My roar 0f 24

Had most of April off so after catching up with a few old mates at my old rugby clubs 75th reunion in Taihape at the start of Easter i went into a spot in the southern Ruahines for 3 nights. Seen a few animals, a couple of stags not worth wasting a bullet on and roared in another stag in thick bush that i just court a glimpse of before he spooked when the wind changed. Attachment 249619Attachment 249620Attachment 249621
The next trip was into Ikawatea forks with my brother Justin and another mate Richard .
This was the second year we had flown into Ikawatea, there had been two other parties in before us with a few animals shot so we headed off to fly camp a couple hrs downstream.Attachment 249622Attachment 249623
My brother Justin had a bit of luck one morning ,while heading down the stream when he spotted a stag in the stream bed. When he shot another unseen stag ran out into the middle of the stream, thinking he had missed he shot that one too so now had two stags to deal with.Attachment 249624
Later that afternoon justin was further downstream and up on a steep face seen a hind closely followed by a nice stag.
The stag was annoying the hind so when they reappeared justin gave a roar which gave him a steady shot when the stag stopped, he dropped the stag from about 250yds but had to watch in amazement as the stag tumbled off the steep face and ended up right down in the stream bed ,braking off part of his trey tine.Attachment 249625
A reasonable 9ptr
Richard had a bit of luck as well with this 8ptr that came in to about 10yds from him.Attachment 249626
The last morning i managed to shoot this young 8ptr which was silly enough to be caught out in the middle of the stream and only a short distance to carry back to the hut.
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We also found 4 dead deer in the stream bed that appeared to have fallen off the steep river faces , they were all at the bottom of a bluff an we couldn't think of any other explanation. There is a lot of animals in the Ikawatea catchment so we thought if they were short of feed and maybe just got to close to the edge on the steep faces!
Next trip i went into a spot i've been hunting since a teenager that has both Reds and Sika . On the walk in a sika was heard single calling not far off the track ,dropping my pack i snuck in close to the where the stag was calling and gave a mew or two, i could hear an animal moving through the thick pepperwoods towards me but he spooked when the wind changed . Not even a glimpse of him bugger, the wind would continue to plague me the whole week with several other red stags i got close to winding me at the last moment.
A couple of mates came in to join me after a few days and one of them got lucky with this nice 8ptr. He was videoing a hind in the bush and when the hind moved off and when he put his camera away he noticed a stag standing there looking at him about 20 yds away, Attachment 249630
The last week i decided to change tactics and have a look up in some open tussock country in the Ruahines.
A few deer were seen including some stags but nothing worth shooting. but got some nice photos which i am pleased with and certainly easier to carry on the 6hr walk back to my ute. I've put some of theses last photos up in the photography section as well.
So all things considered it was a very frustrating roar for me with the bloody wind spoiling my chances yet again
Attachment 249634Attachment 249635Attachment 249636Attachment 249637 this is same stag couple hrs later after he trotted off down the ridge ,only went a few hundred yds away and started feeding again.
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Looks like a few photos didn't upload properly . bugger!

Great work Ian.

Cool write up. I played for utiku and had a good catch up at the jubilee, have had a beer or to with Justin over the years.

I always enjoy your reports. Another cracker.

Top effort

Nice work! its really scary how many guys now are commenting on deer numbers. Ive always struggled with shooting more than I need, but it does really seem that in some off those remoter areas we need to just shoot more.

No idea why i some photos didn't load properly , if i click on the attachment it says invalid format. Don't know what has changed , never had a problem before unless its my old laptop computer, its a bit like the operator ,slow, outdated system, and has many issues!!.LOL

Awesome!

Bloody good work, thanks for the yarn. Funny to hear about the dead deer at the base of the bluffs. You would think they'd be more agile/aware than that, but I guess everyone/everything makes mistakes.

Bugger the wind, it certainly does even the playing field. They'll be there for next year!

Nice photos and yarns.Thanks