Seeing Out 2014 and Welcoming in an Epic 2015
Seeing out 2014 and welcoming in an Epic 2015
Haven’t put up a post for a while so here goes,
2014 was a ripper of a year, here it is all wrapped up.
https://youtu.be/4lNC902jZF8
Even managed to knock over a few bunnies :yaeh am not durnk:
https://youtu.be/kiN51EPI62Y
After Christmas saw the Family and I off into the depths of the Ruahines for a “tramp” :ORLY:
After a late night a moderate start was to be had, feed of porridge and we headed off to see if we could find and easy deer.
Around an hour later after some bloody good spotting on Leanne’s behalf, the little .308 cracked and a spiker rolled down a slip.
http://i1192.photobucket.com/albums/...1/DSC01937.jpg
Back to the hut and a few hours rest was just the ticket. I managed to convince Leanne an evening hunt would be more than ideal.
Three hours later we spotted a hind and fawn, they were safe. Followed shortly by a few more animals. A pretty sharp stalk took place and Leanne secured her first deer :)
http://i1192.photobucket.com/albums/...1/DSC01987.jpg
This one hung around to watch his mate getting cut up :wtfsmilie:
http://i1192.photobucket.com/albums/...1/DSC01980.jpg
Can't bet a brew by candle light!
http://i1192.photobucket.com/albums/...1/DSC01901.jpg
It was a pretty neat trip to say the least and a really good feeling getting the family into the hills.
A few days later saw a mate Al and I somewhere a few hours into the Kawekas. Unusually, deer sign was pretty thin on the ground.
The evening hunt saw Al secure his first animal with his new rifle, Tikka 22-250. A nice conditioned Sika stag.
http://i1192.photobucket.com/albums/...1/DSC02048.jpg
The morning hunt although an absolute stunner, produced stuff all. Once again unusual for the location and time of year.
http://i1192.photobucket.com/albums/...1/DSC02019.jpg
Another week or two later saw Leanne, Jesse and I heading up to the Kaweka tops on another family adventure.
http://i1192.photobucket.com/albums/...1/DSC02211.jpg
On the walk in, whilst lagging behind, I spied a nice fat animal down in a gut browsing happily on mountain tute. I pondered dropping down a bit and knocking it over and hanging it up for the walk out. Spotting Leanne up the track a couple of hundred metres ahead of me I opted not to, and with famous last words of she’ll be right, there will be plenty more, I headed off to catch up. As you can imagine the tops unusually produced nothing over the next couple of days.
The area we went normally has good animal numbers at that time of year so it was a bit disappointing not being able to point out a Jap or two. None the less, another enjoyable trip and also rather impressed that a 7 year old could have enough stamina to walk the sheer distance we did on both trips.
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Enjoying a sunset over the hills with the family :D
Somewhere along the way I took Jesse out so he could snag a few fish, no snapper or gurnard this time but he was happy with his Kahawai
http://i1192.photobucket.com/albums/...1/DSC01318.jpg
Don't know about the hat though :O_O:
http://i1192.photobucket.com/albums/...1/DSC01877.jpg
It didn’t take long for the feet to get itchy again and this time Al and I headed into some unfamiliar territory for an over nighter. Three mongrel hours later saw the wee .308 knock over another couple of deer in the creek bed :thumbsup:
http://i1192.photobucket.com/albums/...1/DSC02227.jpg
Hanging them up we carried on for another 45mins or so in the darkness and set up camp.
Morning dawned crystal clear once again and we carried on upstream. A couple of fairly uneventful hours and a waterfall negotiated later saw us nearing the tops. The deer trials were pitiful to say the least and it was now beginning to be obvious that the deer were a bit late to venture up onto the tops this year.
http://i1192.photobucket.com/albums/...1/DSC02230.jpg
Whilst admiring the view the dog begun winding intently up a little gut and I suggested to Al that if I sent the dog in to “find it” the animal would undoubtedly flush across the shingle scree in front of us, he wasn’t keen So we carried on up another 20 odd yards just to have the animal bark at us and take off
“He’s a ripper!” exclaimed Al
He barked on and off for a while before making the mistake of coming out on a scree higher up. The Howa of latte breed cracked and the stag ran of unharmed but stopped again long enough for Al to slip one into his shoulder which dropped him on the spot. A little amazed that the latte calibre could pull of such an extraordinary feat we headed up to admire Al’s “ripper”
He won’t live down the ripper statement for a while :XD:
http://i1192.photobucket.com/albums/...1/DSC02240.jpg
Not too many days later saw another mate and I knocking off work a little earlier due to rain. The drizzle produced ideal conditions to go for a bush hunt. We split up and vowed to meet up again on top of the ridge. 2.5hours with the breeze blowing where it shouldn’t produced four fifths of f all.
Meeting up we carried on up a while longer before splitting up once again for the last hour of day light. Half an hour or so later the dog showed a bit of excitement, the wee .308 got a little excited too and a Red felt the brunt of an Amax at 40 yards :cool:
http://i1192.photobucket.com/albums/...1/PC250380.jpg
Some days later another new spot beckoned to be explored. The brother in law was keen so we headed off for a night in search of a stag that should now be in hard antler.
Setting up camp, it wasn’t long before I spied three animals out feeding with darkness still several hours away. Multiple animals were spotted over the next few hours but not stags appeared.
http://i1192.photobucket.com/albums/...1/DSC02249.jpg
With darkness looming it was decided that Simon would take a yearling as he hadn’t shot many animals.
He secured one and the wee .308 got a little excited and managed a double accidentally, first 2 for 1 shot I have done on deer as seen below.
https://youtu.be/xFBB4ARIn7E
http://i1192.photobucket.com/albums/...1/DSC02258.jpg
The end of February was now looming which meant hard antlered Sika. A trip to the Kaimanawas was in order, 8 days of pretty outstanding hunting took place, but that’s another story…………....
Until next time, with the roar looming so take care out there and remember everything is a human until 100% proven otherwise.
Good luck!
Tony
