great hooking brow tines. There was a
suggestion of another royal on his weak
side, but even in his younger days I doubt
he sported beys. Looking at him was a
good reminder that it’s a truly big stag
that cracks that magic 40-inch mark, but
the real trophy with this fella lay in his age.
There was no remorse of potential not
yet reached, or future stags not sired, this
stag had given all he had to give to the
herd and was saved from a painful winter
trying to chew tough alpine scrub with
worn old teeth.
We mucked around getting a few photos,
but we were very conscious of the long
walk home in the dark so whipped some
lean winter venison from his frame and
dropped down. It was more gorgey
at the bottom than we expected so
headlights were donned well before the
flats. It was amazing how iced up just
normal flat ground was, it felt like walking
on concrete until we hit the matagouri
where it was more insulated.Finally, we stopped for lunch at
8.30pm. Cheese and crackers were
demolished in short order and we had
a sit down for 20 minutes or so as the
rain had eased. It wasn’t long after we
started moving again that poor old Emil
was attacked by a bristly black monster
from the scrub. We’d only gone a couple
hundred metres and I heard something
crashing purposefully in scrub. By the
time we realised it was coming for us
not running away, a boar of about 150lb
smashed into an old fence two feet
from Emil. He leapt about 6 feet in the
air and scrambled back, the fence saved
him without a doubt. Ol’ Boris came for
another go, then realized the fence was
stopping him so he slipped through and
started chomping and grinding his tusks
in the scrub next to us in full attack mode.
There was cussing and headlamp
beams flicking around every which
way, it must have looked like a
Hollywood fight scene. We finally got
the gun off the pack but by then he had
backed away. I’ve never come across a
pig so angry without any provocation, it
must have been the smell of blood during
a hard winter. There were a few nervous
glances behind us as we pressed on into
the matagouri!
It was a big walk back to hut, the
low pass we had to go through was
a grind with full packs, but we were
chirpy with success. Antlers as well as
horns made the weight feel good and
the weather had cleared so the bits that
weren’t uphill were quite pleasant. What
a day, an ancient old tussock country stag
and a 12 ½ inch bull tahr shot within an
hour of each other and less than 500m
apart. We thought that was a once in a
lifetime chance, but our trip wasn’t over
yet ...TRIP TWO
Originally Emil and I had a big West
Coast trip planned, but the weather
put paid to that. The luxury of the East
Coast was that we could simply bail out
to the bach for a few days to wait weather
out, which is exactly what we did the
morning after getting back to the hut.
Having had so much success on the last
trip, we decided to go prospecting at an
area we didn’t expect to see much in,
what I’d call a low odds trip. On arrival
the valley looked exciting, with
heaps of cover and heaps of tucker,
we couldn’t keep the grins off our
faces. Once we had enough altitude we
parked up on a knob and spotted a few
tahr, some hinds and one young stag –
promising!
Fog rolled in, so we went for a big walk
to find water then set up the tent. It was
perfect timing really, as soon as the tent
was up it began to clear. As the evening
deepened, we saw a few deer but
nothing of interest until Emil spotted a
big maned bull feeding out into a small
clearing. He was an impressive animal,
judging the horns from that distance was
a long shot even with the swaro spotter
but it was hard not to get excited. In
homage to his cape and sheer presence
we referred to him as the Silverback after
that, like the gorilla.
It was getting late now but I thought I
had better pay closer attention to the
warmer scrub country and spotted a
pretty younger 12 mowing into the
speargrass. It was pretty dark at this point
and Emil said ‘Look there’s a hind next
to him’. This ‘hind’ was a huge old stag!
Almost white in the twilight with antlers
clearly longer than the 12. It was way too
late to do anything but crawl into bed, so
it was two very excited hunters tuckingThere's something
superbly satisfying about
hunting old animalsA Kārearea,
the New
Zealand
falcongreat hooking brow tines. There was a
suggestion of another royal on his weak
side, but even in his younger days I doubt
he sported beys. Looking at him was a
good reminder that it’s a truly big stag
that cracks that magic 40-inch mark, but
the real trophy with this fella lay in his age.
There was no remorse of potential not
yet reached, or future stags not sired, this
stag had given all he had to give to the
herd and was saved from a painful winter
trying to chew tough alpine scrub with
worn old teeth.
We mucked around getting a few photos,
but we were very conscious of the long
walk home in the dark so whipped some
lean winter venison from his frame and
dropped down. It was more gorgey
at the bottom than we expected so
headlights were donned well before the
flats. It was amazing how iced up just
normal flat ground was, it felt like walking
on concrete until we hit the matagouri
where it was more insulated.
Finally, we stopped for lunch at
8.30pm. Cheese and crackers were
demolished in short order and we had
a sit down for 20 minutes or so as the
rain had eased. It wasn’t long after we
started moving again that poor old Emil
was attacked by a bristly black monster
from the scrub. We’d only gone a couple
hundred metres and I heard something
crashing purposefully in scrub. By the
time we realised it was coming for us
not running away, a boar of about 150lb
smashed into an old fence two feet
from Emil. He leapt about 6 feet in the
air and scrambled back, the fence saved
him without a doubt. Ol’ Boris came for
another go, then realized the fence was
stopping him so he slipped through and
started chomping and grinding his tusks
in the scrub next to us in full attack mode.
There was cussing and headlamp
beams flicking around every which
way, it must have looked like a
Hollywood fight scene. We finally got
the gun off the pack but by then he had
backed away. I’ve never come across a
pig so angry without any provocation, it
must have been the smell of blood during
a hard winter. There were a few nervous
glances behind us as we pressed on into
the matagouri!
It was a big walk back to hut, the
low pass we had to go through was
a grind with full packs, but we were
chirpy with success. Antlers as well as
horns made the weight feel good and
the weather had cleared so the bits that
weren’t uphill were quite pleasant. What
a day, an ancient old tussock country stag
and a 12 ½ inch bull tahr shot within an
hour of each other and less than 500m
apart. We thought that was a once in a
lifetime chance, but our trip wasn’t over
yet ...TRIP TWO
Originally Emil and I had a big West
Coast trip planned, but the weather
put paid to that. The luxury of the East
Coast was that we could simply bail out
to the bach for a few days to wait weather
out, which is exactly what we did the
morning after getting back to the hut.
Having had so much success on the last
trip, we decided to go prospecting at an
area we didn’t expect to see much in,
what I’d call a low odds trip. On arrival
the valley looked exciting, with
heaps of cover and heaps of tucker,
we couldn’t keep the grins off our
faces. Once we had enough altitude we
parked up on a knob and spotted a few
tahr, some hinds and one young stag –
promising!
Fog rolled in, so we went for a big walk
to find water then set up the tent. It was
perfect timing really, as soon as the tent
was up it began to clear. As the evening
deepened, we saw a few deer but
nothing of interest until Emil spotted a
big maned bull feeding out into a small
clearing. He was an impressive animal,
judging the horns from that distance was
a long shot even with the swaro spotter
but it was hard not to get excited. In
homage to his cape and sheer presence
we referred to him as the Silverback after
that, like the gorilla.
It was getting late now but I thought I
had better pay closer attention to the
warmer scrub country and spotted a
pretty younger 12 mowing into the
speargrass. It was pretty dark at this point
and Emil said ‘Look there’s a hind next
to him’. This ‘hind’ was a huge old stag!
Almost white in the twilight with antlers
clearly longer than the 12. It was way too
late to do anything but crawl into bed, so
it was two very excited hunters tuckingThere's something
superbly satisfying about
hunting old animalsA Kārearea,
the New
Zealand
falcon