Last week a few mates and myself headed into the Boyd to finish off our summer holidays with some Sika hunting.
Day 1
Didn't start too flash for me. Two days prior to our departure I'd come down with a cold/flu, but I'd already paid for food and a hut pass, so I thought fuck it. The boys turned up early to pick me up, luckily they turned up early enough so that we could go back and grab my rifle which I'd forgot. I blame the cold. We turned up at Air Charter Taupo ahead of schedule, but had to wait an hour or so for the fog to lift, but other wise the weather was awesome. We took off at a bout 9:30 and were at the Boyd Airstrip about 15 minutes later, where we met Bruce, a friend and former employee of Air Charter who was staying at the hut long term. It's a bastard of an effort getting gear up the hut track, a good few hundred meters up hill, at the best of times. Doing it in the middle of a hot sunny day, while sick, really takes the fight out of you. After a feed and a sleep I headed out to get a feel for the area. The country in there is basically perfect for hunting Sika in spring/summer. Lots of little grassy creeks coming out of Manuka clad guts. Plenty of feed and cover/shade for them during the day. I headed up a big river valley behind the hut and Boyd's Rocks that piqued my interest on both the topo map and google earth, deciding I would focus most of my hunting there. I sat about half way up the valley glassing all the creeks and little clearings until dark, then went for a look in a large clearing up the end of it, but apart from a few hares, nothing came out to play. I headed back to the hut to find the boys hadn't seen anything either.
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The flight in
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Looking towards the airstip from the hut balcony
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Looking towards the end of my valley
Day 2
Still felt pretty crook, so I slept in for most of the morning. The guys had gone out on their own respective missions. Alex and Aaron headed across the Ngaruroro and cut off the Omaru walking track into the bush some where, while Thomas walked all the way to the Tussock hut. I wanted to get an idea of what the bush was like on the same face as the hut, so I set my sights on a creek on the map and began walking. Well scrub bashing, crawling and climbing would be a more accurate way to describe it. It was absolute shit, steep and bluffy even though it looked pretty tame on the map. It took me a good few hours negotiate probably 1 km, being careful not to bluff myself in. It eventually came to a very nice grassy valley at the foot of the creek I aimed for. Deer had been there that morning, but it was too late in the day for them to be likely to be out. I was tired and hungry so went back to base. I slept till about 6 when Alex and Aaron arrived back and gave me arse holes for being in bed. They hadn't seen anything again. Alex wanted some bait for eeling so I went out later to shoot some hares. I met Thomas on the way. The poor cunt looked like a cherrio he'd been sun burnt so bad and hadn't seen anything either. Pretty disappointing for the amount of ground we covered altogether. Curiosity got the best of me and my hare hunt turned into an evening deer hunt up a mongrel little Manuka gut. I was barking up the right tree, with a fair bit of fresh sign there, but all I found was trouble in the form of of mud, Manuka and Monowai. So no deer and we wouldn't be getting any eels that night either.
Day 3
The weather packed in so me Aaron and Thomas ended up staying at the hut most of the day. Alex headed out for a hunt around midday and put up a spiker in one of the creeks at the start of my valley. He took a shot but missed it. He came back pretty gutted and was in a pissy mood for the rest of the day, which Thomas ended up copping the brunt of in the form of dead arms/legs and getting covered with sun screen lotion when he wound him up and set him off. Pretty hard case performance that's quite common when those two get together in a room too long. I got cabin fever after a bit and took Thomas out for an evening hunt down the end of my valley to watch the big clearing that had shit loads of sign on it. We were counting on the weather improving and the deer coming out, but Murphy's law came into play and it turned to shit big time. We were sitting there like a couple of sad sacks, freezing our tits off in the hail and rain. Thomas packed it in and went back. With what was left of the light, I went down to the clearing hoping to spook and shoot something, but the deer were doing what I should have done, so I gave the hares another attempt. Funny how when you don't wanna shoot something, they're everywhere, but now I was even failing at hare hunting. It wasn't shaping up to be the best trip.
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Thomas Glassing some clearings in my valley
When I got back to camp, Alex had made a snare for the resident possum....later that night we finally got something http://i1135.photobucket.com/albums/...h_MVI_0088.jpg This performance just added insult to injury. We were looking like a bunch of right useless pricks.
Day 4
Alex had a score he was determined to settle with a deer, so he headed back to that creek and sat there with Aaron's binos till he spotted and shot one. Myself and Thomas had headed across the Ngaruroro to hunt around the Waitawhero Saddle. After a few hours of very patient, careful bush stalking, we came across a highway of a game trail with very fresh sign. We followed it down into a gut, creek on one side, Kanuka/Manuka scrub on our left. As we neared the point where bush turns to open tussock, I noticed a brown patch move in the corner of my eye off to the left, then I saw a fluffy trot out of my view. Fuck! I sprinted down the game trail to spot mum going full tilt, virtually air borne over the gut, with the fluffy casually chasing after her. Bugger. About the only time I lose concentration the whole hunt, I fuck up a deer. It was probably for the best anyway as I would of had to shoot the fawn if I'd shot mum. When we made it back to the walking track, I decided to head down towards the Omaru for a bit, just to kill time until we sat down and glassed the edge of the gut we came out below on our earlier hunt. I was boosting on the way back, and walked right past a stag on a bank beside the track. Thomas went after it, but it had been spooked and wasn't gonna muck around and risk getting shot. I was waiting up at the Boyd/Omaru sign post thinking he was fucked and taking a breather. Half an hour later he showed up to tell me what happened, which surprisingly didn't piss me off all that much. Oh well. We parked up on a grassy clearing on the side of the walking track, looking into the mouth of the gut I spooked the deer in. Just as we were about to pack up and go back, I bought the binos up one last time. "Fuck bro, two deer just walked out of the bush by the creek". Thomas couldn't see them and I had to act fast as light was fading by the second. I bought the Sako up and put the crosshairs on the shoulder of the one closest too me, and squeezed the trigger. A loud thunk! echoed back confirming a hit, which is just as well because I could no longer see anything through my scope. It must have up set the family dinner plans big time cuz there were about six different animals in the gut whistling at us. We finally found him after much pissing about in the dark, just a wee fella, but better than nothing. By the time we got back to camp I would have killed for a beer, but all the Tui's were gone, so had to settle for a half flat bottle of Speight's (eww at the best of times).
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I shot the deer on the gut to the left
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Day 5
Air Charter arrived early due to the weather closing in, right before I was about to have breakfast. So we all raced around like mad cunts, got our gear in the plane, said bye to Bruce and flew out. We found out what the seat belts are for on the way out too. Me and Alex almost went through the roof at one stage. The boys' stomach's weren't in very good shape after the turbulent ride :D It was good in the end, but it's always good staying in the bush. Beats work any day.
