Stag in the Bag

What a week for hunting. I was pretty excited on Thursday after shooting the Hind. And this afternoon I managed to find the elusive stags. Located 2 nice ones in a small valley. Unfortunately they saw me before I seen them. But they weren't real spooked not having winded me. They just moved up over and out of the small valley I was in. I just watched in awe as they were the first stags I've seen in NZ other than the spikes I seen 3 weeks ago. Once they crested the ridge and were out of sight I hustled to the ridge top. By the time I made it to the top they had covered at least half a mile. They had stopped way up on the side of the mountain and were just scanning down below looking for that fearsome two-legged predator. I just laid low and let them calm down. After about an hour they figured the danger had disappeared and bedded down. Little did they know I was planning my stalk. It took me around an hour and a half to get up to them with a fair bit of belly crawling. But I managed to get within about 150 yards. I could just see the antlers of one sticking up through the brush. And it was the smaller one. After looking at those horns for about 15 minutes and knowing the bigger one was right there too I decided I had to do something. I couldn't just wait all day! So I gave my best impression of a dog bark which I've been perfecting moving mobs of sheep. After three good barks they both stood up for a look. And promptly went to sparring with each other!! I was so busy with my camera I almost forgot I was going to shoot one. After watching them for a couple more minutes I decided it was time. Leveled the crosshairs on the bigger of the two and just like that I collected my first New Zealand Red Stag! It's not a terribly huge one but definitely respectable. A mature one at least. Needless to say I'm on cloud 9!! I managed to get some decent photos with my good camera before I shot. But I'm not able to upload them to my blog unfortunately.

Shadow Hunter

It's been a real interesting week. The weather has been up and down a bunch. Last Wednesday we had a major wind storm with 60-80 mph gusts. It blew down lots of trees and power was out over most of Canterbury. We were without power here for a little over 24 hours. Then major thunderstorms followed. Over 3 inches of rain in 24 hours and some really wicked lightning. The shearers got finished on Wednesday right as the storm was at its peak. They finished the last 200 or so sheep on generator power running the shearing machines. 5000 shorn, 5000 yet to go. The next round won't start for about a month.

Yesterday I got to break away for a afternoon hunt. There are a couple of small valleys right above headquarters here that I've suspected held some deer. My hunch proved correct. I got onto 6 Red Deer "Hinds" (females). After watching them for a good 20 minutes come ever nearer I finally had to shoot one before they bumped into me hiding in the shadows. I shot a nice fat yearling at a whopping 15 yards away. Needless to say it was a one-shot kill! Should be really great eating. I haven't been able to find a stag, and they will be dropping their antlers about now anyhow.

Born to be Shorn

A bit about the shearing that got underway on Monday. In three days of shearing the crew has shorn around 3000 ewes. There are 5 guys doing the shearing. 4 girls and 1 guy work as "roustabouts" picking up the fleeces and doing the "skirting" pulling off the uneven pieces around the edges of the fleece. And 1 guy doing all the pressing with the wool press. The bales of wool that you see stacked up each have right about 400lbs of the finest wool in the world inside. In the third photo you see Bob (Phillips Father) who does all the "classing" or grading of the fleeces. He's the big guy in the grey sweater. Just by touch and years of experience he decides what grade each fleece is. He personally touches every single fleece. So there are 11 people in the shearing gang. Plus Bob doing the classing. And two of us are always around keeping sheep in the shed and taking them away. Needless to say lots going on around the wool shed. I haven't actually shorn one yet but I'm definitely going to learn. With around 7000 more to shear there is still plenty of opportunity!
We had a big cold front come in yesterday and it brought with it about
2-3 inches of really wet snow. Seeing how you can't shear a wet sheep we're on hold till the sheep dry off and the weather clears. Hoping to get going again on Saturday.

For those interested Google "Icebreaker Clothing" a first class maker of top quality wool garments. That is where the wool from here goes. If you're on their website you can read about Lake Heron listed as one of their producers.

Mt. Cook from Above

On Saturday I got a birds eye view of Mt. Cook. At around 12,500 feet above sea level it's the highest mountain in NZ. I flew with Phillip and the family down to Glentanner which is where the Heli-base is for the helicopter he flies. It was due for scheduled maintenance so we flew one down and brought another back. About 30 minute flight down there. And we took the long way home and flew right around Mt. Cook, Fox and Franz Glaciers and back home.(Thats headquarters in the last photo) It was a crystal clear day which was nice. The thing that I found most stunning was that you can see the ocean to the west and east! Looking across the width of NZ! Amazing. In the third photo you can see part of the west coast. It is one of those things that photos just can't do justice to. We're on our fifth day in a row of sunny days. Been in the high 50's to low 60's. but that's supposed to change Wednesday with another cold front supposed to be bringing some snow. But that's OK because spring is nearly here. The days are really starting to get noticeably longer which is nice. On Saturday the grass got mown for the first time!! And I seen the first daffodil starting to bloom today!