So lately work has been extremely busy with the building industry booming in Tauranga not that I am complaining apart from the reduction in my time for hunting, anyway a plan was hatched to take a friday off work and get the last flight in with helisika on Thursday arvo.
we arrived at Helisika and loaded the 500 up and we were away spotting a few stags out feeding as we headed over the green hill, arriving at the hut there was no one there but some gear so we knew we had company.
We headed out down and across the river and over to the terraces just arriving right on bite time... after scanning the terraces for a good 30 mins with only 10 mins of light or so left I spotted a nice looking spiker feeding his way through some light cover. The rangefinder read 450 yards so the trusty mk4 leupold was dialled in on my mates 7mm LRM that he had lent me for the trip as my rifle is in bits at the moment and 180 gn of Berger was sent on its way at 3040 fps, the satisfying thump of a good hit and the spiker disappeared from sight with my mate who was spotting on the binos confirmed a good hit. Making our way over in the dark I was anxious about being able to find it easily but this was to be a piece of cake with the deer located and boned out the satisfying feel of some prime venison in the pack was great as we headed back to the hut to find the other hunters with the fire cranking, a few stories were told and the next days plans hatched.
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We were up at 5 to head down the other end of the block to hopefully secure another deer as it was my mates turn this time, we arrived at the next likely looking spot and waited for daylight, another spiker was spotted making his way back to the bush edge he was ranged at 430 yards and my mate dialled in the required MOA on his March 2.5-25x52 and cranked the mag up to 20, the spiker had his head down feeding away up the hill and the target was looking rather small so i gave a loud whistle and the spiker obliged by stopping and lifting his head the 150 gn Nosler LRAB was on its way with the sound of a good hit deer number two was down.
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The next day we decided to check out another area we had not hunted of the Boyd and headed up to a likely looking area arriving a good hour before bite time, we found a good spot to shoot from and set up our gear. As the light was fading we spotted another hind and yearling hind feeding mid height directly across from us the decision was made that they would be great eating... ranged and dialled up on the 7 LRM and 270 WSM i made the mistake of mentioning if he could shoot it in the head I would carry it for him ... no photos of the hind i shot on the same face as time was flying but she was fat as mud.
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Anyway enough words but all in all a great trip away with cold but perfect weather and some prime venison for the freezer :cool:
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