Just returned from a hunt with Chris & Peg Bilkey (track and Trails Safaris) out of Geraldine (S Island).

My stag-

Ram-

Goat-


Great hunt, I am a repeat customer with Chris and Peg, taking a stag and tahr in 2005.

oops, first time photo post! Sorry Joe

Holy shit that stag is huge looks like a great trip.

What were you shooting with??

congrats, nice stag
greg

Congrats, Nice Stag... I have a Tahr hunt book with Chris and Peg for April 2008 and I am really looking forward to it.

Joe, ''welcome to this forum'' congrats on another fine hunt, thank you for posting your great pictures,regards jjmp

jjmp you are in fo ra good hunt, here are some phots from my July 2005 hunt with Chris on Don Aubrey's place on the Rangitata River Valley. The climb up the mountain for the tahr is a memory of a lifetime=

3/4 of the way up


tahr- a strom front moved in and I was freezing to death, get the pictures and get down!


the old "dugga" boy stag I got on the trip-


In response to above- on both trips I used Chris's 7mm Rem Mag (Browning A bolt)

pcs,welcome aboard friend, sorry i missed you,Congrat's on your booked up-comming hunt!have a great one. Joe awesome pictures again and congrat's again,i need to get there some-day soon! regards jjmp

Thats an awesome goat m8. They're extremely difficult to find in the wild and are definetly new zealands supreme game animal. I bet your guide had his work cut out for him tracking down that mighty beast.

Joe, thanks for the pics of your July 2005 hunt. It looks like a great trip. Any tips for a first timer hunting wiht Chris?

PCS-RE tips for your tahr hunt:
1) Get in shape, as best you can, the tahr live in high,steep mtns and you will better enjoy the hunt

2) Noting #1 above, do not hesitate to tell Chris to slow down because the guy is incredibly fit (if you are incredibly fit also or plan on using a helicopter ignore this tip). On the Sunday I arrived, after introductions with the wives, etc. Chris said lets go sight in his rifle and take a walk to see the tahr terrain. He took me to the exact road we would go up for tahr on Monday morning and headed up the hill. I was still wearing the clothes/street boots I got off the plane in and after the first 300 yds up the hill(I was 50 yrds behind aready) I said okay, halt, stop, whoa, hey you!!I knew he was testing my ability to keep up and with the jet lag, tiredness and excitement factor I was sucking air. I assume he will do the same to you to judge your fitness and then adapt accordingly to ensure you a challenging but successful hunt. Note- we saw tahr high and low and success rate is 100% but I believe the bigger trophies are up high.So again plan on getting up high! The views and pictures are worth it.

3) I found that as a California deer hunter it was almost impossible to tell a tahr trophy vs an immature animal (incidently, all the red stags looked like monsters also). The wind constantly blows the tahr hair around and getting good look at norns is difficult at best. Having said that, follow Chris's lead, describe your objective animal to Chris and if he says this is the tahr-shoot it. If he says no- don't shoot, he has been described as the best judge of tahr in the world by reputation. I had good Swarovski 8x binocs but wish I brought a small powerful spotting scope to check out the tahr while we were taking rest breaks. trade off vs weight.

4) carry a pack and load up with clothes you might need if weather goes bad like it did with my hunt july 2005 (dead of winter). I underestimated and froze my ass off. One minute it was beautiful, I was sweating and peeling off layers, the next minute freezing rain/sleet/snow hitting me while waiting for the tahr to get up so I could shoot. I wore baseball cap fine at first, regretted not having wool cap, gloves in pack. When I pulled the trigger on the tahr, tiny fog droplets sheeted vertically on my eyeglasses and the rifle scope causing everything to go whiteout. Use an anti-fogging agent on glasses if you wear them. Bring a elastic type scope cover for your own or Chris's scope (lesson learned for first time I used a borrowed rifle).

5) My shooting was marginal on 2005 red stag (one miss high, one low chest hit) due to using unfamiliar rifle but mainly because I hadn't praticed shooting steep uphill and down hill shots with my new trifocals (just turmed 46 yrs old). Make sure you practice steep uphigh and downhill shots before you go (up to 300 yds). On my 2007 hunt all my shots hit where I called them using Chris's same 7mm Rem again. Got used to my new glasses by now. Tahr shot was less than 100 feet, but the hard part was sneaking up the mtn and then lying low in freezing conditions for the herd to clear some rock crevasses for the shot.

Thats all I can think of for now, if I can save the funds I will go back with Chris and Peg a third time to get a chamois and fallow buck. You will have a good time regardless of my follies above- New Zealand and its people are great. Joe

Joe,

Thanks for the tips. I have heard that Chris is in unbelievable shape. I am a fairly avid runner but being a flat lander in Kansas the mountains usually eat me up. So, it sounds like I need to kick it up a few.

Again I appreciate the advice.

Very nice Pics !

Are the Red Stags shot Free Range or on fenced Propertys ?!

Seloushunter

Both stags were taken in the same unfenced area- free range (mountains/slopes seen in photo backgrounds above)adjacent to fenced commercial pastures on the valley bottom (seen in the lower right of the 2005 hunt photo). The fenced pastures contain sheep and red deer (females) for venison. I was told that the stags are up higher on mtns during the rut (April) but are lower when I went in July 2005, and June 2006 - dead of winter. I did not see any fences to inhibit the stags (or fallow deer in the same area) from going up over the mountain crests into the next drainage, but I did not have to hike to the top thankfully.

quote:

Originally posted by JoeATCA:

Joe, great pictures. Not that I want to endorse hunting with a measuring tape, but have you got any idea what the two stags scored??

- mike

Mike- the lower pic is high silver according to my american taxidermist friend, the upper is almost gold- about 320 if remember per chris bilkey. I have no plans to have either stag officially measured. I paid for silver medal class stags on both trips per my budget and the fact that they are all fantastic compared to public land elk in US. Joe

Thanks Joe, much appreciated.
- mike

Beautiful pictures.

Hell of a rack on that big 'un!

Impressive looking animals.

Am happy as hell for you man,

George