Thread: Spring road trip

Well it was about time to do a serious hunting mission, Uni was done, had a job lined up and needed to move all my crap down to christchurch.

It started at 3.30am Sunday morning, in north waikato. Plan was to partially load the car up and pick up the rest of my gear on the way past my flat in wellington, i had a mate who was going to be at my place at 3.45am, he assured me. Thought i would give him a friendly call at 3.30 just to make sure he was nearly here as we had a ferry to catch, "huh, what, oh must of slept through my alarm" was the response i got, e was coming down from waiuku so that put us an hour behind from the get-go to make things a bit more entertaining for myself, when he arrived he had forgotten his sleeping bag so i had the pleasure of lending him one of our old brewed up scungy things

Got to down wellington just in time for the ferry, could literally not get another item in the car, had to leave my printer behind, note window open to allow gun safe to fit


Got over the straight with no issues this time until we got our first flatty in blenheim, quick empty of the boot and spare on and we were off. Got to Christchurch at 10pm Sunday night and it was a quick move into the new flat....

On our way at 4.00am the next morning over to the west cost for a fly in trip, had another mate coming up from gore and he got a bit delayed at the hasst as it didnt open until 7.30am, suited us as we could delay the chopper by an hour and buy a bit of shit we forgot in Hokitika.

At the pickup point and ready to fly in at 10am.


Got up the hill quick fast on a mint west coast day



Wasnt long before us rookie tahr hunters were onto our first animals, John, the only one to have ever hunted them before soon had us some meat on the ground and his best tahr yet, all be it, not that long.


We saw some decent numbers and had some awesome on the first few days, on the second day it was me and myles turn to shoot and we located two decent bulls up in the bluffs, the geovids said 520yards so i proceded to dial in the required elevation and windage and settled in on the larger bull, he was hit hard and ended up falling down into some bluffy shit, quick gun change and re-range and myles had the other bull on the ground, and then the fun began, recovery was going to be difficult at best but we were quite determined, ended up taking us a good few hours through some steep as fark stuff to only get bluffed just before them, shit happens.


Wednesday rolled around and the weather looked a bit ominous, anyway we were off and soon located 5-6 bulls spread out in the scrub, since i located them i had the pick of the animals. Before any shots were taken i wanted to make dam sure recovery was going to happen so we scouted for a long time and decided it as do-able. I picked out the biggest looking animal and at a range of 430 the 168AMAX, AMAX'D him. Dropped on the spot. The other bulls loitered and with two quick gun changes we all had a bull on the ground. It took 3 hours of hurt and near death experiences to finally get over to them.

Got to Johns first

Then a bit further up we found myles, he looked pretty impressive and was a bloody monster of an animal. Myles was stoked with his first recovered animal after not been able to get to our bulls the day before.


Just above his we found my bull, and i did a quick assessment of the horns and they looked good enough to me! was also quite stoked with my first Bull.



Ended up going a shade under 12.5 but was impressively bulky, scores roughly 43 1/2 DS

Capped him out and we were off on the long slog back to camp


By this time the weather had packed in a bit and it was cold up on the ridge, only 20mins from camp


Was pretty happy getting back to camp and have a brew

Few random photos






A few nannies got taken for meat


On the thursday the weather packed in and we didnt get out of the tent.

Due out friday morning and it was a stunner of a day, woke up and a mob of nannies were opposite us at 277 yards. got seated behind the rifle and polaxed one last animal for a bit of handy fresh meat out the tent. thought i would get a photo of it with a blaser to get dave all hot and steamy


Awesome trip and wicked first tahr hunt, dropped my bull of at the taxidermist today and sent away quite a few skins to get done also, not to mention the heap of meat we got!

We got on our way but still had a clay target shoot to attend in Balfour (dont ask) got another flat tyre just before queenstown and hadnt got the first fixed so i was off hitch hiking. took 3 cars and the 4th stopped, must have been doing something right!


Trouble wasnt over and we got another flatty on the SUnday, lucky AA to the rescue, if you no where balfour is you would no it would be hard to get a tyre fixed on sunday...


Picked up this beast on the way back form christchurch and the trip was over, until next time

Bloody hell good to be young and silly, shit you covered some ground, excellent trip, good result, and enjoyed the read, thanks

Oh and for a uni student, looking at the last photo you've got to much coin

Fecking Fantastic!!!!

Originally Posted by Maca49

Oh and for a uni student, looking at the last photo you've got to much coin

you should see my student loan.....

after sydney on saturday im going to be well broke and looking forward to my first pay cheque....

Holy shit slow down, you'll burn yourself out

Good to meet you the other day. What an awesome trip, that is an fantastic looking bull you got.

Gob smacked (dunno what to say)

What an adventure and a journey you will treasure for the rest of your life,well done.

A bloody first! Well done Perazzi!

I mean DD

Originally Posted by Maca49

Oh and for a uni student, looking at the last photo you've got to much coin

Well he skimped on the car with a beemer.

Great report.

Extremely deep pockets running a BMW ( broke my wallet) all round NZ

Nice Bull, what cal is the Blaser?

the blaser is a dirty old 270 (not mine)

I was using a 300wsm

Mint