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Exciting end to a dull week
Last week I was told I would need to take a week off as work was quiet, I was pretty bummed out as that means no money for a week but I figured I'd make the best of a stink situation and head to Wellington, visit the family as it's been a while, then head back to Auckland and stop on the Kaimanawa area for a few days, pretty cheap living in the bush, right?! Then the day I left to drive down my partner and I broke up, which was a bit upsetting! It happens and time heals all blah blah, plenty of tinder matches in the sea amirite? It sorta set the tone for my week though, which I spent at mum and dads keeping their fire going, considering career prospects and staying out of the Wellington wind and rain which seemed pretty unrelenting. One day I did venture out to my little brothers friends property, it backs onto bush and he reckons he's seen the odd deer poke its head out. Shitloads of rain and a bit of old sign so I headed home.
Finally, after getting sick of my own company I got in contact with an uncle who hunts a little and we organised to meet at his place before light on Saturday morning--we were heading into the Tararuas. He had a spot he wanted to check out so that's where we decided to go. Saturday morning dawned and it was a perfect day, no clouds, nice and frosty in the country. After walking about an hour along a track we ditched it and headed up a small creek, fighting through supplejack and shitty dead ferns. It was damp underfoot which we tried to use to our advantage, slowly stalking our way up what looked to be a bloody well used game trail. It will never cease to amaze me how these beasts manage to get through the bush without making a noise! We stopped for a couple of rests as we headed up the hill, enjoying the quiet and cool conditions under the canopy. Not an ugly spot really--Attachment 24437 I wanted to take more photos, but I felt bad for slowing uncle down as is so it's all in my head, sorry fellas!
Annnyway we continued on up, I was up leading the way and shit the bed, I see a red stag strolling across the hill ahead of me! He had no idea we were there, I have no idea where he came from, it was as if he had climbed down from a tree or something cos I swear I had been dutifully examining the hill as we ascended! Hastily (I hope I will learn to calm myself when I see these magnificent beasts!) I chambered a round, but I didn't put enough grunt into closing the bolt the first time, and made a bit more noise than I would care to admit. The stag had heard us, and paused behind a few spindly trees, obscured just enough for me to not have a good shot. Suddenly my ears rang, my uncle had fired! He'd noticed the delay I was taking and wasn't interested in missing out on this one! The deer took off, not very quickly though and I hit him in the neck with a round from the 308, but he still didn't go down. My uncle fired again, and he went down finally but just wouldn't die, they certainly build them tough in the Wairarapa! He was moving too much for us to cut his throat so I gave him another, and that stopped him. My heart was racing, my first red, and it was a decent stag! We stopped for a while to reflect on what had just happened, have a drink and a bit to eat before we got into the messy bit. We weren't yet two hours from the car, it wasn't even 9am yet, we had the whole day!
The beast's final resting position
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Chuffed with a good public land 8 pointer!
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We took our time boning him out, the biggest problem we had was finding places to hang all of the meat. An hour and a half later we hit the track again, our packs heavy with some good nick venison. We decided to continue with our planned loop, hoping to maybe put up another animal. I heard one crashing down a spur at one point, couldn't see anything through the thick bush though but it's nice to know there are more for next time! Trying to get back to the track took us a good couple of hours, closer to another creek things started to get really really wet, we each spent our fair share of time sliding down sodden banks, desperately clutching at ferns and whatever else would stop our sudden descent! It was a bit of an adventure, and I sorta wished I had ponied up for some dry bum shorts! We got back to the car around 2 ish, a nice early finish for us.
We enjoyed a couple of hard earned beers while we split the meat and took a few photos.
I got home to Auckland last night with this bad boy and I've got a good few hours of work ahead of me still! Attachment 24440 I've really enjoyed my time hunting so far, here's to plenty more trips :beer:
