Ep. 85: Remi's Top 5 Southern Hemisphere Fall Hunts

I got some interaction and some people debating what the top five were. I know, I keep thinking about that list and it constantly changes in my mind. But maybe maybe it's inspired you to maybe plan out a spring hunt for yourself. Now. For me, I'm completely aware that it's only spring for half the world south of the Equator, just coming into fall. As a guy who's chased the

fall the majority of his life. Normally this time of year, I find myself in the South Pacific getting ready for the red deer roar, getting ready to maybe chase some tar or the croak of the fallow. Uh. It's it's one thing that I really am passionate about. And obviously borders being closed and things what they are. It's the first time in a long time last year and this

year that I've had to sit out that season. But that doesn't mean that I'm not thinking about you guys down there and not thinking about some incredible hunts that I've had in the other fall. So this week I'm gonna be doing a top five countdown of my favorite South Pacific or March through June fall hunting season. But before we go there, I really want to share the story of what ended up being my best fallow buck

with a bow. This week. I actually just got back um the amount of my best fallow dear thus far. I took it with my bow a couple of years back in two thousand nineteen, and it was just before everything shut down, before the world shut down for the whole epidemic. So I got this mount back and it's just been like I've been kind of looking back at pictures, watching some video of the hunt, and reliving that memory of what I think is one of my top and

favorite hunting memories. You know, you go through and you have all these hunts and there's just some that stand out for various reasons. I think as a hunter, that's one of those things that's so cool about having antlers. Like I'm looking where I'm recording here, I've got like this little dog kennel that I've converted into a podcast studio.

Not little dog kennel, not like the kind you put in the back of your car, but it was a dog run for um uh a while, and now I've kind of converted it into a miniature office podcast place. I've got a lot of my antlers here, and it's just something you know as a hunter, A lot of hunters can associate with this. It's like, it's cool to see that mount, to see that skull, to see those antlers, and just relive, relive that memory. And so when I got this mount back, it's just like all the memories

of that hunt flashed back for me. Fallow Deers just like they're so freaking cool to hunt. I've hunted them quite a few different places, but some of my favorite places that Chase himmer in New Zealand and Australia one of the places that I like to hunt. It's kind of a more more central part of the country and it's got just like very similar terrain to what I experienced where I grew up hunting in Nevada. I think it's pretty much the same latitude longitude, just on the

opposite side of the world. But it's just got like this open field, big rocks um instead of sage, it's replaced with wild time. But it looks like if I was to take a picture of that and take a picture of the place I grew up hunting, you could almost stitch the two together, and it looks very similar. Because of that, it's very reminiscent to me of mule

deer hunting and the ultimate spot and stock game. When you think about open country mule deer hunting, there's there's this inherent challenge because you really can't employ a lot of other tactics other than spot um exploit a weakness when you can and stock in. One of the things that I really enjoy about this particular place follow your

hunting is it's got all those things. It's got that place where I can set up in glass, It's got, you know, some some rocky terrain and more mountainous type stuff. And then another good thing is that it happens to have some good bucks and some good rud action. On this particular hunt, I had been chasing it's a private station,

so I've know the land and a really well. He's a good friend of mine, and I had the opportunity to hunt this place multiple years in a row, and it just goes to kind of show like most of my hunting I love to do is on public land, but there are some incredible hunts that are completely free range where it's managed. You really start to see the trophy potential of some of these places, and just to be able to the opportunity to hunt something like that

is incredible. So I don't discount the fact that I'm very fortunate to be able to hunt this area, but because of it, you know, it's really cool to be able to go back year after year and kind of start seeing like, Okay, what dear, what genetics? Where these deer coming from? Some of them kind of appeared during the rut from places I don't know where. And then there's one particular buck that I've been seen for three years in a row and had yet to get an

arrow in. Um, he's probably gonna start regressing. He had kind of these awesome drop antlers and just just a giant buck. On this particular hunt, I found that buck again the uh for multiple years in a row, and thought, okay, I'm really going to focus in on getting this deer. So I spotted him, watched him bed stocked in. That stock didn't work. Then I ended up respotting him stocking in again, and the time I didn't blow it, he

just moved off. So I ended up spending the rest of the day find like looking back into where I think he might have went, and caught him bedded. He's just like it was during the rut. But this buck, I think he's just that old age class where he's just kind of off on his own and then probably just rolls in, grabs a few does and takes charge of everything. He happened to be bedded below this cliff, like in this spot where I knew I could stalk in,

I take off my shoes, I sneak in. I get within range, and all I can see there is antler tips. So I'm like, okay, I'm gonna go around, get right above him and get a shot on him. This is awesome, like the winds good everything. As I'm stalking around, he had somehow got up out of his bed unspooked, but just decided to do his thing. He's walking around the rock pile at the bottom. I look up and he looks over at me at the exact same time. It

was just a matter of timing. I was paying it a lot of attention to where he was and being quiet, and normally I'm always scanning, always scanning, and I was scanning, but it just happened to catch him. I was looking. He popped out right. I look right, We're both looking at each other. He blows out. I try to stop him. It's no good. He runs off. I end up respotting the same buck later and getting a good stock in.

I stock in. Everything's right, super windy, it's quiet, the sun's on me, but he's kind of down below feeding or he's bedded. And now I'm stalking in and I see the handler tips stick up and I'm like, oh, he's standing now, why stand up? And it's just the slope of the hill and the tall grass. It's really hard to like see exactly where he's at. I tried ranging him, but I can't get a good range. So I was trying to actually range the tops of his antlers.

I could see that I could probably shoot through the grass. I get the range, I draw back, shoot and miss, just shoot right underneath him, and I think that I had misranged him. You know, it was probably ten yards further than I thought, but with the way the hill was in the brush that I was ranging through, I just didn't take enough. I didn't want to take any extra time because I thought he was going to get

out of there. And I also thought that, all right, he's right here, this is this is your good man. Just draw back and shoot him, and unfortunately I missed. It's like, oh man, this sucks. That's a great buck. I continue hunting for that deer for quite a few

days and never relocate him. So I'm kind of back in that same area a few days later and I hear some croaking and I'm checking this one canyon and this this bucks down there croaking, a smaller buck, and I hear up above me just this real deep That was me trying to do my croak without practicing first. But um, it's essentially like if you have never hunted fallow deer, it's this, it's this like grunt snort. I kind of think of it like a pig. So I

go and it's like they do this croak. They get on these pads where they've dug out this dirt area, this rut pad where they've got their scent, very similar to like an elk walloh. And the bucks will get in that pad, they'll roll around, they'll lay, and they'll start croaking, and actually a lot it will start attracting the females. Then they'll build up this harem and they'll kind of take control of the does and potentially, you know, hopefully a dough comes into heat and then they wrote

that dough. While that happens, other bucks are in there trying to to steal his honey. And these these fallow deer fight so ferociously. I think that out of all dear species that I've encountered, I think between those and Russa, there's some of the most aggressive, like breeders fighters. They I've seen many many fallow bucks dead, fighting to the death when the ruts on. It's a very aggressive time of year. So this buck's croaking, I work my way in, pick up my binos and my jaw drops. I'm like,

this fallow deer is an absolute tank. Quite a few years earlier i'd been guiding, and there's a couple of different score systems for international type games. So the one I like to use as a safari club system because it doesn't necessarily analyze you for what the animal grew. It's kind of it's a good way to compare apples to apples because you know you aren't discredited for maybe something that's a little bit different on one side or

the other. And then there's the Douglas score system, which is quite a bit different, but it's really favoring cemetery, very similar to our Boone and Crockett or Pope and Young club system. So I'm looking at this buck through the buyos and I'm like, this thing is a beast. I don't know if I've seen a buck as big as this one, even the one I was chasing before, I don't think it was this big. And this was a buck that I had not seen before. He was

the King's Stag of the Hill. And a few years earlier I had actually guided to what was the been on the hunt with um the free range archery world record for s c I and I looked at this this stag and I'm like, this fellow buck is just he's bigger than that buck. I knew what I had in front of me and it was a giant, so I'm like, okay, calm yourself, You've got to make this happen. So it's just here open and I'm behind this rock, and I'm like, okay, he's got a ton of doze

with him. He started like he's croaking, and then another buck kind of comes in and starts pushing this dough around. He doesn't like it. He gets up off his bed, out of his pad and starts going and starts pushing these deer. And I'm like, okay, I gotta stay on them because there's so many folds in the hills and everything. He could just disappear. So I dropped down and I get tried to I'm thinking I might be able to

circle around and cut him off. I get in this wash, I'm like running trying to make sure I don't spook anything. There's other deer round getting into position at that time of days, like towards the end of the day. So I get up around and I see him once more going over the next rise, and they're just like running after these doughs, like pushing him around. He's running off bucks whatever. So they go down. I start following down.

I'm just like so thankful the wind was good. I'm moving down and I see his his antlers, like his big palms up above the slope below me, and then I lose them again, so I start every time I see them, I'm making a play to stock in there, trying to get the wind right. So I hustle around the mountain. I'm like, okay, I'm gonna cut them off here and find them. I go. I'm moving quick. I'm trying to make sure nothing's going wrong, but I also want to get to that spot before where I think

they're going. I get there, no, dear, I'm like, oh man, did I lose them. It's almost that time of day where it's like all right, So I'm like, okay, I'm thinking about them, like where could they go? So I start working down and into this next pocket. I'm thinking, okay, they didn't go this way either past me, or went the back of the way they went came from, sort of. So I start working this other way. I don't see anything,

don't see anything. I'm working down this like kind of craggy rocky thing, and ACTUAL see a group of does and I'm like all right, So I throw my bones up glassing and then I hear this croaking echoing in the canyon. Blow me. Well, there's a lot of bucks around, but maybe this is it. So I get set up and sure enough I see us antler tips downblown sweet. So I was self filming. I set my camera up and I'm like, all right, just wide shot, crawling. I

crawling get to position. He's like sixty yards out range him, and he's now moving up and pushing the dose. He's like below me, fairly close, but I can't get a shot, and so he works up the hill across and starts pushing those doughs and he comes to this point where he's like broadside a drawback anchor in shoot. Arrow hits its mark and the buck like runs uphill. I'm thinking, oh, man, like what happened? But I could tell that he was so rudded up. I don't think he actually knew he

got hit. It was windy enough. They didn't hear the bow go off. I think he just heard something. And then he sees the doz running. He follows the dose over the ridge and I decided to let him. Let him wait. The next morning I come back and uh, sure enough, go over to where I saw him disappear. There's this a little thicket there. Look in there, and there is the buck of a lifetime for somebody that's

pretty stoked on fallow deer hunting. Just walking up on this and and knowing that this was one that I took with my bow, not bringing someone else to it was one of those moments that are few and far between. You know, I've hunted a lot of things. I've shot

some really nice animals. I've looked for big animals and some some situations, but for the most part, like, I really enjoy being picky with fallow deer, and especially because I have an opportunity to hunt a good place and to be able to take a buck of this caliber

was just incredible. Later on, I actually ended up having the buck scored for SCI and he was at the time the number one archery taken fallow deer free range, which it was just like it was cool because you're like, hey, cool, but it's just a testament to what an incredible buck he was. And I'll never forget the first time that I laid eyes on him, and now having him right here is I'm podcasting looking at just this awesome animal.

It's a good memory. And just one of those things that I can't wait to get back out there and see if maybe one day there's one bigger. If I never see one even close, I'll still be as happy

as I am right now. Now that we've gone through our list of of top five spring hunts, you know, am Italy, I have spent most of my life chasing the fall and honestly, the only thing that could keep me away from heading down to the Southern Hemisphere to to get into another fall season was a worldwide pandemic and cutting into the distance being listened all over the world, There's no way I can leave out my friends just coming into that fall season. So I'm going to do

a countdown of my favorite South Pacific quarry. I know things are closed to get over there for North America, but there's maybe a good way about think about some hunts and adventures in the future. So this list was really tough for me. I had a tough time organizing it because if you ask me a week from now,

it'll probably be different. There's so many things that I love to chase over there between Australia and New Zealand primarily, but there's also some great hunts and a lot of these species in Argentina and other places around the world.

So let's just dive into the top five list. Oh and before I get into the top five lists, I know there's gonna be a lot of there's a lot of people out there that are gonna listen to this podcat a lot of my podcast listeners that are die hard Samber hunters, and I have not yet got to do that that Good Highlands Samber hunt I was supposed to be going last year, and I had plans to maybe go a couple of years in a row once I know undoubtedly I'll probably love it. However, I can't

add it to the list. So that's the caveat to this list, because I know there's a lot of you out there, all right, So we're gonna jump into the list starting at number five. Number five, I went. This was tough, but I went with Russa. It's a really fun dear to chase. I like the aspect that they live in a variety of terrain, but I like that

still hunting jungle type hunting. I also love how aggressive they rut and the way that the stags fight, but they can be like also quite solitary and fairly aggressive. I think it's a it's a really fun hunt. They've got kind of that micro roar thing going on, and just the terrain itself really lends it to a really

fun hunt. Um. The few places that I have got to hunt them, maybe three or four different places, has been all mostly that more jungle type terrain, and I really enjoyed that that more mountain, really thick cover, thick country, finding those trails and finding those those places where they're at.

You know, it's fortunate to have an opportunity to chase some other roofs and in a more open terrain, and that was really cool being able to watch how aggressive they rut in and around that like more water aquatic type country. You know, russ Are it can be a very aquatic type deer. So if you get that opportunity to hunt that, that's pretty awesome seeing them go out and feed in the water and just like give you more option. Um, what I did find is they can

be fairly patternable. I know there's a lot of guys that set up and do ambush hunts for him, but during when they're running, just calling is is a lot of fun. I love that opportunity to just call back and forth, and then they definitely made the list, coming in at number five. Number four, I'm gonna have to give to the shammy. Part of me is like wants to put it at the top, and part of me is like, okay, it's number four because one of the species that originally drew me to want to go to

the South Pacific hunt was the shammy. After I hunted them for a while, you know, I started to see other species in a different light. They are a very beautiful species. I mean they are a very fun hunt in some aggressive mountain type terrain and that like right there is the adventure and is the fun. I think one of my favorite ways to hunt shammy um, especially when you kind of chase them with a bow. One thing that I've found like a weakness of theirs is

not only their curiosity, but they're just determination. I like to figure out where they're going. If you watch them for a little bit, you'll see that they've got this route or wherever they want to go, and then just trying to get in front of them and cut them off. They are very hard to change their mind when they've got something that they want to do. There's been times where I've been hunting it's like, oh, they're going there, and we move and get into position and it's like, okay,

oh they saw me. No, they're gonna walk either right through me or right past me, which is actually pretty cool. But they can be very difficult to find, uh, you know in New Zealand there in the past there's been a lot of areas where their numbers have been declining, and that makes it tough when they're hard to find. It's actually more of a in many instance is when you actually when I actually see one, and especially in an area where I'm not expecting to see them, it's like,

oh yeah, hunts on. I can't believe actually spotted shammy here. And I like to hunt them around that kind of like that fringe habitat where it's that cliffy stuff, but on the brush edge. Um, that's always a lot of fun to to catch him in those little brushy guts, those brushy gullies and then work up those little creek bottoms, especially in good shammy country. So coming in number four the shammy, Now we're gonna move on to number three. I'd say number three is gonna go to red deer.

Of course, the roar is an unbelievable time. I mean, you know, just talking back and forth roaring up a good stag is fun. But if I was probably pick my favorite time to hunt reds, I would say either early or late. I just find that it's more consistent to get into the more mature, bigger stags, especially early when they're on that feed pattern bachelord up, maybe right after they stripped velvet um is a great time to locate.

I'm just more up in the alpine early season, and then actually after the rut can be pretty decent hunting for red deer. In my opinion, I'm it's kind of strange in the way that I would always hunt red deer when everyone else wasn't, because I felt like during the roar it just got so much pressure a lot of people out hunting, roaring, you know, out and about, So I would go hunt something else while everyone else

is hunting the roar. And then afterwards, or either before or after, I'd go in there and find the big stags after they're done running, when they kind of pull off into the speed pattern, they'd get in these little isolated pockets and they're just kind of staying tucked tight by themselves and just feeding and rebuilding and storing back up that energy that they lost during the roar, maybe just kind of in a little pocket, sulking by themselves

because they had a tough season. But I find that that's uh, that for me has always been the best two times to find big stags. But you know, there's just something about hunting the roar, communicating with an animal. It's very similar to our elk right here, So of

course I love that. But um, those early and late seasons can be really really good for for picking out like a good mature stag, and I think the best stags that I've ever taken were always earlier late Um, but probably some of the most fun times I have would be actually peak roar. So I gotta give the third spot to the red deer. Number one and number two really are interchangeable in my mind, and it's just

it just depends. I would say number two is because of the animal and number one is because of the location. So the number two spot I'm giving to the fallow. I absolutely love chasing fallow deer. Um. I don't know what it is about him. I think that they just seem to be this this animal that is is so tough. They rut so hard during the croak. I mean, they're very vocal. They they've got a little bit of everything.

I love. They're very reminiscent to me of hunting meal deer, and I like that, especially if you can find them in more open country. There's a few places that I hunt them in in the open, but there's a lot of places that I've hunted them in that thicker bush and it's really fun during the rut when they're rutting, where they're they're croaking, they're on their paths, they can be super super aggressive and you can kind of use

all hunting tactics for them. You can use ambush tactics, you can use calling tactics, rattle, I mean, rattling for fallow is a lot of fun, especially in some thicker stuff. I love to croak um. That's one way that during the rut that I've taken probably my best fallow bucks. But I think that that, like, there's just something about chasing fallow deer. There's such a cool the way their

antlers grow. Everything about them I just love and I'm addicted to hunting, so it's something that's always on my list. Whenever I'm in the South Pacific or anywhere where there's fallow deer, I just get fallow on the brain and I go full bore into chasing them. So they're they're coming in right there at our number two spots. All right, drum roll the very final number one spot. I gotta give to the Himalayan Tar. I'm Tar or just badass. They've got. It's a mountain goat with a lion's mane.

They've got like this guerrilla striped back. The way that they walk around and just stomp around, especially when they're running, is just so cool. But aside from that, it's to the location. There's there's just something about where the tar live up by the glaciers, in the real tough mountains. Every tar trip, in my opinion, has always been an adventure.

It doesn't matter if it's just a day trip where I drive up and hike into a spot of a river valley or somewhere where we get dropped for a week from a chopper, like just a real remote backcountry spot, or just you know, spending a week going up a river valley during the rut and just trying to pick out a big boltar. There's just something about him that is just it's awesome. It's the epitome of mountain hunting.

You've got to be part mountaineer, part that's just like in that alpine, in that very dangerous terrain, there's just some real form of adventure with it. And I love that about tar hunting. And that's the reason the tar comes in at our number one South of the Equator fall hunting season spot. Well, that concludes my top five

South Pacific or South of the Equator fall hunts. If you're right now coming into fall, please share your hunting videos with me, you're hunting pictures, your stories, because I'm just gonna have to live vicariously through you guys. It's something that I'm I'm missing. I never thought if you were like, hey, there's gonna be a couple of years span where you aren't gonna get down there and get to chase some animal is around, I'd be like, yeah, right, yeah,

we'll see when that happens. Um. So, so I'm really missing that. I've been just like watching a bunch of videos and just kind of dreaming about the next time I get get back down there. So yeah, keep keep me uh frothing by sharing all whatever you've got if you're if you're a guy that's like, hey, I hunt the US. I've never hunted that, you know, it's always

it's always a dream. I remember I was probably fourteen years ago, um bowltar Like it was one of the things that I just thought, like, I really want to hunt these and knew nothing about it. Um it was back before there was any information on doing it yourself.

I kind of just bought a one way ticket and um got over there, bought a small vehicle I called the tar car, and really learned to like just learned how to hunt those areas and just kind of cut my teeth on figuring it out, hunting different places and just kind of like going from hut to hut and back country zone to back country zone and and fell in love I I And from that point on, I pretty much spent all of the fall season, southern fall season,

chasing animals around, um, you know, kind of doing some guiding and some other things. And uh, it's just something that I'm really missing right now. So I would be down there probably right now, um, if it weren't for borders being shut down. So I think you guys, for everybody that shares stuff with me, it's always fun to see everybody's adventures and people getting out, and it's always cool to be able to kind of if you haven't

done those things, dream about those things. I like to be able to think about hunts that I want to go on plan and execute and make make a plan for some time in the future, whether it's next year, whether it's when it opens, or whether it's ten years from now. And I think you guys in the South Pacific there wherever that you're listening, you know, I think that there's a lot of good information for you guys

to come here. And I think there's a lot of cool opportunities for people from all over the world to kind of use social media and other things to to share info, to learn about the way other people hunt, and to potentially experience those hunts. And I think that that's really cool. I've got a lot of friends down there that have come and hunted up here, and I see more and more people from other parts of the

world kind of reaching out globally. Once when we could travel across borders and trying new hunts and and going different places and sharing information with the people that they meet, and that's that's just the cool thing that I love about the hunting community is no matter where you are in the world, we share something in common, and it's our passion for the outdoors, hunting, providing for ourselves, harvesting

our own food, and having some awesome outdoor adventures. So that's something that I like, I like to see next week, I'm gonna be I kind of teased it last week, but I wanted to make sure that I covered some stuff, continued the countdown to say, so I got the pack um or just kind of like a way that you can stay in shape for the hunting season. I'm gonna get you ready physically, and then we're gonna go into some other ways that we can prep for the season.

But I think next week we're gonna we're gonna jump into I've I've kind of got this whole system of the way that I've been training, especially because some of these big things that I would do, I would normally be rocking around the Tar Mountains right now and wouldn't even have to worry about fitness or nutrition. But because I'm not doing that, I really and I've got a lot of hunts coming up this this uh September, October, even August that I need to be in top physical

shape for. I'm just gonna kind of share my training plan with you guys and ways that you can, no matter where you're at, flat landers, mountain guys, whatever can kind of simulate what you need for those long backpack type hunts or those rough country mountains style hunts. So that's coming up. Remember feel free to to shoot me messages or whatever at Remy War on Instagram or Remy at the mediator dot com. I appreciate you all. Until next week, wherever you're at, find some fall or spring

or something done. I've had way better endings. Will work on it and see you guys. H