Thread: Hunting the tops - What went wrong?

The summer of 2019 was going to be my summer of hunting! I had managed to save up enough leave to do a couple of trips, with the aim of trying to target a respectable red stag! Below are a couple of stories of those trips.

Trip 1 – Hunter Valley
Anticipation and excitement was high. It was the second week of March and a friend, and I had been driving nonstop from the lower north Island to Hawea where we were to spend the night at a friend’s house before the three of up headed up the Hunter valley for 7 days. We had planned to head about half way up the valley and push onto the tops to hunt a general area that looked pretty appealing on the map, however we had been given the ‘good word’ that most of the good deer came from the head of the valley. So that was the plan, we had a 4WD and understood that we could drive a most of the way up.

1) Camp day 3, 2) Camp day 4, 3) lookout day, 4) big messy wallow

Day 1- The trip up the valley was pretty scenic, what a cool part of the country. We ended up parking a bit before Fergusson hut, and found a cast antler with 6 points on it – that must bode well! We had time for a quick poke around before dark. About 5 minutes after leaving the hut it started to pour, and continued all night and into the next morning.

Day 2 - was a bit of a bugger. We walked, waited a fair while for the river to become crossable and walked some more, getting to the east/west branch junction on dark. There was a fair bit of helicopter activity up high on both sides of the valley, this didn’t bode well. The highlight was seeing a couple of hinds on the flats just on daybreak but once there was decent light to see they were back into the trees.

Day 3 - following the track up the west branch we started to get pretty excited again as things started to open up and we could see well up towards the head of the valley. We got into a position up reasonable high in the early afternoon where we planned to spend the night and started glassing. One stag was seen running for the bush early on (we must have walked within 100m of it but it didn’t break until an hour or more had passed…), a little chamois above us and a lone bull tahr down by the river were spotted.

Day 4 saw us sidle around to camp 2 where we essentially set up and started glassing. There was a bluffy spur (site 3) from which we could gain a commanding view up to the head of the valley and then back down over all of the country from the previous day. We also could see a recently used wallow. This was going to be good! …….Glassed until dark with nothing seen.

Looking down the valley from point 3

Day 5. This was our last session before having to start backtracking to the car so we gave it another decent glassing session in the morning. The scenery up there was absolutely awesome but primarily we were after deer and it was a bit of a tough pill to swallow when again 3 sets of eyes failed to spot anything. We made our way back to the camp and missed a nice chamois that was up near the Wilson pass.

Looking up the rest of the valley from point 3

Day 6/7 where fairly uneventful as we made our way back to Hawea.
Immediate thoughts
• We spent too much time walking
• Probably not cautious enough in our approach up the west branch (I cant remember if we had the wind up our arses but don’t remember being too carful)
• The area had quite possibly been worked by WARO within the last week or two

Trip 2 – Mariners Peak
I was going solo this time. After dropping my mate at the airport, I headed for the west coast. It has always been an area I enjoy and rightly or wrongly I felt that the “rougher” country kept the crowds away and therefore reward those who were willing to put in a bit of effort (lets see). I didn’t have much criteria for a spot – somewhere to leave the car and easy walking access to the tops (after watching tv shows with big stags shot on the tops, that’s where I wanted to be!).

1) swampy wallow, 2) main camp, 3) other fellas

Day 1 – Metvuw reckoned the weather wasn’t going to that flash for a couple of days from that night, so I had a choice. Head straight up to the tops and make myself as comfortable as possible or wait around for a couple of days in a hut. I figured either way I would have nothing to do when it was raining so I might as well be waiting in a position to take advantage of possibly a bit more activity immediately after it cleared. So, I walked up a spur – wasn’t too bad! Close to the bush line I came across a clearing with a swampy wallow in the middle of it. The place screamed out BIG stag (at least to me) and I though that could be a feature to remember. I didn’t linger long and made my way up to find a camp site. I was somewhat disappointed to find 3 or 4 pretty recent buck shot cases on the way, guessing that that meant there were a few less deer in the area than there had been in the recent past. Once set up I went back down to a vantage point about 200m from the wallow and watched it until dark. Nothing seen.

Day 2&3 – It pissed down. Remember the rain that washed out the Franz bridge. Though the rain at times was very heavy it actually wasn’t much of an issue being on the top of a hill. When there was a bit of a break I would stretch my legs and have a peak around - but mainly I tried to hibernate.

Camp site for the rain

Day 4 – The weather had passed, and it was shaping up to be a pretty reasonable day. I scrambled to get my gear together and position myself in a good spot to watch some bush edges for the morning. Nothing stood out to me immediately but as I settled down I noticed movement in the tussock way off in the distance. I though there might be 4 or 5 hinds down there and my pulse quickened with the knowledge that it was very nearly the roar, though something didn’t look quite right – oh - they were tahr. That afternoon I moved a bit further along the ridge to expose some more country and set up a camp but nothing was seen.

Tahr – I would have thought a wee way from home

Day 5 – I pushed onto the 1436 peak and again no animals seen for the day, though I did see a tent and group of hunter set up under Mt Kinnaird, which probably correlated with the chopper id seen flying in that direction the previous day. Of note was the length of the tussock in some areas - up to my armpits which made walking a bit tough – was this the natural height or a result of very little grazing?.

Looking towards Mt Kinnaird
Day 6 - I didn’t spend to long looking in the direction of Mt Kinnaird given the other guys were set up over there and started making my way back to where I spent the first few nights, with the simple plan of just watching the wallow. Alas nothing seen.

looking back towards where I had started.

Day 7 – It was time to head back to the car. About halfway down the spur I got the strong smell of a deer. Though I hadn’t heard a single roar on the entire trip I decided I make one. I sat down and within seconds heard some movement, about 5 minutes later a very tentative spiker came into sight, nose flaring trying to suss me out. I was mostly obscured and the deer very cautiously crept to within a few metres of me before deciding it was time to go. It was quite a neat encounter!
During the long drive back to the ferry (I had to go back through Wanaka) and since, I wondered what should have been done differently to increase the number of encounters. Was it us, was it the locations or a combination?

A couple of questions for those wiser than myself;
1. How much does waro play a part in the success of a trip (on the tops and slip/river flats)? Is there anywhere on the west coast that doesn’t get waro pressure?
2. Was the strategy wrong up the Hunter Valley?
3. What are the factors people use to select a new spot?

Thanks for the write up, some cool trips regardless of the result. I’ve read plenty of books about the glory days up the Hunter Valley and surrounds in the early 1900s but everything I’ve seen from our current era is the place is now hard hunting. Many people seem to venture up there, drawn by the old stories of big stags and beautiful country only to end up seeing bugger all. I couldn’t tell you why that is, someone with more knowledge on the area might be able to tell ya.

Thanks for your photos and story.You walked,drove pass a lot of deer.Covered a lot of country and you were in chopper country.Thats why choppers are there,deer and tahr and a lot of bush.Im a lazy old hunter,id stay in one area with no huts around(huts attract people) for days and glass,glass and glass bush edges and clearings.Find deer and wait and watch.Keep out of the chopper invested areas if possible.You had a nice trip and look around tho,well done.

Now that's what I call a decent first post intro, cheers mate.

Excellent write up. I dont think you did anything wrong, you picked a spot, did your research, and then made the time to go do it, so well done. If you wanted to do things different, then maybe less walking and more sitting next time. Have the confidence in your own ability to find animals. From your story it looks like you were in some pretty nice country, and more time spent in one place gives you a better "feel" for whats going on. Your problem now is you have put in the hard yards, found some decent access, but you live so far away that you cant just whip up there for an overnighter to keep an eye on it. Did you see much sign in your travels? A very good friend of mine kept telling me that the only fresh sign is if theyre standing in it, or its coming out their arse. Anything other than that is old sign. Ive hunted heaps of places where you see nothing, no shit, no footprints, no animals, no browsing. But I keep going back cos its got a good spot to glass from, or its a nice easy walk, or its good for photo's. And bugger me, do that a few times and you start to find the odd animal, simply by putting in the effort. Well done, looking forward to the follow ups.

Good shit @Ash. Helluva first post, welcome.

I'm far from an expert, but it sounds like you're on the right track. I was lucky enough to get a decent coat rack on my first and only south island hunt. Given how far us north islanders have to travel, we splashed out on a chopper and did a ton of research (spoke to locals, mates and the chopper operators) before deciding on where to go. We ended up in the Sumner Recreational Hunting Area (no WARO allowed).

Hey guys thanks for the comments and feedback.
Having not grown up in a hunting family, the last 10 years since school has been a good learning curve with the odd bit of back tracking so I came to the realization that I need to get amongst the wider community and stop trying to reinvent the wheel!
I hunt locally a fair bit, though there is nothing quite like the southern alps for an adventure, which is a good 80% of the appeal for me. Having had the last 12 months off with a bit of a health problem im starting to think about doing another trip and thinking about areas to zoom in on….
- A reasonable amount of sign in the bush on the west coast, none in the hunter beech, none in the open

Ye nice trip,iv never anything like that.Youl know where to go and not to go next time.Good Luck.

Nice first post!

I’m not an expert but I don't think you did anything wrong really. @stagstalker has pretty much hit the nail on the head with the Wanaka area. Getting around the effects of generations of Waro can be hard, and wind can ruin your day no matter how much you plan for it.

Only thing I would suggest if wanting a good stag is to research the shit out of the area, which you had done already. Some of the stuff i try look for when choosing places is... genetics, historical records, forum reports, articles, published books, tramping reports for travel times and photos of country etc. all of these will add up to give you a rough picture of where you want to be looking and how to do it. Google earth can help as well, if your wanting to get an idea of country before heading there eg can id bush types from the air, impassable ridges, bluffs, aspect of productive faces.. ring chopper pilots, doc offices etc.
Think of every possible angle you could gain info from. It may take a long time but you may gain a list of potential areas to look at and can tick through them.

I grew up down in Southland and I used to just hammer four or five spots on rotation getting to know them. Then I moved to
HB 6 yrs ago and had to do that all over again. Try a place, see if i liked it, see what sign was around, research it however I could, make a call on it, rinse repeat. I’m only just starting to get a rotation up here where I know if i stick it out long enough I will get something decent eventually.

Just an aside on waro..

Once when I was very young, my dad and I spent 3 days tentbound waiting for weather to clear to hunt some open tussock basins. Weather cleared on day 4 and we spotted 4 deer in the open. After probably 700m of stalking to get in for a shot, a well known helicopter flew over top of us with a wave, and shot all 4 of them. By the time we ran over to say “wtf” to that pilot as he clearly saw us, his shooter had them all gutted and stroppes and had the cheek to wave at us again as they left.

At least that didnt happen to you mate!

Good luck in your search and I look forward to more reports.

Great first post. Well written and good photos. I think the key to finding and therefor shooting deer is knowledge of a block. I love exploring new places but find success grows as your knowledge of a block or area develops. I hunt a spot down south and we’ve been back over ten times now, each time we build on the knowledge we have of the block, where the animals are and when there’ll be out in the more open spaces.
Even when I go to a new block locally I like to go with a mate that has experience in that area; of course that’s harder down south, but when you find a good area, go back.

Cheers

2. How did you select the area in the Hunter ? looks a bit devoid of good feed hebes scrub for that time of year when grass quality has gone. Further back down the valley above the grazing land looks better with more scrub feed guts and creeks.

On the coast, the ridge from 'Power Knob' up has great country both sides on WAMs photos

Mid Feb is a great time to see stags in the open scrub and faces

Hi Ash
Are you having any success with hunting locally? I had a handy spot in the Rimutaka's that I did pretty well in, now that I live up here in the super city next to no chance of getting there again - be happy to share so PM me if you are interested?
Cheers
AMac

great intro....Ive been down south for 30 years and cant answer your questions as I bush stalk...open country is nice,fine to look at,easy to walk through...but just doesnt do it for me.
you saw hinds.......stag would be somewhere nearby is only bit I picked out...and when WARO going on...find a patch of bush with plenty of feed and deer will be there.away from gunships.

Thanks AMac, I feel like ive still got a lot of exploring to do in the Rimutakas having move here three years ago. Success wise - I have got one deer from 5 day trips. Definitely keen to talk spots and compare notes! Ill figure out how to PM shortly.

If you come back down try Feb while the stags are still mobbed up, they seem to do a bit of a disappearing act in early March sometimes before the roar. The Hunter is a magnificent valley and a place you might get a ripper stag but it does get a lot of waro attention, The Red Stag boys did an episode in there a couple series ago and saw a few younger stags but they were down the valley a bit.

It’s no secret, the Lake sumner RHA has a lot of deer in it (also a lot of hunters) for next time.