This, and it was nice and quiet until Rogee starting posting repeat videos from off the Kumeti roadend, and now most times I go up there I instead find groups of guys dressed head-to-toe in all the gears, camped and waiting for something to show itself at 600 metres before sending off a barrage just like Rogee has shown them, and with the possibility that if this doesn't happen in a timely fashion, that they may then become frustrated and bush stalk the north faces instead with twitchy trigger fingers — which is where I used to go as I don't currently do the LR thing. The only saving grace is that having shot something from camp and attempted a recovery, they never come back. I've not yet met the same group twice (apart from Rogee and co.)
Just a heads-up anyway that the deer numbers are now WAY down in the lower valley, but mainly not from the LR hunting. The new landowner at the park boundary apparently plants out specifically to pull deer out into his freezer and his mates also now access regularly up the stream. Having made over one hundred trips in there over the past 12 years or so, one gets to know where, when, and how many stags will be heard roaring over March-April, and I've not experienced the sort of change I observed this year since the first "Kaka Corridor" 1080 drop in the central Tararuas that pushed me up to the southern Ruahines in the first place — from plenty of roaring right through the day from the 3rd week of March, to not hearing a single stag in the lower valley over six weeks.
You can tell a BoB has been in your area from the distinctive browse pattern — they eat a small area right down to the trunks.
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