The ultimate dream for many hunter's is a Red Stag. Once reserved for on;y English Royalty to hunt, times have changed and now this incredible hunt is open to anyone willing to take the time and go out. New Zealand offers many opportunities for the free ranging hunts that many of us grew up dreaming about. My dream recently came true in a much bigger fashion that I could have ever dreamed.
Heading out with the "Huntin with the Judge" TV Show crew, we met up in LAX Airport for the long plane flight over. Spirits where high and expectation as well, as Judge Julie Mogenis had done her home work and located some hard working, and honest guides from Southern Alps Safaris. Tony and Mark are first rate folks who the Judge had hunted with before in Canada on occasion and have now branched down into the World Down Under.
We arrived at the Mount Maude Lodge to a warm friendly welcome from Russell and Poli who had a warm meal and a welcome mat all ready for our arrival. The Mt Maude Lodge is a Bed and Breakfast style Inn situated on over the mid level valley floor, provides a view at every turn. Located just out of the town of Wanaka on the South Island, the newly built facility is one you feel at home in right from the start.
Nestled in the Hawea basin on 50 acres of private farmland, this lodge provides bed and breakfast accommodation with a two bedroomed guest wing. Surrounded by peaks of the Southern Alps it is a peaceful, private environment where one can truly relax, close to Lakes Hawea and Wanaka.
we based our adventures from here and didn't for the most past even have to travel far to be in prime habitat. The terrain on the South Island is spectacular, starting in the highlands with ancient glaciers, which melt off into towering cliff faces, alive with wildlife and colors of the various high altitude forage. These cliffs run down into vast valleys and mountain sides filled with Pine Trees and cold running crystal clear streams and rivers. Down into these areas reminds my much of the home ranges of Utah I have hiked throughout my life, yet many new types of various plant life, it seemed familiar yet disorienting all at once. The various area of the South Island contains glaciers to rain forests all in one place. It is an amazing unspoiled and beautiful place.
The Team for this trip include the entire film crew and Hosts of the "Huntin with the Judge" TV Show, to film the first of many segments I will be featured on in late summer 2009. The game on our list, Tahr, Chamous, Red Stag, Elk, and Fallow Deer, which are abundant in the area, and possibly even to chase a few others while we are here from white-tail deer and sand bar deer, a few hogs and even a little fishing. For the outdoor lover, New Zealand has something for everyone.
Our first day out, I was a back up camera man, and hadn't even planned on hunting till the second day. We headed out early to the rifle range to site in the 264 caliber rifle we had to shoot with. While we where standing around and sighting in the rifles, we could hear the Stag's roaring to the hines (or females) and knew the rut was coming on. We had a group of about 12 hines running up the hill out of the rifle range. I just had a feeling it was going to be a day I would not soon forget. We got sighted in and headed down the trail.
And a long trail it was for sure. We hiked most of the morning with limited success of seeing what we had came over for. Frank, on of our party members, had fallow deer on his tickets for the day, and Mark our guide, was pushing us hard to get into the area we needed to be for them. The wind was blowing at about 15 to 20 miles an hour on a pretty constant blow and gusting about 10 mhp higher at times. The trails where narrow and steep and our morning fast became afternoon and we had only spotted a few fallow deer and a few hines. Mark had us sit down and take a breather and we relaxed on a ridge for about an hour, talking about where and what we might be seeing for the afternoon. Mark said he had been in here the day before and seen some nice Red Stag hanging in the area, just up hill a ways from where we took our break. Little did I know that just around the bend when we got on our way, the tables would quickly shift and I would come from behind the camera and be in front taking a dream of a lifetime.
As we got up and started around the side hill, we spotted the tips of antlers in some pretty thick trees, and knew it was a couple of bedded down Red Stag. Frank took a look at them and handed me the rifle and said, "I guess it's your turn today and usually I get to take the first animal, but this one is yours". I didn't know what I was about to do, looking back at it now. We watched the bedded Stags and talked about a plan to get into them without blowing our presence. The wind was in our favor and we decided to close the gap between the 600 yards away we had to still travel and slowly make our way higher up the mountain for a better vantage point. As we moved along, we broke out a couple more smaller stags, one all white with a fairly nice rack and one Red Stag in the normal color phase. As they broke out below the animals we hoped to stalk up on, we thought things had gone from good to bad in one second flat.
The younger stags started up the hill slightly to the left of our bedded quarry and we where sure they would blow the older stags out, but luck was on our side and the bedded stags stood up looked around and then bedded right back down in the same spot. Both Frank and Mark our guide, had good binoculars with them and knew this one stag had good potential and was definitely a keeper, looking through the scope, all I could see was antler tips. Mark told me to get on them and just stay ready and wait for them to stand up. I settled the rifle across a camera tripod and waited for the stags to get up and start their afternoon/evening feed. It didn't take long and about 20 minutes into it, things started happening in a hurry.
The Red Stags stood up and immediately began to move. I just couldn't get a solid rest on the tripod and finally got a shot off, but it seemed I had missed. At this time, they began to move out in a hurry and we packed up for the pursuit. As we stayed low and hiked up the mountain to try and get in front of them or get a better vantage point, we saw we had about 7 Stags that had grouped into the bunch and the chase was on to get into a better position to get another shot off.
Up the mountain we went as fast as we could to keep up. As we got near the top we spotted them again about to go over the ridge top. As I watched one, then two then three and four go over the top of the mountain ridge top, I thought my day was over. As we watched for the last few to come into view, we noticed one of the smaller stags, stopped and kept looking back downhill. We knew there was yet to come the last few stags and mine was in that group.
