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Kawekas - Otutu part twotwo
As part of my December trip into the Kawekas (https://www.nzhuntingandshooting.co....kawekas-89468/), my partner Sharon and her son Marcus were supposed to fly in to the Otutu hut to join me for the last few nights. But despite trying for a couple of days, the helicopter couldn’t get in, so they had to make do with flying in to pick up me and Gem (the dog) for our trip out.
There were three goals for them joining me: To bring in more food for me and Gem, for Marcus to get his second deer, and for them to see some of the Kaweka country and where I had been hanging out.
Sharon has had a knee replacement and is not very mobile on uneven ground, and if she falls she tends to break wrists and ankles. I thought the Otutu hut was a good option because it is a short almost flat walk to the top of the clearing where there are good views, and would be much more interesting than being trapped at a hut in a gully with no views.
The most suitable timing before Marcus headed off to uni looked like Waitangi weekend, so I booked the helicopter to fly us in on the 3rd Feb, and out again on the 7th. With three of us and the dog it was going to be a fairly full load, so I knew we would have to limit the amount of gear and food we took.
Day 1
The morning of the 3rd finally arrived, so we loaded the car and set off for Taupo. I reckoned we were within the weight limit for the chopper, but the volume of gear we had might be an issue. The weather didn’t look that promising with a fair bit of low cloud and mist around, and as we got close to Taupo we couldn’t see the top of Tauhara which I thought wasn’t a good sign.
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We got to the Helisika base and went to the office where another couple of hunters were waiting. The guy behind the counter said “Are you going to Otutu?”, I said “I hope so” and he replied “It’s not looking good”. He said they had a chopper about to fly into Boyd, which would give them a better idea of what conditions were like, so we were welcome to hang around and see what happened. When the pilot got back from Boyd the verdict was a no-go, and they asked if could fly in the next day. We said yes, as after the previous trip this was not totally unexpected and we had allowed an extra day. The other two hunters were from Auckland and heading for Manson hut, which was also a no-go, but apparently they had a better chance of getting in (I assume because they can follow the Ngaruroro valley and don’t have to fly over a second saddle). We all continued to hang around, while the choppers flew a few other groups into other public and private blocks. After a couple of hours, one of the pilots said to the Manson guys that it had cleared a bit and they would try and get them in. A while after they left, one of the pilots rolled a trolley out and said to put it by our vehicle, as the chopper had got to Manson and was going to have a look towards Otutu. A few minutes later he walked out of the office and gave us a big thumbs up. Ya-freaking-hoo!!!
It was good flight in, going over the Waitewhero saddle, looking across to the Boyd airstrip, then heading down the eastern side of the valley before going up and over just west of the Otutu Bush tops. We could see the private Otutu Island hut to the west. I could see some deer tracks through the waterfern in some guts as we circled and came into land at Otutu, which I took to be a good sign.
We carried the gear the short way down to the hut and I gave Sharon & Marcus a tour of the facilities (i.e hut, water tank, longdrop and meatsafe) and we unpacked some of our gear. A check of the hut book showed a pair of hunters and a solo tramper around New Year had been the only visitors since my last stay. We all wandered up to the top of the clearing, and I sent a message to my wider family that we had made it to Otutu. Marcus and I had a walk around the clearing, with me showing him various lookout spots and where I had seen on the previous trip. We discussed what deer were on the hitlist, which was pretty much anything but ideally not an in-milk hind that would leave a fawn to starve. We made a plan for the evening hunt and headed back to the hut to unpack the rest of our gear.
After sausages, coleslaw and bread for tea (a big step up from my dehy diet in December), Marcus and I headed out for the evening, after giving him a refresher on the rifle as he was more used to the bush rifle.
We didn’t see any animals. Gem played musical bunks most of the night, but for the next three nights she pretty much stayed on my bunk – my theory is that I farted less than Sharon & Marcus…
Day 2
Up early the next morning and out the door just after 6am to a stunner of a morning
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We moved our way around the clearing, glassing the edges and scrub faces as we went. We checked out one of the clearings, but it was probably a little late to catch something before it headed back into the bush.
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After a while with nothing seen, I said to Marcus we would head down to the bottom of the clearing to check the clay pans for sign, as there was a lot of sign here in December, and if we saw good sign we would know where to focus our efforts, and our scent would burn off well before evening.
As we got towards the bottom of the clearing, Marcus said he could see a deer on the other side. It took me a while to spot it as he meant across the gully but I was looking across the main gorge. The deer was in the scrub and moving in and out of view. I ranged it at 410m, too far for Marcus to take a shot, but we could get closer. We moved towards the clay pan, seeing the deer every now and then, and I could tell it was a female. We got to the oval grass/tussock area at the bottom of the clearing but couldn’t see the deer. I was reasonably sure it hadn’t crossed over the ridge, so I got Marcus set up for a shot across the gully and we waited (red arrow).
After a few minutes the deer appeared on the edge of a grassy slip a bit closer to us (tucked in a fold at the blue arrow), but it kept disappearing behind manuka bushes. I ranged it at 263m, so told Marcus to set the CDS a bit past 250m, but not to shoot unless I said so. There was a bit of a right-to-left breeze, but nothing major. The slip looked like there would be no issues for a recovery, though we would be best to go the long way. The deer moved out from behind a manuka bush and we watched it for a few minutes trying to work out if it had a fawn or not. With no sign of a fawn, I made the call for Marcus to make the shot when he was ready.
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I watched through the binos while Marcus got settled. At the boom of the shot the deer flipped sideways down the slip. The shot looked a bit far back, but I saw a big jet of blood head skyward as the deer did the first flip so I knew it was a killing shot. I congratulated Marcus, told him the deer was down and out, and called his mum on the walkie-talkie saying “deer down”. It turned out she was on “overwatch”, sitting on a deckchair at the top of the clearing with a coffee and a book, and had heard the shot loud and clear, but couldn’t see us or the deer. I told her to walk to her right and look down the gully and she should be able to see us. After a couple of minutes I called her back and said “Your other right!”, and eventually she was able to spot our hi vis at the bottom of the clearing. I took a projected waypoint to the deer on my Fenix watch, as well as a compass bearing with my phone, and Marcus and I noted some features on the slip near where the deer was. We walked back up to the top and headed to the hut for breakfast before heading off on our recovery mission.
After breakfast we grabbed the 60L pack and chucked in a spare knife, the gamebag, first aid kit and a rope and headed off along the western ridge. As we dropped down the small steeper face we noticed fairly fresh deer tracks heading the same direction. We got to the lower clearing and gave the overwatch a wave. There were more fresh tracks in a clay patch at the top of the slip, almost certainly from the deer we had shot. We worked our way down the slip, discussing where we thought the deer might be, and soon spotted her upside down against some scrub. A quick check revealed she was dry (and probably a yearling), so no fawn left behind. We dragged her up the slip a bit to a flatter area to do the butchery.
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The shot was a bit far back and had gone through the gut (so no eye fillet) but must have also hit the liver. We removed the backsteaks, both back legs and both shoulders, hanging them in manuka to cool as we worked. I then skinned the legs and removed the hocks, put all the meat in the gamebag and into the pack for Marcus to carry (the You shot it, You carry it rule). We also took the right side of the jaw, as even though we were confident of the age of the deer being about 14 months, the length could be used to determine how well grown (and well fed) the deer was. One of the shoulders had a couple of pale areas on it, which we suspected was in the sun and hadn’t cooled after the shot.
It was starting to get pretty warm by now, so after a quick drink we headed back to the hut, arriving about noon, including a brief stop to take a photo of Sharon on overwatch duty (yellow arrow).
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We hung the meat and jaw in the meatsafe, had some lunch, and spent the afternoon colling down and relaxing. Late in the afternoon I managed to get some reception on the little radio I had brought in, just in time to hear the weather report for the CNI high country was isolated thunderstorms. One did hit a bit later on, and some of the thunder had the hut shaking, or maybe it was just the occupants. We had a short evening hunt after tea (venison backsteaks, mashed spud and gravy) but nothing was seen.
Day 3
I was up at first light again, but Marcus was doing a good job of pretending to still be asleep, so I went out for the dawn hunt with Gem. I considered staying in my bunk, but figured you have to make the most of it when the weather lets you. Sharon said she would make a coffee and set up her deckchair on overwatch again.
Nothing seen. After breakfast I suggested the rest of the day should be spent recovering from our recovery mission, and the following day Marcus & I would look at heading up to the Otutu Bush tops. I suspected I had got a bit dehydrated the previous day as I had trouble getting my heart rate down that afternoon. Marcus and I went out for an evening hunt, but no animals were seen.
Day 4
There had been a bit of rain overnight as forecast. Gem and I headed out for the dawn hunt, noting that the Otutu Bush tops were clouded in. No deer where seen, so back to the hut for breakfast. I delayed the Otutu Bush walk while we waited to see if the weather would clear, with regular walks out to the top of the clearing to glass for deer and check the tops. After lunch we decided it was now or never, so Marcus, gem and I headed off along the track. We didn’t see any sign on the way to the tops, and the track along the tops had no fresh tracks, unlike December when there was heaps of sign. Marcus and I walked to the top of the rocky knob and radioed “Otutu base”. I told Sharon to walk out to the top of the clearing so we could see her. I glimpsed something in the trees and called Sharon and asked if she was wearing high vis, which she was. It was amazing visible at 2km with the naked eye.
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We carried on along the tops and Gem got very excited about something in the knee-high scrub on the edge of the track. I was hoping it wasn’t a kiwi, as she had done the aversion course in October, but I needed to find out what it was. I parted the scrub with my walking pole and there was a possum staring back at me. Yay, not a kiwi!
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We carried on for a bit glassing without seeing anything, then headed back to the hut, arriving around 4pm. I radioed Sharon and said we were a bit lost and had found a hut but it was really small and smelly. She suggested it was the longdrop, so we carried on to the hut proper.
Out for the usual evening hunt, Marcus Gem and I headed down to the clay pan to glass the scrub faces for the last time, as we could do a recovery in the morning before the helicopter was due, but only if we shot something that night or early the next morning. Nothing seen, so we walked back in the near-dark, then into bed for the final night.
Day 5
I piked out of the dawn hunt and had a bit of a sleep-in. Up around 7:30 and out for a quick glass, then back to the hut for breakfast, then pack up our gear and have a cleaning session. I boiled a kettle of water and we gave the pots, pans and benches a good wash with detergent and hot water. During my previous visit I had noted there were lots of wires for hanging things but a severe lack of pegs, so we had brought a pack of pegs to donate to the hut, and also left a full box of firelighters. We took our gear up to the helipad nice and early, smelling the meat as we got it out of the meatsafe. No smelly bits apart from the jaw, so we kept that and the pale shoulder separate from the rest.
The helicopter arrived about 12:07, we loaded up and were off home, flying past the Otutu Bush tops (which I pointed out to Sharon), over the Harkness hut with the Tussock basin off to our left, then down the Oamaru back to the Helisika base. Once there I paid for the trip and we put the deer jaw in the box along with the paperwork, and we headed for home.
