A series of poor decisions.
Took a long weekend last weekend with a mate and headed into a well known Ruahine catchment for a look around.
I’d had my eye on a big slip system not too far off a main track for a while and had seen deer on it in the past but had never bothered to investigate it more closely.
The walk in was ok but the previous couple of days of wet weather had put the water level up a bit so that made it a little more difficult to get in.
Arrived at the hut around 2pm, with the view of walking up into the slip system from the bottom as the wind swung downhill in the late afternoon. Thinking it would be a nice easy hunt, I elected not to take food or water, thinking I could just drink out of the creek if i was thirsty. Mistake number 1.
We went up the creek before hitting a fork. We agreed to meet back there after dark and so with one of us taking a fork each I set off up my chosen creek.
The dog was indicating a fair bit as we went up and I saw the object of his interest at 700 yards high on the main slip I intended to visit. It was a stag feeding his heart out. 700 yards was a bit far for me so we managed to sneak into 320 yards , with nowhere further to go. For my shortened 7mm08 shooting factory 140 grain ammo this was about the limit I was ok with shooting.
The stag was high in a gutter at the top of the slip, and it was a steep angle to shoot.
Setting myself up and checking my drop chart, I aimed where I needed to and fired. I heard the thump of a hit but the stag ran down towards another stag I hadn’t seen. I got a bit muddled as they crossed the top of the gutter and headed into the leatherwood so couldn’t get another shot off.
Well. Looks like I have to go find it. As the dog and I approached the base of the gutter the dog found his way up into tussock without much effort. I thought well, I’ll just go where he went. Mistake number 2.
The gutter began to get steeper as I climbed, and hand and footholds were getting hard to find. I looked down to see a 20 m or so drop below me....and no way to get down the way I came up without risk of falling.
I looked above me and there didn’t look to be any way up to where my dog was sitting waiting for me.
I checked my belt for my PLB to see if I had put it on.....I hadn’t and it was sitting in my pikau uselessly. Mistake number 3.
I started to get pretty scared at this point. It was getting dark soon, my PLB wasn’t handy and I really thought I was going to arse up and get badly hurt.
I clung to this vertical rock face, essentially freaking out before realising I had to at least try to move.
A terrifying length of time later and I had shimmied across this slip face to within a metre of where the dog sat whining in concern for me. I took my gun off my shoulder with my one free hand and threw it into the tussock, then leapt across to the dog as the entire face collapsed behind me..
I’d never been so happy to feel tussock in my life and I took a minute to get my shit together before going to the point where the deer entered the leatherwood.
I looked out to where the two stags had been feeding and realised there was no way I was going to tempt fate twice by checking the face for blood. At the entry point I found no blood, just an extreme smell of deer and a lot of fine belly hair.
Not good.
The dog started to work, and we crawled into the leatherwood with darkness rapidly approaching.
A few m later, the dog locked up, and I could see the stag looking at the dog. I went to load a round, only to realise nothing was in the magazine from when I climbed up the slip. Mistake number 4. I grabbed a round from my bino harness and fed into the chamber with shaking hands..dropping the bullet into the leatherwood litter.
The stag had had quite enough and escaped further into the leatherwood.....and to my disappointment he’d ran into a mob that were further in. By this time it was very near dark and the dog had too much scent in his nose to work the one track I wanted him to work. There was no way I was coming back down to the creek, but the main track along the main range was 70 m away. So we set to crawling through leatherwood on our bellies and 45 minutes later, I’m standing on the main track.
But I’m extremely thirsty and hungry at this point. The hut is 2 hrs away, and my mate is supposed to be waiting down at the fork for me. I knew he wouldn’t have gone back to the hut unless I was well overdue.
I mull over my options. The wind has gotten up as it tends to do there, and I’m not overly well equipped for a night out. Theres no water handy without crawling into the leatherwood for a long way and so the only option is to walk zombie like back to the hut via the main range and the track down to the hut.
2 hrs later I arrive at the hut, absolutely stuffed. My mates nowhere to be seen. So I ditch all my gear, have a snack and drink and walk up the creek to find my mate. I’m about 100 metres off the fork when I see him coming back down.
“You better have a good story for me!” says my mate.
“Fuck” I sigh “ I sure do”
I never found the deer in the end, and only saw one more for the trip.
A few lessons learned. Have a PLB as handy as you can get it. You never know when you’ll need it. Bring food and water, even if you think it’s going to be a short walk. Assess your route in the steep shit as it’s easier to climb then descend. Dogs are far more nimble than us. And the big one, no deer is worth your life!
