I haven’t done a write up for quite a while as I normally make videos and just post the link to the video. I'll be making a video from this one too but figured id write about it for a change.
I don’t get overly excited about hunting over summer these days, its too damn hot to climb hills and if you are serious about hunting first and last light then you are in for a lack of sleep with the extended daylight hours. Sleep tends to be a bit more precious to me at the moment having three young kids..lol.
What I do enjoy however is having a lazy day in the hills around this time of the year. I wake up normal time, make breakfast, have a coffee, get my gear sorted and get on the road late morning ready to generally explore somewhere new for the day. It doesn’t involve a big focus on getting an animal, rather just an enjoyment for being in the hills at leisurely hours. More often then not I end up with a deer anyway - happy days.
This was exactly the plan today as I arrived at the road end around 10am. I put the feet to work with Tine the dog in tow and my Tikka 260 in hand. The last time I had been here was about 6 years ago with my grandads old open sight .303 where I shot a hind in the bush. Todays plan was head up valley and explore a slip up a side creek that google earth revealed. In addition we would and sneak around the bush in between.
The southern Ruahine can be an intimidating place to newcomers or those not willing to push off the track. It can be steep, bluffy, and holds plenty of crappy bush. On the flip side, it has plenty of deer and when you get accustomed to how you approach the type of terrain it can offer great bush hunting, slip hunting and overall good odds of success.
After clambering up the slippery river for a while I hit my turn off point and picked what looked like the best way up. In true Ruahine fashion it was steep and the supplejack grabbed my bag wherever possible but luckily with a bit of careful route finding we made our way up without issue. In my experience with places like this there is almost always a lookout somewhere that others use and sure enough just by poking along doing what I thought I would do, I soon found one. The binos revealed a deer right out in the middle of the slip but my battery for the rangefinder function flashed that it was flat… Fortunately, I have been carrying the spare battery for the past couple of years and today was the day it finally paid off. By the time I mucked around getting that sorted the deer had gone so we settled in for the next hour just relaxing on the glass.
https://i.ibb.co/yQkVPxw/Ruahine-2.jpg
Nothing else appeared, not surprising being the middle of the day and I got a bit bored so decided to sneak off into the bush and sidle my way over to the next catchment. I had only gone 50m when a hind hopped up right in front of me, took a few steps, and stopped with a quick mew. She was only about 8 - 10 metres in front of me but I could only see her bum and guts. Leaning to my right I tried to see if I would get a head shot around a tree but instead revealed a gap between two trees right on her shoulder. The 135 classic hunter snuck through nicely and nailed her in the engine room as she plowed off into the bush dead on her feet.
I chucked Tine on his long line as I haven’t done a lot of controlled tracking with him and he tends to run around the way he would hunt down a duck as my focus with his training has primarily been birds not deer. Luckily, he wasn’t really needed as there was crime scene amounts of blood to follow down the hill to where she folded up right in some steep shit just to make things tricky. She had a full belly and hadn’t dropped yet so it was a two for one bonus without a young one going hungry somewhere. The perfect outcome as this part of the country definitely has plenty of deer and hinds need to be shot.
https://i.ibb.co/8bXtgBN/Ruahine-1.jpg
I knocked off the hind legs and back steaks and carted them back up the hill to the lookout where I could hang them up for chilling and boning whilst keeping an eye on the slip for another. Another hour went by and with the deer processed, cooled and ready to go. A cold wind and some rain coupled with no more deer being seen was reason enough for me to head home for a beer.
On the way in I had seen a big bit of tape on a tree, the only piece along the ridge and I figured it must be a marker to turn down to the creek, a different way that I had come up. I decided to follow it down and to my luck ended up bluffed on top of a waterfall. Ive now learnt from a friend that there is apparently a track to get down and around it but I wasn’t game to try my luck at the time. My decision making then took another challenge by deciding to climb the opposite side and see if I could grade up and around rather then just back tracking the way I knew. It is suffice to say that I had a great time over the next hour, navigating bluffs and impenetrable scrub whilst trying to stop the dog from going over at one point and then trying to not let him knock me over too!
We made it home just as the kids were going to bed. Despite the unexpected mission on the way out, the timing for a cold beer was just about perfect. I just used a bit more sweat and calories in doing so then I expected! Another good day on the hill.
https://i.ibb.co/BC1kyJT/Ruahine-3.jpg
