Harakeke

A Note

After many years of trying for a ballot the weekend finally arrived. Seeing lots of fresh sign in the early morning with one doing a loop behind me and many miles of walking I arrived at a clump of dead pines and a feeling there was something there, spent a long time going backwards and up and down. Came out in to a small clearing turned around and there under an old pine lying in the sun was a deer. I don,t know who got the biggest fright but he disappeared pretty quick. I tracked him for about 1/2 an hour but his prints blended in with the rest of the undergrowth eg rabbit digging and such like. The biggest thrill was to hear a woman screaming so I headed off to investigate and here she was prancing around in the bush with a video camera and five dogs. Sunday morning 6am heading into the bush a police car arrived to investigate the strange car left in the bush as I found out on my return home. It was a great two days in the bush and hope to get another ballot some day. Thank you for two days of fun.

Ray Smith

Moutoa

First of all I would like to express my appreciation to Trevor Beals for the assistance, help & consideration. Saturday at Moutoa swamp was an absolutely still & brilliantly fine day. Not a breath of wind which did not help hunting through flax & bogy underfoot (I sounded like a train coming) so the deer heard me for miles off. At approximately 8am I shot at & missed a small 6 point stag in thick flax. Also a yearling running blindly nearly ran me over. Only a matter of feet. As it was nearly 9 o’clock I left the swamp until 3.30pm. On returning I entered from a different direction and at this point I came across 2 (poached) deer carcasses. One had the head & cape missing, the carcass still intact. nearby were gut contents from another animal. Proceeding deeper into the flax I came across another 6 point stag - badly decomposed, obviously shot & lost. Not long after that I saw 2 hinds watching me through thick flax. I did not shoot. As evening closed in I went to the cabbage tree lookout and observed a hind feeding out into the clearing. Hoping a stag was with her I waited. In a short time a young fawn appeared. What a great way to finish off a wonderful day, I watched them until after dark. Many thanks to the Sambar Foundation for the opportunity. I hope to win another ballot in the near future.

J Magan

Moutoa

My First Sambar - What A Thrill

Once I received notice that I was lucky enough to get a ballot I read all the books I could find on these animals. We talked about taking a ladder to use as a way to look over the swamp and a wheelbarrow to carry the deer out as they are so big.

Leith after having much trouble in getting a milker finally was able to come with me. He was successful in getting a ballot last year but didn't get a deer.

We left Dargaville at midday after packing all our gear onto the back of the Navara 4 x 4 and arrived at Ohakune at 8.00.p.m. We missed the turn off for the Western Bays route and ended up going through Taupo. We were going to stay at my sisters ski lodge but it was already occupied so decided to keep going. We spent the night on the back of the ute under a cover up a side road somewhere between Raetihi and Wanganui. Next morning woke at 5.00.a.m. and headed for Moutoa Flax Reserve to check out the area. Eventually arrived at the reserve just before lunch. We spent the rest of the day just walking around the area. We saw plenty of sign and eventually saw or spooked 4 animals. The first sighting was a dead Sambar that had only its head removed. By the end of the day we had located 2 carcasses and 4 paunches. In the late afternoon we meet up with two bow hunters who also had ballots.

Sunday morning up at 4.00.a.m. and drove to the locked gate as there was a gentle breeze coming from the east and the sky was clear. I left Leith at the gate and walked along the stop bank track to the start of the block. There were ducks getting up all the way along the track and when I reached the sign at the start of the reserve it was 5.20.a.m. but not quite enough light to see so waited listening to about 5 different cock pheasants calling around the reserve.

At 5.30.a.m. I moved slowly into the reserve. The grass was quite wet and felt like a light frost. I had decided to slowly move from one small clearing to the next and look for anything out in the open. Nothing was sighted but you could see where they had walked through the grass. As it got lighter I moved into the flax as that was where we had spooked most of the animals on Friday. As I approached the area I was going to concentrate on I noticed something different in the edge of the flax then all of a sudden this big grey bulldozer crashed off and then another. I followed them into the flax and for the next hour or so kept working the flax tracks and small clearings. Saw plenty of glimpses and would then hear them crash away.

It just reminded me of chasing white tail on Stewart Island, the only difference being white tail flash their tail and there is no noise, while the Sambar are quiet then crash away.

Eventually I had worked my way to the open drain that runs north south through the reserve with open ground to the north and the east. When I reached this point I was starting to get frustrated as having been so close to so many animals but no real chance of a shot. The slight breeze had shifted to the south so decided to move back through where I had come from. I had gone back into the flax a short distance and I spooked a deer and then another but realised they hadn't gone far and then I heard some water splashing and realised something was crossing the drain. I ran as fast as possible through the flax about 10 - 20m and came out on the edge next to the drain to see 2 deer running out over the open ground about 50m away.

I quickly looked at their heads, one had nothing but the second had some little spikes so I decided that would be the one. I fired and it stopped so I then fired a second shot and it went all wobbly but didn't fall over. I then decided it wasn't going anywhere in a hurry so crossed the drain and walked along the drain cleanings. When I was about 50m away I sat down cleaned the dew off the scope lens and my glasses then head shot it. When I got to it, it was a spiker but I couldn't believe how big it was. The time was 6.55 a.m. I went and got a flax stick and tied my red safety flag to it and stood it up next to the deer so that the MAF man could locate the animal.

Then I looked up at the stop bank and saw Leith on it. I started to walk towards Leith and met him coming out of the flax so walked back to the deer and took some photos. We then walked back to the track and made all the phone calls to MAF and the Monitor. While we were having a cuppa on the stop bank waiting for MAF to arrive we watched 3 deer and a huge stag walk out of the flax below us and walk across the clearing to the main body of flax - Oh what a sight.

After quite some time we went and gutted the animal and Leith decided he would try and carry it out. While having our cuppa we talked about how we were going to get the deer out to the truck. Ian had told us about the guy who went out and got a wheelbarrow and used that to carry the deer. Leith estimated the deer weighed about 150lb with no gut and said he had carried a 200lb boar once. Somehow he managed to stand with it with some help and then he was off. We landed it onto the truck and waited for the MAF guy to come. He eventually arrived and did his thing.

We than took the animal to Trevor's place and handed in our paper work. He estimated it to weigh between 150 - 160lb and said it had a really good skin on it. We then went to Tony's place where we were staying and weighed the deer on the Manawatu Pig Hunters scales and it came out at 190lb. Leith is now called "Wheelbarrow".

I would like to thank the Foundation for all the work they have done in arranging these ballots. The three of us from Dargaville have put in for the last 3 years and so far two of us have been successful with my deer being the first shot.

As for all the stories about how bad the meat is, so far everyone who has had some couldn't believe how tender and mild tasting it is. Maybe it had something to do with stuffing the carcass with ash covered snow from the Tuoroa ski field.

For the time we spent in the block we saw 9 deer, spooked 8, found 4 paunches and 3 bodies of deer.

L Newby

Turakina Valley

The Hunt

Having helped my family break in a farm near Dannevirke, serve overseas while underage, spend a decade on a war pension, received and worked a rehab farm I never had time or health to go after deer until 1961 when I took a 41 X 41 red in Big Bay. A number of trips and trophies have followed over the years but not the elusive Sambar. Having spent some time in the Turakina Valley it was nice to have a go for a Sambar there. The first time was only a yearling for the skin but 1996 I lucky enough to get a stag.

I went in the last weekend of the hunt. I had been disturbed by reports of the antics of two “hunters” earlier in the season. People who do not follow the rules spoil it for all of us. I slept in my truck on Friday night and hunted Saturday without seeing anything. Saturday night was spent sleeping on the deck of the Subaru. Up at 6am and at 6.10 I saw an animal move out of a patch of bush about 1/3 of a mile away and head down into the creek. I could not see if it was a stag or hind. With my rifle in one hand and walking stick in the other I made my way down a track in the general direction to see where the deer had gone. Halfway to where it had disappeared I looked over the bank and there he was, twenty feet below and eating grass. My 30.06 spoke and he never knew what had hit him. I now had a sambar trophy to add to the others. I am 70 plus, had two hip ops and a knee replacement, I am a bit limited in my climbing but next year I will be looking again to see if there is a better one.

K Lambert.

Waitarere

The Experience

The Sambar Ballot had rolled around for another year and after never getting a ballot before it was almost an anti-climax to hear my name called out - Waitarere Block. Pressure of work ensured I could only get to look over my block once before the season. I contacted the hunter who had the block preceding me, many thanks to Steve Silcock for some excellent info on the block.

Saturday the 14th waiting with anticipation on the block for daylight, perfect conditions. After a fruitless morning following only one hot set of prints I realised it was going to need a lot of things to go right for me to get a Sambar. A long and enjoyable talk to Warwick Beedell and Ian Fitchett at midday gave me some areas to check, the unselfish way these men gave up info gained over many trips through the area was much appreciated.

Sunday morning was out so from 3.00pm until it was dark found my son and I checking and rechecking an area full of sign. At 5.30 in the middle of a downpour what we had wanted almost came true. In an area where 6 to 8 trees had been freshly stripped my son and I jumped a Sambar. Sixteen hours of hunting were compressed into about 3 seconds of action. ‘Whoosh! Whoosh! Crash!’ HELL! a Sambar, rifle up, look for it, there it is, there it was!

A yearling I think later as I reflect on what has happened, at best I might have hit it in the arse so I’m glad I never really took the shot I had for a split second. I let my son follow the path the deer had taken until it was too dark to see and then reluctantly had to call him off. The questions from him continued until we arrived back home and the excitement I felt was also felt by my son, just to see his reaction and to try and answer his questions took me full circle to an 11 year old asking his father the same things and remembering the awe and sadness mixed with delight at the first time I had gone with my father and got a deer.

Many thanks for the chance to take a Sambar legally unlike what is clearly going on in Waitarere, Ah but that's another story.

L Coley