The Roar with Sig and a 300 Blackout
I had 28 days for three main trips in the hills of the top of the South Island chasing stags and thinning out goats. The dog I am more than happy with as he put me onto many animals and it was all up to my shooting ability with the 300 Blackout. A big thanks to Bert at ODL for a awesome Ti suppressor and the Lehigh 194gr ME subsonic projectiles.
Trip 1
Got a helo into one of my favourite spots. As soon as chopper took off the dog winded a group of 5 goats 60m away, so I loaded the magazine and put the bolt in the rifle to drop our first animals and 3 minutes later we had 4 goats on the ground.
Seen a few small mobs of hinds in the tussock and bush edges but no stag with them on the first day. Next day seen a good 12+ point stag but to far away 360m for my 300 blackout. So me and Sig went down to stalk the stag to a descent shooting range but by the time we got in to where he was he had gone back into the bush. We never seen him again after two attempts trying to find him.
I had 60 rounds of ammo for the trip and used 30 shooting goats and a small spiker for camp meat in the first two days.
Next day was low cloud and mountain mist but Sig ended up winding a 11 point stag 300m away down on a scruby face and at times we only had 10m visibility, after 10 minutes of watching him and waiting for the right shot I had the shakes too much to take a 40m head shot so I double tapped him in the lungs and he ran 50m before dropping dead.
The stags were roaring only at night time and even had one roar 15m away from our tent one night and took off when he heard the zip from the tent.
Most nights we didn't get back to camp until 9pm-10pm and seen other hunter walking the ridge tops back to there camp 10km-15km away. All the stags we shot were stalked apart from two spikers that were shot at 190m and 230m with 125gr BT @ 2005fps.
We seen 25 stags, out of that only 3 stags that had any decent antlers, the rest was rubbish so shot 6 including my 11 pointer. Had easily seen twice that many hinds.
Found him in my sleeping bag the next morning.
http://i124.photobucket.com/albums/p...pspkooxvhu.jpg
there was some hinds behind the dog.
http://i124.photobucket.com/albums/p...psxqjwke88.jpg
Camp 2 out of 3, I am glade I bought along the Huntech Fly as one day and night it was bucketing down.
http://i124.photobucket.com/albums/p...psxyupldoy.jpg
One of 3 pigs taken, running 60m head shot with Lehigh 194gr ME subsonic.
http://i124.photobucket.com/albums/p...psw031pzuv.jpg
Another rubbish stag neck shot 40m taken with a 125gr BT supersonic and a happy dog.
http://i124.photobucket.com/albums/p...psftttubfn.jpg
same stag
http://i124.photobucket.com/albums/p...psjsb5wbx0.jpg
spiker 3 shot out of 11 seen, hit between the eyes.
http://i124.photobucket.com/albums/p...ps2xms7fjw.jpg
Best stag for the trip.
http://i124.photobucket.com/albums/p...pspqwpywkx.jpg
Double tap with Lehigh 194gr ME
http://i124.photobucket.com/albums/p...psyr54dj7c.jpg
Camp at 1200m
http://i124.photobucket.com/albums/p...psnpknw2oj.jpg
Trip 2
8 days in the Marlborough Sounds. The stags were roaring mostly at night and evenings. Didn't here that many stags for the areas i was in but managed a few animals. Only heard 6 gunshots from other hunters in the distance. The dogs working really well on the deer.
170 lb sounds boar shoulder lung shot only ran 40m before rolling down the hill 20m.
http://i124.photobucket.com/albums/p...ps40tpmaiz.jpg
This stag had 3 hinds with him and had wait to 7-8 minutes before I could take a 20m bang flop shot.
http://i124.photobucket.com/albums/p...psjhh9mphb.jpg
Same stag
The Lehigh 194gr ME projectile sitting just under the skin on the opposite side lower ribcage from a high shoulder shot.
http://i124.photobucket.com/albums/p...pshyxnvaah.jpg
The left bullet from the stag and the right was from the boar, had to gut the boar to recover the bullet and its lungs was a mess of blood jelly, no wonder he only went 40m.
http://i124.photobucket.com/albums/p...psqvn0ydic.jpg
Another 6 and a small scrubby 11 pointer.
http://i124.photobucket.com/albums/p...psupqhhnog.jpg
Trip 3
Me and Sig hunting a spot that has a lot of hunting pressure as it has road access, apparently there was 7 4x4s at one of the car parks at Easter weekend. And there has been at least 9 stags shot in there that I know of. We did a power of walking in the 8 days we were hunting high and low, a spotting scope would have been handy. Seen 2 chamois but they were too small and far away. Had plenty of stalking action but nothing I wanted to shot except a sh*t spiker for a feed. All the deer are really skittish from the hunter pressure of the previous weeks. Most of the stag were in the thickest hard to get spots having the best vantage points on predators and leaving the hinds to feed in more open exposed areas. Also culled out 42 goats on the trip and we didn't go out of our way to look for them just the ones on our way to deer.
More human sign than deer, chamois and goat.
http://i124.photobucket.com/albums/p...pszlszqbsh.jpg
We had a camp in the saddle and found a stag with a missing head in there and run into 2 hunters.
http://i124.photobucket.com/albums/p...pspb35zlrl.jpg
Had another camp in the hidden saddle between the mountains and we got 16 goats in this area.
http://i124.photobucket.com/albums/p...ps4cgypgeg.jpg
Most of the deer were at 700m-800m.
http://i124.photobucket.com/albums/p...psihribeh6.jpg
A tired dog resting up.
http://i124.photobucket.com/albums/p...pscic8e5lu.jpg
A late morning start.
http://i124.photobucket.com/albums/p...pspdb2eyu6.jpg
An old fence line in the middle of nowhere.
http://i124.photobucket.com/albums/p...ps0evmfbre.jpg
I was luxury sleeping in a hut for two nights and even had deer feeding at the back of the hut 300m away.
http://i124.photobucket.com/albums/p...psofir7zau.jpg
Was no shortage of goats this trip.
http://i124.photobucket.com/albums/p...psq0vx6cbn.jpg
Sig listening to a stag roaring below us.
http://i124.photobucket.com/albums/p...psb7h4nxqe.jpg
A tired and skinny hound dog after 28 days of hunting.
http://i124.photobucket.com/albums/p...psrrcxvdn8.jpg
The only stag of the trip and not the best antler growth, he had 2 hinds with him.
http://i124.photobucket.com/albums/p...pskzvgrkki.jpg
Its been quite an epic roar this year, had a lot of close action and never had a stag charge in, will need to go to a new spots next year but with a bow maybe.
Roll on roar 2017 only 11 months to go.
