Some of you will remember my post a couple weeks ago of a photo of my first Red, here’s the story of how it happened
http://www.nzhuntingandshooting.co.n...irst-red-5978/
A friend of mine from uni had told me about her property back home just out of upper hutt which was a mix of farmland, native bush and pines. She said I’d be welcome to hunt on it so I made plans to head down there before the uni break was up. I caught one of the $30 flights down and met with Brycey who was down on business.
We headed off on Wednesday night with her Dad (farmer, land-owner and keen hunter) up the back on his ute but we were stopped by a pine that had fallen over the track. We found some strips of velvet on the ground near the tree with antler rubbings all over it – I took it as a good omen! We glassed a bit across to the opposite face and Collin (the farmer) spotted a few and I spotted one. So we drove back down the track and around the long way to the other side of the farm to hunt that face that we had been glassing.
We walked along the ridgeline and hunted down into the face. Quite quickly we spotted a spiker down in a shallow gully than ran down the face. It was sitting down under some manuka chewing its cud. Brycey raised the T3 7mm-08 to his shoulder and kept the spiker in the sights waiting for it to stand so he could get a clean shot off. Time seemed to slow down then but the heart-rate certainly didn’t! Sure enough he stood up eventually and Brycey took him from about 40m with a clean heart-lung shot. Here’s the result
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We dealt to the boy and then carried on to see if I could score myself one. We hopped back up to the ridgeline and carried, glassing the gullies on the face as we went along. Coming up to the next gully the goats scrambled and we saw a hind group escaping over into the next little gully. I dropped down onto the bipod but couldn’t get a shot off before they disappeared. Soon we spotted a spiker that hadn’t taken the hint and was hanging around in the gully. I found him in the scope and he was about 200m away so I had the scope right up. He was facing rump towards us but looking to his left so the neckshot was an option, but I didn’t feel confident enough for that, so I kept waiting for him to make a turn. He took his time but eventually he bared his left shoulder to us and squeezed the trigger and heard that thud and he crashed down into some bushes below! I was stoked. I thought he was done for but the bugger managed to get back on his feet and started walking slowly down the gully to where he would be out of sight. I chambered another round and gave him another but missed. Tried again, missed. The pressure was on, couldn’t let him go out of sight. Chambered another and lined him up and let it rip – thud! He toppled over and out of sight – that’s him finished, I thought. Handshakes and cheers all around, then me and Brycey headed down into the gully to find him, while Colin stayed up on the ridgeline to see if he could spot it to give us help finding it. When we came to him he was lying down in a little dip and I gave him a quick coup de grace in the neck. Pretty shitty shot placement on my behalf but I’d never shot anything out to that far so gotta start somewhere – really need to take my rifle out to a 200m range. Oh well, dead deer nevertheless!
Went back to the famers house and enjoyed the hospitalities of a couple beers and some wild pork and venison – cream on the cake of a good evening hunt.
He mentioned wanting to shoot another to give the meat to a family friend, so we headed back up to his place on the following night. We headed over to a different place on the property which was a small valley of native bush, with some grassy clearings on the river flats. We stalked our way through them and it wasn’t long until we came across a nice yearling hind which would make for tastey vension. So Brycey took a nice neckshot, and we gutted it there. Once again, back to the house for a beer and feed – royal treatment, for sure.
After dinner we got the animals from the meat safe and butchered them. Back to the motel and that little fridge didn’t know what hit it! Have a look
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Left for Taupo on Friday, crashed there, and up to Auckland on Saturday with a tray full of meat and smiles on our faces – what a sweet few days.
The following Monday I had a few mates around for a BBQ to celebrate my birthday and I cooked the backsteaks – holy shit they were good. Had me foaming at the mouth for my next kill just to have those backsteaks in my mouth again.
The following day I left for Te Anau for my Fiordland trip – write up for that coming soon,
Happy hunting
