Thread: Tag team tripple TTT

Well me and @Ryan_Songhurst have been trying to tee up a hunt together for a while and for whatever reason one thing or another life just got in the way.
Finally last week the planets aligned the spouses agreed and we both had days off.....it was on
I have been upgrading my gear for a few months in preparation for this trip so it was to be a bit of a field test as well more on that later.
Packed all my gear on Thursday morning and set off down south at around 3:30pm
It was the longest day ever waiting for the babysitter to get here so I could hit the road for a 6hr drive to Ryan's

I only took 1 picture on the way down as I was keen to do as much of the trip in daylight as possible due to being unfamiliar with the roads and my night vision being a bit average.
This is Lake Pukaki near Tekapo, I opened the car window literally for 30 seconds to take this pic and got nailed by a bloody sand fly....that was the last time I opened the window for the entire trip



Got to Ryans late-ish around 10pm Thursday evening we stayed up till nearly midnight not sure which side of midnight we actually went to bed but it was late and we had an early start the next day.
We had allowed for 2 full days hunting on a neighbouring property with some very hilly tops with quite a few nice looking scrubby guts.
I have to say I owe Ryan a huge debt of gratitude for his organising of this, the access was good and there were plenty of animals around.

The hills in the far distance on the right is where we spent our time hunting not a great picture but only had phone camera with me.

So first light were up onto the tops and at our first glassing stop, within minutes Ryan had spotted a lone fallow doe, after which it took me a further 5 minutes to see it with Ryan trying to guide my binos onto it.
The gut we were glassing was incredibly thick with scrub and matagouri and the wind was not in our favour so after the doe hot up walked 6 steps and disappeared we decided to look for more favourable guts more sheltered from the constant and at times quite strong wind.
I watched as a lone kereru flew over just before we left and thought, shit ten minutes and we've seen our first deer we are in for a bloody good day.
Little did know at the time.... I was right.

We made our way along the top ridgeline some distance and popped over the other side do the wind would be in our favour.
We settled on a valley that had 2 ridges in front of us where 2 valleys met and became one kinda like a "y" shape so we had a face reasonably close in front of us say around 600 yards then another face rising up behind it starting at around 8-900 yards before they both joined and become one.
There wasn't much innthe wsy of cover on the close face apart from some very sparce matagouri but with the wind blowing towards us it would be sheltered, the far face had more cover but still plenty of open grassy areas full of good deer tucker.
Me and Ryan sat about 50 meters apart and set about glassing.
Now I don't know about anyone else but when I'm looking for animals, I usually start looking in the worst, hardest steepest and furtherest away spots as Murphys law often dictates that's where they will be.
For whatever reason after a quick scan without my binos looking for anything obvious moving around. I decided to glass the close face first more or less to discount it as there was bugger all cover so it would be easy to quickly glass it then spend some quality time glasding the much bigger face behind it that was now starting to get the morning sun on it.
Literally put my binos up to my eyes and I couldn't believe it, I was looking at 2 fallow spikers bedded up on a dirt flat below the only clump of matagouri on the whole face. A quick range put them at 600ish yards and very much down hill almost at the very bottom of the gut.
I whistled quietly to Ryan to come confirm my sighting but he didn't hear me, not wanting to make anymore noise I crept up to where he was and suggested he might want to come look where I was glassing.

Ryan came down and I said to him "look straight over the top of thst rise in front of us on the opposite face below the matagouri there sre 2 deer bedded up"......

"Where there's no deer there"

My heart sank I checked my binos again thinking maybe they had gapped it....nope still there and hadn't moved.
After trying to explain where they were for another minute I now knew how Ryan must have felt earlier trying to point out the deer he spotted to me.
It then became obvious Ryan was looking at the far face not the close face, sure enough he confirmed 2 spikers bedded up.
We made a plan to drop down our side and use the contour to stay out of site till there was a small flat below us we could pop up over to get a much closer shot.
Whilst the 270wsm would be more than capable of a 600 yard shot, why risk it if I don't have to ?

We crept quietly but with some haste down to the flat where we had decided to shoot from crawling on our bellies the last few yards to stay out of sight.
Got the binos out and confirmed 2 spikers still where they were when we last saw them.....both fast asleep
Set the sako a7 270wsm up on Ryans Molly me pack chambered a round and discussed with Ryan about which one to shoot.
Neither were ideal as the way they curl their head back over their shoulder when they sleep makes it hard to judge a good chest shot.
The closer one was selected and Ryan said just shoot it in the neck, a thought that never occurred to me....but when he said it I thought why not my rifle is laser accurate I've spent alot of time doing load developement to make sure it is, why not ?
A quick range check and ideal 150 yards to the close one and 157 to the far one.
I told Ryan I was ready and to block his ears as the braked WSM barks with quite some authority.
I steadyied myself took a breath in and slowly exhaled till the reticle was perfectly where I wanted it......FUCKING BOOMFA !!!!!!!!
The fallow never moved apart from it's head slumping forward.
Then Ryan taps me on my shoulder and says quick the other one is still there shoot it ! Shoot it !
Sure enough I look through the scope and the other spiker had lifted his head to see what the fuss was about, looked over at his mate who hadn't moved then put his head back down.
I was shocked I couldn't believe what I was seeing.....quickly I chambered another round lined up on the neck of the second spiker and let her rip again BOOMFA !!!!! the spikers head slumped he never moved again either.
2 down barely an hour into our morning after high fives and fist bumps we made our way down the gut and over the other side to inspect our prizes.

Originally Posted by berg243

nice , now rest of story.

Yeah sorry Been called out, there's still plenty more to come when I get back home

Cripes, the suspense.

Right time for a few pics



The spiker on the right the bullet hit the base of the neck and somehow missed the guts and exited the hole you see in the side, it was facing pretty much front on to me.
The second was a through and through neck shot just up from the base of the neck.
Both perfect as far as my point of aim was concerned.

I managed to recover the slug from the dirt behind the further away spiker which is cool as I like to see how my rounds perform at different ranges.
I was a little concerned my WSM might be a bit much so close but I was pleasantly supprised. I also got to christen my Jack knife which I've been saving to use on a deer





I said to Ryan before we headed out that I wanted to shoot an animal uphill from me so for once I could have an easier recovery.....as you can see that didn't quite pan out





As you can see it looks like I'm backpacking out a large possum, I assure you it's actually a decent sized spiker I'm just a giant at 6'8"

After a few rests on the way up.....okay okay Ryan maybe 4 rests including 1 at less than 20m from the top of the ridge.
We debriefed about how it had gone.
We both agreed it couldn't have gone much better, we sat and watched a few hares running around for a bit then I checked the spare rounds I had in my pocket.....my lip dropped and I suddenly realised I had been extremely lucky.
The sako a7 holds 3 rounds in the mag, I had 3 exta rounds in my pocket I inspected them before putting them back in my pack and one had no primer (clearly one I loaded too late at night or distracted by family life) valuable lesson learned always always always check your ammo then double check it.
I hate to think what could have happened if I had needed a follow up on the second spiker and that was the round I had chambered.





We weren't gonna include that but hell it may help someone so why not ?

Excellent story! Good on you for holding out to use your Jack the knife on deer �� I had a similar thought then decided - screw it, it's too nice not to use all the time! First time was some wallabies for the hounds, though we got lucky on the next trip and nailed some wild pork. Happy days!

Good work on the shooting too - it's satisfying when you reap the rewards of your efforts to load better ammo and learn the finer points of accurate shooting.

Always nice when it all comes together.

I was coming off the island and cruising up the country, got a call.... can you bring a chilly bin and some ice! Think there must be a backsteak tax involved here somewhere.

He also hasnt mentioned popping his jimmys pie cheery in Roxborough, followed by a quick trip to catch the fairlie bakehouse before it closed....

After the mornings success, we cruised the tops for a bit cursing the wind as it was not in our favour in a lot of faces we would have liked to hunt, we bumped a group of nice looking bucks which was cool to watch (we were on a promise not to shoot bucks at this time of year with the land owner).
We managed to spot a group of deer feeding down a face 2 ridges away from us and they were being pretty static working slowly down hill whilst staying out in the open.
We decided to see if we could put a sneak on and get within shooting range.
We got to the ridge opposite the deer and ranged them at over 900 yards..... to far for us especially with the wind constantly shifting.
We looked at what would be required to get closer and it was gonna be a long steep walk but the contours looked promising enough to kep us hidden, so we went ultra light 1 rifle, 1 knife, 1 set of binos and a range finder.
We set off down hill at a steady pace keeping out of sight from the mob, we quickly closed 300 yards on them and stopped to check what they were up to, it wasn't great something was spooking them they weren't looking so calm and were starting to get jittery every cloud that blew over bringing them in and out of shadow seemed to put the shits up them, every gust of wind seemed to put them on edge and then just like that they were gone melting into the matagouri they had been skirting.
We were skunked, we slowly came to terms with that and decided even though we knew where they were roughly with the wind constantly changing it wasn't worth the effort of trying to chase them any further. We slowly made our way back up the ridge tails between our legs but confident there would be better opportunities on a more sheltered face.
Once back with our gear we decided to hunker down out of the wind for a brew and re group for an afternoon hunt so Ryan could christen his new Bergara.
Nothing like a hot cuppa to clear the head, we were feeling re charged and ready to go.

We decided to set up camp before heading out for our afternoon hunt as if we were successful who knows what time we would be back.
We dropped down from the topps and set up camp somewhat sheltered but not completely.



We grabbed our rifles and binos and set off making ourway around the base of a face we knew held deer late in the day.
It was quite different stalking down low knowing the deer were above us the wind was in our favour and after about 40 minutes at reasonable pace we finally made it to the bottom of the face we wanted to hunt.
There were a couple ridges that worked in our favour and we carefully stalked our way up I agreed to stay a good 12 paces behind Ryan so as to lessen the chance of spooking any animals.
Then all of a sudden Ryan hit the deck as he neared the crest of a ridge.
I waited a minute to see if he was going to chamber a round a shoot, but no.
I belly crawled my way up and Ryan pointed ou a white doe feeding up on the face we were heading for.
We were also on a promise not to shoot white fallow, but we knew where there were white fallow there was definitely going to be dark fallow in tow.
We sat and watched and waited, even though there wasn't a lot of cover there was certainly enough to hide a few deer.
Ryan decided to follow the contour up to see if he could spot a few more deer from a higher elevated position.
I decided to wait where I was to reduce the risk of being skunked again.
I could just see Ryan set up at the top of the ridge only maybe 50 meters away, pressed flat to the ground, rifle set up in front and binos fixed to his face.
The wind was fair blowing but at least it was in our direction, after what seemed like an eternity the suppressed bergara let out a dull thwack, followed by the un mistakable sound of a solid hit.
I couldn't see the deer he shot from where I was but I was confident he had hit it well.
I made my way up to Ryan and we celebrated for the second time that day.
He pointed out the dead doe which he had sacked in high wind at 360 yards, she had cartwheeled down hill and was now a leasurely 300 yard stroll across to recover.
It was then we both saw deer start to emerge first 1 then 2,3,5,6 all up I counted 28 deer as they all came out of cover and high tailed it out of there an amazing sight to see so many that had been hidden by so little cover.
We got over to her in a couple minutes and it became very obvious why the deer were on that face, no wind at all....all that time we had been sitting glassing from the opposite ridge being blasted by a vold eind an this face was completely still only 300 yards away.
Ryan walked up thanked the deer whilst stroking her neck and promising her we would make good use of her (a noble gesture in my books).
We took a couple pics, Ryan field dressed her then backpacked her and we made our way back to camp.





So Ryan got his down hill recovery and what looked like a possum on my back looked much more impressive on his back.

We made our way to camp getting there just as the heavens opened up.
We stashed the deer with the 2 I shot earlier and went about making coffees and revisiting the highlights of the day.
We were both pretty tired but satisfied.
We heated up our dinners and delighted in having desert as well mine in the form of chocolate and Ryan's in yoghurt.
We also were a little sad as we had more than enough venison so there would be no hunting tomorrow.
We hunkered down for a cold windy and rainy night knowing we would be heading out in the morning to process our spoils.

Back at the Songhurst Chalet We set up a gamble in Ryans garage.
Ryan made short work quatering out 3 deer I mostly just trimmed out any shot meat and packed the cuts in the chilly bin.