Twin Elements Podcast · Hunting Stories

Red Deer Camp: A Calling Masterclass During The Roar

After a fantastic run with the Venture crew, James and I moved camp just over the hill to spend a couple more days chasing roaring red stags — this time with two dads and their young sons in tow. It ended up being one of the more different, and honestly more rewarding, stretches of the whole rut.

In This Report

1. Taking an Eleven-Year-Old on His First Hunt With Us
2. The Loudest Calling We've Ever Done
3. Cold Calling the Midday Lull
4. Calling One In for a First-Timer
5. The Meat, and What Actually Mattered

Taking an Eleven-Year-Old on His First Hunt With Us

One of the dads asked if his son could come out with us, and I'll admit I was a little nervous. It's one thing managing yourself on the mountain — food, water, sleep — and another entirely to be responsible for a kid on top of it. Turned out we had nothing to worry about. This eleven-year-old had already been out plenty of times with his father, had helped butcher animals, and had the confidence to tell us straight when he was hungry, thirsty, or tired — which, credit to him, was almost never.

Kids remember what actually matters to them, and it reminded both James and I a lot of what our own dad gave us growing up. We kept the sessions short and sharp — a day and a half, no more — because as fun as it is, kids tire faster than we do and stop enjoying it long before they'd ever admit it. I really respected that his dad knew exactly when to call it and send the boys home before the trip started fading on them.

The Loudest Calling We've Ever Done

We had an extra hunter join us for a session, and one thing he said stuck with me: he hadn't realised how loud we actually call. His own hind calls, from a hundred metres out, would barely carry beyond that distance. When James and I are trying to pull a stag in from eight hundred metres, we're cupping our hands and going as loud as we possibly can — because at that range, projection matters more than subtlety.

That same morning gave us one of the more unusual encounters of the whole trip. While working one stag from thick timber across a gully, another four-by-four came in completely silent from behind us and walked to within two metres — close enough, James said, that he could see the whites of its eyes and nostrils flaring as it caught his scent downwind. It did an almost balletic spin and cleared nine feet in one bound getting out of there. Encounters like that are the reason you keep your head on a swivel even when you think you know exactly where the action is.

By the end of that session we'd laid eyes on twelve or thirteen different stags in a single morning — a proper reminder of just how much action Southeast Queensland offers, even without a shooter among them.

In the Field

Cold Calling the Midday Lull

A fair chunk of these two days came down to cold calling — going in blind on a gully or ridge junction with no stag already located, and simply giving it time. Our rule of thumb is to find a genuinely good-looking pinch point, settle in, and give it a solid thirty minutes before writing the spot off. That's long enough for a stag bedded down in the scrub to hear a few rounds of calling, get curious, and start moving without us ever having laid eyes on him first. Reading the small signs — a distant answering roar, timber cracking, a shift in the wind — is what tells you whether to keep working a spot or cut your losses and move to the next gully.

In the Field

Calling One In for a First-Timer

That afternoon, one of the other hunters in camp — keen to get his own first stag with the bow — joined us for a different kind of session. James got in close with the hunter while I sat about seventy metres back, doing hind calls to paint the picture that there were hinds further up the ridge, hoping to pull a stag through bow range on his way past.

It nearly went sideways when two yearlings came in first, chirping around directly in front of James and the hunter. I read it as best I could from a distance — no hand signals visible, just guesswork — and stopped calling the moment I judged those yearlings were close enough that spooking them could ruin the whole setup. It worked. The stag, who'd turned back toward the hinds when the yearlings first drew him in, eventually circled back through — and the hunter connected on his first stag with the bow. Watching someone secure that milestone, especially after grinding through a slower morning, is honestly as satisfying as taking one yourself.

James's Stag

The Meat, and What Actually Mattered

We got the stag packed out and back to camp inside a couple of hours, and cooked backstrap, tenderloin, and heart straight up on the Camp Chef with nothing but salt and pepper. Heart, cooked fresh, has this almost calamari-like texture with a flavour that pulls you straight into steak territory — and watching the boys dive into heart wraps for the first time, then go home and tell their family about it, said everything about why we do this.

Cooking Back at Camp

If I'm honest, the animal itself wasn't really the headline of these two days. It was the camp — sharing a butchering lesson with a kid, cooking with people who'd opened their camp to us despite the extra gear and the “can you keep it down, we're filming” requests that come with what we do. That kind of hospitality isn't small, and James and I don't take it for granted.

Next stop: back to New South Wales, where the game shifts from quantity to quality, and — spoiler — an arrow finds its mark on a personal-best stag.

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The Adventure Continues

Join the Twin Elements team as they head back into the Australian bush.

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This piece is adapted from Episode 18, "Red Deer Camp Part 2," of the Twin Elements Podcast.