Otawa Forest hunting?. Welcome bay access.

Hi everyone,

I live near the Otawa forest up the welcome bay end. I was just wondering if anyone has any success up there?.

Last week I walked in there for the first time with my dad's 308. sako, 150 grain bullets. I'm sure that's enough stopping power for fallow?

Anyway I bumped into a sleeping stag literally 3 meters from the track but I had the gun decocked and not on half bolt like I should have.
It jumped up behind me(only woke up as I walked past it) and took off, I only had a split second to work the bolt for a un-scoped shot. I tried running after it through the supplejack and dense forest but those fallow are fast buggers lol, gave me a fright that's for sure

I've only been up there once and ran out of daylight for a decent hunt, seems to be very dense and looks like an extremely hard area to hunt. lots of dead leaves that crunch and make too much noise in boots, I might go up there for an early morning hunt this week.

Cheers, where's everyone going for the roar this year? Ruahines and possibly Kawekas too for me.

.308 is more then enough for fallow

If you are going to chase them around you might be better off to swap your boots for running shoes...bullets beat fast feet every time.

There's no chasing in that area from what I've seen so far, real dense tawa and rewarewa. Lots of dead leaves and twigs so I might have to take my boots off for a proper stalk.

Tauranga is definitely one of the hardest/shittiest places to hunt compared to other areas. Might get up early one morning this week for a look, only 5 minute drive from my house.