Great hunt to finish off the red roar
Took Tim for a hunt on Friday (owaka7-08), walked 5-6 kms into a public land block hoping to find a couple of deer to stalk and maybe if we were lucky find a late roaring stag and possibly knock it over with his bow.
It was extremely windy and we didn't see any deer in spots that I have in the past, so we made the call to head into a far away basin hopefully sheltered from the howling nor-wester. No deer were going to be out in the open in that wind! Heads down we covered the country as fast as possible,stretching the old legs and cresting the ridge into the basin about 11am - late but at this time of year strange things can happen.
Within minutes of lifting the binos I spotted the chestnut coat of a large bodied stag tucked up out of the wind under the bluffs a good kilometer away, he had a couple of hinds with him, and after watching them for a few minutes we saw he was roaring! Needless to say we made the call to get closer and see what happened.
It took us only a short time to get within a couple of hundred meters - the strong wind allowed us to charge straight in out of sight, and we popped in behind a large rock from where we watched him chase his hinds around and roar every now and then. Always exciting stuff!
He was a very nice animal, holding a pretty decent rack for public land that gets a reasonable amount of hunting pressure. He was roaring pretty well, but was obviously well worn out and hungry. When the hinds tried to run from his advances he would give up and stand , head hanging and catching his breath. We watched for a good half hour, and snapped a few photos and got a bit of video. The winds were pretty fickle now, swirling backwards and forwards and it was only a matter of time before we were busted.
We discussed options on what to do (or really what Tim wanted to do), I had my rifle but wasn't too keen on shooting him as I felt the stag could get better, and we could come back next year. I offered a shot to Tim with my rifle, and was a bit surprised he turned down the opportunity (this stag was by far the best he'd ever seen, and he hasn't to this point, even after years of bow-hunting, managed to shoot a stag with the bow!). He was however keen on trying a stalk within bow range and going from there, if he could take a decent bow shot he would, otherwise was happy to let the stag walk! We knew the wind would likely limit how close we could get but headed on in, cameras at the ready.
As anticipated, we got to 60 meters, the wind swirled, a hind eye-balled us and all of the deer bolted!!* ;D
It was with great satisfaction walking home chatting about the hunt that we only took photos of the stag and his hinds, knowing that at any time we could have shot him a hundred times with my rifle, and knowing he's still there to hopefully live and see another year or two. The excitement of the hunt was still there, the adrenaline, the planning, the stalk...basically the whole experience - even the tired legs when we got back to the truck. It was so awesome to see a stag like this in an area that gets hounded by hunters and the odd helicopter.
I think the biggest reward for me was taking someone like Tim who hasn't seen many wild roaring stags, and have him walk away with the biggest smile and knowing he too felt the satisfaction of leaving an animal bigger than he's ever seen, in the hope of one day finding something truly special* 8-)
We finished the day hunting looking for a fallow buck, but ended up only seeing does and fawns, with a couple popping out of the scrub to feed only a hundred or so meters away. This topped of a really neat day in the hills.
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Cheers
Josh* :)
