I've had a couple lucky weekends hunting in November. Heavy on the luck, and light on the hunting.
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Saturday 11th Nov I headed out into the Lewis Pass region to try secure a deer for a our workplace MoBro's fundraiser BBQ happening next week. Rather than serve up terrible pre-cooked sangers I offered to try get a deer so we could serve up some decent sausages and hopefully raise more monies for Movember.
Saturday morning I was 'super disciplined' and slept in then headed to the cafe with the Mrs for a lazy brunch where I 'fuelled up' on a big breakie and donuts. Several hours later I arrived in Lewis Pass in the early afternoon, with not much time left to reach the tops as I had hoped for. I headed off, fording a river and 30min into the walk I couldn't shake the feeling that something was wrong. Then it hit me! My rifle was still in the car, safety locked up and hidden in the backseat! So back I went, across the river and got the essential item. Now I was very short on time. I headed to the ridgeline I wanted to go up - a new route for me - and after 130m of vertical climb I realised the ridge was far too step to be safe coming down with a heavy pack, and there were unlikely to be enough hours of light left to reach the tops.
I turned around and headed up the valley floor, hoping for a spiker out on the grass flats. A couple hours later I reached a hut and took a short break. I headed up to a good glassing point, a short ten minute walk up the valley. Not five minutes after arriving at the glassing spot, and looking out across the valley I lower my bino's and 65m to my left is a spiker staring at me! I froze and luckily it went back to eating. It was a easy shot and the spiker dropped on the spot. Feeling chuffed but shocked I dragged the deer to a tree, gutted it and hung it up to set overnight. I spent the last 30 minutes of light glassing, but seeing nothing headed back to the hut.
The next morning I was up early, hoping for a second deer for myself, since the spiker was for the fundraiser. Only 500m up the valley I came across a couple hunters, who told me there was also another group another 800m up. I decided to call it then and returned to my hanging deer to butcher it for the carry out.
Seeing no deer aside from the spiker and there being lots of hunters disturbing that valley hammered in how lucky I had been to turn the improbability of a lazy late start, left behind rifle, route change, busy valley hunt into a success. But I'm thankful and so is our Fundraiser team, who now have 200 prime sausages to fry up next week!
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Next weekend, Friday 17th Nov. Myself and the Mrs set-off for one or her first "proper overnight hikes to a hut." I'd filled my pack to the brim with snacks, wine, coke can's, warm clothes, books, games, you name it to make it a good first experience for her and we left Christchurch early for a South Canterbury valley, with a relatively easy valley flat 10km hike into the hut. Arriving around midday we enjoyed the perfect timing as within 30 minutes of arriving at the hut it started to rain and the Mrs was able to enjoy the dryness of the hut and her crackers, cheese, salami and river cooled coke can. Then we put in some serious work and napped for a good three hours and passed the afternoon happily reading and eating the ridiculously large amount of food I'd carried in.
The evening presented average hunting conditions with the wind blowing in the direction of travel, up the valley I wanted to hunt, and clag rolling in and out. Nonetheless I'd brought my rifle and after a wheel of camembert cheese, a pack of crackers, a bag of liquorice sticks, and a few other "wee treats" I had more than enough energy to go for a wander.
I headed off with just the dog for company and only a short 1.5km up the valley I spotted a mob of five bull tahr 200m up the valley wall. They had seen me, but seemed pretty content to keep grazing so I had all the time in the world to setup for a nice stable shot. In the dying light it looked like one of the tahr was maybe a trophy, but I wasn't sure and rather than kill an animal with potential I aimed for the tahr that was presenting a perfect broadside shot, and shot it clean through both lungs and the heart (confirmed later when gutting). The rest of the mob shot off and my now very dead tahr was thankfully rolling down a scree slope towards me. I had just shot my first tahr!
Stoked with getting my first tahr and more meat for the freezer I gutted the animal, and back-packed it back to the hut, arriving in the dark. After hanging up the tahr in a tree the Mrs made me strip off and have a freezing bath in the river - the tahr had bloodied all down my my back, crack and... well you get it.
The next day I cut the tahr up to carry out, and was surprised that it yielded more meat than the spiker. They are bigger than I realised! The hike out was pretty uneventful, with a perfect wind blowing to keep us cool and still plenty of treats to keep the morale up. We enjoyed a good yarn with a older gentlemen who had been hunting the area for over 40 years. A side note: I've had the luck of bumping into a few of these older gents on hunts and they are always super friendly to talk to and share their knowledge without holding anything back, with I think is incredibly generous.
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So I've had two successful hunts this November. But both kills should really be put down to luck rather than skill or hard effort. Still, it pays to be where the animals are and I'm grateful to be able to support fundraising for Movember and put some more meat in the freezer for my family.
Onward.
