Proud dad moment!

Over the past couple of years I’ve taken my son out hunting more and more often. We, started with open tussock type hunts, and into bush hunting into the fringes of Fiordland National Park. He’s always been keen to tag along but in the early trips we kept things pretty simple in terms of terrain and length of stay.

Last year he proved himself able to put in some miles during a few bush hunting trips insert so he is certainly capable of keeping up.
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Over New Years while camping up the Ahuriri Valley, I spotted a few fat stags in velvet from our family campsite (the deer were safe that camping trip as no rifle was taken) and that got us on the topic of hunting. During one of our family camp dinnertime conversations of what we wanted to achieve in 2025, Mitch decided his new years goal was to shoot his first deer. Now, Mitch has shot centrefire rifles and .22’s before, but never at an animal, so I thought maybe that was a bit of a lofty goal going straight for a deer instead of a rabbit or maybe a goat.

Fast forward another 2 weeks and it’s the middle of January and I had a permit for a localish hunting block, so plans were were put in motion to take Mitch with me up into the tussock to see if we can find a fallow deer.

It was a cracker of a Friday evening when we left home and I had grand plans of charging up the hill with daylight to spare so we could have two full days of hunting over the weekend. The terrain is not exactly what you would call easy rolling or easy going as it is a 1:2 gradient and a 600 metre elevation gain is required just to reach the hunting block. There was certainly plenty of huffing and puffing by myself and Mitch, and some quiet protracted negotiation skills to encourage Mitch to keep on walking. Every step forward counts!

Given the steep and scrubby terrain there was not really anywhere to set up a tent, so to assist Mitch I carried his pack as well, while he carried my bino harness. As the sun got a bit lower in the sky, and it started to cool down slightly we started to make a bit more progress on the uphill slog.

Along the ascent we spied a few goats and the odd fallow deer, but they were all safe as the hunting block hadn’t been reached yet. They gave Mitch a bit of a much needed boost to keep going.

Goats provided some welcome distraction to the climb
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At around 10pm with the sun over the hill and light fading fast it was a welcome sight to find a flat spot where we could set up camp for the night and crash out. While we could have kept on trudging on, I made the call to camp on the access track rather push it too far.

Mitch surveying the camp site
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5am next morning rolled around quickly and after a quickly breaking camp we were off again. The tiredness of the ascent yesterday seem to be forgotten as we bumped into some goats on the trail. We a little kid pop up within 20m of our campsite just as we started walking up the hill.
A few more deer were seen on adjacent farmland/scrub, but until the block was reached while nothing could be touched. Excitement started to rise that we should get onto something soon.

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Once we made it into the block we didn’t have long to wait to find an animal. Around 7.30am with the sun not poking over the hill yet I spy a few goats ahead, but they are not what we are after. We navigate our way through more tussock and then I see a fallow deer in the distance making its way home from the evenings activities.

Packs are lowered carefully, and the range finder tells me it is 175yds away. The Kimber Montana 308 is set up and cross hairs aligned to account for the sloping gound. Then I hear it. A quiet voice behind me says, ‘Can I shoot it dad?’.

Now, while Mitch has shot that distance before with my 7mm-08, this is the first time with the 308. The deer is slowly feeding left to right in front of us, so a quick as i can I roll way from the rifle and help Mitch get set up. I feel a bit helpess now as it is in his hands now. He said he has a good sight picture of the deer and I remind him where to aim (the previous night I had showed him some anatomy pictures of fallow deer to show where the vitals are.

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‘Follow the front leg up…. Aim for the crease…..’ Boom! I hear the thud of an impact. The deer moves at the shot disappears from view.

Mitch didn’t hear the impact, so he’s a bit nervous but super keen to get going and find his deer. I caution him to take his time and savour the moment as we gather our gear and make it to where the deer was last seen.

No sign of any blood, but we can see where he deer walked through the tussock so we know we are at the right starting point for a search. Finding a fallow in high tussock is not the easiest thing in the world, so we mark where it was last seen and slowly cover ground, Mitch going a little higher and I go a little lower making sure nothing is missed.

After what seemed like an age (but probably only 5 minutes) I locate a very dead deer thanks to the buzzing of blowflies. I get mitch to come over and find the deer. He’s rapt.

The happy hunter!
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Proud dad moment
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A handshake then hug is given to Mitch. He seems to be taking it in his stride, but remind him of what has happened and to respect what has just happened. Photos are taken and then then the job of butchery begins. The shot went a little further back than I would have liked, but the end result was all four legs and backsteaks were recoverable. All meat was cooled as quickly as possible (with Mitch on blowflly patrol), before be found a cool spot in some beech trees to protect the meat from the heat of the coming day.

Before we get moving to our planned campsite, a customary celebratory chokito bar is produced from my pack for a job well done. (Chokito bars only come out of my pack when a deer is on the ground!)

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A few more hundred metres of elevation gets us to out campsite and we find some respite from the sun before be get onto the afternoon hunting options available to us. It doesn’t take long to spy more fallow deer, but as they are outside of the block, we just soak it in watching 10 bucks mill around here, a few does and a yearling running around over there. It was such a great spot to watch deer just being deer.

We climb higher up into the block and glass more deer but they are safe from us, as were a mob of goats lower down from us in a valley.

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The weather turned a little towards evening, so we headed for the tent and a well earned feed.

It was a special evening watching deer from the tent while eating our meal and it was hard to impress on Mitch how special something like this is, and how lucky his is to be able to get out and experience it.

The next morning we did a quick check over the ridge to see if we could locate any deer close by, but as I knew the decent would be time consuming, we decided to head down the hill, gather the meat and head home. More deer were spotted as we descended, but they were all safe. I got Mitch to carry some of the lighter gear and I carried the heavy stuff on the proviso that he found the way home via the marker poles in the scrub.

After about 4 hours we made it to the car. It felt good to get the boots off and get on our way back home.

In hindsight, it was probably a big ask for Mitch given the temperatures and terrain, but he did great and I told him I was super proud of him.

Did it put Mitch off? Nope, he’s just told me his new goal for the year is to shoot a red deer in the bush! Roll on the roar (and maybe some more gentle terrain!).

Well done young fella

well done the smile says it all good luck on the reds

Excellent work Mitch, and well done Dad for making it all happen. Good job.

Great work both of you , well rewarded with your efforts. Nice area with lots of game to keep things interesting.

Simply fantastic.

Great stuff

Good shot.

What a nice read for a Saturday morning.Well done Mitch n dad.

Well done young fella. Love seeing young people coming into their own.

Pretty bloody awesome!

Well done Mitch! I can't wait to take my young fella out for his first

Blardy excellent!

Awesome Dad & son moment to cherish