Have been out hunting a grand total of one time since moving back to Oamaru last June so I decided bugger it I'm going for a nosey no matter what last Thursday. The weather was forecast to be bloody warm, 30 degrees so I wasn't holding out much hope. Was a bit late out of bed but Bo got me up eventually, he had been fizzing since the night before seeing my pack and gear etc stacked up by the door ready to go. Got to the carpark about 6.30am which was full daylight but the heat hadn't set in so we made tracks to gain some elevation and get the far lookers out for a scan about. Big open country so I thought any critters would probably be parked up pretty close to any little cover they could find and in the vicinity of a water source. I spotted two Hinds about 2km away but they were safe from me, call me soft but don't really make a point of shooting hinds at this time of year and I definitely wasn't dragging myself all the way over there. I was surprised at the lack of sign as the south facing slopes still had awesome feed on them for this tile of year and zero browse or recent sign on them, I assume the choppers have probably had a go through the area in the past 6 months. It was pretty windy at times and Bo was pretty keen, he was getting scent but he will air scent a fair way out on this open type country so I just let the binos do most the walking. There was quite an amount of sign way up high on the very tops of the range in the really gnarly stuff so I think it might be worth and overnighter or a couple days to look for a Cham or Tahr but I didn't have time during the day. Bo was pretty keen at first as he hasn't been out for ages so I kept him on the lead for the first hour or so, after that he settled in and was making all the right moves there just wasn't any animals handy. It started to get really warm around lunchtime and I couldn't find any water on the tops, I shared half my water bladder with Bo and then made the decision to pull pin as it was a good walk back to the truck with no water and I didn't want to cook my dog. Little Howa Super lite was a dream to carry, think I have it sorted pretty good now, have epoxy bedded it and settled on the factory 150sst Superformance which it puts out at 2720fps which has plenty of snot out to 400yds, pretty neat for a 14.5" barrel and a rifle that weighs 2.5kg soaking wet with a scope on it.
Was pretty parched by the time we got back to the truck and we had a dip in the first river Ford we came across on the way out. Was good to get out with my wee mate again, sometimes forcing yourself out there seems to reignite the spark so I'm back in planning mode again now. Cheers
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Could damn near milk cows off the feed on these faces!
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