Unsuccessful stories in the Kawekas.
Hi all,
I'm a new hunter and trying to muddle my way along to figuring this sport out. I've been reading this forum for a while but not posted before. I struggle to get out there due to work and family so I'm trying to make every outing count. I've been reading books and these forums and still struggling to figure it out so I thought I'd post my experience and see if you guys thought I was on the right track. I went to the Kaimais in the pre-rut (the clearings near Wairere falls) and also checked out Thomson's track in the roar and the Ruahines a few months after. To be honest, I think at this point, I wasn't confident to get far enough away from the track to see much. It started to get a bit more interesting when I started going out in the Kawekas.
I went to Kaweka flats in early August. I parked at the Makahu saddle hut and walked to the Kaweka flats bivvy and stayed there the night. There was a little bit of snow at the beginning of the track but not near the flats. Next morning before sunrise, I headed down the track towards middle hill hut. At the slip near the river, it was largely washed away and very difficult to navigate in the dark but after a lot of false starts, I managed to spot enough markers with my headlamp to find my way down to the river. I then left the track and stalked upstream some ways (but probably not far enough) and found what I thought was a good place to stop and waited there for sunrise. There was quite a strong breeze at the time blowing into my face. In retrospect, I don't think this was a great place to stop as it was very cold and I don't expect that much deer would have been around with wind that strong. I probably should have been up the hill a bit. After the sun had been up for a while, the weather threatened to turn bad and I started to get worried that my corolla would struggle to get home so I gave up and headed back. On the trail back to the biv near the T intersection back to the old Iron Whare, I saw the arse of a deer disappearing into the bush. Should have been paying attention.
About a month after that (mid-September), I didn't have time to be out there at dawn or dusk so I decided to check out Little's Clearing during the day to see if there was much sign. There was lots of scat (looked like a small amount from red deer and a lot from either goat or sika) in the grassy clearing as I exited the trees on the track towards black birch biv. I went all the way to the biv and saw lots of small deer prints on the track along the way. Didn't see any deer though.
Then about three weeks ago (Early October), I did a morning hunt at little's clearing thinking it'd be a sure thing- and didn't see s**t! I figured it'd be a smart idea to hang around the border between the bush and the clearing just in cover and wait for sunrise there. It had been a windless night and in the morning there was a gentle breeze that I tried to stay downwind of but it tended to change direction so that was difficult. Again, I waited until the sun had been up for a while and then headed back to camp. I've been trying to build up my confidence going off track and working off a map and compass so instead of walking the track back to the little's clearing car park, I headed out to where the track T-intersects and one branch heads back to the road, one to the car park and one to the black birch bivvy. I took the track that heads to the road and then cut through the grass and tried to get back to camp through the scrub (I figured if I got lost here, I was enclosed on all sides no more than a kilometer's walk from either a track or a road). In the end, I ended up about a hundred metres north of the camp site where I ran into a small creek. Saw a deer print there that was probably only a couple of days old.
Anyway, apologies if there's a lot of irrelevant detail in all this. I thought I'd describe what I did and everything I noticed to see what someone more experienced might have done with the information that I had. I don't really know much about how deer behave during different seasons (I'm still looking out for a copy of Stalking the Seasons Round). Am I on the right track here? Any advice would be greatly appreciated. I'm starting to feel more like an armed tramper than a hunter at this point!
