Two weeks ago Shift14 and I did one of our annual chopper trips to the Southern Kaimanawa blocks, it was a 6 nighter and the weather turned it on for us.
A couple of weeks prior we went into the Kaweka's and bagged ourselves a decent stag each so this trip I wasn't to fussed what I dropped.
Other than bringing in some decent bacon and eggs for breakfast all other main meals were the packaged dehydrated ration packs, while they were quite tasty by gees did they make me fart and quite vile ones too, deer would have smelt me miles away, the last couple of nights I just stuck to toasted cheese, tomato and bacon toasties, they worked a treat.
We didn't spend any time in the bush, it was all open tussock, scrub glassing and the very occasional snooze in the tussock patiently waiting at previous years hot spots. Shifty's 61 and I'm 60 in June and we did some fair walking to our vantage points, every year it gets a little harder as these blocks get hammered so a little thought has to go into the distance and location you travel from the hut but you never know your luck.
This block offers quite a few high vantage points but requires a hell of a lot of glassing and if in the shade can get bloody cold. Shifty wasn't keen on shooting any Hinds so I toed the line as the blocks booked in his name and want to go next year with him.
Shifty had his Blaser 7mm RM and I had my Sako 300 WM both capable of drilling shit in the distance. The first couple of days were slow going, saw a few, could have bowled a couple but they were the wrong sex.
A few mornings Shifty set the alarm clock for 5.30am, not my cup of tea but to appease he who has the block booking it's out of the scratcher and into a feed of bacon and eggs and we are off. There were a lot of deer out and about at that time but no Stags seen. A few roars late afternoon early evening and the occasional one in the morning and during the day but we were after the dumb ones in the open.
In the middle of the trip on one of those 5.30 wake up calls we went to a spot that has been quite productive Stag wise over the years, to get there is a little bit of a mission, just so happens this year we found an easier going way thru the scrub so have stored that in the memory bank for next year. We've knocked over stags in the open in this valley every year pretty much within a couple of hundred yards of one another.
We arrived at our standard glassing spot about half way down a ridge and parked up in the tussock with scrub behind us and tussock valley below us and large tussock/scrub/clay pan faces on the ridge in front of us. We have previously spent whole days in this location glassing and punching Zzzzd's. We arrived at this spot around 9am, we dropped our gear and set up shop for the day, after a bit of glassing Shifty made himself comfy and went to sleep while I kept glassing. We were glassing areas from 300 to 700 yds in our valley but could actually glass over 1km away.
It was around 9.30 when I spied what I thought was a spiker casually walking thru the tussock valley floor towards us at around 600 yds, same bloody location that we had bowled Stags the previous years. By this time the old bugger next to wakes up and is in hunting/spotting mode for us. As he gets closer more points could be seen, up to 4 points so we stack two day packs on top of each other and get set up, by this time he walks behind a small tussock mound and out of view, distance is 370 yards, I dial up the scope and its a waiting game for him to make a move, Shifty could see him but it took a minute or two before I could find him in the scope, when I found him I just had to wait for him to turn broadside which didn't take to long and let one rip, I heard the thump/hit but he took off down hill out of view. I picked up my gear and walked down to the valley floor while Shifty stayed put doing semaphore signals, I found him tits up in the creek about 15 yards from where he copped it. Turned out he was an 8 pointer.
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After butchering it was back up the hill for more glassing but none spotted so back to the hut for an early day. We went back to the same spot on the last full day, a couple of shootable hinds seen but nothing taken, on the way back Shifty had a major slip in the creek crossing fuck it must of hurt but he wasn't showing it. He's a slow learner, slipped in the same place two days in a row.
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He's a tough old rooster.
Next day our Uber arrived and was back to the big smoke, our next outing will be the Toby shoot.
Cheers
300 win mag
