Closer... closer... CLOSER... (warning - long story!)
Hi guys. I’ve been hunting for 9 months now. I’ve had some great experiences, but the memories are starting to blur and fade… I wrote them down so I wouldn’t forget. I thought I’d share my story – not because it’s anything to brag about, but because some of you old hands might enjoy being reminded how it felt to bag your first deer, and some other newbies might benefit from the lessons learnt along the way. A lot of things might seem obvious to seasoned hunters who had an experienced person to teach them… I didn’t, so I found out the hard way!
I’ve always had an urge to hunt, and spent most of my spare time as a kid making snares and playing with slingshots & bows. I didn’t know any adults who hunted though. My wife has always been uncomfortable with it, so I repressed the primal instinct for years. I was at a particularly low point last year and needed something to get me out meeting people & enjoying life, so she finally caved.
First trip (June)
Finally armed but with no idea where to go, I sifted through NZHS forum threads for tips and pored over topo maps and satellite imagery for likely spots. I settled on a small area of tops with a likely-looking gully not far from home and headed up with fly & bivy bag for the weekend. I spent a day happily glassing empty country and bashing clumsily through thick scrub, and luckily stumbled on the unmarked trail through to the tops I’d earmarked. No animals were to be seen, but I was gratified to find heaps of sign in the north-facing, broadleaf-filled gully I’d spotted on the map.
With the wind picking up I made camp on the lee of the ridge, next to the treeline. While looking for firewood I found a perfect wee clearing in the trees, but couldn’t be bothered moving the fly. Big mistake… in the night the wind turned to a gale, ripping my fly from its moorings. I thought I was being clever using my rifle for one end of the fly, but of course it ended up thrown on the ground and I could no longer rely on the scope’s alignment. I was struggling to breathe in the bivy, and at 3am read the instructions NOT to fully close the zip for risk of asphyxiation.
The next day I headed home cold & tired but happy. Lesson #1: spend a bit longer looking for a better route or campsite, and don’t be afraid to move if you find one.
Second trip (August)
Keen to return to the broadleaf gully, I earned another leave pass and headed back up the unmarked track. The small range of hills aren’t high, but there was snow underfoot from a cold snap earlier in the week. Being familiar with the area now, I wasted less time getting in. Once in my hunting grounds, fickle winds turned from southwest to northeast and back again – every time I set off in one direction, I’d feel the breeze on the back of my neck. It was frustrating, but I was satisfied in the end exploring every inch of the area, finding heaps of sign and feeling much more at home in the bush. I’d done a lot of tramping as a teenager, but years of office work had made me soft! A good night’s sleep in my primo little clearing rounded it off.
Lesson #2: information gained on a previous recon trip can be really handy. It’s worth popping into a likely spot just to check it out before trying to hunt it properly, but plan your hunt well instead of just going for broke.
Third trip (September). Closer…
Another free weekend finally presented itself and I was impatient to find animals this time. I skipped out of work early on Friday afternoon. This time I went further afield, driving an hour to a track that had a hut I could use for the first night. I shortened the first leg by using my mountainbike to knock off the first 5km of river flats in quick time. On foot and under headlamp I made the hut by 9:30pm. Tales of heavy packs in the intentions book increased my eagerness.
The next morning was frosty and I followed the river up, slowly easing onto one nice looking little flat after another but seeing nothing. By mid-morning I decided to push up through the steep bush of the gorge to the tops above. As I neared the bush edge I heard movement, and emerged to see a pig disappearing from view.
This time I found myself a great campsite before heading out for an afternoon bush stalk. There wasn’t a lot of sign, but what I found looked to be made by BIG animals. That evening I set up to glass the tops, but the wind wasn’t favourable. Before I lost the light I decided to see if the pig had returned to the bottom. Instead of the pig, I saw two large hinds trotting away and realised I was silhouetted against their skyline.
Lesson #3: expect to see animals any time, or you won’t be taking proper precautions when you do.
Fourth trip (December). Closer…
Devouring magazine articles and blogs every spare minute, I’d read about silly yearlings making themselves easy targets in spring. But no clear weekend presented itself. I decided to try a day trip to my first spot.
Everything was packed & ready the night before, and as usual, the excitement of a trip made it impossible to sleep. I gave up at 1:30am and jumped in the car. The early start was a good move, as I was on the tops as dawn broke. The fog cleared and I focused my binoculars – I was looking straight at a spiker! With blood pumping in my ears, I judged it too far for a shot, so left my pack and hurried to shorten the range. I used a gully to close the gap, but as I crept over the ridge I heard a stamp and a bark. He was standing 50m away, staring in the direction of my frozen form. We eyed each other for what felt like an age, with me afraid to bring my gun to bear in case the movement sent him running.
He trotted over the next ridge and I followed as quickly as I dared. Crawling over it I saw him, now in the company of two other young reds. They were alert and moving constantly, and every time I tried to get into a shooting position, they moved away, eventually retiring to the bush.
I returned to my pack and quickly spotted a hind with a yearling feeding in a slip. Again, I tried to get closer. This time a ravine was in the way, so I looped high through the bush above. It was hard going, and at one point I slipped and cracked my rib. As I neared the place I’d seen them I could smell deer, but I had done enough to warn them of my approach and they were gone.
I was now stuck in thick bush. I managed to extricate myself and I skirted the bush edge for a while. Eventually I made it to the bottom of my broadleaf gully and crashed for an hour. The nap did the trick and I pushed back to the top.
After an early meal I stood to prepare for the afternoon’s glassing. As I pulled off my t-shirt to add a thermal base layer, a hind popped out of the bush within spitting distance. I think I got almost as much of a fright as my pasty torso gave her! The magic hour of last light came on, and sure enough, I spied another good animal. Off I went again through the folds in the land, but when I reached the point I was aiming for, it was gone.
Once again I headed for home empty-handed but full of experiences. It was 2am by the time I stumbled, exhausted, back to my car. The next day I marked the sightings on my NZ Topo app and was shocked to realise the terrain and weather had messed with my perception of distance. They had been much closer than I estimated – all between 200 and 300 metres away!
Lesson #4: don’t rush into movement with a low chance of success. You’ll waste your energy, or worse, spoil a stalk. And buy a rangefinder!!!
Fifth trip (January): CLOSER…
Surely now I had paid my dues and my next hunt would be successful. The Christmas present to myself – a rangefinder from AliExpress – had been delivered to my office so the wife wouldn’t complain about yet another hunting-related purchase, and I was confident I could find animals to test it on. Feeling the need to explore new, bigger country, I returned to the scene of my third trip but this time struck out for the second hut at the top of the loop track. The next morning, after a few wrong turns in the pre-dawn darkness, I was over the back. A series of promising ridges and gullies stretched out before me.
Sure enough, a hind was sidling around the hillside in the distance with a yearling at her heels. Cautiously this time, I approached as close as the topography allowed, ranging them as I neared. At 310m, a ravine was between us and I could go no further. I set up a great rest and waited, hoping they would continue to feed down towards me. I’d been shooting okay at that distance using the holdover points on my B&C reticle, but it was the outer limit of what I considered a comfortable kill.
The hind had other ideas though and crossed a scree slope towards the treeline beyond. I’d already decided to target the yearling, but knew it wouldn’t be long before it followed, so I placed it in my sights. The target zone seemed tiny – I wondered how anyone could be accurate at that range, but I knew it was within most hunters’ limits. The yearling started across the scree… it was now or never. As my finger tightened, it paused, so I squeezed off the shot.
A puff of dust behind the yearling’s shoulder told me I’d missed as it bolted forward. But it stumbled, and then fell again, tumbling down the loose rock. I’d hit! I followed its decent and watched it crash into the scrub at the bottom of the scree. With a follow-up round chambered, I kept my scope on the place it had disappeared, the excitement rising in my chest. There was no more movement – if it hadn’t broken its neck in the fall, it must be bleeding out from the wound.
Contemplating the difficult retrieval ahead of me and starving from an early start without breakfast, I decided to fire up the billy for porridge and coffee. Refuelled and elated, I descended the ravine. I searched, but couldn’t find my animal – had I missed after all? Climbing the scree assured me I had not as I found a large patch of blood and hair on the rocks. I followed the blood trail down but it was weak, and petered out. Every so often I found another spot, establishing the wounded animal had made it to the creek. I cursed myself. Had I kept watching, I would have seen it move within easy range of a finishing shot. I imagined the terrified thing painfully picking its way to the safety of the bush below, and I cast around in circles hoping to be able to deliver a coup de grace.
After hours of searching, I gave up. I set up camp and continued my hunt, but knew I’d missed my best chance. The wind picked up to the sort of gale only the North Canterbury high country can produce, and continued to rise overnight. Again I headed home without the feeling of extra weight in my pack, but carrying a heaviness of a different kind. As I walked out, I realised that in my excitement I had forgotten to dial my scope up from the 3.5 x zoom I left it on for bush stalking to its 10 x maximum, and cursed myself again. That would explain my poor shot.
Lesson #5: excitement can cause you to overlook basic steps. Lesson #6: never assume an animal is down – do everything you can to make sure of it.
Last weekend (March)
I’d come full circle, going from a complete novice to overconfidence to a humble acceptance of whatever experiences a hunting trip would produce. When another free weekend arose, I headed back to the broadleaf gully with the expectation of nothing more than another rejuvenating weekend in our beautiful back yard.
Whether it was a calmer mindset, developing skills or a bit of both, I found myself in range of multiple small groups of deer browsing the northeast-facing slope in the morning sun. A lovely-looking young hind popped her head up 200m away, and reappeared another 40m up the slope where she relaxed into leisurely feeding. I wasn’t looking for a trophy. The hind would be a perfect meat animal.
I struggled to achieve a decent shooting position in the steep country, contorting myself over a dead log with my daypack jammed in the weathered roots for a rest. Not wanting to compromise the shot, I tried all sorts of other positions, before eventually accepting it was the best I could do. I waited for her to turn broadside, but the ease of feeding uphill kept her facing away from me for what seemed like an age. Finally she turned, and I pulled the trigger. My Remington bucked and I missed seeing the bullet’s impact. The hind ran strongly down through the scrub and I followed her in my scope, but she disappeared into the trees. Damn! How could I have missed again? The hillside seemed to come alive with deer dashing for cover as the sound of my shot echoed around the valley.
After lunch and a rest in my little campsite in the trees, I needed water so headed to the bottom of the gully. I found the spot the hind had stood, and her tracks as she ran. As I expected, there was no blood, but I was able to follow the fresh scrapes in the earth and overturned rocks for 50m or so. Suddenly, there she was! Dying on her feet from a lung shot as she ran, she’d tumbled into a hollow. I couldn’t believe it – I’d done it after all!
I quickly learnt the truth of an older hunter’s words: pulling the trigger is the easy bit. The hind seemed to weigh a ton, and was difficult to move in the unstable slope. All the YouTube clips I’d watched of dressing a deer in the field suddenly appeared way easier than this, and I spent hours fumbling with my knife as the mist turned to drizzle and the light faded. I don’t know how many times I dropped a prime cut in the dirt. Eventually I was struggling back up through the monkey scrub with rifle, daypack and a sack of meat. Making little progress, I decided to return for the meat in the morning and left it in a tree. Even so, it was after midnight before I finally retired to my sleeping bag. I treated myself to a sleep-in, and woke to find the hillside shrouded in heavy fog. Retrieving the meat was not going to be such an easy task… I got completely disorientated more than once and ended up too far downhill on the other side of a ridge. I had to bash through dense bush to the bottom of the stream and then use the steep watercourse to climb back up to the place I’d shot the hind. It took me another half an hour to locate the meat, finally spotting the marker I’d tied in the tree. Then another hour back up to break camp and start the trek out with a satisfyingly heavy pack!
Arriving home successful was a surreal experience, after many fruitless trips. I certainly didn’t feel like I’d mastered this hunting thing – if anything, I was more aware than ever how much more I had to learn.
