hunting kiwi style
what an adventure we had we went up onto a glasier to hunt tahr and chamois ,helicoptered into a camp and hunted from there on my first climb up the steep rocky slopes and this soon brings home how fit you need to be the shear scale of the mountains are very impressive and dangerous .
we stalked best we could and i got to within 10 metres of my first tahr asleep in the tussocks i loaded and took my first shot a good hit to the heart and the bull dropped only to get up and run i reloaded and fired again to see its legs fold underneath its body and fall down a gully into some tall bracken .
on my radio frank had been watching and after my first shot a group of bull tahrs had stood up from an overhang there was around 8-10 he called out for me to take the furthest on the right with no rocks around for support i steadied for a freehand shot which hit home and he dropped on the spot to slide down off the steep slope now paul was some way behind and didnt want to take all the bulls so on the radio to paul to get up here fast to take one himself.
another was in the bag at this point we decided to let the rest of the mob go and retrieve our tahr now two where side by side and mine was a little smaller but wasnt bothered as i had my first now my attention turned to the one i had shot first and moving down the slope to retrieve him i found the spot from which he fell but spent the rest of my time looking to no avail the area was dense bracken with steep slopes and we just couldnt find him i was gutted we even had the chopper hover over on our leaving to try to find him but no joy.
we went back to camp as the light was fading fast,
now we did quite abit so i will have to condense thigs down abit and tell my story so off to another base again tents and chamois was the next on the list although we still had good height for a big tahr if one came along the first day we spotted tahr up on the ridge so all was looking good we headed out down a river for the chamois.
now this was no easy task the rocks to climb were as big as houses and all the while we headed down from camp i was thinking how hard it was to get back now me and frank left the other two boys and had travelled down some way.
we decided to head up an old gully which was overgrown with trees which we had to climb through a chamois came to investigate the noise and i wasnt quick enough to unsling the rifle before it was gone in a flash ,bummer but at least i had seen one .
anyway we carried on glassing all the time but out in the open the high grass and tussock made it hard to spot them and we came back empty handed the next day i went off on my own to spot two at 600 metres up on a gully i radiod in to set off om my stalk i headed down those big rocks and gaining 200 metres had to start climbing through the bush now this looked reasonable from my first glassing point and it turned out to be very steep and a relentless task which i felt i was going to have a coronory and need airlifting out but i managed to get around 35 metres of my chamois as i lifted my rifle which felt more like a cannon ,arms burning and waving like a magic wand i took in some deep breaths to steady and i let rip with the 270 to see no reaction it dissapeared into the dense undergroath.
frank was making his way up to me and i had started my decent he said whats wrong and i replied that i thought i had missed when he laughed and started climbing ,come on its up here and he had a good view and saw it take a few steps and drop .from my angle i couldnt see so another was in the bag i will post pictures on part two of my adventure as seem to have uploaded all i can for the moment,atb wayne Click image for larger version.
More to follow, wayne
what an adventure we had we went up onto a glasier to hunt tahr and chamois ,helicoptered into a camp and hunted from there on my first climb up the steep rocky slopes and this soon brings home how fit you need to be the shear scale of the mountains are very impressive and dangerous .
we stalked best we could and i got to within 10 metres of my first tahr asleep in the tussocks i loaded and took my first shot a good hit to the heart and the bull dropped only to get up and run i reloaded and fired again to see its legs fold underneath its body and fall down a gully into some tall bracken .
on my radio frank had been watching and after my first shot a group of bull tahrs had stood up from an overhang there was around 8-10 he called out for me to take the furthest on the right with no rocks around for support i steadied for a freehand shot which hit home and he dropped on the spot to slide down off the steep slope now paul was some way behind and didnt want to take all the bulls so on the radio to paul to get up here fast to take one himself.
another was in the bag at this point we decided to let the rest of the mob go and retrieve our tahr now two where side by side and mine was a little smaller but wasnt bothered as i had my first now my attention turned to the one i had shot first and moving down the slope to retrieve him i found the spot from which he fell but spent the rest of my time looking to no avail the area was dense bracken with steep slopes and we just couldnt find him i was gutted we even had the chopper hover over on our leaving to try to find him but no joy.
we went back to camp as the light was fading fast,
now we did quite abit so i will have to condense thigs down abit and tell my story so off to another base again tents and chamois was the next on the list although we still had good height for a big tahr if one came along the first day we spotted tahr up on the ridge so all was looking good we headed out down a river for the chamois.
now this was no easy task the rocks to climb were as big as houses and all the while we headed down from camp i was thinking how hard it was to get back now me and frank left the other two boys and had travelled down some way.
we decided to head up an old gully which was overgrown with trees which we had to climb through a chamois came to investigate the noise and i wasnt quick enough to unsling the rifle before it was gone in a flash ,bummer but at least i had seen one .
anyway we carried on glassing all the time but out in the open the high grass and tussock made it hard to spot them and we came back empty handed the next day i went off on my own to spot two at 600 metres up on a gully i radiod in to set off om my stalk i headed down those big rocks and gaining 200 metres had to start climbing through the bush now this looked reasonable from my first glassing point and it turned out to be very steep and a relentless task which i felt i was going to have a coronory and need airlifting out but i managed to get around 35 metres of my chamois as i lifted my rifle which felt more like a cannon ,arms burning and waving like a magic wand i took in some deep breaths to steady and i let rip with the 270 to see no reaction it dissapeared into the dense undergroath.
frank was making his way up to me and i had started my decent he said whats wrong and i replied that i thought i had missed when he laughed and started climbing ,come on its up here and he had a good view and saw it take a few steps and drop .from my angle i couldnt see so another was in the bag i will post pictures on part two of my adventure as seem to have uploaded all i can for the moment,atb wayne Click image for larger version.
More to follow, wayne
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Thanks for sharing.
