Thread: First Wellington hunt

Interesting first Wellington hunt.
I have been up here now for 4 odd months and haven’t yet had the opportunity to get out and explore.
I found myself with a day off and decided to head out for a wee day trip with my brother in law and try reduce the local goat population. After some last minute advice from @Tahr I was up before the dawn and heading up into the Rimutakas as the sun rose.

At the top of the first hill we were greeted with a beautiful unfolding vista of rolling hills, looking out to Lake Wairarapa. There looked to be some promising country to sit and glass over, but first we wanted to check out the area we had been told about. Within minutes of entering the bush I heard what I genuinely thought was a pig snorting at us from a ways off. I stalked through the bush and back out into the scrub (yuck by the way) and managed to bowl this little guy over. Not a pig after all!

After a little more bush stalking we decided to head back to the big open country (felt more like home) and sat and glassed for a while. It wasn’t long before we spotted several small groups of goats. Some around 800m away others 550m. We decided to head down to a prominent rock down the valley to have a crack at the closer lot. It took some negotiating (this country is STEEP!!) but before long we were setup just shy of 300m away. A long shot but doable particularly as we couldn’t get any closer. As we were setting up they spotted us and started milling around and heading away. At the first shot they all just bolted in every direction. We are pretty sure we got two, and and clipped a third before they were all out of sight.

We decided to carry on down the valley and come up the other side and see if we could bump any more goats. As we were coming down the cloud rolled in. And with it the rain. The forecast was only for a little, but apparently the weather hadn’t seen the forecast. It wasn’t super heavy but enough to get us very wet, very quickly!

I had one very scary moment climbing a rock face. I was about 4m up the climb, with the valley spreading out below me (did I mention STEEP?) I was going slowly and carefully mostly due to the now wet rock being more slippery. I pulled myself up using a rock handhold. I was nearly the whole way up when the handhold came off in my hand. I teetered for a second then regained my balance, shitting myself. Very close call indeed!

As we reached the summit the weather intensified and wind began to pick up. We decided it was time to call it quits, and made the long slow journey back around the ridge towards the carpark and warmth of the truck.

I am not much of a bush hunter as I prefer the big open spaces of the tops. This trip has cemented that hahaha. Our trip back was horrible. Scrambling, climbing, ducking, crawling through now sodden bush/scrub made for two very wet, tired and grumpy hunters.

We finally made it back to the main track leading back to the carpark. I relaxed maybe a little too much. On the way down (5 mins from the truck!!) I stepped on one of the wooden water ways they had cutting the track for draining. My legs went sideways, and I went down like a sack of shit, smashing my good knee into the rocks.

My brother turned and looked at me and said “oh no” in a “this is really bad” type of voice. I thought maybe I had broken something and just couldn’t feel it yet? Well I did break something. I now know that the force required to snap a powlonia carbon fibre epoxy rifle stock is less than 95kg of dead weight!

Looks like I have a new project in the works! If anyone has a cheap Remington 700 SA stock kicking around they don’t want to get me back up and running I might be interested!

Overall my first Wellington hunt was a mixed bag. No regrets though, I would rather be out there doing it than sitting at home binging something!

A good, enjoyable little read mate. I grew up in Wellington and shot over 1000 goats (and a few deer) in the Remutakas and Mukamukas. Always good fun.

Try the Tararuas next time - there are some good open tops there (just double-check the forecast beforehand!)

Can't "like" that last photo..... As for your hunt,well it sounds like a great place to me. Can't see photo of what you did shoot....but you managed to shoot something,that's a win.

Wouldn’t attach earlier for some reason. Just a wee goat

Moved up here a four years ago for work. Hunting the lower North Island was certainly a bit of an adjustment. If you want tops hunting similar to that found in the better island (South Island obviously) the Ruahines is your best bet. Heaps of deer in them also. Tararuas are also good but fewer deer numbers generally speaking.

Originally Posted by Floundering Around

Tararuas are also good but fewer deer numbers generally speaking.

Aye, they're too busy competing with the cows for the grass in my top paddocks.


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Pity about the stock, DoC are great at installing slippery infrastructure.

[QUOTE=Roamr;1748195]Aye, they're too busy competing with the cows for the grass in my top paddocks.

@Roamr Let me know if you need a hand with that problem

Delphus you did well to get animals on your first time out into unknown territory. Plenty of people put a lot of effort in around Wellington for nothing.

[QUOTE=Floundering Around;1748381]

Originally Posted by Roamr

Aye, they're too busy competing with the cows for the grass in my top paddocks.

@Roamr Let me know if you need a hand with that problem

Lol, yes, when's the forum hunt going to happen?

Sent from my SM-G973U using Tapatalk

Nice report, bugger about the stock!