Hey guys,
Thought I'd do a little write up / may be something to look back on in the years to come.
Hatched a plan with my brother to have a wee little mission into the Ruahines to try another attempt to knab my first deer.
Boss approved only half a day leave on Friday which was good enough for me!
Departed Hamilton bang on 12pm rolling out of work. Tootled down to the Ruahines arrived in the carpark just before 6pm after having a dinner (dirty old maccas big mac combo, first takeaways of the year.)
Wanted to get a dusk stalk in and couldn't be bothered putting the steps in with a pack to a hut for the night so we hatched a plan, positioned the ute on my blocks of wood and had her nice and level for a cosy night in the roof top tent (thankfully didn't spend the night as two blokes in there, even though brothers its.. Cosy) noticed the check engine light had come on, figured probably be another turbo on the dmax but was in the carpark came all this way not turning around now and set off on foot.
Very little sign around where we were and had seen plenty of deer a month prior. Assume this will be to do with grassy areas starting to dry off and possibly be not so desirable for the deer? (someone will chime in and let me know if I'm wrong here)
Anywhoms. 8pm rolled around quickly and to my surprise no animals seen or heard. Had walked roughly 4km from the carpark and was along a ridge line.
We made the call to bust a gut down to the riverbed below and walk back to the ute via the riverbed. Didn't muck around a we managed to get down to the riverbed at 8:30pm.
Started to stalk our way along the river, there was more human footprints than deer prints which wasn't looking so promising compared to previous walks in November / December last year.
Nudged our way around a bend on the river, just popping our heads out to be greeted with a spika and a smaller hind hopping out of the bush edge and onto the river. They quickly dissappeared behind the saftey of a few established trees in the riverbed. We quickly and quietly repositioned ourselves, brother went out on the river bed hoping they'd keep moving the direction they were heading where as I stayed put so if they turned around would be able to have a clear shot. Estimate around 110m away.
My brother could see one of the hinds starting to make a B line for the other side of the river and head up the bank. He sent a pill down towards the hind and surprisingly had a clean miss (bit unusual for him to miss, I assumed there would be a deer on the deck when I heard the shot)
This then prompted the spika to high tail it out of the saftey of the cover from the trees and I was presented with a reasonably easy shot, it for some reason stopped shy of the bank and I had the spika in the cross hairs and squeezed the trigger gently. The hornady 165gr SSTs was spot on and the young spika dropped on the spot and didn't move an inch.
Quickly gutted it, being my first deer thought how hard could it be to carry it out. Had roughly 5km of river walking to do to get to the ute. Got to the ute at 12:30am this morning (was a fair bit harder going than I expected)
Had a quick swim in the river to cool off and get the blood off and made the call to skip the morning hunt. One deer is enough and to hopefully make tracks back to Hamilton with the pesky check engine light on. (was also pretty buggered and didn't want to have my roof top tent humming. The missus aka boss would have a fit)
Ute wasn't in limpmode so boxed on. Rolled into the driveway at 5:30am this morning. Deer is in the chilly bin with ice, plan to deal to it this evening when it's a bit cooler.
Would like to thank the members on here for sharing their wisdom and helping speed up the learning process. I'm one chuffed bloke today.Attachment 241468
