A first for a mate

A good mate of mine Zak that I do alot of hunting with was keen on a red mission as hes never shot a reasonable stag in the roar. A plan was hatched so he flew up from christchurch and we met up. Took him to one spot but we only ended up seeing young or small scummy heads so after a couple days the four of us shot over the coast to another area. Drove my wagon in as we thought we had three fine days in front of us, set up a rough camp, Hunted the arvo with no luck so we tore into it in the morning. I went on a solo mission in one area and managed a 12, Two mates hunted a big native area and found a nice stag holding a few hinds so they snuck in and nailed him but the bugger, he dropped but then got up and bolted! They tracked him for an hour or so then he crashed out in front of them, had another shot but that connected with a kanuka. Only small amounts of blood around too. They gave up and headed back to camp as they lost all sign of him. Zak was absolutely gutted.(I left my dog at home as there was no room for her). Another mate had no luck securing a stag but had seen a few for the day. The rain came early and we ended up stuck for three days in the solid rain doing fuck all hunting. Zak was stewing over it the whole time thinking hed stuffed a good stag up. On the last morning of the hunt I took Zak up into the same area, trying to retrace his steps etc etc. We split up 50m or so from each other scanning one side of a main creek then hunted up the main face to the tops then hunted into the wind in another big basin. Heard one moan so hunted around towards him keeping quiet as he wasnt worked up, seen a few hinds in a small opening 40 odd meters through the bush, waited and sure enough he followed out after. I barked at him , he stopped and the rest is history. Carried on out with him to the bottom to camp, had a feed etc then went back to look for his stag. Split up again on the other side of creek, went quietly about 500m up the creek from where they last seen him, following a major game trail I found a couple prints and broken punga fronds from him crashing through, a few meters past that he had bedded down but trying to get up had rolled over and got antlers stuck in pungas. So zak came down to me and the look on his face was priceless! he was stoked! THe shot was low in the shoulder due to the steepness of the face he was shot on but a learning curve for him all the same. Only got the head out as he was going green as. The other mate secured a small 12 too so he was happy. Loaded up and headed home. So it ended up being a great last day. Bloody brilliant to get a good mate his first good stag!
Cheers.

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Well done Lads! Good to see some results of a bit of hard graft...

Wicked [emoji41]


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Tremendous! What cracking animals!

Good on you for going back for another look :cool:

Impressive haul with them all lined up, good work

Sheesh, awesome stuff

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Bloody nice haul there, & good on you for following up on that stag, I reckon a lot give up to easily.

some good timber there , well done

Great results from some hard yards well done.

Cheers, Yea he was confident of the shot so that warranted another look for sure

Stop it!! Mean bro :thumbsup:

Awesome haul, well done Zac on your first trophy stag....hes a pealer!!!!!

Well done thanks for posting.