Most of my 30yrs of hunting has been down on the mainland apart from a few trips up North for fallow & 2 unsuccessful Sambar hunts, I've wanted to have a go at the Sika for a while. in Nov I had some leave & a good hunting mate of mine was off work for a month following a wee knee op, he was three weeks post op & thought it was time to test it out, a hunting trip was deemed the go, he is a pretty handy Sika hunter & booked a block with Helisika that he's had a bit of luck in.
I flew up to Auckland with my gear, where he picked me up & after picking up some supplies at the local supermarket it was back to his place to discuss the trip, pour over the map, etc while having a couple of quite speights.
Early the next morning we were heading South to Taupo where we stopped for a look at the Huka Falls as I'd never seen them, grabbed some lunch & then off to this Helisika place I've read & heard so much about, G pointed out the famous Clements road & we arrived to find management flat out!
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We loaded our gear on to a trolley to be weighed & waited for the taxi to turn up, shortly after a 500 landed.
the young pilot was quite chatty, paper work completed, paid the bill up front & we piled into the kero taxi & off to the block we went, I was as excited as a dog with two tails!
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The block is pretty much all bush & quite steep but apparently holds a few animals, we settled our gear into the hut, had a couple of brews while we decided the plan for an evening hunt. We headed off & good old bush hunting it was, about an hour into it I was quietly stalking along a steep face when I scanned down below me & spotted what looked like an animal, my mate was about 10m behind me so I signalled him to stop, looking thru the scope I confirmed it was indeed an animal, flicked the safety off, centred the cross hairs on the shoulder, squeezed the shot off & saw the animal pitch over down the hill, I was very confident of the shot & down we went to find a very fat spiker, my first Sika so I was rapt.
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I carried it back to the hut & hung it up, a couple of cold beers with dinner & I slept very contented.
The next morning we were into it again, Something that we don't have to worry about in the South Island is this stuff! Which stung me fairly regularly when I wasn't paying attention, I swear my legs & hands were still tingling a couple of days after I got home!
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The block had suffered quite a bit of snow damage in the winter & it was very hard hunting, there was tree fall everywhere which made the hunting low percentage, we were seeing sign & getting whistled at but it was very hard to move quietly thru all the shit. After lunch we decided to do a big mission to the top of the block where the only clearings are, in a head gulley, it took us 2.5hrs to get there as we had to circle around to get the wind right, as soon as we dropped into them we saw fresh sign, Garth was leading, as we snuck into the second one he motioned to me that he could hear something, we froze & waited proabably10min then just as were about to move on a hind walked out in front of Garth & he promptly shot her.
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Now as his knee still wasn't a 100% I'd said I'd carry anything he shot, so we cut her cut & into the pack she went, we then took a different route home that turned into a bit of a bush bash & we just made the hut before dark 2hrs later, it's not the type of block you'd want to be floundering around in the dark.
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Anyway it was fresh heart for dinner, the next day we split up & dispite our best efforts we didn't have any luck but I was enjoying myself. The following morning We had a quick morning hunt before packing up & waiting for our ride out, which turned up 1.5hrs late, It was a pretty windy day so I wasn't to worried when I saw the squirrel come into to land & pick us up on a back load, it was like being in a Rolls Royce.
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On the way home we took a drive down Clements Mill Rd so I now know what everyone is talking about.
Throughly enjoyed the trip & look forward to another.
