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Tahr has his Xmas Present, ------ But this is my birthday Present
Determination drove me back to NZ, I just knew a bull was achievable, so the first thing I did after setting up camp was to start the process from the beginning. Put my felt blanked up, used a field point to see where the arrow might go, two inches to the right at 17 yrds, the wind was pretty strong, second arrow a vpa broadhead, way low and to the right, good God I had that problem two months ago, mumble mumble. In the end I got it reasonable but at 10 yrds my limit. Let's just say I lost a fair bit of sleep over that. First day I ended up with covid, had it before, second time the long one so presumed it wouldn't be too bad. Second day felt reasonable so out at farrows fart and cruised up the the forks in the dark. See a bit of red deers arse in the scrub on other side of river and in the binos a long set of velvet, nearly fully formed and first thing to enter my mind was my man Dan from usa, I'm sure he would want this fella mounted for his home out in the woods. Unfortunately going by the amount of fresh deer and tahr bones lying
around I don't see him lasting until the rut.
Upon getting back to camp and seeing as the wind was almost mild I battled with the bow and arrows again, this time I was convinced I could stretch the range out to 14 or perhaps 15 yrds, way better than 10. The wind was getting up so went above the camp and did some spotting, the upstream flow of wind set me to going down the valley. 150 yrds below camp I looked to my left into the matagouri and spied a lovely old bull , with the maven I could see he was half asleep n chewing his cud, the range 75 yrds, a lightning fast calculation and this was a really doable stalk, should be able to get within 10 or 11 yrds. And so it was, I called softly about four times but he was chilling out, not interested, two paces to the right and I got his attention but still he stayed down so a line up and let go, he of course spun and sped to he'll out of there. I went over to the spot and no arrow and no blood. Here we go again I thought, around the corner I found my arrow with 8 inches missing, a few yrds further along I see the top of his back, standing as though hit In the stomach, certainly not where I aimed. Turned around and went back to camp for the cphone and camera, when I got back he wasn't standing out in the open but I did spot a bit of his back in amongst the brush, sneaked in close but just too much rubbish in the way so around the other side and I see him go down but again too much matagouri In the road. My brilliant solution to go around again but he got sick of the dance routine and scampered out downstream to hide possibly deeper in the jungle. BUGGER, oh what to do? I'll go and climb up on the bluff on other side of river and see if I can spot him, good idea old chap. After a half hour in the cold wind I decided to leave him until the morning and go downstream as there were 3 young hinds coming up in the watercourse. Picked a bush as a blind with the water bed being about 20 yrds from there. So there they did just that but my rule was 15 yrds. Now I'm going to tell you that these red deer go fishing, yes as that's the only explanation I could come up with as to why they had their heads under water at times. Next morning about an hour after light I was down on my knees and elbows following the cold scent, actually from ground level it looked very good to trail. The grass and specs of blood told a tale and after about 75 yrds I could stand up and follow the evidence to find my beautiful bull stretched out and dead. Oh the relief. Sitting up on the bluff I was exactly opposite him at 90 yrds but he laid down behind the rubbish and in a hollow.
I firmly believe this is the same bull that had given me the run around two months ago in October.
The only problem now is I'm spoiled to hunt with a rifle.
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