Not cast bullet sorry.
I got out hunting today with a younger gent from my club. He is Ukrainian and has been in NZ for 8 years, dead keen on the outdoors and invited me to his ‘sure thing’ hunting spot.
We, along with a fellow club member left at 2am and drove for 4 hours. The land is public but access is via private land and my friend had called ahead and got permission to cross.
We left the vehicle just on daylight and headed up a creek bed towards the edge of the public land. About 90 minutes in our host spotted two deer at about 150 yards ahead. I could see there were three but they moved away before we could get a shot. Moving up the creek further the boys were in the river bed and I against the terrace where I saw fresh hoof prints in the sand. I climbed the terrace to the edge of the bush where I stood and listened pretty sure I could hear movement. Within a couple of minutes the three deer darted out from behind me into the river bed, saw the boys and came back towards me. I’m talking 25 yards away and bearing down on me is a stag in full velvet when he sees me and all three turn down the stream. I take a quick shot with the .257 Ackley but miss as the 6X scope is too much at close range but 100 yards out our lead scout dropped the spiker with his Savage Axis .308.
We recovered the deer, gutted it and hung to cool and moved further up the creek seeing two goats that were in the mist up a bluff and not clearly defined. A snack in some shelter and as the wind was now behind up we headed back to the deer. On the way down we sprang 4 goats and about 100 yards out I swung onto the 3rd in line and hit it with the Ackley. My first kill with the rifle. Not a huge goat but should be a good eater and happy with a running shot.
More goats spotted on the way back to the car but no more shot. Happy to get back to the vehicle as we had gotten pretty wet though not cold thankfully.
All in all, a good day out.
Cheers from New Zealand
