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Rain, River and a few deer
Rain, river and a few deer
Arrived near Taihape for a few days of hunting and fishing while my partner went riding. The first night saw a few temping deer about 600metres across the river from camp on some scrubby clearings on private land. They were safe from me and anyway I was heading further back into the native to explore. The night was impressive with a huge lightning and thunder storm which had the rivers uncrossable the next morning so I went exploring in the Ute and ended up taking a drive up to Comet hut. It’s a nice drive getting up high with impressive views across excellent sika country.
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The best is the private land on Ngamatea and Pohukura but there is plenty of hunting and fishing on DOC land if you are willing to walk. I didn’t have time today to visit the historic Shutes hut and the Taruarau river would have been uncrossable based on the flow under the road bridge I crossed earlier. The wind was howling but you don’t know if you don’t try so I soon had the trusty 284 unpacked for a short hunt/walk. After a sweaty club through the wilding pines to the Komata trig I found some nice beech areas and sidled off the track for a stalk. The problem was the pines, and every time the nice bush ran out it would get crappy. I did spook a deer at one stage in some thick stuff but just heard it running off without a sighting. Eventually I cut back onto the track and headed back to the Ute. I’m sure there are good patches of bush if you know the spot better and the odd clearing to watch also. It looked like the faces down the Ngaruroro side had better beech pockets below the scrub belt. I checked a few rivers on the way back but they were all brown and dirty.
Next day the forecast was very heavy rain in the morning so I slept in only to find it didn’t arrive early. After a lazy breakfast and missing the best hunting hours the rain came but the river had dropped enough so I put on the raincoat and went exploring. I could see a stream a few hours walk that had nice clearings on the satellite maps. I even took the old Kilwell packaway fly rod in case some trout were around…..a mistake I would regret later when pushing though bush for hours. The phone gps saved me taking the wrong ridge at one stage but I dropped into the stream around lunchtime and had a one square meal (my main hunting food) and a packet of salami. It was raining on and off and the worst time of day for hunting but I headed downstream to find the slips and clearings. About 1.30pm I found a nice spot to look across and in the 8x30 swaros tucked under a tree keeping dry I spotted a good sized deer facing me and lying down. I knew it wasn’t going anywhere in this weather so out came the rangefinder and 312 yards was the distance. No wind - 4.2 clicks up on the VX3 and down with the daypack for a good rest. With the scope on 10x zoom I felt pretty steady so centered on the chest and sent a 162 ELDX on the way. Thump stagger and roll went the deer and another one stood up behind it and reasonably side on so same again. This one wobbled around and I was going to use the last in the Tikka mag when it also fell over. Feeling pretty happy I spent some time sorting out decent landmarks to locate them before things went a bit wrong.
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Dropping down to the roaring stream I hit a 10m high bluff with the same on the other side. Sidling down further in slippery conditions to find a better place I then got bluffed again from a side creek and had to climb around a nasty piece. Same problem again as the stream just cut through a gorge and I couldn’t get down and could see there was no way to climb out. It just wasn’t worth dying for some meat so in the end I gave up and climbed back up into the bush to sidle downstream further.
I even put the scope cover back on which reminded me to wind back the elevation dial and also the zoom ring. That’s when Lady Luck came through and about 10minutes later I looked down to see a young hind walking up toward me. As I pulled off the scope cover and closed the bolt she looked up but too late and I put the cross hairs on the chest and dropped her. This time I had some meat so took the best cuts and boned out a leg.
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Continuing on I tried to sidle around and shorten the distance home. Again a mistake as bluffs and stinging nettle made progress slow. The fishing rod was catching on bushes which made things even worse. I got a peek at one stage that showed my planned route was nasty so cut my losses and climbed a long ridge back toward where I had come that morning. My phone GPS (in a zip lock bag to keep it dry) helped again as up high the country flattened out and it was hard to pick the right ridge to drop back on. Makes me wonder how I used to operate in my younger days…..you get there in the end but the GPS saves a lot of extra back tracking and stress. I even came across one more hind in a clear spot on the ridge but passed up the shot as I was feeling wet and tired and didn’t need more weight to slow me down. I sneaked in close before it spooked and ran off barking. I was sore but happy when I made it back to camp.
The next day I went for a drive to look at the bridge near gravity canyon - now that’s a scary view. A few goats were hanging off some steep faces nearby
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I was pretty happy to shoot my first real bush deer for a while. Next time I’d like to hunt the Ruahine tussock and find some suitable rivers for fishing.
