Big Game Hunting New Zealand Jul/Aug 2015 | Page 6

Jonny and his big 15 point Red
Stag.

source of the noise. This stag was well above
the bush line in a cold gully head that was
sheltered from the wind. He was hard on the tail
end of a hind that wasn’t totally keen so he was
very occupied by the situation. It looked like he
was just a 10 pointer but he sported strong tops
and was a very fine looking beast. We hadn’t
seen much else so I decided to launch a video
attack on this stag before we ran out of light. I
used a steep gut and a few hebe bushes to hide
my approach and soon had climbed to within
170 meters. I rolled off some pics and video
then decided to venture into open territory to
see if I could get closer still.

The prime time was over for the day as
darkness crept in so we made our way back
over to the camp by head lamp. There was a
bit of overnight rain from the west and there
weren’t many stars out when the early alarm
clock set off. Jonny and I planned a big day
with lunches in our day packs and thoughts of
big stags in faraway places. We were climbing
again before day break and dropped over into a
gully the other boys had already hunted. As day
light kicked in we wasted no time in this area
sidling down through the beech forest across
the creek and around the other face to get into
fresh country right on morning prime time.

I was soon spotted and this put the deer on
edge, so I gave out a roar. The stag wasn’t
keen to reply but it held him around long
enough to get some more good sequences on
the camera. I reckon he was a stag I had filmed
the previous roar and it is possible that he is
an old boy and probably not getting any better
in the antler department. Still we had no desire
to take him out and he would make a good first
stag for some lucky young hunter.

It took us a while to find anything and it
seemed the rain had dulled down the rutting
activity, but we did eventually spot some
hinds and then heard a distant moan. This
fella wasn’t that interested in roaring making it
hard for us to pin point. We moved closer and
eventually got our bino’s on him. Again out with
the camera zoom spotting system and we soon
figured that this was another 10 pointer in no
danger from us.

6 BGHNZ Issue 7 Jul/Aug 2015

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There seemed to be little else
around so we climbed again to
shift to the next gully head. As we
hit the ridgeline fog rolled over us and
completed hindered any spotting.
We sat down out of the wind behind
some rocks planning to wait it out and
hope the fog would lift. That plan got
too boring and the cold got the better
of us so we risked spooking up the
unseen gully by dropping through
the fog. It was very rocky and bluffy
in this area so it was no surprise
that the next animals we saw were
chamois. We watched a mob of does
and kids wander around above us
and then found a lone buck in some
tall tussock. We spent plenty of time
trying to judge his horns but he never
gave us much of a peek and the
glimpses we got didn’t seem like he
was a monster, so it was back to the
stag search.

Shaun & Jonny saw a few Chamois
for the trip but no decent bucks

Shaun playing cameraman
on this trip

It was a slow morning for the
deer and all we found was a hind,
yearling and a spiker. We flagged
it and decided to climb back over the
top ridge and drop well down into the
creek near camp for the evening hunt.
The spot where we ended up was in
the same big gully that we’d seen the
first stag of the trip, just slightly further
down and it started to feel like we
were recycling the same ground. The
evening prime time was soon upon us
but not much had been seen or heard.
Just a couple of hinds wandering
through the occasional clearing and
a scrubby stag and that was about it.
There was a well-used small wallow
just below us so we stayed put and
hoped something might pop out
eventually.
In the last 45 minutes of light a
mighty bellow erupted from the
beech forest below! That sure
woke us up and now the bino’s were
scanning frantically trying to locate
the beast. A few hundred meters
away I saw a hind step out of the
bush so kept my eye on her, but she
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The guys covering many
miles in search of a decent
trophy
7 BGHNZ Issue 7 Jul/Aug 2015