today i had my bow, and every second that passed was a second closer to dark.
The surrounding bush was dead still, with no wind.
One one hand it was great as it afforded me hearing the stag so clearly from where I was. On the other hand, no wind when stalking chital makes things incredibly difficult.

It was the dry season which means much of the landscape is dry, brittle and loud.
As quickly as I could I set off in the stags direction. I got to within about 300 metres of where I thought he was and thats exactly when I saw his antlers. There was no need for binoculars. Even without the aid of glass, i knew it was him. His long antlers and impressive brow tines. Just like that, it's him!

The next fifteen minutes were excruciatingly slow and felt like walking on cornflakes. Bone dry grass stems and leaves underfoot made every step a risk. I got my shoes off, then reached onto my backpack for where the tripod and camera were strapped down. The clips of the pack made the faintest noise as I grabbed against a buckle. His ears pricked. He turned, looking in my direction for what seemed liike an eternity before lowering his head to feed. For a second I thought two months of detective work had just evaporated over one careless sound.

If there was a silver lining, the stag was alone. He was likely moving between mobs of hinds and let out his call to alert them (and me) to his approach.
I watched his impressive antlers swaying in the grass, confirming he had settled and was feeding his way from my right to left.

Ahead of him, was the boundary fence of the neighbpours property, as well as a mob of domestic cattle.

Two new hazards that I would have to contend with.
One (the fence) meant i would have to move uickly to best him before he crossed. The other (the cattle) would mean io had to move slow and calculated as not to alert another set of thirty or so eyes to my presence, having them flee and alert the stag.
It was a conundrum. But forced with 8 weeks of searching for this stag, I wasn't going to be picky over the terms of the stalk now that i had the opportunity.
Where fit, i hopped along the game trail. Moving stealthily as possible.
Forever closing in on the stag, I was able to half anticipate his line o travel now and rather than stalk at him, i stalked on a orty five degree aangle in front of him, hoping he too would help in closing the gap.
It worked perfectly and soon I was within around fifty or so meters from him.
It was happening so quickly that i hadnt even dared of what should happen if the stalk worked out.
All i could do was work towards heading this stag off and getting a chance.
That came when a large fallen down tree allowed for me to get low, nearly on my hands and knees and travel unseen at the stag. The tree had fallen as a result of a past fire and as a result on my side of its frame, the ground was quiet with exposed dirt and soot/ ash. This was the break I needed. Hiding behind its frame, I used the cover to range where the stag was, as well as a few trees in his path. I had closed the gap to within thirty metres.
As he stepped behind a large ironbark, I drew back.
I was calm, genuinely calm, I'd put in too much work for this moment to rattle me now. I settled the pin on a perfect white dot which covered the top of his heart and let go.

I never saw the arrow hit him. Both the stag and myself would've been as surprised as one another. I felt desperate for a sign of a hit, but i couldn't even see blood. He jumped forwards over a fallen log, took two or three steps, and went down. Crashing to the ground, consumed by dry grass until his final kicks struck out and his antlers lay still. I remember sitting there afterwards thinking, is that it?

After weeks of fantasising how it would play out. Some part of me had built this up into such a saga in my head that I expected a twist or turn, a tracking job, some kind of drawn out finish. Instead after weeks of suspense, with that nagging question of would i ever see him again?
It was the most peaceful bow kill I've ever had. That's when the shaking started.
Remember earlier when i said i had ben genuinely calm. Well now i was the opposite, adrenaline surged through my body. Not before, or during the stalk, when you'd expect it, but after, once it was actually over.
When my goal had been achieved.

What It Meant

Death In The Details

Hunting an animal you've named seems a bit odd, yet for me the personal element to our adventure is what makes it the most memorable of all my incredible bow hunts.

Up close, he was even more impressive than the footage suggested.
A genuinely old, genuinely worn basalt warrior.
His antlers still carried the same spectacular shape they had two months earlier, but with a couple of inches broken off here and there. Fresh scars ran across his neck from fighting. His body was leaner, more rugged. Two months is nothing in a human life, but for a rutting stag fighting every day of it, it's enough to visibly age an animal.

I named him Pegasus. Not something i norm ally do with an animals, however when you feel as if you know someone or something and it becomses so personal, a name felt fitting.
You see, it was easier to call him Pegasus over the past eight weeks, when someone asked what I was doing rather than saying going out to hunt a chital deer stah and explain everything.
It was summarised to, im going to look for pegasus.

He's mounted on the wall now. A stunning pedestal mount as all chital deer stags seem to eb with that beautiful cape. I still catch myself looking at him and running back through that whole stretch. On the day I finally got him, I had nine other genuinely mature stags within bow range that I'd have happily taken on any other day of the season. Yet I didn't so much as even consider it.

1 Of 1 - Pegasus

That's the part people who don't hunt struggle to understand. It was never really about the kill. It was about two months of 4am starts, a coffee in the dark, waiting for sunrise. Living off cans of tuna, muesli bars and hunting all day. Watching the same forty minutes of footage on repeat, and the particular kind of restraint it takes to pass on many a respectable stag, because at the end of the day, none of them were the one you've already given yourself to. The stalk itself lasted fifteen minutes. The story took two months to play out. The memory, even as I write this, will live on forever.
Just as it should. That hunt was very much the beginning of my chital deer addiction. A species I now wrap my life around and enjoy devoting the time to guiding others onto their very own stags.

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The Adventure Continues

Want the full story behind this episode? Listen to the podcast or watch on YouTube.

This piece is adapted from stories across multiple episodes of the Twin Elements Podcast & the Author's memories from those days searching for the stag.