Thread: Month of a lifetime in Taupo roar hunting - Trip Report

Well as follows is how my month of a lifetime hunting sika in taupo worked out.
Original post: https://www.nzhuntingandshooting.co....hunting-68234/

First off a huge thanks to the forum and to the forum member @ONYVA and his wife for the incredible generous offer of accommodation while in taupo to stay in his caravan
out the front of his house it made the off days very comfortable and very easy to wait out rain, get washing done, gear and food sorted for the next trip and hot showers.

So Sunday 4th April was spent traveling north from north Canterbury to the ferry, forecast was 70knot winds in the cook straight luckily it was only about 35 gusting 45 and
the crossing was not the worst I've had and relatively painless, once across made my way north but got just south of Paraparaumu and blew a radiator house about 5pm
thinking shit its Easter weekend and a Easter Sunday where the hell am i gonna get a new hose for the ever unreliable 1998 4JX1 Isuzu Wizard. Luckily it was on the first bend
out of the fitting and after refilling and running for abit managed to find the leak and cut the hose short and put a hose clamp on it and get on the road again and make it to Levin
for the night. Monday the 5th was out of the fart sack and on the road to enjoy the holiday traffic which never eventuated and roads were clear of traffic and made it to Taupo
going on about 12ish and rang Greg and shot around to his place to introduce myself to help put his mind at ease that im not dodgey in anyway. Went to the taupo range to
confirm zero and make sure the gun was shooting good and was ready to its first trip the following day, talking to Greg he mentioned the quarry so that was the plan for the first trip.

Tuesday - Thursday 6-8th April - Clements Road Quarry
So the plan was hatched for my first trip south of the quarry to get re-aquatinted with how frustrating sika are to hunt and get remined time after time how cunning sika are.
Walk in was pleased to hear a he haw 5 mins walk in. Found a nice enough flat spot on the track in pitched camp, spent the next two nights being woken by a camp stag
roaring then alarm calls as it smelt the aromas that escaped the fat sack. Spent most of the time slowly making my way north and south, no roaring during the day only at night
so still not to fired up yet. Only deer seen was a spiker that was trying to make its way back into the Forrest edge from the fenced off farm land which was cool to see.
Bumped into "Westie" before setting off for the morning before making my out as rain was forecast the next few days.

Scrape found not much fresh fresh sign then i noticed the trail camera (sorry mate would have left well clear if i has saw the camera on the approach)



Friday - Saturday 9-10 April - Clements Road End - The Saga begins
Good Bush


Decided to do a day hunt as the rain wasn't coming to mid arvo found a nice spot to check out and made my way onto a bench doing the old well if i was a deer this is where id be
moving slowly heard a gunshot from up the valley somewhere thinking great that will spook them all as a way to rationalize my more then rusty sika stalking and frustrating swirling
winds i sat down had a snack and heard a lazy moan bloody close so quickly made my way 50m north to abit of a small rise with obstructed view to where I thought the deer was.
Was only there watching, listening, waiting for maybe 2 minutes when the wind switched from face on(north) to east then i heard a deer to my east maybe 50m away so swung left
to get ready as it will surly catch a wiff. Then saw movement and holy crap it has forks up top its an 8 but it was partially blocked by mingimingi I could see him from shoulder down
but couldn't see some of his head, only some of his brows and his tops then the alarm call shit had to do something as he screeched his warning to the valley so took aim on his front
leg moved to the right abit and took a shot off he went. Found his blood trail from the point i shot him its was more blood then ive ever seen in 20 years hunting i was sure he was
going to be over the next log, round the next corner folded up but its was not to be.


At the end of the video is where the journey to find my stag starts the last bit of blood was on this tree and not a drop from there



When getting to the spot by the small tree with blood on it there was a gut to the left as I approached it i heard some deer across the gut running away with one cracking and breaking
twigs i thought this must be the stag but after doing grid searches to the north, the west the rain had started coming in steady big drops oh shit this might be the first animal I've lost
in 20 years of hunting. The dread was setting in that I'm not going to find him today and I didn't. Spent the day after looking through wet bush as it was pissing down all day and still no
sign of the deer but stumbled across the stumble inn which was a welcome surprise to find such an awesome set up hut. Was awesome reading the hut book and finding out why there's
a miniature of Shrek and Donkey on the door, they were the makers of the stumble inn. So i added my story of loosing an 8 in the hut book and made plans to return and try and find
my long sort after sika 8. Over the next few weeks did various trips along Clements mill road trying to find the much sort after good bush but there was drips and drabs of good country
with a lot of crap bush but that all in the cards when hunting new country.

Returned about 2 1/2 weeks later and planned to spend a day looking for him with afew other days hunting the area with deer seen every day but only fleeting glimpses but on arrival to
the hut could hear someone snoring and backtracked afew hundred meters away to a fly camp i found to set up base camp.



Stopped by the inn the next morning to meet Shrek which was cool to find out about him and his mate Donkey who built the inn and hear some stories about the hut, as soon i mentioned
about my lost stag he offered to help me look because he had read about him in the book entry but i knew i was spending another good few weeks hunting the area so didn't want him to
waste his roar hunting time looking for my deer so politely declined his offer. With that he showed me the way up the hill behind the inn and about 1 minute after parting ways i could hear
a cough or sneeze thinking bloody hell that man can sneeze carried on my way to look for the stag but it was unsuccessful. Returned back to the fly to pack up camp as Shrek had offered
a bed in the hut as it was just him and i was more then willing to accept as the night before i had run out of gas for the cooker and a stove would not go amiss. When getting back to the
inn it was then that he said just after we parted ways a spiker was barking at him, that was the coughing/ sneezing i could hear as ive never heard a sika make that noise. Next morning
i headed out on sun up and bumped a sika off the track as its was light but still dark in the bush, it was the deer we could hear throughout the night before from the inn.

Headed back in around the very end of April and managed to find my lost deer was over the moon to find him and stop wondering how good he was




Spent the next week and a half hunting various spots off Clements but no more deer shot and not alot of roaring was encountered which was abit discouraging but i did manage to fluke
this chap. After making my way into a river flat heard gunshots to my west and south so decided to head north, stopped to check my heading on my phone and bugger me a hind about 10m
in front of me walks out with a stag right up her jaxie getting a sniff so up with the rifle and blammo stag was shot quartering away from me with the bullet taking out his lungs and front shoulder
he didn't make it far and the pictures are as he fell. Was over the moon at this point as i hadn't found my first stag i shot at this point in time so was awesome to have some meat and my first on
the deck sika stag. Even though he is not big by any means he was a trophy in my eyes and still is - managed to fall 12+ ft off a cliff in the dark and landed head first so was abit worried what
damage had been done but luckily it was only 2 cuts and black eye, had to take selfies to see the damage.





With a good weather forecast Greg decided to go for a fish in the firth of Thames as ask me along and i was more then willing to tag along, i had spent abit of time telling Greg about soft baiting
and how when i was in Auckland its all i ever use to use on my boat and he was keen to give it a go so was good teaching someone new a new means of fishing. Greg managed to land his personal
best snapper on bait believe it or not so was super stoked for Greg. This was a great end to my roar trip up taupo and im already planning for next year.


The heads cleaned and mounted on the shed as a constant reminder of my month of a lifetime roar hunt



Things learnt on this trip were go sloooow and look dont stalk with your head down worried about snapping twigs, and by the end of the trip i was getting to spots thinking this looks like deer country
and slowing down and seeing more animals so i was eventually learning how to hunt these sneaky buggers, oh and thinking i need a 243 for these and 2 weeks after the trip spotted this winchester on tm.
Managed to pic up this Winchester Model 70 Carbine in 243 for $350 on tardme which going the immaculate bore and overall condition has seen bugger all use so this will be my Sika slayer for next time
instead of my Bergara 308 - thanks for sticking in this far reading the report

Mate! Buy a lotto ticket, great stag. 👍

Haha already have but some pillock in Hamilton got my 16.5 mil i see and cheers i want going to give up looking for him eventually spent 4 full days looking for him but it wasn't until
i looked east of where the last sign was and a month after shooting him that i found him with the aid of smell i wouldn't have found him if he wasn't humming after afew weeks

Looks like a great trip,nice stag,snapper and 243 rifle and good company.Well done.

Epic

yeah nice one

Been waiting for this trip report, good write up, and if you come back next year you know were we live. Backs nearly better and hope to go for a walk in the next week or so, got to test my new rifle.

Thats awesome mate!

I used to hunt the very same area when I lived up there 20 odd years ago.You used to be able to drive up to the quarry in those days.

Can still mate i managed to the isuzu up to the top on road tyres

Originally Posted by ONYVA

Been waiting for this trip report, good write up, and if you come back next year you know were we live. Backs nearly better and hope to go for a walk in the next week or so, got to test my new rifle.

Awesome mate good to hear your backs coming right, now to blood the howa

Awesome man

Good shit, how far from the stag were you in your previous search?

Great experience and I really enjoyed reading it all.

Originally Posted by Nick.m

Good shit, how far from the stag were you in your previous search?

about 60/70m i was too focused on searching where i had heard the deer moving off to the north and west so spent most of my time looking that ways
but he was south east from the last point of blood

Great report and respect for going back again and again looking for the stag.