Thread: First stag

Made a plan with a mate (eddie) of my mrs dad to head down to taupo to chase some deer. stopped at the taupo nzda range to check zero and fuck that range is mint. eddie gets a call from his son saying '"can me and a mate come hunting?" eddie wasnt keen until his son (pig hunter tyler) said they will be the packhorses so its on now. meet them on at the bush edge and start climbing some big fuck off hill and im thinking shit these guys have spend so much time hunting pigs theyve turned into pigs by the way they were blasting through tiny holes in the scrub. get to the top of the hill and slowly stalk across to a place where we could see a small clearing about 70m away in between trees. eddie reckons he had seen 8 deer on the clearing a few days ago so we sat down to watch it. a minute later eddie goes"' fuck theres a big boar down there" just off to our left so i have a look down and see a big black hairy thing then it lifts its head up and its just a goat. we spent the next 45 minutes munching salami and watching this mob of goats and the empty clearing until we decide fuck it lets stalk to the clearing and see if any deer are hiding on the edges. we make our way to the edge of the clearing and then one deer coloured goat walks onto it about 3 metres in front of us and distracts me and eddie for a second the i see a brown flash out the corner of my eye and tyler whipsers loudly "DEER" so i turn to my left take a couple of steps and look down the hill into the pines below us and instantly (luckily) see a red hind standing dead still between 2 trees, i drop to my knee and lift the rifle, close bolt flick safety off, take aim and a couple of slow breaths and squeeze off the 150 grain lead spinner next thing i see is the white arse of the deer dissapear down the hill and hear no thud of impact so start doubting my shot but think shit i was aimed right on its boiler and felt steady as, the boys ask did you hit it? i say i think so but dunno so we wait 5 minutes and make our way down toward where i last saw it, when we get close we see scrapes in the pine needles where it had run off the 2 seconds later tyler goes here it is and i look over to where hes pointing to see it hunched over a log with a massive pool of blood beneath it, sweet it was a good heart shot.

we dress the hind (there was no fawn either she was barren) and look at the time, still only 1800 so time to check out another clearing
we walk another 45 mins up hill and reach a beauty of a spot over looking a big grassy clearing where the closest edge is 120m away and maybe 10m down from us and the furthest edge is 200m away and dead level with us. 2 minutes after we sit down and get comfy another big black goat comes flying out onto the far right side of the clearing yelling its head off and dissapears into the opposite bush so we think shit i wonder what spooked that hopefully a big stag. we sit and glass for an hour and see loads of goat but no deer so at 1945-ish tyler and his mate say were off so they head off to grab the hind from where we left it and me and eddie stay and glass. still plently of goat activity so as im trying to take a photo of one with my phone looking through the scope eddie says theres a hind i snap my head up to look but dont see anything mustve gone back into the bush. 10 minutes later i see a white arse with a black outline and orange hinduarters and thats the first sika ive ever seen "man that looks cool" i think to myself as it dissapears. by now we had already said we would be heading back half an hour ago but kept pushing it out hoping this clearing would pop something out. at about 5 minutes to when we had said the new time to leave was eddie gets up and starts stretching ready to head off so i turn around to see what hes up to then when i turn back i see a bright orange flash of a deer run out the bush on the left onto the clearing at about 130m being chased by another bigger deer so i quickly look throught the binos and see the first ones hidden by trees but the 2nd one is a stag and had some decent antlers "eddie theres a 2 deer down
there i think ones a spiker and ones a decent stag" i say and see him get excited and look down his binos then say "shoot the big one" so i rest the trusty savage on a tree stump in front of me , close bolt, flick safety off ,take a couple of breaths, steady the crosshairs on the boiler room and squeeze the trigger "BOOMFAH!" the stag hits the deck WOOOHOOOOO! fuck yea that was great. we make our way down to the stag and on closer inspection see that my round had entered at the top of the right lung and out the middle of the left and had done some damage to the spine on the right side which was why it had sacked so hard. it was a big extremely fat velvety 6 point sika and i was a average sized sweaty and fuckin happy 2 eared boy.
we dressed it and i threw it on my back and we headed out as it was getting dark. it took us 3 hours to get back to the truck and with a 60-70kg carcass on my back i was buggered when we got there. straight to sleep when we got to eddies then in the morning butchered up the carcass (after some photos, i held the head on top of the neck and it looked like it had never been off) then it was into the chilly bin with ice and i was off on my 4 hour drive home sore, stinking, tired but absolutely stoked


sorry about the shit writing hopefully you enjoy the story

Well done !!!


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Brilliant mate, great yarn, well done

Nothin wrong with your story writing, well done

Good yarn,happy hunter,you'll crack your face trying not to grin for the photo.Well earned.

Awesome that's what it's all about, getting out there doing it

Cool one

Great yarn, welcome aboard.

"spent 45mins munching salami...." That could be taken the wrong way

Did you not gut the stag before walking out? First photo looks like you just took the head off for carting it out

hahahahaha shit. yea gutted it out but it was just ridiculously fat other photo doesnt show it that way ill see if i can upload another

Great job. Thanks for the write up

Two species in one outing that's pretty darn good Well Done..

Originally Posted by Dorkus

Great job. Thanks for the write up

yeh wheres yours