Some pics and a story from yesterdays chamois hunt.

Pete rang up he had had enough of Dunedin and wanted a change of scenery,
I wanted a leg stretch, in addition I had found an old topo map I had missplaced for a while and it had an interesting shaded section labelled chamois.
We decided to check it out and see if chamois were still there under the mark.
Pete turned up saturday night late in the evening. We packed, made plans and set the alarm.
Sunday morning we were out the door at 6:30 by 9 am we were starting into a 1000 meter slog with erratic winds and oversast skies.
We climbed higher and higher the country opened out under us. For three hours we climbed and glassed nothing showing till Pete spotted a doe and kid. They were dancing in the herbfields 300 meters straight below us from our vantage point in the bluffs.
We decided to leave them for later in the day and we continued into some more technical country threading through more difficult bluffs and some challenging exposure till we came out high exactly where we wanted.
We had a problem, below us were at least 6 chamois grazing. We had a screaming crosswind and an approach down through unknown bluffs neither of us had seen in full veiw of the chamois.
For 30 minutes we leapfrogged each other keeping the chamois under observation through binos and calling to each other to stop or move depending on how the animals were behaving. We duckwalked or crawled down the exposed section my legs were screaming but the ploy worked, the chamois grazed oblivious of the threat climbing down to them.
Finally we made it into dead ground and closed from downwind to 100 meters. Crawling the last few meters again in full veiw we settled in with pack rests. We watched and selected a good sized doe each. I lined up and fired breaking the does neck. Petes shot went high. the area exploded with chamois, literally. At least 10 to 12 burst from the tussock bounding in all direstions.
We cleaned and gutted the doe and slung her for the 3 hour carry out passing under the bluffs we had climbed past several hours earlier.

I wanted some chamois meat pretty bad



The bluffs we climbed around the top of



The doe I took



This from Westland before Xmas, it is my favourite photo. There are no animals in this pic but it does represent a lot to me.

A return from heart disease and I guess being strong and able to hunt.
I got a bull on that trip too but it did not mean as much as being able to tackle westland again.

"Petes shot went high", to much dialing up and down knowing Gimp

Nice work! can't beat that country.
Just spent the morning learning about correct use of prusik's,double fishermen, and alpine butterfly's. might see me in some of that steep stuff yet.

You have put a bit of weight back on since that river crossing mate...there are many hunts in ya yet!

Good tale of a real hunt too.

Noticing your rifles slung on crossing the water reminded me of a tale an old hunter told me how he was swept off his feet and the rifle worked liked a paddle on his back against the water and gave him all sorts of problems and he was nearly swept under berry bushes and that would have meant a drowning as his rifle would have been stuck for sure.
Applying that to rocky water crossings its probably possible on being knocked over and tumbling with your slung rifle to have it wedged in rocks and making it tough to get out...I carry mine in one hand always now.

I`m commenting not criticising old fella!

You really like chamois meat that much?

My wife likes the chamois meat, I like the idea I can still carry things like that.

The river crossing was interesting if you slipped and did not recover there would be no point to the rifle anyway, 50 meters downstream of the crossing the creek emptied out into a flooded main river. You would not live in that we could hear the boulders being rumbled downstream

Great report! Glad you made it!

Fantastic! Creek crossing looks epic.

Well done man!
Has the heart op slowed you down at all? I'm hoping to buy a place in Duneden next month and to finally get a chamois and/or tahr in the next year or two before I get too old.

I hunted the South Island in 1978 and couldn't keep up with the guide even when I was 26 - I'll have to hobble the next one.

Cheers
- Paul