New Zealand Hunting Adventure
I have had a burning desire to hunt New Zealand since my PH on my first African Safari, Nick Roet, told me stories of hunting on the Island with the Kiwis and showed me pictures of the beautiful landscapes. Nick is a native of South Africa, of Dutch Decent; however he moved his family to New Zealand when the political environment in South Africa started to change and he felt the environment was not a safe place to raise his family.
A little over a year ago my good friend and hunting companion from Oregon, Gary Lewis, called me and said he was planning a trip to the New Zealand to hunt stag. Gary Lewis is an outdoor author who has published several books, my favorite is Going Ballistic which is a book about the life and adventures of John Nosler. Gary also informed me that he was taking his wife Merrilee, so I thought this would be a perfect opportunity to take my wife Gretchen to a beautiful place and fulfill my dream of bagging a large Stag.
Part of the fun for me in any hunting adventure is the preparation. A big part of that is choosing the weapon and ammo that I want to use for the adventure. I decided to take my trusty Weatherby Mark V rifle chambered in 7mm rem mag. The rifle is topped with a 3,5 x 10x40 Zeiss Conquest scope. I chose the 7mm because I thought I may have to shoot some distance and that is the flattest shooting rifle I own with the exception of my varmint rifles that would not do the trick on a large Stag. I am a huge fan of Nosler ammunition; however I decided to try the Barnes X bullet for this trip, primarily because I was trying to go top range in the bullet weight for the 7mm and they have a “XFB” bullet in 175 grain for 7mm. The bullet did do the trick (second time around) and I was able to recover the bullet just under the hide on opposite side of shoulder of the Stag and I am not impressed with the performance. In the future I am sticking with the Nosler Partition. The powder used was 54 grains of IMR 4831. The accuracy of the loads was excellent, the performance of the bullet at impact and retention is what was not particularly impressive.
After about 30 hours of total travel time from leaving the house in Birmingham and arriving at the lodge of South Island we pulled into Glen Dene Station and were greeted Jerry and Sarah Burdon along with their son Richard, owners of the land where we would be hunting. On the ride over from the airport I was able to get acquainted with my guide Don Cameron who was a wealth of knowledge on the subjects of all things New Zealand from the flora and fauna to game management practices.
There is so much I can say about the adventure that goes beyond the hunt. We went on a fabulous horseback excursion, observed the operation of a large sheep operation, and had a great overall experience. I had such an experience that I could write several stories about the adventures we experienced, however this time I will stick to the accounting of the hunting experience.
When we discussed the hunting opportunities, I expressed that I wanted to hunt only free range animals. Richard did have very nice animals in high fence areas that would make very nice trophies and would provide for an easier hunt, however I wanted a challenge. I made the comment that I did not mind hiking and I would go where ever we needed to go in pursuit of the best free range trophy. Now that I have had that experience let me give you all some words of advice. If you make such a bold statement to a Kiwi in the middle of some very radical terrain, be prepared for the consequences of such a request. I do not think I was completely mentally prepared for what kind of situation that was going to put me in. I would do the hunt in exactly the same way in a minute now that I have been through it, however during the middle of the experience I found myself saying “what in the hell was I thinking”.
The first day of the hunt we did a lot of hiking up steep mountains and glassing for hours. We observed quite a large number of animals and they were in the middle of the “Roar” so there was quite a bit of ruckus going on everywhere. I saw several animals that would make for nice trophies; however I wanted to hold out to see if I could find an exceptional trophy.
The second day early on we did spot what we estimated to be a nice Silver Medal Stag. From watching its movement we predicted it would come up a draw about 500 yards to the North of our position. I took up a rest so I could watch this draw and waited. After about 15 minutes the Stag did come up the draw and I took a shot at about 450 yards and the animal stumbled and went down on its front legs. I took one more shot and it appeared to be struggling and was going to lay down so we decided to take the hike to get over to it. When we were on our way to where the animal lay we lost sight of it as we had to traverse a large ridge to get down into the draw. To our surprise when we got to the other side the animal had recovered itself and was headed up hill. It was apparent it was not feeling well, however being that it is a four legged animal and I was not able to sprint up those mountains it continued to slowly gain ground on us and we pursued. To make a long story short we stayed in pursuit for hours, picked up a blood trail at the top of the highest ridge in the range, and lost the blood trail on a steep incline down into a bowl on the other side. Finally we gave up the search and walked out through the river to the next range and radioed for someone to pick us up. That was after 12 grueling kilometers of rugged hiking for the day.
When Richard Burdon came to pick us up he had made way down the trail along the river to meet us and guide us to the truck. At this time I was tired, frustrated and a little down because of the ordeal we had gone through for the day. Fortunately the day was getting ready to have quite an improvement of circumstances that gave me the needed “pick me up” to improve my disposition.
I came to New Zealand to hunt for a Red Stag, however when we were on our way out of the river valley we came across a beautiful specimen of Fallow Deer. Upon spotting it Richard whispers “Brian you cannot let the opportunity go, that is one great free range Fallow”. After the day I had it did not take a lot of prompting and Don and I started planning the stalk. We watched as the Buck walked into a patch of manuka scrub and decided to bed down. At this point we were about 300 yards from where he was bedded. I proceeded to get on my hands and knees and crawl up to the first rise ahead of us. Once I made it to the top all I could spot was the tips of the paddles poking up above the manuka. Now I started to low crawl to get into a better position, I was able to low crawl to within 250 yards and made a rest with my backpack. I placed my rifle over the pack and picked up the spot where he lay in my scope. At this point I could still only see the paddle tips so I had to wait it out. After about 15 minutes of waiting he stood up and was facing front towards me. I waited for a few minutes to see if he would turn broadside and he would not make a move. I feared he was getting ready to lie down again so I put the crosshairs at the base of the neck and squeezed off. He fell straight down. We made our way over and a beautiful Fallow lay there in the manuka. Very large, symmetrical paddles with large eye guards and drop kickers off each beam. The day had just improved drastically.
With renewed confidence we set out the next morning to continue the quest for the Red Stag. We started at the end of the range where I had taken the Fallow the previous day. As we parked the truck and stood at the base of a mountain called “heart break ridge” I said to myself “here we go again”. Don and I started the long climb to the top of the ridge. As we climbed we could hear roars coming from the other side. After an hour and a half we cleared the top and started to drop down the other side and look into the darker timber on the other side of the bowl. We decided to sit down for a while and glass the opposite face where the roars were coming from. Don and I were both looking, glassing, in the same direction then my arm began to get tired from holding up the glasses so I decided to take a break. I casually looked over my shoulder to the left and my heart about stopped. There were two of the biggest stags I had ever seen “outside of the high fence” coming across the ridge behind us only 100 yards away. I punched Don in the shoulder and pointed and his eyes about popped out of his head. The rest of the week we had spent a lot of time looking over animals and trying to debate if they were worthy of taking. Neither one of us had to “count points” or observe in this case, there were antlers going everywhere!!! Good thing because the window of opportunity for a shot was fleeting fast. I had to act instinctively. I stood up, swung through and shot the lead Stag free handed and he stumbled down on his front legs at 80 yards. The other animal ran past him then turned around and attacked him. I poked my stag a second time for good measure, the first shot through the shoulders, the second broke the back and the second one ran down the hill after the second shot. It all happened so fast did not realize what had happened until it was over. It was an excellent trophy, 24 points in all and a beautiful animal.
We took pictures and then the fun began. After we loaded the back straps and tenderloin in our packs there was no room for meat from the hind quarters. We detached the hindquarters from the spine, I slipped my rifle sling through one leg and belt through the other and Don and I drug the hind quarters up the hill, leaving everything else behind. When we crested the ridge we rolled it down where it went for two hundred yards before stopping on a rock. Then we went back down, loaded up the rest of the meat on our backs and I carried the head out on my shoulders. The routine was to catch up with the hind quarters, unload and rest, roll hind quarters another 100 yards, load back up and hike some more. This went on for some time. I shot the Stag at 9:30am and we were back at the lodge a 3 pm.
In summary my wife and I had a beautiful time in New Zealand with our friends and made many new friends. The entire trip was quite the adventure and one we will never forget.