Thread: Block 5

Kukuwai's day 3 report.......

Encouraged by the sighting last night I was up early again and off on the sneaky sneak along the bush edge as soon as it was light enough to shoot.



However the usual story prevailed and despite the country looking awesome no deer could be found.





By the time 11oclock came round I had spent so much time looking thru the binos that I was seeing deer everywhere. Spaniard grass deer, toi toi deer, old dead stick deer. Bugger this I'm gunna look for a chamois.

So I be lined it up on top of an ancient moraine wall that had a commanding view up the valley and started glassing the shady spots.



After about 30min I couldnt believe it !!! I had found 2 of them feeding up in a steep gutter in some shady bluffs above me. Due to the uphill angle I initially thought they were a lot further than they were so was pleasantly surprised when i ranged the closest one at 273m.

Eventually i got the bipod set up ontop of the backpack well enough to get comfortable behind the rifle and hold a solid bead on it. I watched it for a while and then squeezed off.

The sound of the 6.5x55 ricocheted around the valley breaking the silence that had been present for the last few days. A solid hit saw the target tumble out of the gutter into the snow tussock below the bluffs. Its mate further up the gutter seemed confused and just stood there so I quickly lined up on that one and let rip again.

However the shot was rushed and the result was a clean miss. Off it took running like very few animals can in that terrain, what a sight to see !! Oh well I have made a 50% reduction in that heard I thought.

No seriously, I was delighted Even more so when I eventually made it up there (its always steeper than it looks) and found this well conditioned doe.



The shot had entered the crease and exited to the side of the brisket so I was able to harvest all of the meat and head back down to camp for a well earned late lunch. Camp was already in the shade and cooling down fast so a great place to bone out the meat and cool it down.



At 4pm the meat was hung up in a nearby tree and it was back up onto the sniper spot for the evening. Usual story, no deer, no deer, no deer.

I looked at my watch at 5.45 and thought, ill give it until 6pm. When i looked back up from my watch there was a deer crossing the river flats coming from the far side to my side. It was about 700m away and right out in the middle and moving quickly.....so off I go down the bank for a 500m or so mad dash up the bush edge. Then after a few twilight shenanigans finding it again (fark, where is it, where is it !!) Finally a deer was on the deck !!



The photo doesn't do the light justice as it was almost dark by now. I had made the rookie mistake of not taking a head torch with me up onto the sniper spot, silly fool. After some fading light butchery it was a pretty dark walk back to camp that night.

Needless to say I was a buggered but happy hunter when I hit the sleeping bag that night

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That is a lot of nice looking land alright, good to see some animals on the ground for your efforts.

Out of interest the hut book goes back to 2009, and whilst some don't fill it in , this block did appear to receive a great deal of walk in hunters.

Ours was a flyin to shoot animals, we as a group were in agreement, that we would do just that, no leaving hinds etc to hunt a big stag.

Our intention was to reduce numbers and recover as much meat as possible.

Day :3
Up early again to another frost pre planning had our gas cylinder in at my feet all night so it sparked up nicely!

Breakfast on board over to suss out the route to hunt the deer from yesterday, after some searching and glassing and nothing seen it was decided that to glass some more before committing a day to a futile hunt.

Glassing resulted us seeing 5 deer over the next four hours over on the face of Mt Mailling. One ( possibly the same) stag and two sets of hinds. The first pair of hinds feed off the face and worked their way down a nasty steep we finger of ridge and bedded down ( we think) in the last scratch of tussock or bush edge. We picked up the Stag as he feed into sight out of a fold in the face, he grazed for about an hour the bedded down in the tussock about 10am.

The next two hinds we picked up on the very left side of the MT mailling face they were not feeding just walking they covered easily 2 k in 40 mins, they winded our stag and come trotting in hot, did a meet and greet I think they were very disappointed as they ditched him straight away, he followed them sniffing and carrying on, but they gapped it and circled way around then doubled back below him and then made their way to the same nasty wee finger of a ridge as the first two and bedded down in the shadows as well.

We lost sight of Casanova and at mid day pulled the pin on glassing the face and our plan to hunt over to the other into the ridge. We wander the bush edge again with the wind in our face, radio contact got worse as batteries worn down. So with nothing more to raise our interest or inspire us to stay, we decided to head down to the hut and climb back up Mt Mailling to chase the animals seen today.

With another fantastic clear day our tents dry we chucked our sleeping bags air bed etc out into the sun to dry while we lunched.
Packed up and wandered off down Mt forty staying on the main ridge with some help from the GPS we took our time to save our knees. We found a great layer of broad leaf and a unused wallow. Marked that on the gps , walked out to the hut. The blokes from down valley had put in a huge day and staggered into the hut just on dark.
With fresh company and a hut fire yarns flowed..we tried to contact kukuwai via the handheld but couldn't raise him.

Night wore on and the body ran out ...

We have just come out of Block 7 (Burn Creek).
This is an awesome initiative by DOC.
The block we were in was without doubt the best High Country I have been in - stunning!
There was a mate and myself and his 2 boys and my 2 boys (aged from 11-13 years).
Perfect weather helped but we saw plenty of animals (both deer and chamois) and shot 5 (4 deer, 1 chamois).
Certainly not an area you would go to for trophy Stags but it was an awesome experience.

Kukuwai hunting ground from above.

Morning glassing in the frost.


Mt Mailling in background where we saw the 5 deer , the hinds beaded down on that nasty we spur...right hand side of photo you see the three folds in the face, the narrow spur below them with shingle slides either side, that's where the sneaked into.


Looking into the catchments above Kukuwai on his left, we decided these were the spring early / feed zones, we spent hours glassing these areas not a soul to be seen.

Choice @stingray loving seeing your pictures. Great to see how that country looked from your perspective.
@Ed123 well done !!

Good on you for taking your lads in there. They will never forget that

Did you know that during the spring round the group that saw the most deer and the group that saw the second most deer were in block 7

Oh, and feel free to chuck up a few pictures of your trip in this thread if you like. Im sure we'd all be keen to see them

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We sure would

It worked alright
You ripper

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Cheers Ed, great to see the kids out there.

Awesome guys. I am loving it.

Big cheers to you VC. You got our party together and organized. Big cheers to Roktoy who took on the admin and finishing touches as VC set sail.

Without you both this adventure would never have happened. Thank you!

Cool pics , great to see the kids in on the adventure, they will learn more there than at home or in front of a computer screen.

That was awesome guys...great country and best read had in along time. Cant believe they wasnt more animals on show in that great country.
Maybe you needed a bush stalking ninja to find them lol.
Cool report and photos....was there next to no roaring?

Haha that is classic, I actually thought of you twice on this trip and the first time was exactly this.....

Originally Posted by deer243

Maybe you needed a bush stalking ninja to find them lol.

The second time was when negotiating a section of track with multiple bog holes in it.

I remembered your story from a year or two back and as I was heavily laden at the time I thought if i went in one I may never be seen again.

This had me prodding at them with my walking poles and treating them with the upmost respect

Personally I never heard a stag roar !!






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awesome looking country and great photos,those boys will rememberthis trip well after anything else they do in life.....
loving the whole story...keep it coming lads.