this weekend, initially the wife and I were supposed to be heading to Taupo to collect a plough, so with a quick rearrangement of days, Sunday became free. Then later that week, the whole family came down with a really nasty stomach bug, and I was thinking that I wouldn't be able to make it (that was if the weather was even suitable). Anyway Sunday came and my stomach was settled enough for a hunt, and the weather looked good. ScubaFella said that he basically wanted to knock something over, so we figured goats were probably the best option, and once the Muka Muka came to mind (also it meant gentlemans hours, not a crazy 4am start).
8am SF and I met up in Featherston, and we loaded up into the truck and headed down to the coast, on the way down there were rabbits galore, but we were after something bigger. After a few fordings going along the coast road that "cleaned" the underside of the truck, and then used the trailer as a grader we got to the small fishing village near Corner Creek, and proceeded to unload, and transfer equipment (well most of it) to the bike. With guns and day packs loaded on, we set off. with a reasonably uneventful trip to the mouth of the MukaMuka, we turned up the river and started bouncing our way towards the forks. Within a few minutes, I misjudged the depth of one of the puddles, and with the extra weight and it's placement (and my mistake of reading the track), we almost put the quad on it's side, but we managed to recover from that and slowly but surely picked our way up the river bed.
20 minutes later we arrived at the forks, and start to prepare the rifles. I open my bumbag, pull out some ammo, load 4 into the magazine, put the bolt in and then I hear SF curse. He starts emptying his bag, checking his pockets, but to no avail, he just can't find it..SF decided to bring good luck to the goat hunt be leaving his bolt somewhere (somewhere other than in his bag). We ditched the idea of heading back to find it, and just hid is rifle under a tree and decided to hunt on.
Normally I would take the one on the true left, but someone mentioned on a
previous post about an area just past the waterfall on the true right fork, so
we headed up there. 30 minutes later and some very wet trousers and boots we got to the waterfall, and found the "rope", a thin piece of yellow cord tied to a
rusty bracket.
We both had an attempt at finding a way across the rocks, but we both decided that it was too slippery, and the water too deep to warrent trying. Bugger, that's about an hour of the morning wasted. Whilst walking back out to the forks, we did explore a spur leading up, but there was no sign or anything. Getting back to the bike we decided to head to the same place I shot the goats the weekend before. It starts off with a reasonably steep climb along a goat track along a ridge before it opens outs. Since SF was rifle-less, I gave him the 308 to carry for the walk around here since there is normally heaps of sign, and hence a good chance of seeing something. We sneak up the ridge, noticing that the sign was thick on the ground, including one that we didn't recognize (looked like big Jaffas albeit the wrong color). Reaching the grassy bench we spyed over the edge to the clearings on the other side of the river, but as usual, nothing was there. For a change we decided to head in the opposite direction to which I normally go and headed around to head up the bench above the center fork. Stalking like a pair of elephants we didn't see anything, and around 12ish we sat down for lunch. After lunch the rifle was passed back, and we proceeded stalking along the bench, and lowly the sign got less and less. I suggested to SF that we pick the pace up a little, as there is no sign. So there we were walking through the bush, paying little attention to foot placement, chatting, with the wind up our as when all of a sudden I saw what looked like a bloody reindeer (first thought). I quickly put my hand up to silence SF. First he thought it was a goat, then he saw the antlers! About 5 metres in front of us, the big stag stood up, and still in a sleepy haze, turned it's head to look at us. "Bugger, it's all velvety" I thought, but soon after the thought was replaced with "Hmm, venison" and the decision made. The rifle was quickly loaded and raised (none of this statues stuff) and I lined up, aiming for the shoulders I squeezed of a round, instead of the normal "Kabooooom", there was a "click"...shit...Safety...fumbling the safety off, I line up again on this dumb founded stag who is just starting to think about moving. Again, I squeeze the trigger, and this time "Kaboom", and the stag ran away. We kept him in sight, and quickly moved to where he headed off, blood....lung but still he was very mobile. I lined up again and squeezed of another. He still kept going. Where we were, there was thick bush up to our right, and a bloody steep drop to our left, if he left the bench he would be lost. One more shot and he dropped (but still bloody alive). I slowly moved closer and but one in the back of his neck shattering the spinal column. He was dead.
I could hardly believe my eyes, in front of me was a bloody huge stag (unfortunatly in velvet), but all the same, a good haul of venison. After reliving the last few minutes a few times, we started the mandatory photos, and a quick count of the points, 9 developing, uneven though. We let him rest for a while and then started removing the back steaks and hanging the legs in trees so we could start boning him out. A couple of hours later saw us both ladened up with meat, SF with the shoulders and I had the backsteaks, and 1 and a bit legs (one of the bullets went through the leg and made a real mess of the bone. At that point we started the hike out to the bike, I had about 20kgs on my back, and SF had another 10, and we threw away several due to blood and bone damage. Didn't take us too long to get back to the bike as it was all down hill, and pretty easy going (until the game trail running along the ridge). About 45 minutes later, the bike was loaded up, and we started the trip out. Upon getting back to the truck and trailer, SF finally located his bolt, sitting in the trailer!
On the way up we saw this, and didn't recognize it for what it was, know I figured it was stag sign!
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