I had the amazing opportunity to fly south last week, making my way back to Argentina for another hunting adventure. But, dove was not what we were after. Oh no, not this time. What, you ask, would lure us so far from home? The elusive free range red stag of the Andes.

It. Was. Insane.

Rather than our standard trip to Córdoba, we flew further south to the Patagonia region of Argentina, landing in Neuquen and embarking on a 4 hour drive away from civilization. Things got real remote real quick, and before I knew it we were off of paved roads, heading higher into the mountains on gravel and dirt.

Estancia Quillen is a tiny lodge nestled along the Rio Quillen, and it was to be our home for the week. Phone? Internet? Who needs them! With one satellite phone between six of us, it was goodbye real world, hello mountain life.

Each hunter was to be paired with a gaucho, but ol’ Otis and I would hunt together (naturally) with one, named Christian.  After a long night and day of travel, it was time to hit the hay. Alarm clocks were set to go off in about four hours and our first hunt awaited.

Well, 4:45 am (3:45 in SC) came more quickly than I thought it would, but the anticipation of the hunt got me right out of bed. You know that feeling you get when you hear a turkey gobble before the sun comes up? When you know that one is close by and your blood starts pounding in your ears and you are almost too excited to sit still but know you must? That’s exactly how it feels when you hear a red stag roar – particularly if it’s the first time you’ve heard it – and it never gets old. Stag, which look essentially like an elk, don’t bugle quite like they’re close looking cousin (is “cousin” how you’d describe that?). It’s deeper, more aggressive, and honestly pretty funny to hear when you know a big bull is getting worked up and trying to flirt with the ladies.

We were actually in for a pretty rude awakening, because getting to the areas where the gauchos think I will be is not always an easy feat. Once the truck dropped you off, there was no way to know what sort of terrain awaited! We average 3 to 4 miles of hiking per hunt, whether that was trekking across pitted, semi-flat pastures riddled with fox holes & cow patties, or rocky cliff sides that required using your hands and feet to climb vertically [with your rifle and packed strapped to your back, of course].  For those places a little further away, horseback was the ideal mode of transportation. Just wait until you hear about the day we did that. (!!!)

BUT. Back to the hunt.

We actually didn’t see anything the first morning, but we did hear a stag or two roaring in the distance. Since it was our first time ever hunting them, I definitely didn’t mind being skunked. Just getting out there, hearing them, and seeing the terrain was a great way to start. Besides, it just the first hunt, and we had 11 more to go! A 6 day hunting adventure, two hunts per day.

YES.

Since it is growing increasingly difficult to bring guns into Argentina, we opted to use the rifles the lodge had on hand. In fact, two of the hunters, Brett & Michael, did try to bring theirs down  – they have super high-tech, dialed-in, high power (lets-take-a-stag-at-800 yds- sort of dialed-in high power) – and those guns ended up sitting in the Buenos Aires airport for the week. Trust me when I tell you, it was a mess. Well, since we were all using rifles we’d never shot before, we decided to take the time between our first day’s hunts and shoot them a few times, just to get a feel for them.

And take a few pictures, of course! Once we got comfortable with the guns, it was time for lunch and a quick nap before our next hunt.

That afternoon, Christian led us up and over a new ridge en route to our hunting spot. Not 20 minutes into our trek, we jumped two stag – a momma and her little one, still covered in spots! Hah! We’d officially seen our first red stag. They took off and didn’t stop, of course, but things were already looking good.

Sure enough, 5 minutes later, we jumped another one. Only this time, he had horns. Big ones.

–> Insert adrenaline rush here <–

Y’all. These things are massive! Obviously the 3 of us couldn’t react quick enough to even think about taking a shot, but that was a great way to activate our hyper-awareness. We were in. Stag. Territory. And, with so much activity so quickly, we decided to go ahead and set up near by, nestling behind a few bushes for concealment while we glassed the hillside and little valley below.

Suddenly, I saw Christian go rigid. He and I would develop our own little “language” over the next 6 days as a result of the language barrier and need for absolute silence while hunting, and this is where it started. He slowly turned to me, grabbed a branch of the bush in front of us, and gently shook it back and forth. Huh…? I had no idea what that meant, but looked through my binoculars anyways to see if I could figure it out. Then, I saw it. And it clicked.

About 300 yards directly in front of me, down the hill and through some brush, a tall, thin tree was moving back and forth in such a way that I immediately knew it was not a gust of wind shaking it’s branches. Oh no. Friends, we had a bull red stag in our midst, and he was shaking that ENTIRE TREE with his antlers, making one epic rub.

–> Insert even bigger adrenaline rush here <–

One minute later, this tree shaker stepped out into a little clearing, giving me a perfect view (albeit slightly blurred by the bushes 8 inches in front of my faces as I strained to get a better look at him through my binocs without moving too much). Where we were positioned in relation to him, along with the distance and brush between us, there wasn’t really a good opportunity to set up for a shot, much less take one. So, for the next 20 minutes or so, we watched him mill around, laying down for a few minutes then sniffing about where he’d made his rub. Then, just like that, he was off.

Not running – he wasn’t alarmed or anything – but it was clear he was now on a mission. Christian fervently gave us a few hand signals that I interpreted as, “grab your gear and follow me as quickly as possible, but for heaven’s sake do not make any noise at all or even blink too loudly or we will never see this thing again.” Yes, sir. He kicked it into high gear and crept up and over a small hill, clearly anticipating the stag’s path, and Dad and I quietly rushed behind him. He’d grabbed my rifle in the meantime, and I was honestly relieved to not have any more gear to worry about at the moment! [We actually find out that this was not, in fact, high gear for him – or any other gaucho – but an “average” pace. There is a “gaucho turbo” that will make you wonder what you’ve been doing for exercise your entire life. More on that later, though].

Where was I? Ah, yes, following Christian at an alarmingly fast pace while maintaining a crouched position. And then, he stopped. Christian stopped dead in his tracks – between a fruit tree and a little grove of bushes – for about half a second. In the next half of that second, he half-turned to me to hand me the rifle, and got flat on the ground.

No way. It can’t be. We could not have crossed the path of that stag that fast. Could we?

Yes, yes we could.

Dad and I had gotten our rear ends on the ground at some point – I’m not sure when, as everything was happening so fast – and he was sitting just behind me, slightly to my right. He told me later that when he looked up, all he could see was horns. The stag was standing perfectly in front of a large bush, so he couldn’t see the body. Then, I saw the horns. Then the body.

Y’ALL. THIS STAG WAS SUDDENLY SOMEHOW 35 YARDS IN FRONT OF MY FACE AND OH MY STARS WHAT IS HAPPENING. Hunter-Hollis thankfully kicked in a millisecond later. With as much control as I could muster, I placed my left elbow on my left knee, raised the rifle and fitted it to my shoulder, clicked the safety off, and stuck my head forward to look through the scope. It wasn’t hard to find my mark – he’s the size of a horse, for Pete’s sake – and I paused to let him make a slight turn to give me a better-angled shot. Then, I pulled the trigger.

I’ll never in my entire life forget what happened next. Can you guess?

THE STAG CHARGED ME. I kid you not. I clambered up to my knees and was about to cover my head with my arms and dive into a bush to go into survival mode, fully expecting to feel heavy trampling hooves in the next second – all I could do was say was “SH*T! SH*T! SH*T!” and pray that he didn’t break too many of my bones. At 15 yards and closing, the stag suddenly whipped to his left and took off down the hill, followed in quick succession by my dad and Christian. I was still trying to recover from panic (no way).  I’d made a nice shot, piercing the stag’s chest in a way that effectively took out lungs and heart, and he was DOA just a few seconds later.

I’ll say it again. OH MY HOLY STARS. WHAT. JUST. HAPPENED.

Just like that, I had a red stag on the ground. On the first day.

Before I could really even comprehend the situation, Christian had already gone to work field dressing the stag (which is why you see that blood and whatnot above). Dad and I spent a few minutes just staring at it, letting the entire event sink in. Then, it was high-fives and photo time.

He is by no means the biggest bull on the mountain, but I am still incredibly proud to have taken such a large, (incredibly) wary free-range animal and such close range, and feel so lucky to have gotten such an insanely amazing opportunity.

As I mentioned, Christian was fast at work, and had the stag completely field dressed and caped in maybe 15 minutes. A European mount is what I wanted, so he did a short cape.

Can you believe it? I still can’t, sometimes. When I’ve told people how it happened, many think I am making parts of it up. Its crazy! But crazy in the best way. Otis and I have yet another memorable hunt under our belts, and we were only on day 1 of a 6 day hunt.

It was Dad’s turn next, and we’d be ready.

The next installment of the #brightsideoutdoors Patagonia adventure is coming your way soon! Stay tuned. And get ready.