Hunting
Another West Coast chamois hunt by Zeff Veronese, NZDA North Canterbury branch
With my Hi-Lux twin cab truck we left Christchurch for the long drive to Fox Glacier on a January morning. I had with me Charles Willcox and Andrew Hunter, who were both 19 years old at the time and keen members of the Christchurch NZDA branch. Arriving at Fox Glacier, we stayed at the home of Tony Pigeon, a guide who takes tourists up the Fox Glacier. He is also a very keen hunter and photographer and has a fantastic collection of trophies and close-up game photos.
Early next morning we packed up and drove the remaining distance to James Scott’ s place near the Karangarua River. From there James flew us up near a small tarn on the Karangarua tops. As the weather was a bit dubious we started by setting up a good camp, erecting my Olympus high-altitude tent and Charles’ s brand-new Minaret tent. Then we put up the“ lounge”, my 5 x 4.5-metre tent fly. This time instead of the usual centre pole we laid one side of the fly over a big rock, then underneath where it touched the rock we laid a strip of heavy canvas, about half a metre wide, to protect it from chafing. Then we descended to the bushline and brought back a big branch of neinei( grass tree) to put under the fly to give it more height at the centre, and thus more headroom. The top part of the neinei bush was covered in leaves that provided further protection from chafing.
As soon as we were set up we went out for our first hunt, but it was wet and foggy. We crossed a nearby ridge and went down the other side where we spotted a nanny with a kid and a
“… the buck had horns at least 10 inches long …”
juvenile buck in the scrub below us. Seeing nothing shootable, we went back to camp. From there, Charles spotted a big chamois buck, which my new rangefinder told us was 319 yards away. I gave Charles my 300 Weatherby with 30-inch barrel tossing a 180g Scirocco bullet at 3400 fps and filmed while he was shooting. However, the shot went too high and the buck took off at speed. I shouted at the animal and after a hundred
A branch of grass tree under the tent acted as a centre pole
“… both my young companions had a chamois on their first full day …”
yards it stopped and he took a second shot – another miss, still high. A third shot was again high and the
38 NZ Hunting & Wildlife 196- Autumn 2017