Lake Hawea Hunting Safaris

544 Camp Hill Rd, RD2 Wanaka, New Zealand • ph +64 3 443 7282 • fax +64 3 443 7292

April 2008 combined private land tahr and wilderness chamois hunt

This was a great hunt with a group of good men from Norway. The hunt started in the southern alps in our fantastic private land tahr area.

The first evening my Hunter Keill and cameraman Vegard climbed into a side gully. I located a very nice bull tahr making his way up through the bluffs on the opposite side of the creek. The bull knew something was up as we rushed down the tussock slope and into the scrub of the creek bottom to get within range for a shot. He stopped at 250m and stood side on beneath a bluff on the scrub choked far side. Vegard had him on film as Keill got into position.

Keill as we all were by this stage was sweating badly, for three to four minutes Vegard and myself tried everything possible to help Keill to locate the bull but he simply could not find it. A bull around twelve and a half inch walked off and Keill offered "Oh well there is always tomorrow."

Upon meeting Lewis and his cameraman down on the valley floor at the top hut we discovered his hunter Dan had been successful in taking a bull of 11 inches. Dan was more than happy with a bull of that size. The crew celebrated that night back at the base hut.

The next two days we hunted hard finding a lot of bulls around eleven inch but we wanted something a little better for Keill. On the morning of the fourth day we located a mob of twelve bulls feeding relatively low. After a 3 and a 1/2 hour slog up the mountain Keill, Vegard and myself were finally above the mob which had bedded in a hidden shingle chute with others concealing themselves in the cracks and shadows of an exposed rocky outcrop.

We edged out across the scree to look down into the chute. Bull tahr burst out everywhere. Keill got into position on the rocky outcrop. We had glassed 3 good bulls from the bottom, 2 had high tailed it while one was off on his own heading out across an open scree. Keill shot him on the trot which was excellent shooting, the most miraculous thing being the boys waiting at the truck over a kilometere away managed to film the action. The bull was a large bodied beast with an impressive skin and horns of twelve inch.

After a transition day at our base at Lake Hawea it was off to the west coast to hunt for chamois. The helicopter flight as always to our high camp was breath taking. As we waited for Lewis and Dan to arrive on the 2nd flight I pointed out a nanny and two juveniles in a tight tussock basin 800m away. Once they arrived 20 minutes later we established a good weatherproof tented camp.

The next morning around 9 am Keill was lined up on a nanny, unfortunately the shot missed and the chamois did not hang around to present another. Lewis, Dan and Vegard arrived back to camp about lunch time with a cracking chamois buck. They'd walked and glassed all morning until Lewis spotted the buck feeding on a grassy slip below, surrounded by monkey scrub. Dan connected with a nice shot off his knees from 160m, now the real work began. Vegard opted to stay put as the climb down to the buck would be dangerous, Dan to his credit followed Lewis down and retrieved the trophy buck. It took 2 and a 1/2 hours to climb back to where Dan shot from.

The Buck was 10 and a 1/2 inch in length with 4 inch bases. He was 9 years of age and one hell of a trophy.

We flew out the next morning as the weather was coming in and shot a few possums that night before heading back to Lake Hawea. The following day we were off to the waitaki district for an enjoyable day hunting wallaby. By days end we had three male wallabies on the ground and one very happy crew of hunters.

For the last day of the hunt we were of chasing billy goats. After an hours drive across the back blocks of a sheep station we glassed a large mob of goats milling about on a scrubby mountainside. The goats spotted our vehicle and headed off out of sight into the head of a gully. We headed off after them, rounding the same ridge they'd crossed an hour before we encountered a huge mob of goats that numbered around 200. We devised a plan for everyone to take a billy and after some good long range shooting everyone had a billy on the ground. Another great day out for the team it was a great way to finish the hunt and wind down after the tahr and chamois adventure.

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