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.
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