Thread: First deer

I got my first deer yesterday. A nice red stag.

After two luckless day trips in the Southern Tararuas and one in the Aorangis, I went for another optimistic armed walk into the Tararuas. I had found a promising area on a topo map so thought I'd go and have a poke about in there.

After a two hour walk in I headed off the track and straight into a swamp. I struggled through that for ten minutes or so and then found a nice, flattish stretch of bush. Off I went, nice and slow and quiet.

Fifteen minutes later I climbed a small hill and sticking out of the ferns ahead of me was what looked like a monkey's tail. I spent a few idiotic seconds running through the animals we have in NZ, wondering which has a tail most like a monkey, when I reliased it was an antler!

I chambered a round, slowly, praying I wouldn't be heard, and then waited with the safety on. I didn't want to move to get a shot at him as the noise would give me away. There was no wind, so I figured I just had to wait.

After thirty seconds or so, he moved forward and slightly up a rise in the terrain, showing himself. He was facing directly away from me, so I was resigned to looking at his arse until he moved again. I told myself to wait for a better shot. Two minutes I spent behind him, watching him feed. In that time, I decided that we were so close that I was comfortable taking a neck shot if a shoulder shot didn't present itself.

After almost forever, he turned ever so slightly, giving me a severe quartering away shot, but showing a hell of a lot of neck. Show time.

Nice and steady I shouldered the rifle, switched off the safety, put the crosshairs on his neck and squeezed the trigger.

The stag dropped where he stood, 15 metres away from me. I don't know if he was good or ugly, but he was a hell of a first deer.

The skinning and butchering took me an absolute age. Three hours or so I was at it. It took me two trips to get his meat out. All the same, it was a bloody good day. I got back to the car for the last time just as night fell and drove home for a hot shower and a long sleep.