The weekends Chamois adventure
I decided last week I needed to get into the hills for some well overdue R&R. My last trip into the hills was only the weekend before and while it involved a bit of glassing/hunting, it was more of a "cover up" trip I'd organised as part of my plan to propose to my partner of 9 1/2 years. Her sisters joked when we returned back to civilisation a couple of days later to break the good news that "now he has a ring on your finger, you'll never see him!" I thought I might as well take the girls wise advice and bugger off for the weekend regardless of the weather forecast and hit up some of my favourite chamois country.
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I'd promised Scotty a trip after Chamois so made the call and wasn't surprised to hear he was keen as mustard to see some new country as well. As planned he arrived at my house well before day break on Saturday rearing to go. After a couple of hours on the road, we were bouncing up the river flats on our quads, hoping to cut a decent chunk of walking out of accessing our chosen hunting ground. It was clear from the menacing clouds in the mountains that rain was falling heavily in the headwaters, and within a hour or so the river had gone from being easily crossable on the bikes to bloody dangerous. After a few near disasters and both of us getting wet from toes to armpits we parked the bikes up threw our packs on and continued our way on foot.
Early morning crossings were pretty tame, that soon changed;
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We hunted our way steadily up the valley, stopping regularly to glass for any handy animals. It wasn't long before my Swaros picked up movement on the hills above and two yearlings were confirmed.
Recently kicked off their mums, a bit cruel maybe, but that's hunting;
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Because the deer were quite handy I decided try and take one for the freezer. My new Yukon LRS1000 rangefinder, which I won for my roar report, was quickly grabbed from the depths of my pack and the deer were easily ranged at a touch over 600m. We scrambled upstream to a small flat that would bring us within 400m and I set up the 280 over my pack. The tastiest looking deer was soon rolling down the hill towards us and after dealing with it we laid it in the shade and continued walking towards our chosen valley.
Pip claiming the deer she never even knew was there!
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By now it was raining constantly and we considered bailing out on the trip, but with a promising forecast for Sunday we decided to carry on. We hit the bush and pushed our way up through the sopping beech trees and crown fern. We followed the swollen creek up until we hit some nasty windfall and eventually got bluffed. So started the steep grunt up and around the slippery waterfalls, and eventually we hit a decent ridge and made some good progress.
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We had already realised that our plans to reach our hunting grounds in early morning were out of the question and we didn't break into the monkey scrub belt until midday. We weren't too worried though, we'd made it to our planned destination and were soon glassing for animals. We clambered up through the scrub into the tussock and eventually found the perfect camping spot. The weather gods obviously approved of our effort and the rain and sleet stopped long enough for us to pitch our tents and set up a half acceptable camp without getting any wetter.
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Whilst in the process of poking some tent pegs into the ground I was sure I heard the unmistakable sound of a chamois whistling. Being half deaf I asked Scotty if he'd heard it, and he hadn't, so I carried on. Then I heard it again, so grabbed the binos and started searching. Sure enough, my mediocre hearing hadn't let me down and I spotted the culprits in the bluffs above us. There were several young chamois watching us set up camp! The closest one was only 260m away and stayed there the whole time we were mucking about our campsite, hardly bothered about our presence.
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After camp was sorted out we grabbed our hunting gear and headed further up the valley to see what was around the corner. Our clearing weather window was quickly closed though, and visibility reduced to less than 50m. Rain and sleet had turned to snow and the temperature started dropping. Still wet from our river crossings, and with a nasty wind chill, our regular glassing stops became shorter and more difficult. We couldn't see bugger all anyway, so pulled the pin and headed back to our tents for a brew and to change into dry clothes.
The weather wasn't clearing at all and we were both pretty cold, so crawled into our sleeping bags at around 230pm and tried to warm up. At around 930pm the rain finally stopped and all we could hear was the thundering waterfalls around us and the flooded creeks below. Finally warm enough to sleep comfortably both of us snored through the night and at daybreak woke to find everything frozen solid, including the insides of our tents, but with clear blue skies promising a good day.
After a quick feed and cuppa we pulled on our frozen boots and started climbing towards where we'd spotted chamois the afternoon before. With the sun on our backs the place looked totally different, and very inviting!
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Chamois were soon spotted in amongst the bluff system above and we watched them intently, looking for one of trophy stature. One buck caught our eye and before we could really get a good look at him he moved away into a gut we could not see. We waited patiently, glassing strategically, hoping for him to show him self again. My Yukon rangefinder easily confirmed his last known position at 393m, and I started getting organised for a shot in case he returned. Scotty ranged the gap with his Leica Geovids, getting a reading of 386m, and gave me a bit of stick about my "tin-arse" rangefinder. So I ranged Scotty at 7m in front of me and he did the maths and shut up ;D
The wee Yukon 1000 performed flawlessly on this trip and readings were instant well over it's "max" range of 1000m. Highly recommend these units. Special thanks to Ant, Yukon_NZ;
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While we waited we glassed several more animals all a bit young or of the wrong sex for shooting, so soaked in the sun and enjoyed watching them. It was interesting watching their behaviour. They clearly enjoyed the sun as much as we did and bounced around the rocks, precariously dancing on top of sheer bluffs and steep guts.
One young buck was obviously reaching the stage where he was trying to strut his stuff amongst the group, chasing the others around and bullying the youngest ones while they grazed. That was until a larger buck came out and stamped that behaviour on the head with a good shove down the mountain side!
These chamois provided us with a couple hours of entertainment;
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We eventually decided that the bigger buck we were keen on had given us the slip, so wandered back to camp and packed up. Several hours later we'd picked up our deer, and made it back to our bikes. Scotty's older bike cranked right up, but my newer one with computers and electrical plugs had obviously got a bit wet during the river crossings and wouldn't start. I parked it in the sun for a while, pulled every plug I could and checked for moisture, then after an hour or so of mucking about it fired up and ran perfectly. Bloody technology!
Thankfully the river and side creeks had dropped back to normal flow during the day and we had no other dramas getting out, other than me getting a nail through my tyre and having to ride the last few kms on a fast deflating tyre! The wee mission was far from the R&R I'd planned, but sh*t it was good fun :D
Cheers
JoshC :)
