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Annual trip into Puketeraki
I’d been looking forward to what’s becoming an annual trip with @mopheadrob and @CamD into DOC’s Puketeraki hunting block. This trip didn’t disappoint. Good weather, good company …………and some deer 😊
Day 1 - 2nd Jan
Puketeraki has no public 4wd access so it’s a few hours walk in. The plan was to target the huge open tops as none of us are experienced bush hunters. I got my FAL early 2019 however all prior deer trips had been ‘walks with my rifle’. Rob has shot many deer around Canterbury in recent years and Cam finally received his FAL in 2021 after a long wait. He’s since shot a couple of deer and numerous goats.
About three hours into the walk in and still well short of the open permit area we saw 3 deer approx. 1km away on opposite side of a big gully. It was surprising to see them out in the mid afternoon heat. Perhaps they knew they were safe outside the permit area.
The combined effects of being just after Christmas, New Year and my son’s wedding a few days before I struggled a bit initially with the heat (high 20s) and the hill (steep!) and the pack weight (too much!). However about 4hrs into the walk it seemed like I’d sweated out most of the indulgences and started to get a second wind. Rob as usual was finding it relatively easy. Cam continued to notice the heat, the hill and his pack weight so when we reached a hut late afternoon we called it quits for the day rather than pressing onto a bush edge camp.
Discussed a plan to get through to the open tops for a morning hunt, however soon realised it’d be a VERY early start for a sunrise arrival, and given the complex terrain even if we did get there in time the wind may not be in our favour. So that thought morphed into an easy start and using the morning of day 2 to walk, setup camp, locate water, rest and scout out a few areas for late afternoon and evening hunting.
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Day 2
The day started well with the walk through to tent camp only taking a couple of hours. Much easier than the day before however my mind was already thinking ahead that the downs are steep and they’ll be a bastard to come back up. Fully exposed to sun so will be steep and hot. Oh well, it’s fun right?
Setup camp, found water nearby and as the wind was favourable checked out some nearby gullies for hunting later in the day. Then chilled out lunch and snooze time.
About 4pm we casually headed out. About 10mins out from camp I realised in my casualness leaving camp I’d put on my bino holder on, slung my unloaded rifle but had not put on my day pack (the top part of my Osprey Aether) with food, drink and spare clothing. Doh! Not knowing how long we’d be out and playing it I safe headed back, almost running, while Cam and Rob slowly moved on. At the time it seemed like the correct thing to do and in hindsight it absolutely was the correct thing to do.
On return as I approached Cam and Rob they were frantically waving to me to stay low. It took a few minutes crawling to reach them and get the good news there was a hind approx. 150m below us in a steep gully. I popped my head up and certainly didn’t need binos to see it. It was relaxed, feeding and nicely varying from broadside to quartering away.
Given this was first chance at a deer I was quite surprised how settled I felt and how quickly my pulse rate dropped given the race to camp to camp and back. Ear plugs in and due to the 45 degree downward slope I sat with rifle fore end elbow on knee. Even then it was a bit awkward to get the angle right. It wasn’t a perfect rest however I found the deer in scope easily only using about 5x of the 3-15x on my Nikon Monarch 5. Rob had ranged it at 130m so no need to fiddle with scope as I knew it’d be roughly 4-5cm high (my T3X 7mm RM is zeroed at 200m). I left the magnification at 5x as was so easy to hold steady on.
Steadied myself more, safety off, briefly waited for it to turn fully broadside then gentle squeeze trigger. Click……
I’d not chambered a round. Oops. A rookie mistake however better safe than sorry.
That was useful to calm me even more. After working the bolt the hind was feeding towards some scrub where if it entered the opportunity would be lost. It was no longer broadside and was between facing away and quartering. I waited a few seconds until it quartered and boom. The Gunworks magnum suppressor helped the recoil and I saw it jump, drop and roll.
Chambered another round just in case and then a couple of quick high fives. Job done, my first deer on the ground. The recovery plan was myself and Rob to go to butcher it while Cam would move across to hunt the next gully. The climb down the steep gully was reasonable and found the deer easily quite a long way further down where it’d tumbled. Was pleasing to see the shot placement in mid upper front shoulder and out neck. We needed to move rocks to form a flattish butchering area.
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During butchering Rob and I heard Cam’s .270 bark. Boom, then we think a finishing boom, another, then another. Mmmm, that’d be rifle empty. Perhaps that didn’t go well……..
Under Rob’s guidance I removed the back straps then cut the hind legs into backpack style for the carry up. They balanced nicely so climb back up to the top was ok. Back up there I bagged them (pillow cases actually) and put them into my daypack while Rob headed over to Cam for an update. A missed long shot at a hind and yearling, and then attempted shots at the spooked moving targets. Perhaps his scope had been bumped as Cam has had multiple succusses recently on goats, or maybe was just having a bad day.
Then more climbing trying to get to new gullies. The light wind was changing directions and it was tricky as we were unsure if the light breeze was an eddy over the ridge or a true wind change from NW to SW.
Nearing camp and just before dark we saw two hinds approx. 120m below us. Cam wasn’t sure about clean kills after the misses earlier so let Rob line up on them and Cam set himself up as backup. The older hind was showing high alertness with possible signs of bolting at any time so Rob dropped it first and then the younger one. No backup required.
As we were so near camp Cam and I headed back while Rob butchered them. I dumped my full daypack, grabbed my larger Osprey Aether and headed back to Rob who was just finishing up. Then back to camp where after a couple of fails we managed to string up the meat in a cheapie mosquito net Rob had bought at Bunnings. It was a bit fiddly but did a 100% job at keeping flies off (we’d lost some of last year’s hunt to flies). With some modifications it’ll be great.
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Day 3
The walk out. It was hot again and while it wasn’t that far back out to where we’d stayed the first night it sure felt like an ordeal as we each had some meat and maxed out water bladders and bottles. The steep downs on the way in felt like steeper mountains on the sun exposed faces. Pondered continuing onto the vehicle but it’d be too much so stopped early afternoon and settled in to relax, cook up some backstraps and mushroom risotto. Quite feast. Felt like we deserved it too!
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Day 4
Easy wander back to vehicle, drive out and then pizza and beers. Bring on next year.
