Thread: Canterbury Foothills Overnight Mission

Several weeks had gone by since last hitting the hills and I was starting to feel a bit twitchy to get back amongst it. With the freezer starting to look a bit empty and a rare Saturday with no family commitments I managed to negotiate a quick overnighter to the Canterbury foothills. With a fellow time poor hunting mate we finished work on Friday a bit early, loaded the truck with packs, rifles, and dogs and hit the road. After negotiating what passes for rush hour traffic here we got onto the highway and made good time to the DOC block. Neither of us had checked this area out before but being fairly handy to Christchurch we assumed it sees pretty regular pressure so weren’t holding great hopes. After a tedious drive through an easement through the adjacent station opening and shutting a couple of dozen gates we arrived at the trailhead and unloaded our gear and the dogs who were fizzing with excitment.

We were hoping to be able to walk a couple of hours up river to a simple backcountry hut but with a nasty looking few of days rain in the forecast and several river crossings to negotiate we figure best to err on the side of caution and stick with the closer hut only 40 mins and one river crossing from the truck. We did half joke it wouldn’t be the worst scenario to be stuck hunting for an extra couple of days but the marital strife that would be waiting for us was an healthy incentive to be sensible.

Following a small steam down into the main river valley we could already see across to some promising grassy benches aboce the steep river terraces that ran out into fingers of Manuka before climbing steeply into beech and the high scree slopes. We paused at the main river to do some glassing which gave the opportunity for some of the locals to come find us - a bit of bugger when you realise neither of us remembered to bring insect repellant. Not spotting anything interesting and rapidly loosing blood to the sandflys we pushed through the first river crossing, not quite bollocks deep but fairly swift and promised to be very interesting should we get a bit of rain in the catchment before we tried to cross back.

Finished the short walk to the hut that was nestled on the edge of large grassy debri fan with steep escarpment, cool old settlers home from when the area was farmed it was renovated a few years back. We dumped our gear had quick look round and was surprised to see only a handful of entries in the hut book from the last few months. Guess the river in winter was a disincentive for visitors, must have been a bloody isolated life shut in there back in the day.

Was getting on to 7pm so wanting to make the most of the light we donned the now light packs called in the dogs and headed up stream. There was a pretty stiff norwester blowing so figured we might as well check out the river bed and some of the grassy terraces. Started seeing a decent amount of prints on the mud and sand within a few hundred meters of the hut which as promising and the wind was keeping the sandflies somewhat at bay.

Half an hour upriver we followed a promising looking game trail up the true right bank into some swampy terraces. I was starting to regret bringing the big ole rem mag rather than the stubby .308 as we crawled through the bush layer draped matagouri and was relieved when it opened up into a series of nice grassy flats. Decent amount of sign including some pig scat and the dogs were starting to get interested so followed the game trails for 1/2 hr up to a promontory on the edge of side tributary and the main river with views across a wide scrubby flat and the grassy banks of the main river.

Enjoying the last of the sun and a bit sheltered from the wind we glassed over the terrain for a few minutes until spotting a yearling red out grazing on the river flats. Ranging him at 450m I was confident of a good shot with the Rem mag but given the very gusty conditions and a nice grassy spot down below us that would close the distance to less than 300m we decided to drop down to the river to take the shot. The red was still happily browsing across the far slope so we pushed down into the scrub. As per Murphys law the easy game trail quickly turned into a precipitous gravel slide with matagouri and bushlayer for hand holds. The dogs were waiting patiently at the bottom when we arrived puffed, scuffed and tenderised for the sandflies who where also lined up to greet us.

We had lost sight of the yearling so hurried across the tributary bed that was a massive boulder field - evidence of the huge rainfalls earlier in the year. A few minutes laters we popped up into the scrub on the main terrace and found the intended shooting spot, binos up but no deer to be seen. Bugger! should have chanced the long shot! Light was starting to fade and after 15min scanning the area we were getting to the point of giving up when the yearling popped out of some trees a hundred meters down from where we had seen him last. Ranged at only 230m now this was a bit further than my mate was keen to shoot so I got set up withthe rem mag and waited for a good shot to present itself while the dogs were held in sit far enough away from the unsuppressed blast to be safe. After a couple of minutes the yearling turned side on and I squeezed of a shot and head a good solid whack and the deer slid down the slope. Noice.



Just about getting into headlamp time we grabbed the gear and headed over yet another river crossing to find a nice little spiker piled up on the edge of the river gravel. By now the sandflies were out in force and in this sheltered spot everyone including the dogs were being hit hard so it was a quick butchery job, meat in the pack and down river by headlamp and back to the hut by 10pm.

With rain forecast to set in by 8am the following morning alarms were set for 4:30 to give us time to stash meat and gear by the main river crossing and we booted back up stream for first light to check out some of the upper terraces upslope from where we got to the previous night. Punching up through some taller Manuka we continued to follow game trails up to a higher grassy plateau, again a bit of deer and pig scat around and a few spots where we could still smell deer but the noise of pushing through the scrub and a swirling wind wasn’t particularly helpful. Was just about to pack it in when my dog Rue suddenly got very interested in a patch of scrub in the middle of the clearing. She has been pretty toey about pigs to date and typically barks and goes hackles up in the opposite direction so figured it must be a possum or hare when a wee grey pig shots out the other side. I think the dog was as surprised as I was and she just froze and watched it disappear over the hill. A few seconds later and a second pig come shooting out right in front of her and I could almost hear her say ‘oh no you bloody don’t’ and she leapt on it and gave it a good shake. Got over the surprise and told her to leave it but a bit late for the wee boar so we finished it off and threw it on the pack for an appointment with a roasting dish. Despite the small size was good to see the dog get over her pig phobia, just hope she is still a bit sensible when she comes across a decent size one!



Rain was starting to set in so we headed back downstream to collect the meat and gear and back onto the truck. Back home by mid-morning and all in all a good result for a quicky into a new area. Looking forwards to heading back in soon to explore further.

Nice, there are a few animals kicking around in that area.

Nice read and nice looking pup. What breed? Pointer?

She’s a GSP x with a heading dog. Going pretty well, just need to get her out more often to lock the training in. Main challenges have been those big ridiculous ears tend to get a bit raw with scrub and bug bites and she’s a wuss overnight in cold conditions.

Marital strife haha - gotta pick your battles indeed. Good story and nice dog!

just goes to show us that "popular" spots still hold animals.

That was an entertaining read, well done. The bit of broom your spiker fell on is browsed, was he picking the flowers off a patch of broom before you shot him or eating the seed heads off grass ?

He was further up slope in the grass, couldn’t really tell what he was specifically after, would have had a look in the gut if the light and bugs weren’t hurrying us along. Judging from the prints around a few animals moving round the river edges but suspect the pressure has pushed activity to be mainly nocturnal.

Great writing style, great story, great photos, great dogs. The temptation to put in the work and get a hunting dog trained up grows every time I read stories like this.

Thanks, nice to know people enjoy reading it. @JessicaChen having the dog along makes the trips much more enjoyable for me - esp when solo - though in this case I omitted the part where she whinged and growled most of the night at the creaks and rattles around the old hut with the odd furious bark at possums that got too close! Just lucky there was no one else there or we may have had to decamp to the tarp out of earshot.

Awesome write-up and photos. Doggie looks proud of her pig.
A couple of landscape/scenic photos would top it off perfectly for those of us who have never hunted down south (not in any way a criticism!)

Yeah I totally forgot to get many pics on this trip, being pushed for time and only really having evening and early morning we were generally pushing pretty steady to cover ground. Just have to go back and get some!

Nicely told yarn Jake, I really enjoyed the tale. That was an impressively efficient meat harvest....Well done team!

Good read, thanks for sharing

Great yarn and cool looking doggo. It’s just great to be out and a couple of animals is a real bonus.