Safely back from a week hunting Tahr in our Southern Alps. An all family affair, me and three sons had a ballot block for the week, flying in by chopper in cold frosty weather on the Saturday and only just getting out on the Thursday after lunch before 250mm's rain and heavy snow came in. Two choppers loomed out of the clagged in weather to get us out, another 10 minutes the pilots said and we'd be in until the following Monday when the weather cleared. James Scott legendary pilot and his trusty Hughes 500 led the other chopper in and got us safely out to his base.
Great trip with the freezing conditions when out of the sun made more bearable this year with a NZ made MIA tent and fire we had for our mess tent.
We all got bulls and a few nannies and yearlings for meat.
The tahr have their full winter coats which on their own make good trophies and while the heads the boys got were not records, they were nice trophies and good hunts to remember.
The middle son has only got into hunting after "not being invited" back on our last tahr venture in 2018 and had not blooded the rifle I got him until he got the first bull of the trip. The other two boys both scored several bulls last trip so were blooded.
We all use 7mm-08's with Hornady 139 SST bullets, mine the only one without a suppressor so still has it's 22" barrel, the others cropped to 20". Some long range shots were taken despite the smaller cartridge and short barrels.
A great week in truly magnificent albeit dangerous country and still fascinating to be able to observe tahr every day moving confidently around in their steep gnarly habitat.

Just about ready for lift off myself and one boy first load in.


Over the edge into our valley, campsite up near head of valley.


Me and two boys, third taking photo, waiting for chopper to depart and then setup camp.


Our MIA 'mess' tent setup


The little MIA fire box, never another tahr trip without this little bit of comfort.


Middle boy with the first kill of the trip, his first big game animal.


Another one of his first tahr.


Youngest boy with his nice bull.


Beautiful mane of a fine bull.


Up in the rough stuff


Looking up to the two younger boys shooting setup to shoot the bluffs.


Another view.


View through binos of bull and nannie on the bluffs, may have been one of the bulls they got.


Some of the country the boys hunted.








The trophies plus took skins too.


Oldest boy glassing for bulls.


My effort, at 70 soon I can't keep up with the boys.

Awesome! What block did you have? looks like some great country and I dont recognise it so presuming the Whataroa?

Excellent report and pics, thanks Eagle.
Incredible timing too. My middle son, who hunts, and I are heading away tonight on a Tahr hunting trip. East coast side for us but I have done four West Coast trips previously and your pics do evoke some dear memories. I hope we get as good a weather spell as your pics indicate you did. At 63 years old now I'm doing as much hunting as I can these days, both here and overseas, before the old body starts complaining too much.
I agree, now is the time of year for prime bull capes. You guys took some beauties. Congrats and well done.

quote:

Originally posted by shankspony:
Awesome! What block did you have? looks like some great country and I dont recognise it so presuming the Whataroa?

Jacobs River block, my 4th time time in since the first time in 2012. Sun didn't get to camp until 1.40pm each day (we were in there on the shortest day of the year) but is then there to warm and dry tents etc until it sets in the west at the end of the valley.

quote:

Originally posted by 30.06king:
Excellent report and pics, thanks Eagle.
Incredible timing too. My middle son, who hunts, and I are heading away tonight on a Tahr hunting trip. East coast side for us but I have done four West Coast trips previously and your pics do evoke some dear memories. I hope we get as good a weather spell as your pics indicate you did. At 63 years old now I'm doing as much hunting as I can these days, both here and overseas, before the old body starts complaining too much.
I agree, now is the time of year for prime bull capes. You guys took some beauties. Congrats and well done.

Good luck for your hunt, bit of snow down on the East Coast should push the bulls down a bit more in range.

quote:

eagle27
posted 03 July 2021 16:07
quote:
Originally posted by 30.06king:
Excellent report and pics, thanks Eagle.
Incredible timing too. My middle son, who hunts, and I are heading away tonight on a Tahr hunting trip. East coast side for us but I have done four West Coast trips previously and your pics do evoke some dear memories. I hope we get as good a weather spell as your pics indicate you did. At 63 years old now I'm doing as much hunting as I can these days, both here and overseas, before the old body starts complaining too much.
I agree, now is the time of year for prime bull capes. You guys took some beauties. Congrats and well done.


Good luck for your hunt, bit of snow down on the East Coast should push the bulls down a bit more in range.

Thanks very much. Yep, expecting both the snow and the deep cold. Hoping not too much of the snow has iced up but I suspect it has. As you say we could find bulls lower, having been pushed down.
I meant to say I also used an MIA tent for the first time on a trip back in May. It was still fairly warm then but I could immediately see the benefits of the firebox in decent cold conditions. For a wee box it pumped out some impressive BTU's. The tent itself is a well thought out design.
Was it not too difficult to get your tent pegs anchored into the ground ?

Very keen heading down this time of year. Good on you and hope you have a great trip as well.

It's been a long time coming Shanks. Not quite a hard man hunt as we'll be on a high country station in station huts. It's my boys first Tahr hunt promised from years ago.
Had to postpone in 2019 due to knee surgery. 2020 got cancelled with CV. Then had dates in May but some Aussie hunters booked from 2020 got preference when the bubble opened. So got June dates but the Ashburton floods cut off access and washed out station tracks. So thats how we ended up with July dates. I've hunted July before so don't mind but my favoured time is end May to mid June.

quote:

Originally posted by 30.06king:

quote:

eagle27
posted 03 July 2021 16:07
quote:
Originally posted by 30.06king:
Excellent report and pics, thanks Eagle.
Incredible timing too. My middle son, who hunts, and I are heading away tonight on a Tahr hunting trip. East coast side for us but I have done four West Coast trips previously and your pics do evoke some dear memories. I hope we get as good a weather spell as your pics indicate you did. At 63 years old now I'm doing as much hunting as I can these days, both here and overseas, before the old body starts complaining too much.
I agree, now is the time of year for prime bull capes. You guys took some beauties. Congrats and well done.


Good luck for your hunt, bit of snow down on the East Coast should push the bulls down a bit more in range.

Thanks very much. Yep, expecting both the snow and the deep cold. Hoping not too much of the snow has iced up but I suspect it has. As you say we could find bulls lower, having been pushed down.
I meant to say I also used an MIA tent for the first time on a trip back in May. It was still fairly warm then but I could immediately see the benefits of the firebox in decent cold conditions. For a wee box it pumped out some impressive BTU's. The tent itself is a well thought out design.
Was it not too difficult to get your tent pegs anchored into the ground ?

Quite robust pegs and we had a good solid tomahack using the back as a hammer, ground frozen but MIA and our other sleeping tent pegs all drove in and held well. The older son has a building business and cut up two sackfuls of old dry borer ridden rimu, can see in photo holding our cooker up. The secret of the MIA burner is dry hardwood really cranks the heat. We supplemented our rimu with a bit of driftwood that was around camp but nowhere near the heat output.
Four builders from Christchurch were loading up to fly into a Landsborough block with an MIA tent and fire and had four huge bags of dry wood which cost them $800 for a chopper load on its own but they said they had the money and wanted a good trip hunting tahr not freezing their balls off. Obviously had been before

Was in the news that a father and son set off their PLB and got winched out of a tight spot in their Landsborough block they had climbed into. We were talking to them in the Fox Glacier pub the night before the fly in. Did the right thing I suppose instead of killing themselves trying to climb back out.

We all carry PLB's just in case we need more beer and whiskey dropped off

Smashing report mate. I'd love to hunt in mountains like that but I don't think my knee's would approve

quote:

Originally posted by eagle27:

quote:

Originally posted by 30.06king:

quote:

eagle27
posted 03 July 2021 16:07
quote:
Originally posted by 30.06king:
Excellent report and pics, thanks Eagle.
Incredible timing too. My middle son, who hunts, and I are heading away tonight on a Tahr hunting trip. East coast side for us but I have done four West Coast trips previously and your pics do evoke some dear memories. I hope we get as good a weather spell as your pics indicate you did. At 63 years old now I'm doing as much hunting as I can these days, both here and overseas, before the old body starts complaining too much.
I agree, now is the time of year for prime bull capes. You guys took some beauties. Congrats and well done.


Good luck for your hunt, bit of snow down on the East Coast should push the bulls down a bit more in range.

Thanks very much. Yep, expecting both the snow and the deep cold. Hoping not too much of the snow has iced up but I suspect it has. As you say we could find bulls lower, having been pushed down.
I meant to say I also used an MIA tent for the first time on a trip back in May. It was still fairly warm then but I could immediately see the benefits of the firebox in decent cold conditions. For a wee box it pumped out some impressive BTU's. The tent itself is a well thought out design.
Was it not too difficult to get your tent pegs anchored into the ground ?

Quite robust pegs and we had a good solid tomahack using the back as a hammer, ground frozen but MIA and our other sleeping tent pegs all drove in and held well. The older son has a building business and cut up two sackfuls of old dry borer ridden rimu, can see in photo holding our cooker up. The secret of the MIA burner is dry hardwood really cranks the heat. We supplemented our rimu with a bit of driftwood that was around camp but nowhere near the heat output.
Four builders from Christchurch were loading up to fly into a Landsborough block with an MIA tent and fire and had four huge bags of dry wood which cost them $800 for a chopper load on its own but they said they had the money and wanted a good trip hunting tahr not freezing their balls off. Obviously had been before

Was in the news that a father and son set off their PLB and got winched out of a tight spot in their Landsborough block they had climbed into. We were talking to them in the Fox Glacier pub the night before the fly in. Did the right thing I suppose instead of killing themselves trying to climb back out.

We all carry PLB's just in case we need more beer and whiskey dropped off

Agree about the firewood. We were one of the first to use a tent with firebox in the lands borough many years back when An American member of AR brought one over for our tahr ballot. Bob had the misfortune to strike the worst early May storm in decades and it became a very serious situation. We struggled to get anything other than the smallest native twig to burn in any way where we were, though it did raise the temp in the tent somewhat, i concluded that unless you could fly in your wood, it was not worth it under those conditions.

quote:

Originally posted by Bakes:
Smashing report mate. I'd love to hunt in mountains like that but I don't think my knee's would approve

You would do it bakes, especially in a Ballot block where you get the ability to fly in. Lots of tahr moving at that time of year and always a chance if you stay in your comfort zone. Best bull Ive ever shot was actually only 600 meters from camp.