Big Game Hunting New Zealand Sep/Oct 2015 | Page 6

Big bull down after a nasty
retrieval, a smidge under 13”
with good weight 8yrs old

our steps back down of the hill. In some places
one slip would be certain death, something I
would rather not think about. With half an hour
of light left we arrived back at camp just in time
to check if the Bull from day one was still in his
rock cave, to our surprise he was.
Waking to a small sprinkling of snow it was
decided to find a highpoint close to camp
and spend the day using the bino’s to find
the Bulls. It would then be a case of putting the
spotter on them to assess their trophy potential
and decide if any were worth chasing. Over
the morning this system worked well and we
had checked over a dozen Bulls, however the
lad from day one was still the best we’d seen.
We named him old mate and decided he was
worthy of having a crack at, but the terrain he
was living in meant that a hunt was going to
take a fair bit of planning.
Meanwhile Mark had spotted a Bull across
from camp in the scrub that had a fantastic
skin. After checking his head with the spotter
it was decided I would shoot him for the skin
as the horns were chipped and broomed, so a
perfect candidate. Over the afternoon we played
6 BGHNZ Issue 8 Sep/Oct 2015

cat and mouse as he followed his nannies
around in the scrub and we tried to get a shot
at him. It started getting late in the day and we
knew his nannies would work in our favour by
feeding out into the open with the bull sure to
follow. So with the gun dialled in ready for the
shot we just had to sit and wait. The nannies did
there thing and as the Bull walked from cover
I touched off the shot hitting him hard in the
shoulder and putting him down for keeps. With
light fading we grabbed some gear and hit the
ground running as we had a fair bit of country to
negotiate to recover the animal. Once the dead
beast was located it was the usual photos and
then the hard work of skinning the bull. It was a
big job due to the sheer size of this animal but
worth the effort as the skin was a beauty.
It was well after dark before we made it back
to camp and after a quick meal we hit the
sack as tomorrows plan was to hunt old
mate up at the cave. We awoke to another
cracker day and sure enough old mate could be
seen 1500yrds away still close to his rock cave
so it was game on. The plan was to climb hard
and hope to be in range at around 11am.
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I had mapped his movements and
at 11am he would stretch his legs
and move down from his cave for
about an hour. So with that in mind
we made our way down, across the
river and started the big climb up
in old mate’s direction. Half way up
we ran into a young Bull with half
a dozen nannies and they put on a
bit of a show for the camera before
making their way to the safety of the
scrub. Checking the time showed
we needed to pick up the pace so
Mark and I climbed hard over the
next hour to be in position for a
possible shot.
We arrived at a chosen small knob
that we hoped would give us a
shooting platform and were happy
to see Old Mate was out on his
stroll and in a good position at a
range of 600yrds. There was no
way we could get any closer so it
was decided we would settle in here
and take the shot. We assessed
his trophy potential one more time
and he looked like he would make
the 13” benchmark so with that I
readied myself for the shot. Mark
called the first shot back a touch
so with the correction factor added
the second shot dropped him on
the spot sending him cartwheeling
down the face losing about 300mtrs
of altitude before coming to rest
in a nasty little gut. Now we had a
mission on our hands!
As we climbed even higher to
see where we could drop in
for the retrieve it was evident
we would be entering crampon
country. So after dumping our
gear and fitting our crampons we
picked our way down into the ice
filled gut. Climbing in was the easy
part however climbing up to the bull
was going to be tricky with loose
rocks and ice making it slow going.
We made it to him safely and I was
more than happy with the Bull,
being an 8yr old with great weight
and just a smidge under 13”.
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7 BGHNZ Issue 8 Sep/Oct 2015