We kicked off our 2024 Veterans hunt welcoming a Seal to camp. We had a full plan for the week, hunting Tahr and Red Stag. These trips are one of our biggest highlights to our season each year. Often allowing us to reflect on lifes journey leading us to where we are. We hit the range as a team with chef Liam coming along also. It was epic and a ton of fun shooting steel plates at various distances.
Day 1 in the hills saw us out glassing Red Stags and figuring out the ideal route we would take to close the gap. We had a tight weather window with some bad weather on the way. We glassed a beaut of a stag high up on the mountain, we laughed and began our climb. After a few hours we closed the gap to 380 meters, just as we got set up the storm hit and the wind picked up. We got dialed in and our veteran set up and ready for a shot. He sent a round but with the high winds ripping we couldnt hear a impact and the stag looked undisturbed. We sent another and still no reaction from the stag. Moments like these make you guess " did i miss dial, did i pull the shot" after one more round was sent, another stag appeared out of the tussock leading the other stag away. Before we knew it we were in a squall of rain and cloud and couldnt see more than 50meters, we decided to head down the mountain and try again the next day once we worked out what had happened.
The next morning back we went and figured we would glass over the mountain just to be sure and to locate any other stags. Out of the corner of the spotting scope it looked like a giant branch in the thick fern and tussock right below where we were the day before. Sure enough the stag was down! When we walked up the mountain and got to the stag we realised all 3 rounds had grouped perfectly! Perfect shot placement.
We packed the Stag back down the mountain a great result after a sleepless night thinking over events of the day before, a feeling alot of hunters i'm sure can relate to.
After a well earnt down day, the weather still wasnt playing ball so we were unable to fly out to one of our Tahr camps. So we laughed and accepted we would be climbing another mountain. We glassed and found a beaut of a Bull Tahr and began our accend to close the gap. On the way up the mountain Bear indicated and behind us only 70 meters away was another Bull in full rut mode. His mane all puffed up whilst he held his nannys. We quickly glassed back and forth between the Bull above us and this giant that was so close. We got set up and waited for the perfect shot and at 70 meters the Bull went down. When we walked up to the Bull we realised what an old giant he was.
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