Thread: Up Side Down

Great post Bruce you sure do push yourself to the limits. I also still enjoy all the aspects of the hunt which is what drives us to continue pushing the envelope.
I sure hope Tilly is alright after her op as I know how much she means to you, not just finding your deer but the companionship.
Keep it up love reading your adventures.

I spent morning on chainsaws....oh the joy of hearing a big Stihl sing while hoeing through redwood ....by 14;00 I was poked...completely shattered, unloaded 2 cord of big blocks and headed home with tail between legs for shower and spa..... years back I rooted tendons in both arms...feeling it today....but its good to be alive.

Originally Posted by Tahr

@Ryan I shot my first deer with a .22 up the Whanganui river when I was about 15. We were goat shooting. A school mates old man took me. I only ever had a Mum. I was smitten, and got a job at Tisdalls sports shop after school. The manager Jim Newman took me out a couple times and encouraged me.

By the time I was 21 I was married with a child and shepherding and deer were worth money so I started meat hunting in my spare time. That led me to eventually chucking shepherding and doing casual farm work, mustering, shearing and meat hunting for a couple of years to get some money together. I shot a lot of deer to sell. All foot hunting. Then I got a farm (some will remember the 75% finance scheme for young farmers) with deer on it and got into live capture and more shooting and selling. Sold the farm after 20 years and in my mid 40's and went to uni. Got into a different career and have hunted recreationally pretty seriously ever since. Have shot 20-60 every year for the last 15 or so years. Before that some times a lot more and the odd year just a few. So been hunting for over 50 years and probably averaged 30 a year. Nothing exceptional about that or me. I have lived through a great era.

You've certainly not led a wasted life. If someone could invent a time machine, where people could experience different eras, that would be *the* biggest thing ever. Got to play the cards we're dealt ultimately and life is indeed what one makes of it.

Young'ns reading this Thar will think you are leading the idylic life for a hunter...but I suggest that to be in the position you are in now, some serious hard work and some privation was involved during your working career. You're doing bloody well.
I'm a decade behind you, but have a mate almost a decade in front of you and he's still hard to keep up with! (I've buggered and fused joints from overdoing things a wee bit now and then )
I'm another Jim Neuman fan, ran into him as a 14 year old. He was the President of our local tramping club. He passed on an awful lot of important information to us, always in his quietly spoken manner. I still have a bic lighter with a piece of bicycle inner tube pulled over it for emergency fire lighting, in my hunting kit!

You're a long time dead. No sense taking a body in perfect working order to the grave

Well done with sticking at it Tahr. Good luck with Tillys Op, I hope it's good new for the old girl. I bet she didn't know what you were up to with ya spill down the hill. It's not easy pushing a dog back up the hill either with her sore legs . I used to have to lift my old girl up into my van since she had buggered hips. Not so easy when the Hippo was 65kg.

Originally Posted by Tahr

@Murray N Jim was a wonderful man to me and a guiding hand. I never went to the Ahu - he took me up the Pari a couple of times and I was gob smacked by the Ruahines. I ended up living at Mangaweka so I got to know the area very well. I hope to have a maybe last trip to the Pari this autumn.

I never hunted the bottom end of the Pari , only the top end , we would camp at tarns and spend our days hunting Mania , Dirty spur , beautiful tussock country of the Whanahuia range

Awesome stuff Bruce, you are a machine and I hope I can still be doing it at your age.
I'm sure you inspire us all, keep it up.

Sent from my CPH1903 using Tapatalk

Sequel.
Craig and I went for our over nighter.
I was stiffer and sorer than I anticipated but the Gods were kind and allowed me to shoot 2 easy deer

We were on a big rough station. Dry. And too many deer. We had been asked to "shoot a few".
No stags around - I expect that they are up on the range in the wetter bush country taking viagra and tuning up for the roar.

We saw about 14 deer. I was watching an old hind and took some pics of her and she eventually wandered onto a disused track and lay down with her fawn beside her. I wanted meat for sausages for a friend and figured that if I shot the fawn (yummy) I could get the hind when she dallied which I thought she would and then have to get up a bank and through scattered tawhine.
So I head shot the fawn (yummy) with the 300saum at 70 yards. The hind lunged up the bank and stopped and I knocked her over too. She fell right next to her fawn - the fawns are getting quite big now.

Boned them out, hung them in a tree, and Craig came back in the morning and collected them for me Good lad.

Meanwhile Craig was on his own adventure and he shot a hind (had no children) at 350 yards with his .284. So we went home with 2.5 deer. Nice.











Craig got a vid of his shot:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Mfd...ature=youtu.be

B.E.A.S.T !! you are

10/10 for landing

Geez man you old fellas are putting us "young" fellas to shame. Well done

Just saw this Bruce, you're a hard nut !

Only 2 questions from my side...

Were you brave enough to wake Mrs @Tahr to show off your injuries ? And did she give you a second beating after the one you managed to give yourself ?

agree 100% fawn is YUMMY.... hard case in that video it looks like she has legs crossed before shot...sure dropped her in her tracks.

Originally Posted by ebf

Just saw this Bruce, you're a hard nut !

Only 2 questions from my side...

Were you brave enough to wake Mrs @Tahr to show off your injuries ? And did she give you a second beating after the one you managed to give yourself ?

@ebf I rang C when I got back to the truck to say I would be late and tell her what happened - she rang Craig - he rang me to check. Would you believe that he called me a silly old fool??
Didn't wake her - snuck into bed. I don't have a death wish

Nice one. I shot a fawn the other day but when I posted up a pic the Mods deleted it. wtf