Southern Roar 2014 in one report
So it’s pretty much over for 2014, the roar season. As far as past seasons go, this one was on a par with most. Plenty of time in the hills was rewarded with a number of animal encounters, and the sightings of some very nice stags and bucks.
This year my plans had revolved around a certain north islander coming down to chase roaring reds, but the birth of his first son and a very busy work schedule unfortunately put a stop to those plans. I wasn’t worried, my boss knew I had the better part of 3 weeks hunting planned, so the trips carried on as usual.
First up was a trip into the Upper Caples, a fallow ballot block in the Queenstown district. Walking the 15 odd kms in was enjoyable, we saw a number of deer on the way in, and heard several reds roaring as well. We were first in since closing of last season and it was quite obvious given the quite nature of the deer sighted during our trip. We literally had deer sleeping in the hut clearing; these bucks we stalked were within 300yds of the hut;
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Scotty and I spent the first couple of days hunting a side creek, while the other boys targeted bush country around the hut. We climbed high on the first day, eager to see what was in the tops. After a decent grunt we broke into the tops and saw two deer immediately. Turns out they were the only deer we saw all day in the tops, and sign was minimal.
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Given the lack of sign in the tops, we dropped back down into the valleys and were immediately on sign once again. The side creeks offered great hunting, with clearings and slips throughout to keep us interested. Deer sightings were regular; it made for some great hunting.
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Kay creek hut was a cool hut, situated up Kay creek. A quick day hunt up in this catchment was fairly uneventful, a few deer sighted, both fallow and reds. One chamois mooched about the head of the valley.
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Over the following few days we stalked deer in almost every area we hunted. We saw a number of deer, and plenty of bucks too. Unfortunately Dave missed a decent buck, and the only other decent one we saw was too smart to come with shooting range. We did see some nice younger bucks, which we had fun stalking in close to.
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We had a good grunt out on our last day, stopping regularly to stalk deer, or talk to trampers. It was a great trip to start the season off.
During the roar I did a number of short trips, mornings, evenings and overnighters. Deer were seen on most trips, roaring was heard on most trips, but most trips shots were not fired. I restrain from even shooting the nicest looking meat animals at this time of year, because who knows what is around the corner?
Several areas in the south offer not only good deer hunting, but also the opportunity to hunt chamois. Being one of my favourite game animals I never pass up the opportunity to stalk a chamois in hope of a nice photo. These were spotted on a trip early in the roar, and provided me with some entertainment for a while;
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Encounters with young stags or spikers made the roar exciting. In the bush or scrub a roaring stag is just that, and it’s not until you get the upper hand and lay eyes on the bugger that you really know how big he is!
I was stalking the bush line early one morning, a stag roared from down in the gully, to which I replied. Surprisingly he went quiet and after a few minutes of waiting I decided to sneak in closer and try to catch him out at his own game. Stalking through the low scrub towards the native, I came over a rise and saw the back of a stag below me. Adrenalin kicked in and I dropped to the ground. With its head down I had no idea how big it was, so chambered a round and waited patiently. Then he lifted his head!
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On another hunt we were travelling in the rain and in the distance spotted two stags sparring on the flats in front of us. They separated and we managed to get into a position below they face they “disappeared” into. A few grunts and roars got the better of this young stag as he peered out through the ferns. He showed great potential, and was left to roam for another day.
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One early morning in late March I was in Canterbury, stalking a gully full of wilding douglas fir. It was the perfect morning, still with a light frost on the ground. Pippa wandered along ahead of me as I followed cradling my rifle. We got to a good vantage point and sat to wait as the day got lighter. A roar in the distance got my heart pumping, and I roared back in return. We waited, and nothing showed.
As I considered returning down the gully, Pippa started winding well, looking further up the gully. I decided to sit tight, and wait just that bit longer. It ended up being the right plan, with a young 8 pointer strutting down the gully to sort me out. As I crouched behind a tree that was way too small, Pip sat like a statue watching this stag come closer and closer, to the point he stood only metres away!
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He glared at us for a while, trying hard to wind us. But with the wind in our favour, and me hiding behind the tree he couldn’t work out what was going on. Eventually sussed out that we were not mates of his, and wandered back off up the gully to join his two hinds. What a rush…this is why I hunt!
By mid-April I’d covered a fair bit of familiar country and a bit of new stuff as well. I invited my good mate Farm down for a few days chasing reds about in the thick Southland bush. His hunting experience was limited, and he’d only heard one wild stag roar prior to his trip south, and that was the week leading up to the trip!
He arrived and we got into it. We hit up several spots, however lacking a permit for any of the local ballot blocks we had to resort to hunting open Doc areas where the risk of encountering other hunters was very real. Fortunately we also had a couple of private areas we could visit as a backup.
First up we spent a couple of days bashing about in the bush, having fun with a number of scrubby stags. Roaring action was good, with stag roars and animals seen every day! We got into some really thick, hands and knees stuff, and found the stags liked it there as much as we hated it!
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Tired of bashing about in the scrub we hit up a spot near home and were once again rewarded with stags roaring and hunted a couple of hot spots. Farm was only willing to pull the trigger on a stag that offered a decent head, and was a mature animal. He’d shot one stag previously and did not see the point in shooting another small or young animal for the sake of it. Needless to say, those ethics rang well with me so we kept looking for that special stag! It’s a great feeling leaving stags like this for another day!
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On our second to last day, I planned to hit up a spot where I’d got onto a stag last year, but he’d eluded me. Good sized marks and tree rubbings indicated he was a decent sized and most likely mature animal, but given the area wasn’t renowned for big heads I wasn’t sure what we’d end up hunting. As the sun rose on a still and clear day we clearly heard a stag roaring his guts out down the valley as we stalked our way through the bush.
I knew where he was, above some clearings that offered us as good a chance as any to get this stag. I replied to his roar, hoping to keep him interested enough, so that when we arrived on the clearings we might be able to coax him down onto the bush edge and offer us a shot.
Well it never played out as planned, we stalked into the clearing, as the stag roared his guts out from what we thought was the other side of the clearing. Farm suddenly whispers, “I can see him, he’s in the clearing!” I frantically scanned the clearing looking across to the other side 250 yards away. “Where?!” I replied, at the same time I saw a stag running hell for leather for cover! All I saw on top were glistening points that indicated he was a decent stag. He stopped briefly on the bush edge and was swallowed up…we were gutted!
To my surprise he started roaring once back in the bush, and what’s even more surprising he answered mine. Farm and I needed no more persuasion and hit the bush, determined to get this stag. That was the beginning of one of the most epic hunts I have undertaken. We chased this stag through and around 3 catchments, with him roaring well but only just ahead of us all day!
I made the call to pull out, let him calm down and come back to the clearings in late afternoon and try again. I was optimistic but at the same time highly doubted he would return that evening.
A couple of hours later we were sitting on the hill above the clearing, listening for that unmistakable roar we’d been chasing most of the day. A 5pm we heard it, looked at each other and grinned. It was on! I replied, the stag replied, and slowly but surely came closer to the bush edge. As darkness fell we were anxious to say the least, would he come out before dark, would we see him again?
Staring through my binos my heart stopped as a saw a hind break cover and bolt to the middle of the clearing. The stag erupted in angry roars, knowing his prize was out in the open. From nowhere a young stag sifted in and rounded her up, we hadn’t even seen him! He roared triumphantly as he tried to muster the hind away, which upon doing so alerted the older stag that he was in the open also.
This was playing out perfectly for us, all we needed was the big stag to come out and show whose boss. It is exactly what we witnessed, the pressure was too much for the big stag, he burst out into the open, pushing the smaller stag out of the way and staking his claim back on the hind. This gave us enough time to run down the face to within range and take the shot we’d been waiting all day for!
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What an epic end to a massive days hunting an awesome mature bush stag, the hunt shared with a good mate. Pretty hard to experience to beat!
Farm left the following day and I planned another brief overnighter with another old mate. We decided to hit up an area we hunted years earlier, hoping to catch a big stag out in tops country. So into the hills we headed.
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The first day was fairly uneventful; we spotted a couple of deer in the open and stalked them. We were certain a stag would be holding hinds in this catchment so excitedly made our way down the side of the mountain sliding through the tussock. Popping over a rock we were suddenly staring into the eyes of a hind, which bolted, stopping briefly before leading this spiker and yearling into the cover of the bush.
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Carrying on, plenty of sign was found, including a couple of decent wallows way out in the tops! We were optimistic of finding a stag once we’d found these wallows which stunk of stag. Pippa was certain the sign was fresh!
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She wasn’t wrong, and neither were we. Before long we’d spotted a stag on the other side of the valley, too far to hunt that night, so we left him to it, hoping to return the next morning.
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We trekked on towards the hut, as the clouds grew and the rain fell. Rain turned to sleet and no matter how fast we seemed to walk staying warm was near on impossible. It was a time I thought I’d gone bush unprepared and it wasn’t a good feeling. Eventually we made it to the hut, and it was two cold and wary souls that hung their socks out to dry in front of a roaring fire that night!
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The next morning dawned clear, but heavy cloud blew our chances of hunting the tops that day. We decided to head out, making brief visits into a couple of side creeks on the way out, listening for roars and looking for sign. By the time we made it to the truck we only had a couple of hours to kill before dark, so ditched the packs and hunted some likely looking fringe country.
We found some “old” stag sign. Shot and lost? Natural causes? Who knows. Potentially could have been a nice trophy one day though.
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Right on dark a stag started up only a stone’s throw from where we’d positioned ourselves above a small creek full of clearings. Rather than risk scaring him off by roaring we opted to stalk in.
Fortunately he roared well enough for us to get in close enough to get a look at him. In fading light I studied him from a distance and after deciding he wasn’t big enough to shoot attempted a stalk with the camera. He was waiting for me as I slowly broke cover into his scrubby clearing. One photo and he was gone!
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That brief trip marked the end of my “roar” trips, and as “luck” would have it the fallow had started croaking. I had pencilled a couple of days over Easter in case they were going, and as that was the case I repacked and hit the hills for another couple of day hunting.
Fallow are wily little buggers and it always amazes me how close they can be without you even knowing! I’ve been chasing a mature fallow buck for a number of years now, opting not to pull the trigger on a number of good looking bucks as a result.
The bucks were not croaking on the first day on the hill, so we resorted to looking for does and hoping that where there are does, there will be bucks. We had no real trouble finding does, but our theory was not working as planned!
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The second day dawned extremely cold, and within minutes of hitting the hill we’d heard our first buck croak. We knew where he was, roughly, so headed that way. Constantly checking the wind, we approached the gully with caution, glassing regularly for any tell-tale signs of fallow deer. Everything had gone silent, which wasn’t good! That was until this fella walked out of the scrub below us.
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By watching the young buck (spiker) sniffing around this patch of scrub, we were fairly certain we were staking out the right place. And sure enough, a buck started croaking before breaking cover. The buck bolted, two does followed along with the spiker who tagged along behind. We continued hunting for the day, giving up when we ran out of daylight.
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The next morning, I was high in the hills, heading through the monkey scrub and tussock towards the sound of a croaking buck. As luck would have it, he went quiet once I was within shooting range and I never saw him! A little despondent I chose to drop altitude into some fringe country, splattered with grass filled gullies and tight scrub. The stuff fallow deer really like.
Glassing the ridge opposite, I spotted what looked like a decent buck rarking up some scrub and a rutting pad. Without a second though, I’d dropped into the gully and was made my way down a steep gut in an effort to close the gap and see whether he was worth shooting.
Climbing out of the gully, I’d calculated the buck would be within shooting range once I crested the ridgeline…if he was still there! Prepared to shoot, I scrambled up and over the top of the lip of the gut and was gutted to see him not there! My only choice was to clamber through the next gully and hope he was over the ridge out of view.
Within minutes I was stalking up on the point where I’d last seen the buck. One step after another I scanned constantly, hoping he wasn’t watching me and making ready to break for it from the scrubby gut below. But the bugger was! I saw an antler sticking out the side of a matagouri bush as he looked me fair in the eye. As I lifted my rifle and squeezed the trigger he turned and leapt down the hill and out of sight.
I heard the bullet hit, it didn’t sound or feel good. Making my way down to where he stood I found a bit of lung blood, and following the trail a bit of gut blood. Not good. What was worse was the trail dwindled to nothing in 20 metres and the ground was so hard no marks could be seen. I spent the next five hours walking up, down, around in circles looking for the buck, knowing he was fatally hit and dead somewhere, but unable to decipher what direction he’d actually gone I had to admit defeat and pulled pin on the search.
My final chance of finding the buck was to travel home and get Pippa. She was under strict instruction not to do anything after spiking herself through the chest on a willow branch, but this wasn’t going to be too strenuous. After a 2.5 hour round trip we made our way back to where the buck was, and within minutes of putting her on the trail Pip had found the buck. I was rapt!
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So that wraps up my roar/rut for 2014. For me it’s the most exciting and anticipated time of the year, a time I really look forward to and try to make the most of. This year was no exception!
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Happy hunting
JoshC :)
