Thought I would share this photo with the members here. Found the photo while searching for some other photos on my PC.

A stag I took somewhere in Central North Island of NZ. Taken free-range on a farm backing up to some wilder mountainous country.



(The animal has been re-positioned for the photo, as it was shot on a very steep grassy hillside.)

Nice twelve point red stag, don't know what it scores as I have forgotten. Might have an informal score sheet done by the Kiwi taxidermist (Douglas scoresheet).

Rifle is a Parker Hale M98 .30-06 with Monte Carlo stock (yuck, I liked it back then) with a Weaver 4x steel scope with post cross-hair reticle. Bullet was a 150 gr Nosler Partition with 49 grns of IMR4064 for a velocity of approximately 2900 fps.

The stag was taken with one shot from below but only about 50 metres away. Angled from left flank into the heart. The stag was spotted about a kilometre or a km and a half away, sunning himself in a hollow on the side of a river gully. We slipped off the hill we were glassing from, dropped down the steep hillside, through a creek, through a forest, scaring a hind or two, into a river/creek bottom. Using a jutting hillside as cover we approaced the stag, still out of sight, and crawled to the edge/skyline of the hillside (in the gully). The wind was in our faces. Sighting over the hillside, the stag was alert and took off at a run up hill, but before he could gather speed I managed to place a shot dropping him.

Great fun. Then the work to get him up the hill.

Guided hunt with Brian Harre of Bushland Safaris (I think that was his business name?) in 1993. Part of an ADA hunt. We raffled off a guided hunt in NZ with Brian as part of a fund-raiser and he generously offered us a couples of hunts at half price for members as well. Two of us put our hands up and I took this red stag and another member hunted a Kiwi sambar stag.

quote:

Originally posted by NitroX:
Bullet was a 150 gr Nosler Partition with 49 grns of IMR4064 for a velocity of approximately 2900 fps.

What caliber John??

.30-06, will edit the original post too.

I wish I was as young as I was in that photo today!

quote:

ur hands up and I took this red stag and another member hunted a Kiwi sambar stag.

any pics of the sambar stag taken Nitro?

Afraid not. May have seen some photos back in 1993 but scanners weren't invented back then.

Brian gave us a very good deal. It was supposed to be a 2x1 hunt. I always had wanted to hunt red stag not having taken one before. The other gentleman had never succeeded on a sambar stag and thought a Kiwi one might make it. So we asked and Brian agreed to go two 1x1 hunts at the same special club price without any hesitation. So we hunted different times.

After my hunt I went on a two week campervan holiday to South Island with my wife. New Zealand is a great place both for a fair chase ( ) hunt and even better for a pleasant holiday. Also tried too go skiing at Mt Hutt/Methven and decided not to break our legs on the ice, not snow (too early). Got snowed in at Arthur's Pass overnight too.

Remember looking up those tall mountains and thinking they were tall compared to our little bumps.