Before reading please note we are relatively new hunters nearly in our 40’s, we are learning by getting out there and beating our feet. Basically most of what we know comes from other peoples Youtube accounts, articles and hunting shows. Be warned it’s a long read…..
Given we are still new to Sika hunting and nervous with so many hitting the public land around Clements Road a plan was hatched to walk in on opening of duck shooting weekend in the hopes less people would be around. Well our theory was right, driving out to the end of the road we counted less than 15 cars parked up.
We headed off on the Hinemaia track in the dark over the gut buster towards Cascade hut, stopped at the top for a coffee to hear at least 2 possible 3 animals nutting off in the head of the valley. We decided to push on knowing that if the area we were planning to head was quiet we could come back to this catchment. Arrived at the hut after a 5 hour walk.
Because we are new to this sport and building confidence in the bush we were prepared to fly camp but we’re hoping for room in the hut, as luck would have it we had the hut to ourselves the whole time so didn’t push out into the tent.
Saturday afternoon we pushed up stream from the hut check out the areas we had flagged on Google earth, a couple distant heehaws but nothing to get too excited about.
Sunday morning saw a mint day with a reasonable from, pushed up in the dark to a small peak at about 1100M getting whistled at a couple times and made a coffee. Once we had enough light to shoot we let off a single call, almost instantly we had a single call reply below us. Lost some elevation to close the distance and let another single call go, same thing almost instant response but this time it almost sounded like a red roar rather than a Sika which was then followed by a ear piercing single call from a bit different direction but a lot closer. Then the wind did us dirty with a nice gentle gust blowing straight down the ridge over us and into the animals direction. We got 1 more reply before they shut up. Assuming we had winded them we headed back up the ridge to wait out the swirling wind. Behind us in another catchment we heard a gnarly heehaw so we dropped down into the other catchment. Bush bashed our way down to the river flats and didn’t hear even a whistle let-alone the stag that was in the area. Plenty of fresh sign and some nice scrapes and rubs, back to the hut with our tails between our legs.
Monday back up the hill in the dark to the same spot. Got ready and had a proper game plan in place this time, as soon as we let a single call go the valley came alive with vocal animals. Pretty sure we had 3 on our side and one behind us going. The closest one to us went quite very quickly, again we had light variable winds however there was a hearty regular reply from down stream. We lost some elevation and closed the gap to maybe 100m, things we playing out well this time until a chopper buzzed over us which felt like he was barely above the tree tops. This shut the animals up.
Sat tight for about an hour watching a face for nothing, decided to head off but ran another single call and hello old mate down the will starts up again. He’s maybe 150-200m down and across the valley from us, decision was made to chase him down as he was doing his best to keep roughly 100M ahead of us. Lost 200m of elevation down into the creek then up the other side, still instant replies to single calls. If we didn’t reply he would single call every 5-10mins wanting to know where we were.
At this point we’ve probably been chasing him for about 3 hours, clambering up the other side of the steep valley and climbing over the huge windfall we eventually came into a very tight gully with a small feeder creek running through it full of massive wind fall. He’s up high, we are half way down at this point probably inside 75M. Sitting behind a tree I noticed a hind feeding across the opposite face, we had pre decided if we saw a hind we would take her over the stag. Lined up, bang…… multiple hinds runs off…. Bit of head scratching as to what’s happened then all of a sudden old mate starts heehawing and he’s close! Now uncertain about my rifles zero after I’ve taken a couple of tumbles, I tap out and stay on the caller.
I stayed back while my buddy stalked in, we could hear his little mews which I was replicating and getting good replies between his single calls. My buddy got close enough to hear him inhaling before his single calls, just had to get a visual on his through the bloody pepper wood, probably inside 15M. This carried on for about 20 mins before silence took over the area, she was all over. Gone without a trace, no sign of his departure even though we had his escape routes covered.
This whole encounter happened over about 5 hours, spent an hour looking for the hind but without even a drop of blood we assumed it was a clean miss. Scrambling up out of the river we were beating ourselves up over what happened and what we could’ve done differently.
Heading back to the hut we were stopped in our tracks by another heehaw, not far up on a bench so we jetted up and let a single call go. We got one reply before he shut up. Was too good to be true so kept on back to the hut, whistled at several times on the trail was like salt in the wounds. Multiple animals around the hut also whistled at us throughout the night almost like they were laughing at us.
Wondering whether the single call on our AJ Caller sounds a bit dominant? All the animals replying to it have moved away slowly or just shut up shop..
Another 5 hour walk out this morning, even though we didn’t drop an animal we are fizzed and happy albeit gutted with our efforts. We learned a lot and learned how little we know about bush stalking. Had an absolute blast, covered about 50km on foot and legs feel ok for the effort.
