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First Old Codgers Tahr Hunt
After probably close to 20 years of talking about going for a Tahr hunt ,an old hunting mate and I both turned 65 this year, so we need to stop talking and get our ass into gear. So after asking for some advice a plan was put together and off we went.Attachment 264262
After two days on the road from the Waikato we arrived at Station Air at Mesopotamia Station, a short flight in and we were at our new home for the next 5 days.Attachment 264261Attachment 264263
following great advice from @Bos we headed out for our first hunt, climb up behind the hut and sidle downstream, I have to admit the hills were a little steep for a couple of pensioners, but we found a great glassing place and flopped down to watch the faces. Despite the fact we had every weather condition covered we didn’t take sunscreen and ended up getting sunburnt. After a few hours glassing it was around 7pm, I decided I needed to stretch, I stood up and bloody hell there are some Tahr around 130 metres away, so after settling down behind the rifle and 1 shot there was a Tahr that didn’t depart with his mates. Shortly after there were a couple of very young Tahr reappeared looking very bewildered,but they were safe from us. After removing the back steaks we headed back to the hut.
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Day 2 we saw plenty of Tahr but nothing within range, of both the rifles or our old legs,
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I was amazed at how these animals just seem to appear, one minute there is none and next they are there, spent a lot of hours watching them,
Although we spent a lot of time glassing the other side of stream we never saw any animals until day 3, we watched 2 young bulls travel down from up high almost to the creek bed, we were just hatching a plan to go intercept them we they appeared on the ridge line just above us, with just occasional glimpses of there heads as they popped over to check where we were there, not giving an opportunity for a shot.
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Managed a very poor photo with a cheap phone but they blend in with the tussock.
Day 4 dawned with fresh snow all around the hut, and a wind chill below zero,
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We headed out for a hunt, spent slot of time sheltering from the sleet and rain, in the end gave up, went back to the hut for a while to light a fire, we had flown in a bag of barbeque coal,later in the afternoon we headed out for an evening hunt but were interrupted by two trampers, this was an interesting experience, young female aussies, light trekking as they call it, they had to cross the stream to get to the hut so by the time they arrived at the hut we had the fire going.these two were frozen, they had no cooker, 1 dehydrated meal between them but no way to heat the water until we offered the use of my cooker, they had no tea or coffee but did have some energy bars, so we offered them and they gratefully accepted a large block of chocolate, soup, coffee and tea, they had sleeping bags rated at -2C, they slept basically inches from the fire to keep warm. I think they were taking a hell of a risk and intended walking 26 kilometres the next day to the road end,
Day 5, dawned a beautiful morning and it was pack up and get ready for the ride out, the chopper ride out was worth the cost alone.
We learned a lot such as, get more range time in before going and be comfortable shooting to 400 metres, we had too much of some gear , probably clothes, had enough food for 2 weeks so a little over the top.
Next year we will fly to Christchurch and rent a car rather than drive down.
It was a fantastic experience,, would have seen probably 60 to 80 Tahr, but seeing them and shooting them are very different.
Thanks again to all those people that offered advice, it helped make this one hell of an excursion.
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