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Philipo, Harley & tin arse Charlie
Philipo, Harley & tin arse Charlie
So I’d come up with this trip idea over a year ago, head to the southern Isle looking for decent high country Red Stags, I had a couple of guys semi keen but when it got closer to the end of the year they kinda lost interest. I mentioned to Adam ( Dorkus ) about my plans & he was keen so we started sorting some shit, but with him getting married & me being mental busy with work things were getting a bit tight, a date was set & Adam took on the job to sort a chopper pilot & area to hunt then everything else fell into place. Adam seems to be the sort of fulla that if he stood on a dog turd he’d find a gold nugget inside so I was hoping his luck would run off onto at least one of us.
For some dickhead reason he wanted to bring “Harley” ( she’s a lovely pup ) but I wasn’t having her traveling for hours on my back seat of the ute, so taking my truck wasn’t an option. Friday lunchtime & I pick up his wagon / gear & Harley from Linton then head south to pick up the Admiral, bugger me but the Ferry is delayed so we hang around for a while before having a lumpy old trip on the boat including what seemed like most was going backwards but finally we’re in the promised land at 10isk o’clock. Fuk I love the South Island, through Picton & the metropolises of Blenheim & it McDee’s for a snack, but needing some fresh supplies everything is in shut down for the night, so onwards we go looking for a place to pitch our wag & have a kip.
Finally after St Alberns & what seemed like two dozen one way bridges giving way to endless led road trains we find a “DOC freedom camping site” fuk yeah, 8 bucks each in the box then find a nice private spot to fix the fly to the Sube, get our bags & matts out farken blow blow blow then into the scratcher, just about to put the head down & FRRRRISSSSTTTT, Harley decides to put her claw into the corner of Adam’s Expeed, Fuk that’s a bummer brother, He knows that I’ve brought a spare therearest, I’m all tucked into my bed & can’t be fagged getting out so reply “ you use it, you buy it” hence to say his bum cheeks lay deflated for the rest of the night. To put the icing on the cake it turned out we had camped on the apex of the Chirstchurch – Picton truckers circuit, not only did we have the joys of listing to dozens of 45 tonners engine braking into the intersection but also gassing it out hahaha ftm’s
Luckily Mr chopper pilot was doing spraying Saturday morning so we had time to get up early & gas it to the lovely town of Greymounth ( & yes I’m serious I love GM ) get a new bed for Adam, some fresh supplies then off to the pick up site, a deep dark road end in the middle of “dirty old banjo country” chur
We get to the road end, there’s a couple other cars there, we unload and sort our shit, fuk me looks enough stuff for a month long “love in” but shit there’s only two of us & that’s why we’re flying in, a station wagon approaches and a couple of guys hop out, it’s a farther & son team, they’re flying into a different spot with the same pilot, The old boys an interesting character he proceeds to ask us if we would like any gloves, then proceeds to pull out a large half full box of mixed “hand ware” that he has picked up while cycling around Auckland, then he started to talk about the bloody Muslims & giv Adam a lovly book to read at camp lol, thank God the chopper finally turned up ( be it two hours late )
Swing load the gear & off, Southern alps here we come, what a lovely day to fly.
We land at a great camp site, a high flat Plato with bwety fresh water running with’in 20 yards & a nice big rock to hide from the nasty North-westerly. We set up our tents then go for a walk up a steep scree slip next to camp, we crest the saddle into a beautiful gully, we glass till sunset watching 2-3 groups of hinds then head back down to camp, it’s looking good for finding something although the rest of the area looks quite steep and more like Tahr country.
I do a dumb arse move on the way down the hill & don’t watch where I’m going, fall into a hole – Get knocked in the back of the swede by my rifle in it’s Ebelstock scabbard & take plenty of skin off both legs, I then proceed to call myself a “dumb cunt “ for the next five minutes as I could of broken my leg & that would have blowin the trip.
Next morning & as we start to scale the “scree slip” again, we see a couple of animals standing in the saddle, 30-40 minutes & we’re at the top glassing, nothing is seen but Harley starts to wind to our right & next thing a Spiker & three Hinds are standing staring at us from less than a hundy yards ( they must have been feeding in a small out’a sight hollow spot ) we all freeze & Adam slowly starts to reach for his rifle and get ready for a shot, Well fuk me just then a bwety Chammie buck appears standing on the bluff to our left less than 50 yards away, Bugger me wtf did he come from, he gives us a good going over and hops across the rocks Adam swings his suppressed Rem mag around brings the rifle up but he’d forgotten to take his scope cove off, bounce & the chammie is gone burgers, Arh shit !!! OK the Reds are still watching / feeding so let’s take the Spiker for camp meat then, Dorky lays down behind the gun, readies himself “boofa” the shot sails over the Spikers shoulder blowin a large hole in the scree behind him, they gap it down into the gully stopping at 300yards but we decide to let em be & let things settle down abit, Adam looks dumb founded then checks his scope, it’s still dialled 4moa from when he was testing it the week before, that still doesn’t account for him pulling the shot so high, we put it down to his shit shooting skills lol
If there’s a couple of things I know about life & hunting is “timing is everything” & “Animals can appear from anywhere” We both dropped the ball in this instance, I should of told Adam to have his rifle ready to go as soon as we started to glass & I should have pulled Tim out’a the Eablestock ready to go instead of leaving him in the scabbard. I would of loved that Chammie, it had good hooks & a lovely coat I even though I glassed for two days I never saw it again bugger.
We spend the rest of the day heading along the ridge, spending hours looking through our bino’s at 1000’s of acres of country & snoozing in the sunshine, but not much else is seen apart from a tent city on the distant “Nelson tops” I get the spotter & can see three large tents & eight dudes sitting in deck chairs lol, fuk glad we’re not competing with them.
Thing’s aren’t looking to good, seems we’re a bit high & it’s hard going trying to glass the bush edges of the ridge we’re on, It’s getting near the end of the day when Adam, spies an animal on a steep face across the valley 1200 yards away, Very surprising since after hours of glassing that side we hadn’t seen a any friggen thing, he suspects it’s just a Hind but once it pulls it’s head up I can see it ain’t no Hind, so go get the spotter & shit yeah it’s a shooter alright, I start to count it’s tips off & we’ll both quite excited when I count past 12 stopping at 14, I not a hundy percent on the exact number but it’s worth a shot Nigel. We watch for a few minutes as Mr Staggo decides to bed down for the night, Mint : )
We have one last glass of the area along the ridge we’re on before deciding to head back to base camp & while scanning the Monkey scrub I see another Staggo bashing up the undergrowth at around 900 yards, he looks around a 10-14 ( It’s bloody hard to tell ) but with the other fulla bedded down and clearly visible we decide that the next day we would plan an attack on it, Adam spotted it so I say he can have it since I’m such a GC ( plus I couldn’t be fuked going all the way over there as he was in a prick of a spot to retrieve lol )
Back at camp & talking over a good feed of steak sammies we come up with a plan of attack and talk about taking the shot & what to do if he’s taken down regarding skinning / mounting etc.
With a radio each, I will go back up to the general area where we spotted the beastie to help spot / guide he in & Adam will go up above the bluffs & try to get a shot from above, he takes my Lecia rangefinder with it’s TBR it will come in handy.
Early morning & another bwety fine day, right off we go, as I climb the hill I glass across to see the Stag out feeding in a gully just east of where he had been sleeping, great he’s still in the general spot, Adam gets to his lookout around 8:30 & well bugger me can see Mr Staggo chilling out in the shubery . He lets me know across the radio he’s lined up & guna take the shot ( around 250-300 yards “200TBR” ) I can see Dorky from my vantage spot but not the Stag when I hear the shot & Adam calling to say he’s down & has rolled into the creek below. Good stuff now to retrieve him, Anyone that’s shot the southern alps knows how hard that can be.
Adam says it’s in the creek west of where he was sitting the night before, but shit I can’t see it & hope it’s not, as all I can see is a staircase of one large waterfall after another. I get around the hill further & finally spy he belly up in an adjacent creek, luckily Dorky’s feeble little brain had just got confused with what was where, He come’s up with a plan, drops most of his gear & heads down a to retrieve, it’s abit narly ( there’s a reason these Staggo’s grow so big lol ) but he’s there by about 10:30 & gives out a nice loud “Waaarrrhooo” when he finally gets there & see’s that yup it’s a farken ripper.
He farts around taking pics & decides he’d like to fully mount so capes it out, then for him the fun really begins trying to get him, a big rack with a large wad of skin attached & Harley the Dog all up the hill, I keep an eye on preceding’s in between glassing & napping in the heat of the day.
Adam finally climbs out’a all the steep shite & back to his pack & more importantly his lunch, I’m bored so decide to go for a mission down some steep shit of my own while being bombarded by large Grasshoppers & along the ridge to check out where I saw the other Stag, My conclusion was that the area was really cool with a number of wallows & really nice bush edges ( this is what I was hoping for ) But with the prominent NW winds it wasn’t guna be easy to hunt & I’d be best to come back & fly camp in the area to maximise the morning clam. I decided to make the long trip back to camp, catch up with Adam, check out his trophy & come up with a plan.
We get back about the same time and woowee what a nice head alright, great symmetry with beautiful colour, well done son, Adam had put in a great effort & earned a bwety prize, we have a couple of Beers & he proceeds to torture me with multiple vids of his days “hunting Blog” zzzzzzzz…………
The next day we awake to rain beating the tent, bugger! the weather had turned & we go for a glass of the gully just down from camp, but the cloud and rain are coming in, time to use the inreach ( kindly loaned to us by Ryan Songhurst, cheers bud ) to see what the chopper pilot reckons, it’s not looking good as the weather will be a off’n’on for the next two days & then will turn to absolute shit, Right he’s coming in thirty.
We pack up & stick our gear on the landing pad, heavy rain for 15mintues gets everything wet & things aren’t looking flash, we may be here for a while, then he pops over the ridge ( only 45min late lol ) a good flight out back to the car & we decide to stay in Greymouth the night, Dorky skins out the head and then proceeds to spend the rest of the night on the phone regaling everyone with his heroics & sounding like the Navy Seal that took down Bin Laden.
Next day we’re booked on the 7:00 ferry so decide to go to Nelson for the day, Just as we come into Murchison and Adam’s wagon starts to fart abit, he knows what it is but gets no joy or help from the two local rude arse useless mechanic garages there so we head to Nelson & have a nice lunch with Kiwi Greg and check out some toys while we get the car sorted by a decent mechanic just down the road for $50, All sorted then off to the boat, Home in Palmy around 2am.
What a trip, plenty of things went pear shape, the hunting area wasn’t great and the trip was cut short due to the weather ( but shit, if you get two – three good days in the Alps ur doing well ) & I didn’t even get to fire a shot, but Adam found that nugget hahahaha
Chur
