It’s sometimes a struggle to get my daughter to eat venison, so when I was trying to explain a weekend away at the grandparents with a bit of hunting thrown in, I tried to sweeten the deal by saying we could get some biersticks made if we were fortunate enough to get an animal. Her eyes lit up and the moaning about the car ride miraculously stopped.
I’d recently turned down a sika roar hunt with good mates due to lack of time (too much work travel and not enough brownie points), so was hoping for a quick hunt as part of a weekend family trip to the BOP. We’re fortunate to have hunting access to a farm that borders the Kaimai park, so Dad(Pop) and I took my son Jack (7) for a morning hunt on Saturday. After spooking an unseen animal at close range on the verge of shooting light, we split up and set a plan for a radio sched at 0830.
We heard the first roar at about 0730, and worked our way around the edge of a large tongue of native that runs down into the farm. The stag was roaring pretty consistently and we had the direction pinned, but not the distance - I figured he was up the top of the bush tongue, so we started to close the gap by skirting the southern side. We slowed to listen and were lucky that the stag obliged with another roar, as we now knew he was much lower than I first though. If we had continued further, we would have pushed our wind straight through where he was. We back-tracked and cut into the bush which turned out to be pretty open by Kamai standards. Approaching the direction of the stag, we found a decent area with good visibility, so paused for a few minutes to have a roar. He got pretty stroppy but didn’t seem to be moving much, so we stopped roaring and tried to close the gap. We covered another 20 yards and had just crossed a small creek when my boy whispered that he had seen something moving. He was still roaring, and now moving in our direction. I got a glimpse of him as he crested a small spur, then could only see his tops for a while as he changed direction behind another spur. I took a half step to the right to open up a better shooting lane, and suddenly he was in our face and looking straight down at us from about 10 yards.
At the shot, he came running/crashing down like an out-of-control bus, missing us by about 2-3 yards. He was almost past us by the time I could chamber another round, and by the time I could react his run/fall had been arrested by a tree and some Kaimai supplejack - thankfully stopping him from dropping into the narrow gutted creek. No need for a second shot, I made the rifle safe and we turned to each other with big wide eyes and silly grins. We hugged and high-fived and soaked up the moment. Jack had been behind my right shoulder, fingers in his ears, and had seen it all. We turned the radio on to share the news with Pop, and noticed that coincidentally the time was 0832, right on time for our radio sched.
He was in top condition, although his stomach was empty, so had clearly switched interests recently. 12 points, but if it wasnt for the throwback tines on his right side, he’d be a very even 10. We’re meat hunters, but because the of the circumstances of the hunt, he is certainly a trophy to Jack and I (and lots of meat for the family).
