Roar Mistakes that are still Raw

Because there has been no proper Roar hunting this year the following blundering error cuts deep !

The Saturday eve prior to 'lockdown' my apprentice hunter - a friends 14 yr old son and I were on a hill face glassing and listening as a bit of a recon. for a Sunday hunt.

A stag roared on the other side of the river about 1 km North of us. As it was a half hour to dark and nothing else had been seen we jumped into the vehicle and drove down off the hill and round to where we could easily walk over a big knob and roar across at the stag. I explained to H that because the stag was not roaring much we would balance our roaring with his and not excitedly answer immediately when we heard a roar. The stag was moving a bit so we decided that if we could get him to come out of the bush and show himself on a prominent knob on a slip we could still shoot him there. In any case we could entertain ourselves with some practice. We roared and then moved 100 metres around the face, during which time the stag replied, we would then reply again, but now from a different spot, hopefully leading the stag to the slip. After three moves we were in the right spot and I explained to H that my roars had been made to sound like a lesser stag than the one roaring across the river. I then got a blade of grass and started to squeak like a fawn, then a couple of hind mews and after a couple of minutes a couple of roars to sound like a young teenage stag. This I explained would have the stag saying to himself " well how about that, the young prick over the river has got a girlfriend, I'll get over there, punch him on the nose and he can watch while I shag her". We waited, the stag wouldn't move to the slip although we did hear a deer in the river about 8:30. We got side-tracked counting Elon Musk's satellites at one every 23 seconds and then at 9 pm I looked across at Tui who was on the other side of the big Kanuka we were sitting each side of and whispered to H " Is that dog locked up ?" "Yes" - "Pass me the rifle". No sooner did I have the rifle in hand and there was a great Thudding of hooves on the tussock right in front of us equivalent to six heavy steers running past. Crap! "Well that was a fuck up of high order" I sighed, we turned on our very powerful - dazzle and shoot a stag at 15 paces no trouble at all headlamps - and trudged back ...

About five years ago I had a solo "post roar" trip in late April in an eastern Fiordland valley. Just before I started tramping in I spoke to a local who told me some young fellas had heard a few stags roaring the night before. I walked in to my valley, including a few hour after dark, but didn't hear anything. I didn't hunt the next morning, just tramped on as I intended to go further up the tussock valley bottom and base myself closer to the headwaters. About 10am was surprised to hear a roar about 200m into the beech. I dropped my pack, gave a roar, and took a leak on the basis I'd wait for a reply to pin point him. Half way though emptying my bladder there is a crash and here he is standing on the edge of the scrub, and a good head for the area too. Shut off the water works, picked up rifle and away he went before I could get a round chambered.
Lesson learnt, and that was the only roar I heard for the trip. I did get a stag feeding up on the tops, but the head wasn't flash at all.

One night i was waiting for a deer to come out from the native bush on to the spring growth. Time was passing by without much going on so i decided to get my phone out and play a game for a while. Was sitting there for a few minutes glued to the screen and the game ended due to being beaten, so looked up to see a young stag standing 20 metres away and staring straight at me. Rifle was beside me of course so very slowly picked it up, closed the bolt and just about raised it to my shoulder and the stag decided that enough was enough and headed for the bush. Lesson learned.

Saturday before lock down was sitting with 5 hinds in a wee gut waiting for the boy/s to turn up. After an hour I though F this and jumped up, the hinds scattered as I ripped off my jersey for the slog out. Just got my pack on my back and heard a moan around the corner, went in a bit, few more moans, made the fatal mistake of giving a moan back.....shut up shop never to be heard again....oh well

Sneaking into an area one morning in the Kaimanawa Bush with my old man. We knew there was a stag there from his hee haws the day before. Sneaking up the ridge to the area we wanted to sit and roar we were almost there so I decided to stop and take a leak. I leant my rifle up on a tree and turned around to do my thing. At that moment I saw antlers cruising up the side of the ridge about 8m below me. Frantically I was waving at Dad with my hand to stop whilst also trying to find my rifle at the same time. I was stuck in place and couldn’t take my eyes off him. I just couldn’t quite reach the damn thing without turning and taking a step. The stag popped up, took one look at me and was gone. Dad was slightly lower then me and could only see his antlers. BUGGER!