Big Game Hunting New Zealand Jul/Aug 2015 | Page 30

the owner of the half-hearted
roars we heard a few days
ago. Bush hunting in Fiordland
is next level.. the tangles, the
steepness and the wet make it
all very frustrating at times. But
amongst that frustration I realise
I am thoroughly enjoying myself.
While climbing over some moss
covered logs a long cross bred
sounding roar broke the silence
on the face opposite us. I pulled
on the face mask and we snuck
in. With camera in hand I got the
stag all wound up with grunts
and roars in reply to mine. Ten
minutes went pass before I
picked him up moving his way
through the jungle towards us.

Steve with dinner

range and head down into the bush with the
intentions to hunt our way back down the valley.
Going was reasonable and we made good
time with animal sign in the main valley looking
promising but still no roars heard.
We watched a red spiker, oddly still in velvet
get a guts full of grass off a slip without a worry
in the world. The day was getting on and the
weather hadn’t hit us yet so we set up camp
half a k above Lake Katherine. Clay and I
climbed up high above camp and glassed down
on the paddocks at the head of the lake for last
light. A nice creamy wap cow and calf strutted
out into the scrub before getting wind of us or
our camp and departing. It wasn’t long before
crawling into the scratcher that the first rain
drops started.

30 BGHNZ Issue 7 Jul/Aug 2015

DAY 3

Day three dawned as expected with
persistent rain on the tent so with a quick
brekkie we packed up for the 3 hour walk
back to the hut. The first roars were heard
as we dropped down below the lake from an
animal up in the bush on the Nita faces. He
was very half hearted so we decided to leave
him and continue to the hut with the intention
of paying him a visit in a couple of days. On
arriving at the hut we met one of the other party
of three who we were sharing the block with.
He had a rather uneventful few days also but
was a little worried as his buddies were slightly
overdue being back at the hut.
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DAY 4

The next day was also a wet one so without
hesitation we called it a hut day and made
plans to sneak out for a blue cod fish in the
afternoon. We were lucky enough to have a
cray boat driver drop off the mate Scottys wee
tinny for us at the hut, along with the outboard
we flew in, it made great transport around
George Sound. Scotty insisted we call the
boat the “HMS Cave” as he comes from a hole
called Cave but the guys that dropped it off
nick named it “The Widow Maker”…. Catching
a feed of blue cod was no trouble at all with
hook ups as soon as the sinker hit the bottom
and some of the biggest boff headed blue cod I
have ever seen. We ate well that night!

DAY 5

Day 5 had Clay
and I heading
back up towards Lake Katherine to look for
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He proceeded to give a tree
a bit of a tong while keeping
an eye out for the intruder.
After I realised he was just
a young animal I made my
presence known to him with a
few more grunts with the hope
of him getting stirred up. He
stood watching for what seemed like a long
time before disappearing back in amongst his
girlfriends. One of which was standing there
watching us through the whole ordeal.

“a long cross bred sounding
roar broke the silence”
The remainder of the walk was uneventful
until we heard the Southern Lakes chopper
land back at our hut.. This caused my heart
to sink after being a roar trip 2 years ago and
having a chopper land at camp and give bad
news to my hunting mate. Clay and I raced as
quickly as the Fiordland bush would let us back
down to the hut to see the squirrel with the long
line on winching the other party out of a steep
creek across the sound. The guys had got
themselves bluffed two nights before and one
of them rolled his ankle trying to get down. They
felt the safest option was to be air lifted out and
to cut their Fiordland adventure short. This for
us meant that