My good friend Brian and his son Cameron (teen mountain goat) came out for a bit of a Ruahine mission. Brian taught me everything I know about hunting deer and is an awesome friend. Any how we headed to our road end (the esplanade) and we walked up several hours towards a basin i have a bit of a lookout on. We walked across the top of the basin with the wind strongly above us in a not so favourable direction (into the basin). We started to glass the slips below us as we progressed towards the eagles nest. So we started to drop through the dense bush getting closer to my gps marker. We finally arrived at the site and once again pulled out the binoculars for a look. With in 30seconds i spotted a spiker in a gut grazing on some foliage, we decided with the hours light we had left it would be a good idea to take a crack at it and recover it while it was still daylight.
I ranged the young spiker at 292 yards and put down my range finder next to the mound i was shooting off. I repositioned and knocked my range finder down bank with dense bush cover over it. I was left thinking do i find my $1000 range finder or shoot it then find it........ so i dialed up the 7mm rem mag and held just right off centre of the shoulder and sent the round down range. The 162 amax hit one inch of the crease, he ran ten metres and surrendered. I then dropped down into the bush and found my rangefinder ten meters down the bank, needing a clean but still mint. I used my gps to "site and go" the deer, and it was within 5meters of being perfect (to help locate the deer).
Cam and I opted to drop down to recover the dear (Brian giving us the choice) instead of sideling around to it which turned out to be a good plan. Brian, Cam and I headed on down through dense bush until we hit the clearing. We found the deer boned it out with Brian doing most of the work. We split the meet three ways taking everything possible, we then started the steep climb out. Camerons fitness is amazing for a young man, carrying out a fair bit of weight for his body mass. Putting up with the punishment of the Ruahine bush, Brians isnt to bad either for a man North of 50. We had realised before heading down that Brian had possibly left his led lenser at the shooting position, so we dropped the gear after getting to the top. We then headed back to the slip and luckily found the headlamp. We then walked out in some ridiculous winds to the shelter of the vehicle. It was an awesome trip with some great mates.Attachment 112206
