Have been struggling to fit much hunting in to a hectic work schedule so with 4 days off over the last weekend getting into the Bush was pretty high on the priority list. The forcast was average but with a bit of hope forcast on the Saturday and Sunday I made the call and decided to head in anyway.
Have always wanted to have a good explore around the tiki tiki creek area so hit the road at 4am Friday to be at the te iringa carpark by 6 30 with the hope the warm muggy weather had kicked off some good spring growth in the hills.
Havnt done a walk in camping mission in a while so a bit of new gear to trial as well with the new kuiu pack getting its first real workout.
The walk up and over was in steady drizzle but was pretty easy and uneventful. Track is in bloody good nick and easy travelling. Stopped for a cuppa at the old hut site. Came across this poor wee lady just past the hut site. Looked like she had slipped crossing a shale area and broken her neck in the way down. Still looked fairly fresh so can't of been that old and no shot that I could see. Made me feel slightly better about the fact I'd just arsed over up the track 500m!
Arrived and set up camp as it started really coming down, so parked up for a zzzz to wait for the rain to ease back to non tropical storm levels. FYI the little mid tents are great for fast and light but pretty cramped to try exist under in the pouring rain!
Rain eased about 6 30 ish so went for a wander down towards the swing Bridge to hunt the river flats, only got half an hour down and skies opened up again. Got back on dark, soggy and no deer seen
Saturday started off with a sleep in as you guessed it, more tropical rain this time with thunderstorms to boot. She started to clear mid morning and figuring the deer would be as keen to escape the dripping Bush as me I though it'd be worth a crack on the flats. Hunted the creek flats through the morning into the avo enjoying the scenery and pushing right up into the headwaters, stopping at the falls for a bit of lunch and to dry off in the sun. Only bumped one deer in the creek which was a little bit of a surprise as wind was mostly good and it was a much nicer place to be than the Bush!
After a couple hours in the creek I pushed up into the faces to start siding back towards camp. Bugger all sign and some pretty shitty slippery snow damaged bush through there. With a notable lack of feed and appropriate sign my spidery sense were telling me no deer so I decided to push up off the faces and go check some interesting looking benches and saddles which often hold good amounts of broadleaf and I've found will often have deer sheltering off either side.
Sure enough on the second wee saddle could see good sign coming and going, some feed trees so into sneaky Pete mode. Poked just of the edge and could see the flick of an ear through the thick. Hind and a yearling, the old girl safe from me this time of year but the yearling fair game! They were feeding in the thick and feeding away so was quite a cool stalk for 5 mins or so trying to keep pace but also keep incognito. Fi ally managed to find a shooting lane that wasn't a texas heart shot and put on into the near shoulder. Yearling did its best high jump impression and took off straight down hill with hind in tow.
Shot showed good bright red blood fluff but also a bit of feed/grass. Starting to get a bit worried as it was so thick they wouldn't have to go far to be hard to find I trailed the prints working downhill (bugger all blood, another worry) for about an hour doing my best native amrerican tracker impression before resigning myself and going back to the top for a last grid search. Finding her dead on the way back up, she'd gone downhill about 20 done a hard left turn run back up hill and died about 15m from where she was shot. The hind had Carried on hence the prints!
Retrieve was a bit of a mission taking over 3 hours of swearing, crawling, sliding and scrambling through some very thick, very wet snow damaged Bush.
Got back, popped the pelvis and hung to set. Got a good telling of by the local hung at 2 in the morning from the track just above camp, went on for ages!
Up early, butchered the wee thing down and packed up camp for a long wet trudge back over the hill and home. The kuiu pack was awesome, gear and meat weight well over 30 kegs on the return as everything was soaking wet and heavy. No hip slip and the meat shelf worked as advertised.
Bloody good spot and great to be back in the Bush Probably pick a better forcast next time though or at least take the fly! Only a couple deer seen over the 3 days but sure there a few more hiding in there somewhere. https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/202...1a44296d83.jpghttps://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/202...65626338ac.jpghttps://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/202...3876ebebfd.jpghttps://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/202...22f4742127.jpghttps://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/202...30c5f77f10.jpghttps://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/202...e8a4aaa873.jpghttps://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/202...df77a63549.jpg
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