With some of the good weather of the holidays, managed to get out on the central plateau for a wander with the rifle, hoping to bump into a young sika for the BBQ. I left the car in a crowded car park at around 3:30pm. The goal was to get out on the tops by 6ish, chuck up the bivvy, and find a nice spot to look for deer in the evening and morning, then maybe drop down into the river the next evening and morning before buggering off to eat more xmas cake and leftovers.
It was a clear and pretty warm day by 3:30pm and as I was going to the tops my trip started off with a decent climb. I sweat a lot on a good day but this day I was next level. I figured it was the good amount of hydrating I’d done during the ride there and in the car park and carried on. I didn’t want to carry a ton of water up to the tops as I was only going to be up there the evening, but by the time I got to the tops, even with some pretty strict rationing I’d made a good dent in my 2.5L of water and was still feeling pretty thirsty. I decided not to put the fly up straight away but investigate whether anything was about. After poking around the tops and some secluded bush edges, and not seeing much sign I decided that instead of dealing with the hassle of water rationing and going a bit thirsty, I’d cross the tops, drop down into the river and hunt the river that evening.
That proved to be a good decision.
I got down to the river around 8pm, had bloody good drink and reluctantly got my boots wet. 10 minutes later I was at my camp spot. I didn’t bother taking my overnight gear out of my pack but switched my GPS on as I’d be coming back in the dark. The beauty of hunting rivers is that most times you can get the wind right by hunting either down the river or up the river. The forecast was for an easterly and the wind was travelling down the valley, so I set off up the river. With a beautiful clear, warm evening and the breeze at my face it felt like a very deery evening. I stalked along the flats, keeping a close eye on the nooks and crannies of the bush edge 30 meters away. After 30 minutes I was surprised that I had pushed anything off or spooked anything. The sika in these parts seem to be more inquisitive than most and walking into another of my spots near here, its not unusual to get squeaked on a half dozen seperate occasions on the way in.
I sat down overlooking some tussocky river flats and had a nosey through the binos. Nothing. With about 10 minutes of light left I decided to have a bit more of a walk. I came up to a part of the river that had a river flat covered in tussock with a terrace of tussuck and manuka bush edge, shaped by a prior flood, that was 2-3m higher. I walked past an opening in the manuka to get up to the higher terrace but then decided I should have a look and walked back. I poked my head up over and had a look around. Nothing to be seen in the tussock or the bush edge. I slowly climbed up the bank to the terrace, stopping again for a look when I was at the top. Nothing to be seen, so I relaxed a bit and started a creep forward, watching where I was stepping. I looked back up from the ground and there was a stag steering straight at me. I froze, and so did he. I guessed he was about 60 meters away but with only its head and some its neck visible behind Manuka on the bush edge, not enough for me to tell where his body was. He looked alarmed but not defcon 5 and hadn’t barked/squeaked. He could probably only see the top third of me as the tussock was quite high so I flicked the safety off and slowly raised the rifle to my shoulder. Through the scope I could see he was in velvet and still growing. Based on the length of what was there, he’d be an 8 come April. Neither of us moved but I had a decision to make. It wasn’t going to be a great shot and the longer I left it the less steady I became. I was after a smaller meat animal where I could enjoyably take most of the meat out. I wasn’t keen on shooting a decent velvet stag, especially given that the shot I had meant wounding him and not finding him could be an outcome.
I lowered the rifle. He still didn’t move and we steered at each other for a minute. I thought maybe I could drop down into the tall tussock and creep closer to him, so dropped to my knees and started quietly crawling through the tussock. After what I thought was about 10 meters but which was probably only 5 or 6, I got in position to kneel as the tussock was slightly lower. I poked my head out of the tussock and to my surprise, he was still standing there, but not for long. With me coming back into his view, he squeaked, and dissappeared from sight. Feeling good about encountering something and that I hadn’t botched my trip due to poor water management, I put my headlight on and headed back to setup camp, have dinner, and a night of squeaky deer waking me up.
Next morning at 430am I woke up and headed back to the spot where I had a look with the binos over the river flats the prior evening. In position with plenty of time to spare, I ranged a bunch of positions. My longest shot could be 300m, across the river and up a freshly slipped bank. Daylight started rolling in and through the scope and binos, I looked around for shape, shadows and movement. It was still too early and too dark. 5:30 rolled around and the day was brightening. Nothing obvious was out on the river flats so I scanned the bush edge and the bank on the opposite side. Hoping something was still wandering about. After 30 minutes I was starting to getting hungry and after scanning the same bush edge 50 times, I was going a bit quicker, until I noticed something that looked different. A dark shape on the bank that I didn’t recognise from the previous 49 scans. I stopped on it and looked. It didn’t move but my body instinctively shot some adrenaline into my veins. I ranged it at 244m, took some landmarks, adjusted the scope some clicks and found the same shape in the scope. At 15x the VX5s start losing a bit of light so I backed it off to 12x and stared. Nothing moved but it was pretty sure it was a new shape and stayed fixed on it. After staring at it for a few minutes I decided I should do a scan of the bush edge again and come back to it. Nothing had changed and I was staring at it again for a minute when it suddenly moved, what looked to be from right to left, and disappeared behind a tree. I looked further left through the scope and if it was moving that way, in about 5-7 meters it would pop out in a gap, on the bank, in clear view. I lined up and got ready to fire at the gap, not bothering to range it because it was close enough to the original range. I backed the scope off to 10x so I had a bit more light and a wider field of view of the gap, top to bottom, just as well because a few minutes later, out popped a head near the top of the gap. It was a small, young animal, just what I was after. It seemed to be on the move now and looking to make an exit up this bank, as it was getting quite light. The thought crossed my mind that it may not stop and I might have to shoot at it walking up and across the bank. Luckily, just as I thought that, it stopped, I squeezed, and it disappeared in a haze of smoke. I reloaded and scanned around. It felt like a very good shot but without a visual, I was left wondering. I scanned for movement for a few more minutes before packing up and heading across the river to investigate. Stalking up to the spot, nothing happened so it was either gone, or lying there dead. I worked my way up the bank slowly to the place I’d last seen it. Got to that spot and immediately found a clump of fur. I headed across the bank and slightly down into the manuka. Nothing, no deer, no sign, hmm. I went bank and investigated the fur again and looked around. No indication of which way it had headed. So headed straight down the gravelly bank. I’d only gone a few meters when I spotted it off the side propped up against some manuka.
Originally I thought it was a hind but it was a young stag with 4 knobs. I dragged it down into the river under a nice tree (it was starting to drizzle a bit) to cut it up. Did that and then decided mission accomplished and headed back to camp, packed up and headed out. The weather cleared and I got back to the car around 2pm after an afternoon lunch, glassing, and siesta on the tops. Overall, bloody good walk.
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