Tussockland mission

I had been fizzing for the Canterbury Show Day long weekend with a multi-day trip planned to the Lewis Pass. A week out with increasing dismay I watched the forecast get worse by the day until a couple of sleeps out the decision was made to pull the plug.

Keen to at least salvage something from the weekend I scrolled through my list of to-do spots and managed to find a mid-Canterbury sport that had a fairly good forecast with only a few showers on the Saturday night.

Loaded up the pack and the 7mm Rem Mag and hit the hill around 2pm with a loose plan to walk in three hours to the first hut and either stay there or fly camp up one of the side valleys. The 26 degree weather made for a hot slog up to the first saddle though pasture and grey scrub. Plenty of hares but surprised to see no other sign in what looked like very deery country.

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Crested the saddle to see massive open tussock county with not a tree to be seen. I decided to cut across to the far side of the valley away from the track. Glassed my way across several steep streams that tracked up to high tussock plateaus before giving way to steep scree and rocks. The tall snowgrass was split by boggy areas of waist high red tussock and eroded ridges that made for a welcome sections of stable ground.

Despite my best efforts glassing the only sign of game was a well decomposed but decent sized pig lying in one of the small guts. With evening coming on and a few showers passing through decided to head down the valley towards the hut starting to wonder if this might end up being armed tramp.

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A growly sounding thunder storm rolling over behind me made staying hut look like a good option. It was a tidy wee three bed place and empty so unpacked, had a cuppa and watched the storm front pass just south. Seeing as it looked like the weather might have bypassed me decided to use the last couple of hours of light to check out some of the steep side valleys up behind the hut.

After a few more steep kms walk was still not seeing any sign except some old rooting and dry hare droppings. Was well into the ‘deer-o’clock’ time and nothing was moving so really starting to doubt there were many animals round - too accessible? Too much traffic on the main track? Country to hard?.

Decided to push up to one more bend in the creek and despite finding a nice steep sided valley bottom with with decent grass and some scrub and dead wilding pines for cover no animals. Checked the gps - 20 odd km and no animals.

After 15m more glassing I figured I might as well be somewhat productive so dropped gun and pack to pull some of the many pine seedlings that had popped up since the first round of control. Felt good to be bagging something but after a dozen seedling movement across the gully caught my eye.

A young stag had stepped out a tiny cluster of dead pines branches at 140m and spotted me in full view. I froze cursing my luck but with wind in my favour he wasn’t quite sure what he was looking at. Not sure how the little bugger had even fit into the small tangle of cover!

He paused for just a couple of seconds before deciding something wasn’t right and started to boot it up the hill back to cover. I quickly grabbed the rifle from were I had put it while I did the weed control. Loaded and managed to get the crosshairs on a shoulder when he slowed on a particularly steep section. The 162gr SST dropped him on the spot and he rolled down almost to the creek before being hooked up on a pine log.
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After a wee happy dance that I had managed to find apparently the only deer in the catchment! I half walked half slid down, crossed the creek, pushed up through some scrub and untangled the deer to process. Guessing around 2, he was fairly small bodied and not carrying much fat yet.

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Dressed him out, loaded up and grunted my way up out of the valley and back down to the main track. Despite the now chill wind I was certainly loosing some gravy and was relieved to see the hut in the gloom just on last light. Hard yakka for one scrawny animal - gps was now showing around 24kms so well ready for a feed and bunk.

Was a bit dumbfounded to crest the edge of the little river terrace that concealed the hut and not 50 m from the hut a hind and yearling bolted up out of the valley. I nearly got carried away and just about took a shot when they stopped at 300m for a few seconds but the low light and the thought of potentially hauling another animal out tomorrow gave me a moment of sensibility and I let them trot over the ridge. Hadn’t seen any sign at all when I tracked up this creek earlier and being right on a really busy tramping and mtb route pretty ballsy for them to be grazing there but good reminder that sometimes you don’t need to do the hard yakka if you can hunt smart and be patient enough.

Settled in for a quiet night and decided to to get up and away at first light to beat the heat. Back to the car and home by noon. Nice to see some new country and cool to find some animals in what seemed initially like a pretty barren landscape.

Nice wee spiker, he is last years born so almost 1 yr old. His spikes have hair over the top showing he is nearly one, whereas a two year old will have cast his previous spikes and have a healed / scabbed start to the new antlers

great stuff,the exercise will do you some good and the venison should be primo eating.... deer 50 yards from hut..that is a crack up

Nice one. Hard country for the deer looking at the feed options.

Good walk n photos Jake,enjoy your well earned venision.

Cool story and photos. Tough looking country. Thanks for sharing!

Plenty of Km's but you got your reward, now to enjoy the venison.

Great yarn. Great outcome! 👍

Few yrs ago i walked up a north canterbury river valley,24ks return.Seen no deer up valley but seen 2 yearlings about 400yds from truck that morning when i parked up.Sleeped in the truck that night on return,next morning as i drove out it was raining,seen hind and yearling and 2 stags all inside 400yds from truck.I had no dry cloths spare and i wasnt going to get soaking wet either.It doesnt pay to do long walks sometimes,just glass from yr parked truck or hut.