18 | SPORTING SHOOTER _ MAY 2018
NZ TAHR
was no wind, I was looking straight
at the bull quartering on facing me,
the crosshairs were floating around
on him. I calmed my breathing in...
out... slowing it down. I finally took
one last breath let it out, the
crosshairs were aligned with his
forward front shoulder and I aim
half way up his body and squeeze
off the shot.
The sound of the shot boomed
around the big basin we were in at
the top of the valley and the bull
took a heavy hit turning his body
into the shot, I vaguely heard Mat
an Tom say you got him, I reload
and as the bull took another step
back out into the open from behind
the tussock, he took another VLD to
the chest and that put him on the
ground as he fell back into a
depression in the landscape. He was
down but his head was still up
looking around. I waited behind the
rifle watching through the scope
but his head was still up and I
didn’t have a clear shot so we had to
make a move.
We started to make our way up to
the bull coming in below him so it
didn’t run down. The bull didn’t
move he just sat there and at 100metres I put another one straight
into the front of his chest and he
fell down a few metres in the little
snow chute he was sitting in.
He was done and as we started
walking up to him now, up in the
rocky snow covered sections Tom
was out in front, the bull was less
than 100 metres in front of me and
I could barely make it up the hill,
the months of training I had done
before this trip had served me well
so far in New Zealand but I was
drained of energy from the
adrenaline and effort I'd put into
the last half an hour of this hunt.
We got up to the bull and he was a
cracker, running my hands through
his big mane, I just admired the size
of this animals body and it’s nice
long curled back horns hooking in at
the tips. Tom judges him to be 12 to
13 inches long but no one had a tape
up here to be sure and that just how
it should be. I was over the moon
with him and it was a great end to a
great first day of our tahr hunt.
We had a rest then got to photos,
after a good picture session I
couldn’t stop admiring how
amazing this animal was and then
mentioned how awesome would a
full body mount look. Mat agreed
and that was it, I decided then and
there he had to be a full body
mount. It would be amazing to be
able to admire this animal as a
whole for many years to come.
Tom caped out the bull for a full
body mount and we found a lot of
the pieces from the projectiles
under the skin on the opposite side
completely fragmented through the
lungs like the Berger hunting
projectiles are meant to perform
causing massive damage to the
vital organs.
Then it was time to take off back to
camp, we left camp at around
midday and now it was 4pm, only 2
hours until dark. I had my pack on
and a full body cape and head and
thankfully Tom took my rifle. It was
a long journey back down the valley
to camp and I was sweating my arse
off carrying out 25kgs of bull tahr fur
and horns draped over my shoulders.
We got into camp around 5:30pm
and I was spent. I put down the
cape and my pack and we put the
tents up. It was a great day spentwith 2 great blokes on the
mountain. Tom cooked up some of
his venison texan chilli snags
which went down a treat and after
a look through all the pics the day
was done. It's now 8:55pm and I'm
finished writing down this story of
my day in my sleeping bag and
that’s it, night...
At the taxidermists the bull
ended up measuring 12 7/8 one side
and 13 inches on the other. The
numbers don’t make this trophy
mean any more or any less, to me it
was and always will be the trophy
of a life time. Mat the next
afternoon also took his first bull
tahr a nice 9.5 inch bull but that’s a
story for him to tell not me.FAST
FACTS
Longer Range Tips
Hunting big open country like we did,
be confident with your rifle out to at
least 4 00m, that’s what we were told
before going to hunt New Zealand
and it came in handy for both of us,
both taking our bulls at around the
350m mark with no real chance of
get ting closer. See the Sierra Infinity
Printout on trajectory of the .30-
Berger VLD when sighted in for
Maximum Point Blank Range. You
could go this way or zero at 100
metres and wind-up target-style
turrets to the pre-determined range
setting in MoA or Mils. wind is
altogether another thing and needs
fine judgement to keep bullets in the
vital zone af ter 200 metres.6
Caped out and
ready for the carry.