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Hunting with Friends - SUCCESS!
This weekend gone, I went hunting with two friends. Neither had shot a public land deer yet, so we were keen to tick that objective off as well as get them some Christmas venison.
Political negotiations were very successful with the one married man among us signing a 24 hour cease-fire and leave pass, though it was contingent on bringing back venison, which did put an un-welcome pressure on the hunt. For me hunting is mostly about feeding the soul, and physically and mentally challenging myself. I find that getting out into the wild properly once a month goes a long way towards keeping me in a good space. I love the venison, and it's been 90% of the meat I eat for the past couple years, but I don't like to ever put that as the primary purpose of hunting. I'd shot a deer a couple weeks prior, and had a packed freezer so I was looking forward to just getting out and 'guiding' my friends onto deer and showing them a beautiful mountain tarn I like to camp next to.
We set-off from Christchurch at midday Saturday, and arrived at the carpark in Lewis Pass a few hours later. Boot and packs on and we set off into the wild.
We had a decent climb of around 900m of elevation to do and one of my friends was in the hurt locker the whole time (he'd had a comfy winter). Credit to him he didn't give up and kept pushing. We got to the treeline on the planned timeline and started to slowly make our way up the ridge, towards the tarn, while stopping at each basin to glass. It was now around 7.30pm so there was a high chance deer would already be out grazing.
Only a few minutes later, looking into the second basin friend number 2 immediately said he saw a deer. I hadn't seen the deer yet but trusted him so got myself busy setting up the rifle. The deer was a velvet stag, not of trophy quality but very fat so in our target group. I setup the gun on my pack, and dialled for 290 yards.
I told friend 2 to get in behind the rifle, and see how steady he felt. I told him there was no pressure and that if he felt good he could shoot, or if not I'd take the shot. Thankfully he felt super steady so we waited for the deer to turn broadside and for a lull in the stiff wind. The wind was blowing from our 10 o'clock at a fair rate, I called a 15-20cm wind drift and gave him a point of aim based on that.
At this point friend 1 catches up to us, and skylines himself right behind us asking what were are up to. I got him to sit down quickly and directed his bino's onto the deer. A lull in the wind came, and friend 2 took the shot. And what a shot! The elevation dial was good, the wind call spot on, and he broke the shot perfectly. Double lung and heart. The stag took a few steps and tumbled down dead!
We have a first public land deer shot! And we have meat! We got to the stag and realised he was a true fatty! We spend the next hour taking all four legs, back straps, neck roast, tenderloins and fed the dog a few scraps. We hung the meat up to cool overnight, and decided that there was no need to look for a second deer as there was plenty of meat from this one for two people to take home.
We found a relatively flat camping spot 50m away in the treeline, setup tents, cooked some noodles and got into bed at 11pm. What a fantastic day it had been! I was buzzing from the fun of the climb, the hunt and success of getting a friend onto a deer and slept happy that night.
The next morning we packed up early, deboned the meat, re-packed with meat onboard and setoff home. The rain came in after a couple hours walking and kept us cool and motivated to get back to the truck, which we reached in a couple more hours.
While I often hunt alone and enjoy doing so, there is a richness of friendship that is built in shared struggles and this hunt is one of my favourites because it gave me an opportunity to help others, enjoy being part of friends success, and to share something I enjoy immensely with friends.
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