Thread: Not a trophy a roar

Hi all,

Had a few missions destinations planed on different weather forecasts and wind was from the south much of the trip and the spot x plan 2 was chosen with 5 headwaters. It a fairly popular for helicopter hunting and walking in hunters. Usual story the further away from tracks and car parks the more animals.
Not in two much of rush I had 9 days food supply for myself and the hound dog. In the first 45 minutes of walking from the car park I hear a distant roar of a stag. The stags roaring every evening from 4pm onwards, there was the odd occasion that one would roar during the day. We pretty much checked out all the stags roaring and most of the winded deer the hound was onto which turns into a long drawn out day. One day in one valley the dog was onto a deer ever 20 minutes too 45 minutes.
This mission wasn’t just about securing nice trophy but a environment and pest management. So we accounted for 11 red deer, 64 goats, 17 possums the dog pointed onto during the day and 2 feral cats.
Tool of the trade the trusty 300 Blackout running both subs for minimal disturbance and super for a bit of distance shooting.


Plenty of hunting to be had in here.




The odd bluff and waterfall to negotiate around to get onto them.




There’s a stag roaring with two hinds a third way up in the gut.

[url=https://flic.kr/p/2n9zx1f]


This is one of two hinds I shot in a mob of 7 that a stag was roaring over. They were hit with a 125gr SST supersonics at 200m and a hour stalking into a decent shooting position.The damage to the high county in this area is some of the worst I’ve ever seen in my 30+ years of hunting.




Shot this stag in the middle of a goat bomb up 6 goats within 50m above me then this guy jumps out 30m above me runs 10m down away from the falling goats and stop 5m in front of the dog so got a 190gr sub-x in the chest and down he went too and I was straight back into 6 more goats for that salvo. To have that on video would be priceless.




A native bird and skink killer trophy feral cat




Another trophy the mighty Hummel he was skinny and didn’t need to breed with his sister so he got a subsonic Lehigh Defence 168gr CF for a bang flop.




We setup a camp and had a we evening hunt in a nice little gully, got into a few more subsonic goats and possums the wind was perfect for coming back down the other side of the creek still getting a goat and possum, the stag we heard a couple of creeks over must come over to our gully to check us out roaring back at him earlier on. So it would barely 5min to 10min from shooting the last possum the dog winded the stag and pointed up in the open manuka stand above us and he’s was broadside looking straight at us, rise rifle, safety off, drop bolt put red dot on his hilar zone and pop then he drop on the shot. This was the fattest by far and had a inch of fat on his rumps and was a tasty bit of meat not being so lean.



The next week or two and the stags will be fully roaring during the day and rutted up.
Just because it’s the roar you can have a bit of fun a get rid of the pests and cull a few deer in the problem area or leave it the DOC to sort it out with poison and WARO on the behalf of our hard earned tax money.

Crikey, how much ammo did you take?

Good bit of animal control, obviously it needs to be done for the sake of the environment.

Originally Posted by Cigar

Crikey, how much ammo did you take?

30 x 168gr Lehigh subs
120 x 190gr Sub-X
40 x 125gr SST supersonics

Originally Posted by tikka

30 x 168gr Lehigh subs
120 x 190gr Sub-X
40 x 125gr SST supersonics

Do the scopes hold zero when you swap them?

Originally Posted by Tahr

Do the scopes hold zero when you swap them?

Sure does out 400m on steel with this rifle and 600m on my 16” 308win.

Warne QR and SPUHR for the red dot

I really look forward to your posts and once again you didn’t disappoint.
I loved my 300 Blackout and if it wasn’t a heavy Remington 5R I’d probably still have it; that Tikka of yours certainly looks a bit lighter.
I used the sub-x and found them ok, but the Leigh-hi were so much better, although very costly. How do you find the sub-x?

Cheers

Sub-X are rubbish on deer as I lost a couple and ran a long way before dying with follow up shots. I only used it on this stag because it was open tussock I could of used the rest of the magazine on him and then a backup magazine of Lehigh’s or supers as well. If I knew a deer was there I would of loaded the Lehigh magazine.
I normally have the Lehigh magazine loaded in the rifle ready to go but when we see the mob goats I swap out and put in the Lucky13 10 shot magazine full of goat ammo ready for a fast action salvo.

Good to see the sub-X work quickly on a chest shot. I only use mine for head/neck kind of stuff now after a couple of slow kills on chest shots.
I take it that is what the cat was given too?
Edit. Just saw the above post after I posted mine.

How are the Lehigh to reload, particularly seating them? Any special tricks or gear needed?
At $3.50+ each I would be worried about them separating while trying to seat them.

@tikka Cool mission Joe, did you take 2 scopes with you?

Yeah Dan the red dot doesn’t take up much room or weight.

@Shearer yes the cat got the Sub-X and that was the quickest kill on a red to date.
@Cigar not problems loading them and are a strong construction for seating, it does take a few rounds in load development getting down to a subsonic speed and validation of drop. They are well worth it for the meat you get back and if I was the average hunter I’d be spending more money on fuel, gear and food on a trip than a round or two to get 35kg of prime venison.

There is a guy on Trademe or was on selling Maker bullets similar design to the Lehigh Defence 194gr Maximum Expansion.

Great attitude - knock a few over. Thanks for the story

Mate, that would be a lifes worth of hunting for me......UNREAL.....