West coast bucks

I have been wanting to go for a hunt on the west coast for awhile now and after tasting my first bit of chamois hunting in november up in the eyre mountains, i was looking forward to my next chance.

ISSF trench nationals were to be held in christchurch from the 6th-10th of feb so i got together with a few mates the week before we were due down there and decided we might as well drive down as plane tickets were looking steep and that way we could take all our gear for a hunt.

We left Hamilton at about 4 in the afternoon on tuesday and arrived at wellington at 10.30, my mates had just sorted out our flat for the year down in wellington as im a student down there, i hadnt seen the place yet but was assured it was mint, fuck they must have been on the double browns when they signed the lease cause it is far from mint :D Got the ferry at 2am and were at christchurch gun club my 11am for practice. My mate shot well in the first comp shooting 119/125, a score for the commonweath games. Nationals was on saturday/Sunday, i shot a 114 and made the final but pretty average really. My mates misses was doing the coast to coast so we thought it would be a bit rude if we didnt pop over to sumner to sink some speights and watch some girls, not bad. We were due at whataroa at 8am monday morning and didnt leave chch until midnight once we had sobered up, what a mission.

Weather was a bit average monday morning so didnt get to our camp until 11am. Camp was set up asap and we thought we might as well have a quick walk. Well within 30mins we had seen a mob of tahr and two bucks were in sight, it was my shot as i hadnt got a chamois before so a plan was hatched. The wind was shit and the bucks ended up winding us, uckily they stopped at 265m and i plasted a projectile into the leading one, he went straight down and my might quickly said, why did you shoot the small one... The other buck ran a bit and stopped at 220m so he got a 168 grainer also. Well it was now midday and i had two bucks on the ground, we walked over to the 2nd one first and i found a awesome buck. He had a snapped tip on one side but tht didnt bother me. His good side went 10.5" and the other side 9 3/4". Stoked. My first buck was a bit smaller going 9 1/4" but had 4 1/4" bases. Not bad.
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My big buck
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The cloud rolled in soon after i recovered my second buck

I skinned both animals as i wanted some rugs and we were back at camp by 2pm where we slept until 9am the next day.

It was only 5mins before we spotted our first chamois for the day, a mob of 7 on the opposite face from camp. We decided to leave them and go on a big mission up the back where we saw some tahr, first error of the trip. The clouds rolled in so fast bringing freezing winds with it, we were up at over 5000ft and couldnt see our hands in front of our face.
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Trying to decide where we are.
My mate rolled a nice little animal for his skin and also missed a decent buck.

The alarm was set for 5.30am the next morning but after putting it on snooze for an hour and going back to sleep for another couple it was 9am again before we got up. I was first up and i proceeded to glass the mob from the previous day. As i turn around i see a sneaky buck walking into camp! A quick gather of essential items like gun and ammo and before you know it i was using the chilly bin as a rest and my mate videoed from his sleeping bag.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y9B25BPF6RA
After the early excitement we went on a bit of a mission far far away, poor decision. we didnt see many animals, but my mate still managed to bag his 2nd chamois, a young doe, again for her skin.
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Day four we decided to investigate the mob of 7 close to camp, i wasnt carrying a gun as i was happy with what i had shot already.
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We got up to the mob which had turned into 10 chamois, we had a good look for about 30mins and were only 80m away, It was interesting watching 3 bucks chasing the does around and rubbing their horns on the grass, we were surprised by the bucks doing this so early. what we thought was the biggest buck was picked and my mate proceeded to drop him on the spot. A nice 9 1/2" animal. On the shot some of the young animals came running straight towards us, getting within 3 metres, i tried to catch one but the little bugger slipped my hold. Another animal was still feeding down by his mate so i grabbed the gun and shot it, turned out to be another good buck, it is apparent our estimating of length needs some work, it ended up going 9 5/8".
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We saw a red spiker but unfortunately couldnt get a shot off.
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Our last day rolled around and my mate wanted to get a good buck, even tho we had taken two bucks from the mob close to camp we put the binos on them in the morning and the mob had grown to 13! he set off to have a look what had joined the does and ended up coming back with a buck a fraction under 10"! I stayed at campand tried to dry some gear....
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It was the end our trip but boy was it good, 37 chamois seen, a mob of tahr and a deer, not to mention getting my first chamois and some decent ones at that! the tame blue ducks at the tent and the many kias. The sight of the chopper was somewhat of a relief but also a bit sad
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Anyone and everyone should give chamois a crack, they are cool animals.

Brilliant PerazziSC3

Bloody good trip mate

Congrats.

Awesome :thumbsup:

nice trip and pics mate thanks for that.

Awesome trip fella, and very nice bucks :cool:

Excellent write up PerazziSC3, would really like to try that out one day.......well done

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Boiled and whitened

Awesome write up fella. And thats some pretty mint looking country