Big Game Hunting New Zealand Jul/Aug 2015 | Page 4

UN

H

G

N
TI

“A huge bellow
floated up from
the big gully
below”
big gully below; if this was an
advertisement then we were
sure buying into it!

PRIME TIME

I

RED STAGS

f you’re going to climb a
mountain with a pack full of
gear you might as well make
the most of the day light
while you’re up there.

We reckoned that doing most of our hiking
through the boring bits in the dark would
give us more “prime time” in the better
locations. We know the lay of the land up
there so head lamps and a little help from the
satellites would get us around OK.
Climbing the big spur with a heavy pack in the
4 BGHNZ Issue 7 Jul/Aug 2015

WRITTEN BY - SHAUN MONK

dark was surprisingly pleasant, being nice and
cool and also blinding our ability to see how
much further it was to the top. There was plenty
of enthusiasm in the legs, because we were
heading into some fantastic Canterbury red
stag country in what should be the peak of the
rut, late March.
Our team of four hit the top saddle just as
daylight poked through, we sidled around
to a vantage point dropped our packs and
pulled out the bino’s. We hadn’t been there
3 minutes when we heard the first stag roar for
the season! A huge bellow floated up from the
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Jonny and myself won
the rock, paper, scissors
and planned a direct line
approach while TJ and
Gareth checked another
gully. The area we’d heard the
stag roar was a mix of open
tussock and scree with beech
forest down below intertwined with low scrub
on the sunny faces and grassy clearings in
the creek bed. Wild pig country would be the
best description. Jonny and I left our packs
up high and dropped down a clear face to get
low fast because the downhill breeze wasn’t
that good for us and we hoped to cut around
under the stag if possible. It kind of worked
out OK, although I thought we’d spooked them
and made a hash of it! A small mob of hinds
appeared on the face opposite us running up
the valley looking all freaked out. I gave out a
roar and got an instant reply from just behind
the hinds. We saw him pop out of the bush and
trot along the same trail the girls had taken. His
throat was swollen and he’d been wallowing,
this stag was in rut mode and looked like he
had just one thing in mind. He galloped across
in front of us only 100 meters away and when I
gave another roar he skidded to a halt, looked
over and let out another bellow. The stag then
proceeded to scrap the ground with his antlers
while dousing his own belly and neck with pizel
squirts. He made an easy target but was just a
young 8 pointer with missing bay tines, it was
great just to watch him getting all worked up.
The hinds had settled down and tried to grab a
quick bite to eat, but as the stag caught up to
them they moved off into the beech forest with
him eventually following.
The day was moving on to non-prime
time so we climbed back up to the packs
and tramped around to another leading
ridge where we had pre-decided to set
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Couple of young Chamois
up above the bush line
up a fly camp. The other blokes turned up
having spotted a couple of stags that they
didn’t consider worth further investigation.
The camp site was well chosen with some flat
ground under big trees for tying off our flies.
We were well sheltered from the nor-west but
if a southerly hit we were going to feel the
bite. There was a southerly in the forecast in
a couple of days’ time and if it started to get
nasty we were going to up sticks and bail out.
After lunch we did some hunting partner
swapping and Gareth dragged me up a big
ridge and into another spot up higher. By the
time we got into a prominent spot for glassing
it was getting into that prime time again. Down
below us was a grassy clearing surrounded by
beech forest and scrub, there were obvious
dark muddy wallow patches and the binoculars
confirmed there was a stag nearby. He was
lying down right out in the open and there
were a few hinds scattered about him happily
grazing. The super zoom canon camera is a
great tool to use in place of a spotting scope
and by taking a photo and then zooming in
digitally on the LCD screen it was easy to
count the points and judge the length of a stag
several hundred meters away. The sitting stag
wasn’t what we were after in terms of a big
trophy so we continued glassing elsewhere.
The westerly wind was strong but I thought
I could hear a faint roar from further up, so
I focused my search in that area. It took a
good half an hour but eventually we found the
5 BGHNZ Issue 7 Jul/Aug 2015