Kris and I "met" through the old H&F forum some 10 years back. I say met because up until 2 weeks ago we'd never actually been face to face, Him living in Norway and all. We are both hunters and farmers and probably on average once a month we'd chat about such things.
Anyway. Over that time and for 10 years prior, he had visited NZ and really desired to get a nice bull Tahr on 4 occasions. They had eluded him. Mine and his timing never worked out Either. last time i missed him by 2 weeks as I was in Europe of all places.
This year though our timing was almost correct, except that he got a Tahr ballot while I had guests and duck shooting. He extended his trip so we could hunt together as well, and I was rapt when he returned from the ballot with a nice 12.5 inch bull! To some extent the pressure was off.
We talked and I said we could go somewhere and probably shoot something similar, or risk it all on an idea I had that i wanted to try that might return a real big old bull. The risk being we shoot nothing. He decided on the later and so off we headed, packs full of tents and rafts and lifejackets etc.
We covered some 45k up and down a river system over 8 days, and saw maybe 60 Tahr. Two thirds bulls as the cull has had an obvious effect. The first days were soaking wet and the river was raging and we could not use the raft much, but there was one bull that caught our eye up a steep slippy waterfall surrounded by bluffs. We chased him for a couple of days but the wind wrecked it for us so we left to chase others. We saw some we probably should have shot, but I was always hesitant. I had the feeling Id know when I saw what we wanted. In hindsight there was one bull especially we should have taken, but oh well.
The end result was on our last evening we were back watching the big guy wed already chased and he was right where he'd always been. We'd cleaned up a few Chamois the day before and that was lucky as we were out of food and decided to stay one extra day and have a crack at him again.
So early next morning we up and climbed through the bush too his lair. This time we sat in a cold, miserable shaded hole in the scrub that we crawled too under total cover and hunkered down freezing and napping for 5 hours.
https://i.postimg.cc/Xqs0wBxw/Tired-Kris.jpg
It was miserable! At 230pm, a change in weather brought the first spots of rain and a change of wind direction and immediately I heard with sinking heart, a whistle from just below us. Shortly after a nanny showed up on the bluff above us. I realised she was watching something behind her and raised my binos to see an absolutely massive black bull moving off under the cover of some broadleaf. He was huge!
There was a slip 50 meters away that I thought he would cross and Kris got ready. Bloody hell he just materialised on the slip and a shot rang out. I watched a good hit and classic reaction from the bull that confirmed it. I was ecstatic!
My joy was soon too turn sour though as the bullet just didnt anchor him, and 2 hours of both of us clinging to trees and roots and scaring ourselves silly searching turned up nothing. He'd managed to make it into country I was not prepared to go, or send Kris. I told him that almost all Tahr hunters who die, do so for a dead bull, and that it was time to give up with rain increasing and darkness setting in in the bush. We still had to get down.
With flights home and food shortage etc we had to leave next morning. We decided to get up before light on the hope of an animal on a couple of spots we had not been able to get too further down valley when the river had been high.
So. It was with absolute joy when rounding a corner, I looked across too a slip and there was a really mature bull! Binos revealed he was bloody great, though I didnt tell Kris that, we just got ready with me backing him up and a shot once again rang out. This time the bull stumbled down hill 20 meters and rolled over.
Soon the raft was out and we climbed down and tok turns rafting across the only relative flat piece of water we could find and climbed up to retrieve him. Approx 12 years old and 13.5 inch. A true old bull well worth the dedication of 20 years of effort!
https://i.postimg.cc/fb8jQwH8/Kris-Raft.jpg
https://i.postimg.cc/0NXkYm49/Best-pic-Kris-bull.jpg
https://i.postimg.cc/QCQFsm8j/Me-bull.jpg
Got to admit, Im really proud of this one.
