So as a quick background, I recently inherited this rifle from my wife’s side of the family. It originally was her grandads and it has been looked after by her uncle until recently, when he gave it to me, as he knew it would get some use. It has remained dormant for some 30 odd years in his safe and yesterday the old BSA .308 finally got to go for a hunt.
I was fortunate enough to knock off early from work and the weather was reasonable, so I quickly got some gear together, chucked the dog in the dog box and off we went down the road to a handy spot in the Kaimanawas. Parking up there was no one else there so I had the place to myself, not a bad start. The wind was in our favour so we began to stalk along a nice terrace with good open bush above the river. About 20 minutes in Zoe my Lab started to pick up some scent so we slowed down and carefully scanned the surroundings. Nothing was sighted and no significant scent trail found so we continued on. Another 15 or so minutes and we came to a nice open clearing, I should’ve sat down and watched it for a bit but Zoe didn’t really show any interest so, I cautiously carried on. Sure enough, a hind broke cover from some fern and raced off into the bush, moral of the story stop, look and listen often when bush stalking!
Kicking myself for a lapse in concentration, we carried on and it wasn’t long before Zoe started to wind scent and indicate strongly off to our right. We slowly stalked in to another little opening which looked ideal so we sat and waited. Zoe was furiously scenting the air and trembling, something was near. I chambered a round and sat there eagerly waiting on half cock. Sure enough a Sika yearling feed out at roughly 40m, I closed the bolt aligned the sights and fired. The shot felt good so we went in to confirm the kill. Sure enough there was a Sika hind, she had run about 50m from where she was shot. A great result and special moment for the family, I quickly boned her out and walked back to the truck, then drove home back in time for dinner, happy days!
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