Goats on Leitch's Track

I recently did a hike into Leitch's Hut with the Mrs and took a rifle along just in case. I knew there had been cullers in there for the last couple of months, but its a large area so figured there might be something around. On the walk in I got a strong smell of goat and stopped to have a poke around. I could hear them moving around in the bush off the track a way, so dumped my pack and followed. I ended up about 150m off the track in thick horrible shit bush, but caught up to a mob of 4 or 5 goats. I killed the Billy and also got one of his nannies, shots were both less than 10m. I boned out the nanny for dog food.

I bought a Spika drover 40l pack at the sika show and have been waiting to give it a go. I just strapped the meat (in pillow cases) to the outside of my pack the day I shot the goats. The next morning, I packed it all properly in the load shelf of the pack and that made a huge difference on the way out the next day. The 40l is a touch small for an overnighter with the Mrs (She carried her own gear, but you always end up with more luxuries than a solo trip), but would be fine for those that travel light.

I also saw a lot of pig sign on the track and in the areas around the hut. There are definitely plenty of animals around.

The track is pretty rough. First half is quad access and decent, though muddy. Second half is in pretty bad shape for the most part. The hut and surrounding area are really nice.

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Looks like good place to take your 45/70

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Originally Posted by Micky Duck

Looks like good place to take your 45/70

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Yep, would have been perfect for that. But I likely wouldn't have got both of them with a single shot Baikal.
Custom Tikka 284 on this trip as I was intending to poke around the clear areas of river basin not far from the hut instead of hunting the thick shit. 162ELD-M does the business at 10m, that's for sure.

I'd have boned out the Billy for the dog.
Keep the nanny for yourselves.

Nice. I went in there with a couple of mates around 2015. We walked 40km hunting/tramping all up (I was skeptical but one of them left the GPS going logging it) and shot at one goat. Was a good time though.

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Originally Posted by ROKTOY

I'd have boned out the Billy for the dog.
Keep the nanny for yourselves.

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I'm too damn soft to carry 2 goats worth of meat. Plus the billy stunk to high heaven.

I went into Leitch's a few years ago and got talking to a local pig hunter at the hut, he reckoned there's the odd deer on the river flats further down the valley. Unsure if it's worth the effort, but would probably be a good adventure at least

Last time I went to the old hut clearing, it was pelting down with rain the whole day. plenty of deer and goat sign around, but nothing seen.

Hunted the area back in the 70-80s no deer back then but truck loads of goats and pigs, no hut either. We had some huge bomb ups back then great trips into there back then.

Theres still plenty of goats around but when we went in we were following them into some really shitty thick bush muddy areas. Track certainly is not being maintained.

Went for walk up the main valley from the Waikawau side. Met a goat culler who was part of a party of 6 scattered throughout Whareorino. He said that there are very minimal animal numbers in there compared with the past. He’d only shot 2 goats in 3 days and covered over 40km of country. Where as he used to get 20 odd a day before 1080.