Thread: I'm an idiot.

This is a true story about forgetfulness, which may sound like BS but it's true to the word, still find it strange to this day.
We were hunting in the Waipakihi in the late 90's or early 2000's and based ourselves at the Waipakihi hut. A couple of days in a lone hunter arrived at the hut, nice guy but our conversations with him raised d few questions.
He had not hunted much before and was walking from the road end at the Waipakihi River to meet a mate at the Boyde hut in 5-6 days' time, no real fixed date. He had never been in the area before and assumed that he could follow a track all the way, did not have a map or compass. His rifle was borrowed and other than a couple shots to sight in had never fired it before, to add to this it was his first trip away hunting.
His pack was quite light and when questioned about food and the like he said he planned on shooting a few deer along the way, but had never shot a deer before.
The next day I showed him how to get up to the thunder bolt tops as there was always plenty of stags up there. It was the roar so he should have some fun.
2 days later he hobbled back into the hut and relayed his tail.
This in his words.
Got up to the tops quite easy and found a camp site, that evening I heard some stags roaring and managed to shoot 2, which I gutted before dark. It was then that I realised that I had left my ammo at the hut when I emptied out my pack and only had the 4 rounds in the mag, 3 of which I had used.
That night I got a fire going and dried my boots out, actually melting part of the sole on 1 in the process, Hard to get on in the morning as so dry and stiff.
I got up early to bone out the 2 deer and carry the meat back to the hut, I cut up the deer but the roaring of the stags was too much and on seeing a good stag I set off. I spooked the first stag and ran a fair way to try and cut it off, which did not happen. I then stopped at the small creek for a rest and drink.
While I was there, I saw another stag and set off after it, I shot it, however when I got to the stag it was still alive and I realised when I had stopped for a rest, I had taken off my belt, so he had no knife, I didn't know what else to do so I beat the stag to death with the rifle butt.
I could not remember where I stopped and took off my belt, so I decided to get the meat back to the hut, had to leave the third stag behind.
On the way back down to the hut my boots started to fall apart, and I had to use the laces off the better boot to tie the sole on to the other boot.
He was very happy about the stags until we pointed out that he had another 7 plus days in the bush and that the meat would go off and there was no way he could carry all the weight.
I didn't believe the story about how he killed the stag, but on looking at the rifle, it was marked up and he had cracked the stock across the pistol grip.
To cut a long story short, as a couple of our party flew in, we tidied up his meat, hung it in the meat safe and took it out in the chopper. He set off the next day with a pair of Buller boots (hut boots for one of our party) my map and spare folding knife and some food we had left over.
We took his details as we were concerned, he would not make it out, but joked that the Buller boots would help identify him.
2 weeks later he contacted Mike from our group, dropped off the gear he borrowed and picked up his meat.
The funny thing about the guy was that nothing that he had done seemed to upset him or cause concern. Not a care about anything, and I guess he achieved what he set out to do, not sure what he was on but worked well for him.