Thread: Ruahines deer

Ruahine afternoon mission 28/1/17

After been out of the hunting game for many years I have come around full circle again. Conditions were perfect for an evening hunt, the wind was forecast for favorable condition for our location…. spot X if anyone was wanting to know. Me mates Hilux pulled up my drive bang on four, I put my rifle, pack, and boots in the canopy and we were off. With in an hour and a half we were tunneling down a ridge through dense leather wood and scrubby bush loosing altitude quickly. My pack was snagging on literally everything (being a taller guy). The wind had also decided to play tricks on us and was blowing opposite direction to what we wanted.

Finally we arrived on the verge of the edge of a grassy clearing curious to see what was below us. We stalked ensuring the wind was in our faces, carefully trekking down the edge of the steep clearing. When all the sudden my mate grabbed my attention... A hind and it fawn were grazing the bottom of the clearing below us.



We both agreed that it is best to leave them for another day. We stalked through above them being careful not to disturb the area. We reached a knob looking out on several clearings across the river and started glassing. Straight away we spotted a yearling, 271 yards away; we decided we were up for a hard recovery mission. There was no excellent place to take the shot from so we staked our bags up for a makeshift rest. Old mate had to anchor both me and the bags as there was no flat ground. I quickly ripped off a shot, the 7mm rem mag barking and the yearly dropped.



We left my pack and rifle and made for the deer climbing down the steep bank through the rocky creak and up the other side, to the rough location of the deer. After a brief scan Brian spotted it and it was time to get to work. We boned it out (to the best of my amateur capability’s) putting the meat in bags set to carry out. As sunlight faded we walked out determined to climb out. The first bank we climbed was approximately 75 degrees.



The shot was fired at approximately 1700 hours, I got home at 0130 hours. What a tough carry out! Many thistles were grabbed, cuts from bush lawyer, muscles sore. Can’t wait to get out again.