After many months of planning with my father-in-law, John, we made our way down to Taumaranui late on a Friday night in August where our friend, Ewen, kindly put us up for the weekend and agreed to come out for a hunt.
It was an early start on Saturday heading up a grassy river flat in the Pureora forest. It was a reasonably unproductive morning with only a few goats seen but they weren’t the target species. We headed back to Ewen's place for a spot of lunch before helping him take down some fencing in his backyard. Before we knew it, we were downing another cup of coffee before an evening hunt up a side creek near the morning's spot. The evening was equally as unproductive, however there was lots of sign around but mostly from the previous days.
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Sunday was another early start with a quick coffee and breakfast before heading up a different creek for the morning hunt. John lead the way as we stalked our way along some clearings and open bush following relatively fresh sign. There was a brief moment of excitement as we bumped something, but quickly realised it was a couple of young pigs. Again, not the target species of this trip and not wanting to spoil the area we carried on.
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As we made our way into the creek we spotted some open faces on the other side of the valley so made our way up a gut in order to get on to a spur we could hopefully shoot from. A hard slog up the near vertical gut, we found ourselves sitting at the edge of a small open spur with clear 180 degree views up and down the valley. We settled into a spot to glass from and nearly straight away spotted a hind and yearling on a slip further up the valley. Just as quickly as we spotted them they started moving back into the bush, and at that time what looked to be a scruffy spiker made it’s way out onto the slip face. I carefully made my way further down the spur to set up for what would be my furthest shot.
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I had naively left my rangefinder in the car so a quick check of NZTopo50 and Google maps had me estimating a 300m shot. I set up behind the rifle with a good rest, with John and Ewen sitting behind me looking through the binos. I placed the crosshairs on the top of the spiker’s shoulders to account for the bullet drop, pulled the trigger and the 30-06 sent a round across the valley. No reaction. Did I miss? With the spiker still in the scope, it quickly turned on its feet to bugger off back into the bush. “I don’t know where that one went Will”, Ewen said. I quickly reloaded and pulled the trigger, “click”. Shit, a misfire? Then before I knew it I saw the spiker pick up it’s front legs, and tumble off the near vertical slip to the creek below. My first and only shot must have landed. A few handshakes and then it was time for the recovery.
After a bit of a sketchy decline down to the creek and then eventually locating the spiker, we realised the scale of the slip it was feeding on as we looked up. It was about a 70m tall slip face, from which it tumbled a few times before landing in the creek. This deer had seen better days. Upon inspection my shot had dropped right in behind the shoulder and exited the other side through a wound the same size as the entry. Through and through, hitting no bone? Either way, it had obviously done the job!
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After a quick photo or two we got to work taking off the head, which turned out to have stubby brow and bey tines as well, and salvaged what meat we could. We then started our slow walk back down the creek to the car. Upon stopping in a grassy river clearing near the end of the walk out we spotted a mob of 6 goats sitting above us on another slip. Not wanting to commit to another animal recovery we decided to let them be and hope that another hunter will get their tails in this year’s goat hunting competition.
It’s a pretty great feeling knowing you’re going to fill the freezer, and an even better feeling finally validating all the hard work put in over the previous months up and down the hills in search of some venison. To top it all off I got to experience taking my first deer with my father-in-law, using his old rifle that he gifted me when I got my firearms licence. It’s safe to say that I’ve truly been bitten by the hunting bug and I’m itching to get back into the hills after another animal.
