Korohi Bivvy

Thanks to guys the who took the time to give me some information on the block and sika hunting in general.

After what felt like an eternity of work checking the weather report 10 times a day, it was finally time to pack the gear and catch the red eye flight from Perth to Auckland.

Light winds and clear skies for the next 7 days ! couldn't have jagged it any better and apparently the group in before us had a medical emergency and flew out 3 days early... thatl give them time to calm down before we arrive.

Now the old boy is pretty good when it comes to attention to detail, but our garage pre-weigh in after half a dozen IPAs on a dodgy set of scales the night before left us wondering if we might have to leave that extra carton behind.

The helisika scales happily went 20kg under weight and we were off with a whirr tracking South over the Oamaru River and down into the Kaimanawa forest park. Could've packed 2 extra

Attachment 273276
Island Range drop.

We requested a tops drop to give us a good look at what we had come to conquer, it looked steep ! I had been warned but 3 weeks of training left me confident the legs would handle it.

Hunting with 3 down a tight beech ridge soon proved noisey as we bumped a deer somewhere down below us, we heard a few roars that afternoon but they sounded off on the next ridge as they tend to do.

That was about the last real roar I heard for the remainder of the trip apart from the ones coming from my new AJ Caller and my brothers practices while on the bog.

Attachment 273278
Korohi Bivvy / Rangatikei hut.

My broth
er spooked a small stag on our last stretch down the ridge but it wasn't stopping for his mews. As we arrived at our accommodation we could hear a hind alarm call going off like it was late for work. 3 deer we departing the area up a slip behind the hut and it was nice to see what a sika looked like.

Day 2 was pretty uneventful a few alarm calls for me and a few distant roars for the other 2. The country in there is steep, the ridges provide some nice open sections intersected by steep thick climbs. The guts and creeks are to be avoided which made sidling hard and full of lawyer. My ears and hands looked like a well used cat pole.

We decided to get up high the following day to take a break from the frustrating wind swirls and catch a few days in the sun. 5mins out of the bush we had spotted 4 deer, 1 of which wasn't to far out of range and would become camp meat and my first sika.

Attachment 273269
I've been trying hard to shoot a deer with my bow but at 60m and no way to get closer my old Remmington model
7 .308 did the job.

Attachment 273270
A beautiful spot to process.

The Arberlour went down well that night with deer heart fried in butter and some fat beef scotch fillets.

Korohi bivvy is a cosy tin shed, nit a lot of insulation but a reasonab
le fire and 4 just long enough bunks. It's sits no more than 7m from the Rangatikei River which obviously doesn't flood very high.

Attachment 273279

Gentleman's hours for the last day me and the old man picked a ridge we hadnt hunted yet and decided to take it easy, stay low where the sign was a hunt slower than usual, I think we had been trying to hard because it only took a few minutes to catch the white flash of a deers ass. A quick hiss to stop the old man and a mew to stop the antler tips flicking through the trees. It wasn't far but I couldn't see it in the shade without the scope so I dropped the bow and Dad passed me his xbolt and we had our first sika stag on the deck.

Attachment 273281

I day dre
amt of shooting a big symmetrical 8 pt stag with the bow that makes the cover of a magazine but the reality is we have always been meat hunters and now living in Perth with a young family I don't have the time to achieve that at the moment.

Attachment 273282
Attachment 273283
Shooting a stag with the old man and taking out a really nice skin to be tanned will do just fine.

We carried on hunting that afternoon but with meat to pack out we pulled pin early and head hut for a beer.

Down the valley my brother came close to a 6pt stag that was roaring well only to be busted by his only hind after a long, hand and knees stalk.

4 nights in the Korohi came to an end pretty bloody fast and we were soon buzzing out over Makorako with full cups and sore legs. We chucked the stag jaw in the box with an info card and that was the end of that.
Attachment 273277

I'm now looking for a copy of Sika Hunter by Neil Philpott which I should have bought before the trip...

That was an excellent first Sika hunt. You all got to experience a bit of everything. Well done.

Armed with that experience you'll be able to organise yourself a decent Sika hunt every couple of years:thumbsup:

Nice one!

Nice to see that. The biv is where the old track off Island range to Middle range crossed the river. I walked from Boyds to the Desert Rd via that route and Umukarikari many years ago and shot a deer on the way up to Waipakahi hut from where you were. Just took the back and inside steaks and feasted at the hut. Thanks for the memory.

Great write up mate, enjoyed that [emoji106]

Looks like cool country and fish in the river too !!

Close to paradise [emoji41]


Sent from my SM-G950F using Tapatalk