My wife and kids went away at Christmas for a few weeks , so I thought I better take advantage of it and go hunting and spearfishing .
Headed up the top of the corromandel for a week first , but unfortunately the diving was pretty average , with no decent snapper around ,and winter like dive conditions. Had an exciting experience of an Orca swimming over my head in 8m of water while I was lying on the bottom waiting for a kingi to come back for a shot ! ended up getting a couple of kingis, but not a lot going on really.
Next , me and a couple of mates jumped on the ferry and headed down the west coast , and walked into the wilderness area for a hunt . There is nothing better than getting off the tracks and just heading up a river using your own route finding, especially in south westland.
We spent a week in there ,shot a few thar and chamois with my mate getting a nice 9” chamois but with a forecast of 50mm of rain and crap after that we bailed out and headed over to tekapo area for a week in the dry open tussock country and a nice hut . What a massive contrast to the first week of drizzle, sandflys and daily clag . Feeling nice and fit now ,we did some large days and had a great time seeing around 150 to 200 thar for the week. Not much in the way of mature bulls in our river for some reason , but still had a great time and shot a few meat animals .
It was great to come back from christmas holidays feeling fit and healthy rather than the usual excessive amounts of eating and drinking .
https://i.imgur.com/5AbbDvLh.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/gNqHocVh.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/9F2dH1Uh.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/cvOc9Xph.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/PtQWogjh.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/DkloA6Xh.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/DVo1d3jh.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/S5a5OdTh.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/lF5VOJ8h.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/alqQrA6h.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/4zA8NlUh.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/LlnXyDLh.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/omFo5Wuh.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/BiYZWZkh.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/phmACqeh.jpg
