New Zealand DIY tahr/deer journal

[forrestleitch]

Travel: Drove to MSP early on Sunday morning, flight at 8am to Houston. Landed in Houston around 11:30am. Long layover, next flight out of Houston 10pm to Auckland (north island). 14 hour flight from Houston to Auckland, once I landed had a couple hours to get all checked in through customs and then a short flight from Auckland to Christchurch (south island). About 40 hours of travel total from central North Dakota to Christchurch. Picked up a rental car in Christchurch (Toyota Vitz), stopped at McDonald’s and then Hunting & Fishing sporting goods store to pick up a stove fuel canister and some freeze dried meals. Drove over to Governor’s Bay jetty to check out the ocean, then continued south to Methven and got a hotel room at Methven resort. Nice little town of about 2,000 people. Stopped at the grocery store for some chocolate milk and camping snacks. Walked to the hardware store to get an outlet adapter so I could charge things in the hotel. Had fish & chips at Blue Pub for supper. Got hunting gear organized at hotel, found that the pic rail on my rifle was loose after traveling. Deal with that in the morning.

 

[forrestleitch]

First full day (4/16): Had some hotel breakfast at 7:30, then went to the hardware store in town again and found a torx bit set and loctite for my gun. Got back to the hotel and tightened down the pic rail, then packed the backpack for a quick day trip. Drove to a public land spot not too far from town. Hiked in along the river until I found a good bank to shoot against to zero in my rifle after the rail had came loose. First shot was a few inches left at 200 yards, adjusted and got it zeroed. A pair of paradise ducks circled over me a few times in shotgun range, neat to see. Hiked up the river for a few hours, had to cross it many times and ended up with wet pants. Started to see a fair amount of deer sign, found a wallow and some rubs and could smell a stag but never heard or saw one. Eventually got to a spot where I couldn’t cross the river any further, so I walked back to the car. Drove to Mt Potts station to try to find the exact spot Dad took a picture with his tahr many years ago, no luck, but I’ll try again next time. Hiked into another public chunk nearby for a few miles, found a spot to sit and glass for the evening and eat some food. No animals spotted, so hiked back to the car and drove back to town. Lots of dead possums on the side of the roads. Made it back to town after dark, stopped at the grocery store again for some more snacks and chocolate milk, then went to Village Takeaways for a pizza slice. Packed everything up in my pack in preparation for the heli drop tomorrow.

 

[forrestleitch]

Day 2 (4/17): Hotel breakfast at 7:30 and then checked out, drove to the meeting spot for helicopter pickup. Rough gravel road most of the way there. Lots of paradise ducks and black swans in the lakes and ponds on the way. Waited at the meeting spot for an hour, decided to climb a hill to try to get phone service to see if the pilot was running late or I was at the wrong spot. As soon as I got to the top of the hill I could hear the helicopter in the distance. Ran down the hill and met the pilot, he was behind schedule because of the fog, and had to go retrieve two other hunters somewhere, and then back to get me. Picked me up, flew through the mountains to my dropoff point. Dropped me in a nice river valley in the mountains with lots of good drainages dumping into it, lots of options to hike into and glass. Hiked up one drainage for the afternoon and glassed for a while. Spotted one group of tahr, looked to be all females and young ones. Watched them for a bit until the clouds dropped too low, then hiked back to the tent and went to bed.

 

[forrestleitch]

Day 3 (4/18)

Woke up to rain, decided to wait it out in the tent for a bit. Didn’t last long, got out mid morning. Hiked up to the same drainage where I saw the tahr yesterday, glassed around a bit and relocated them after a while. No bulls, thought about shooting a nanny for some camp meat but never got close enough. Glassed the area until late evening and hiked back to camp, got to the tent right at dark.

 

[forrestleitch]

Day 4 (4/19)

Best weather yet, woke up to blue sky with just some occasional rain clouds. Hiked into a drainage the opposite direction from yesterday, climbed up to a good vantage point to sit and glass for a while with the sun at my back. Glassed for 45 minutes or so and spotted a pair of tahr way up at the head of the drainage crossing a skree slide, looked like two bulls but too far to tell. Watched them for a couple minutes and decided to make a move on them. I figured I could follow the river in the bottom of this drainage almost all the way up to where they were, but it was almost two miles from where I was, so I wasn’t sure where they’d end up by the time I got over there. Started making my way up the river, stopping to glass every once in a while to see if I could see them or other tahr closer by. Lots of tahr trails and sign along the way. Finally made it to the last little corner and started to creep around to glass the face they were on. As I made my way around, I looked up at a little bench on the mountain above me and saw two nice bulls bedded down, I don’t think they had seen me but they were looking my direction so I dropped to my stomach and started to get my pack off to get my rifle. They never moved so I slid my pack in front of me and got lined up for a shot. It was a very awkward position since they were almost straight above me and I was trying to shoot laying down, so it took some flexibility to finally get to a somewhat steady position. I ranged them at 290 yards, dialed my scope in, and lined up on the left bull. I sat for a couple minutes trying to catch my breath from all the hiking, held one deep breath, and took a shot. I never heard a good “thump” and both bulls took off running, I missed! I couldn’t believe it, that distance is usually a chip shot for me, and I practice out to 800 yards to make those shots feel even easier. Anyways, I didn’t dwell on the miss and hustled around the base of the mountain towards the direction they went. I made it to a wide open skree slide and looked up and saw the pair just about to go over the top of the mountain and disappear into the nasty rocks. As quickly as I could, I got my rangefinder out and took a quick range, I was getting 380-420 yards depending where I was hitting. I dialed to 400 and got in position as quickly as I could. I lined up on the one bull I could still see, squeezed off a shot and a second later heard the telltale “thump” of a bullet hitting body. He stumbled around for a second so I sent another one his way, and he started to roll down the mountain. He slid all the way down the skree slide almost to the creek at the bottom, which sure saved me some mountain climbing. I did it! I couldn’t believe it, I sat there on the side of the mountain and broke down in tears, thinking of what it must have been like for my dad hunting over here before I was born, and how much he would’ve loved to hear this story. After a few minutes of just soaking everything in, I walked up to check out my tahr! He was a gorgeous bull, with a long, shaggy, brown mane and crescent shaped horns that tapered and curled back towards his neck. I don’t think he’s the biggest bull on the mountain but he’s certainly not the smallest, and a fine representative of the species, just what I was hoping for. After a few pictures I got ready to peel some meat off and remove the skull, and realized my knife was in the tent. I hiked all the way to the bottom again where my tent was, had a little meal and hiked all the way back to the tahr. It rained the whole time after that, so not only did the missing knife cost me an extra 5 miles of hiking, but I got thoroughly soaked in the process. Back at camp it seemed the tent was holding up well and everything inside was dry, so I stripped off all my wet clothes and laid them out to dry as best as possible, and crawled into my sleeping bag.

 

[forrestleitch]

Day 5 (4/20)

Rain all night, woke up to more rain and stayed in the sleeping bag. Got my clothes hanging up and laid out as best as possible to try to dry, but still mostly damp, so no plans of leaving the tent today. Got a hold of the heli pilot on my inReach to see if they could come in a day earlier than planned (today) for pickup, but he said both today and tomorrow look to be too fogged in to fly, so I’ll be here at least one extra day. Going to be cutting it close on food but as long as they get here Tuesday it should be no problem. Tomorrow looks to be colder but not much rain at all, so if it is dry my plan is to hike 3 miles downriver to a Department of Conservation hut, I can hunker down in that and wait for the pilot there instead of in my tent. Some of those huts have stoves, so if I’m lucky I’ll be able to make a little fire for some warmth and to dry some clothes, but we’ll see. Either way, it will be nice to have everything packed up and ready for the pilot when he can get here.

 

[forrestleitch]

Day 6 (4/21)

Rain quit overnight, but temps went down a bit. Got out of bed late morning and packed everything up, then hiked downriver to the DoC hut. Took a little longer than anticipated and got fairly wet in the process but made it to the hut around noon. No firewood unfortunately, but lots of dry space to hang all my clothes up to air out a bit. Made some rice and tahr backstrap for lunch. Sent a message to the pilot letting him know I’d be here for pickup. Hut would be very nice with some firewood to warm it up, it has 8 bunks and an outhouse. Found some salt and pepper stashed in a cupboard to add a little flavor to my meal at least. Pilot got back to me and said we are good for 10:30am pickup tomorrow. Did some reading before falling asleep.

 

[forrestleitch]

Day 7 (4/22)

Up early, around 6:30 or so. Chilly in the hut, I could see my breath so it was tough getting out of the sleeping bag. Stuffed a few little twigs and cardboard into the stove to try to get a little warmth going but didn’t help much. Got everything all packed up, double checked through the hut to make sure I wasn’t leaving anything behind and brought everything out to a sunny spot by the river. Helicopter showed up right on schedule today, 10:30 on the dot. Quick ride through the mountains back to the car, then drove to the heli hangar to pay my remaining balance. Pretty reasonable, about $1500 US for round trip with the heli. Heli pilot recommended a kid down the road to boil up my tahr skull, drove down there and dropped it off the be boiled. Super nice kid, and reasonably priced. Went down to Village Takeaways in Methven and got 4 big folded over fried pizza slices, then back to Methven Resort to grab a hotel room. Got the same room as before, something going on in town so it was the last one available. Took a nice long hot shower and got all my clothes laid out to dry. Hung out in the hotel for a bit relaxing and went to Brown Pub for supper, had a sirloin and a beer. Walked over to “something delicious” ice cream shop for a chocolate shake, and then back to the hotel for bed.

 

[forrestleitch]

Day 8 (4/23)

Up at 7:30 for hotel breakfast, had toast, coffee, yogurt, an apple, and some sort of apple pastry. Filled the car up with gas, took it through a quick car wash, and stopped at the grocery store for some chocolate milk. Drove over to the next town over (Ashburton) and checked out the Hunting & Fishing store there, lots of waterfowl hunting gear and fishing gear, with some big game stuff as well. Talked to a local hunter who I had been previously chatting with on Facebook about meeting up tomorrow for a one day deer hunt way up north. Took my dirty hunting clothes to the laundromat and gave them a wash and dry. Stopped at the hardware store for some trash bags to put my boots in for the flight home, figured they’d end up pretty dirty, wet, and stinky. Drove back to pick up the tahr skull from the young man cleaning it, turned out nice. Mentioned that I’d like to shoot my gun once or twice again to verify everything was on before going deer hunting, he said “hop in the truck” and we rode back behind his farm to their shooting range and shot the gun a few times. Not grouping well but well enough to deer hunt. Ended up chatting with him and his dad for over an hour, great people just fully immersed in hunting and farming. Hundreds and hundreds of wild pig jaws hanging from the rafters. Drove next door to the heli hangar and ran into the owner, Scott. Wanted to shake his hand and thank him for the help with the flight. Invited me into the hangar for a beer so we sat and talked hunting for a bit, another great guy. Drove down to Timaru right after sunset to try to catch a glimpse of the little blue penguins, smallest penguin species in the world. They swim in the ocean all day and then come up to the rocks on the beach at night. Saw a couple, about the size of a seagull. Went to Pier 64 for a seafood dinner, had seafood pasta and a glass of wine. Very good salmon. Everyone in there was dressed up very nice, I had on muddy hunting pants and boots. Left and headed back to hotel, about an hour drive. Leaving around 2 in the morning to make it to meeting spot for deer hunt. Got everything packed up and ready by around 10:00pm.

 

[forrestleitch]

Day 9 (4/24)

People across the hall at the hotel were being noisy all night and so I left around midnight instead of sitting around until 2:00am. Plan was to meet up at the trailhead at 6am, about a 3 and a half hour drive so I drove slow. I only had the morning to hunt so he told me about an area he thought we had a decent chance of finding some deer within a couple miles of the road. Needed to be back to the MPI office in Christchurch before they close at 4:30 to get paperwork for bringing tahr skull and (hopefully) deer skull back to the states. Got to the meeting spot at about 5am, long rough gravel road in there so it took a little longer than expected. Got ready there and hung out for a bit waiting for him. He texted me right before 6, someone had shut the gate ahead of where he was camping and he was locked in, so I drove down to pick him up. We got back to the trailhead around 7, sun had already came up. Hiked into the first spot and glassed a while, didn’t see anything. Went back to the trailhead and drove a few miles down to another drainage and hiked in about 3/4 mile to a glassing knob. He glassed up a stag about 30 seconds after sitting down, way in the head of the basin. We glassed for a few more minutes and ended up seeing 3 hinds, 2 decent stags, and 1 spike, decided we didn’t have any time to spare so started heading up the left side of the drainage towards them right away. They were a little over a mile out and over 2,000ft above us. It was still early enough in the morning that the wind and thermals were good, but it was uphill the entire way towards them so it was tough work trying to cover ground as quickly as we could. Made it to a large rock formation that we knew was about 300 yards from where the deer should be, and all we could see was the spike. We figured at some point in the stalk, the thermals had started to pull towards them and they had caught our wind. Crawled around the front of the rock formation and still didn’t see them, so we started hiking up higher towards the most likely exit route out the top of the basin. We got about 1,000 yards from that when we spotted the biggest stag and 3 hinds walking up towards the saddle to get into the next basin over. Ranged them at 500 yards and I got lined up on a rock, waiting for the stag to stop, and then sent a shot at him. First shot hit, didn’t know where but it sounded good and he looked like he would go down any second. The hinds ran up and over the top, he couldn’t keep up with them, but he was still on his feet so I got ready to shoot again. Ranged at 675, adjusted my dial and sent another one. Heard another good thump and he dropped in his tracks. Hiked up where he was and made it to the stag around 11:15. Clock was ticking now, we still had to deal with the stag, hike down 2,000 ft and out close to two miles, and then I had to drive to Christchurch to make it to the MPI office before they closed. We got the skull cleaned up as quick as possible, pulled off the backstraps and a few other good cuts, loaded up and started to bomb down the hill. It was rough going with lots of thick, thorny brush but we made it down to the car by 1:30. Dropped local buddy off at the gate again, said thanks and then I was off. Drove as fast as I safely could down the rough gravel road and then sped a bit when I hit pavement, a few hours later made it to the office in Christchurch with just minutes to spare. Got my paperwork and then I could take a breath! Found a motel to unload everything out of the car, then took a long hot shower and went to get some McDonald’s for supper. Went to a car wash to pressure wash all the mud off the bottom of the car and vacuum it out so I could return it to the rental place without getting a cleaning fee. After that I stopped at a hardware store for some supplies to get the tahr and deer skull prepped for travel. Got back to the motel and cleaned the deer skull off as best as I could, sawed one antler off and taped it to the other antler along with a shed antler I had found while tahr hunting, so the whole thing would lay flat in my duffel bag. Wrapped everything up in shrink wrap and duct tape, and taped folded over cardboard pieces onto each of the antler tips. Then dumped everything out of my backpack and bags, and went through and re-packed everything for the flight home. Triple checked I didn’t have any loose ammo in places it shouldn’t be. Got an email that my flight in the morning was pushed back a few hours, so I’d be able to sleep in. Slept like a rock.

 

[forrestleitch]

Day 10 (4/25)

Last day in country, first travel day back. Wiped any last bits of blood and dirt from my luggage and got everything loaded into the rental car, checked out of the motel and tried to find a few things to kill some time in Christchurch before returning the car. It was a holiday so lots of things were closed. I was hoping to find a museum or something to walk around. Ended up going to McDonald’s (again) and sitting down to eat for a bit, then went to the car rental around 11:00. Got that returned quick and took the shuttle to the airport, made it through check in security pretty smoothly. They pulled me aside in security to go through my carry on bag, asked about the tahr skull in there and thought my spotting scope was a rifle scope. Had a small cylindrical urn of dad’s ashes in my binocular harness that could be mistaken for a rifle cartridge on x-ray, so they checked that out as well. As I’m typing this I just landed in Auckland on the way home, and already drawing up plans to return to Kiwi land.

 

[MTpubliclander]

Awesome write up!!!! Congratulations on a great trip!

 

[forrestleitch]

YouTube video of the tahr portion of the trip

 

[gonhunting247]

Thanks for the great recap! I want to do this type of adventure real badly. This makes me feel like I need to get with it.
Congrats on an awesome trip!

 

[Kiwi]

Congrats and well done on your trip. Sounds like everything worked out perfectly with a couple of nice trophies.

Send me a PM if you want help for any future NZ hunts.

 

[Carl 9.3x62]

Awesome, thanks for the write up. Hope to do a similar trip someday.

 

[kiwi hunter]

You make it look easy. Good for you

 

[kiwi hunter]

Awesome write up!!!! Congratulations on a great trip!

That will get you amped

 

[forrestleitch]

You make it look easy. Good for you

Ha! I wasn’t sure what my expectations were going in, as far as numbers of animals I’d see, difficulty, etc., but I’d say it was just as difficult as I’d like a hunt to be! Definitely need to earn it out there on doc land, just how I like it. Jealous of you Kiwis! What an awesome place.

 

[forrestleitch]

Probably the neatest part of the trip for me, here is a photo of my dad in the same area 30+ years ago, before I was born. He passed in June and I spread some of his ashes on a rock next to my tahr.