Thread: Should be at the beach

As I was in the middle of the four hour carry out, with a nice hot breeze and heavy pack, I did ask myself. Why am I hunting this time of year?

It’s been a few years since I’ve been in to the Urutawas and the last few times the river has come up leading to very wet walk outs or even being stuck at the hut for a few more days. I was due to go in with another forum member, but his bronchitis put pay to him being able to walk further than his doctors. So with the Mrs and small human with grandparents it was a quick 2 nighter trip.

Arriving at the car park at midday it was promising to be a scorcher. The walk in was literal sauna and the damage to the track from last years storms was an indicator of the state of the river and hills. A quick snooze at the hut and it was off again in the evening to allow me to check out the river flats and the smaller clearings on the way to the usual fly camp spot. The Opotiki boys had been busy over the spring with at least a dozen carcasses just on the river flats. But at least there were no horses left grazing.

Sure enough arriving at the last meadow and the camp at 8pm after seeing nothing, I checked out the fan with binos to see a few deer grazing at the top. But with a 40 minute hike to get there, it was pointless. So I spent the rest of that first night watching the flats again with no result.

That night was a hot one, it’s not often I sleep without a sleeping bag the entire night. Up at 5.15am the next morning I was stalking up the fan in the early mist. The sun finally hit the hill, but typically this area is an evening spot, so nothing was seen apart from a ton of carcasses.



A little bit disappointing was the remains of a hind and the far less decomposed fawn beside it’s mum. Not assuming things, but it would seem that the fawn lay down beside what was left of mum to later die of thirst. I won’t post the photo.

Back down the hill to get some sleep and chill out by river where it was cooler, as the deer weren’t silly enough to be out in the heat either. Luckily I had a good book by award winning journalist Ben Anderson, but the day still went slowly. At 6.30pm I started to head back up the hill. Arriving at the base at 8pm the wind finally sorted itself allowing me to stalk the left side. I arrived at midway and spent 5 minutes getting my breath and letting the sweat cool. Nothing visible on the right, so I shifted spots to see the left. Sure enough just above the mid level terrace was a nice Stag.
Now this was the first time I had used the 6.5 Grendel AR15 on larger game. A nice meaty thwack indicated a solid hit, but disappointingly he ran 50m across the face before stopping, dropping and rolled my down the hill to almost my feet.

I’m a bit more used to bang flops with the Sako pooseventy, at least recently, it’s been 10 years since a deer went further than 40 metres. But a fatal shot is a fatal shot and he wasn’t going to survive the hit.



It was getting dark now and I’m not the biggest guy, so I boned out the meat on the hill there and left it hanging in cloth bags in the cool stream gully overnight ready for the next day. Anyway it was 2.30am before I finally hit the sack.
A sleep in the next morning had its benefits rest wise, resulted in another hot walk and with said heavy pack. It was nice in the stream, flat and cool, but once the track rose up above the main river, it was hot and up and down.

Finally back at the car, it was off to Opotiki for ice and the drive back to Katikati and a swim in the ocean.
A good start to 2019, a deer 3 days into the new year.