JP100
WKR
Hey Guys
Been pretty busy out in the hills guiding but finally got away on trip for myself. Its abit of a long story but hope you have the time to have a read
About 3 months ago I got a message from my mate asking if I was keen to go on a fly in Tahr hunt. Of course I said yes the only catch was it was a bows only trip…
The plan was to apply for one of the Landsborough Ballot blocks, although you can hunt public land year round in NZ there are some areas that have restricted helicopter access, and foot access is near impossible. The Upper Landsborough is one of these areas, allowing heli access for 2 months of the year with set landing sites and ballot type system to get a “block” for a week of hunting. So my friend filled out the forms and we waited and as luck would have it we drew a block in the 2nd week of May. This was good news for bow hunting as the earlier we could get in there the better as some rifle hunters will be shooting pretty much everything they see.
So it was set, 4 bow hunters would fly in on the 10th and out on the 17th.
The team was myself, Adrian, Kadin and my partner Mirella. Adrian and Kadin have been bow hunting for years(Kadin since he was 6) and I have been shooting a bow for nearly 5 months, and Mirella about 3 months. So I didn’t have too higher expectations of getting one. The lead up to the hunt was going pretty well, my shooting was pretty good and I was happy out to 40 yards. I was flat out guiding the month before we were due to set off so was fit and had plenty of practice chasing Tahr, but then disaster struck.
The week before our hunt I managed to derail my Bow (don’t ask how!). We managed to get the string back on with a portable bow press of Adrian’s but realised I had cracked a limb and smashed the bearings in the cams. This might not seem too bad but we live on the west coast of the south island and there are no bow shops in the whole south island the closest being in the north island 2-3 days courier away. I was a little stressed to say the least. I had my Bow sent in the courier the next day but it was very unlikely to make it back in time.
Luckily another friend of mine had his bow at my place so I started shooting this as it was likely my bow couldn’t be fixed in time. Now this bow was not the prettiest thing around, a PL(Perfect Line) bow with about 10% let off, but it was better than nothing(or so I kept telling myself). I got a lot of shooting in that week and was pretty confident out to 30-40 yards with it.
Anyway back to the hunt.
Day 1
We met at the heli pad hoping to fly in at 9.30-10am but low cloud kept the flight delayed till midday. It was good to see the other parties coming out with a few Tahr and Chamois heads and a lot of wet cold gear as they had only one day with-out rain in their week of hunting.
The flight in was spectacular, flying past some of the highest and most rugged mountains in the country. We landed out our campsite which was about 3000(960m) feet above sea level at 12.30. We were lucky to draw one the highest blocks so our camp was above the bush line and almost in the open tussock.
We quickly set up camp and split up to have a look around. Mirella and I went up the creek bed behind camp and Adrian and Kadin went up straight up the hill behind camp.
The creek was good to travel up but had dense monkey scrub on both sides. Monkey scrub is hard to describe but it is generally a dense jungle about 4-6 feet high. Making it impossible to go under or over the top. After about 10 mins of stalking and glassing we heard some Tahr whistling at us in the creek. We couldn’t see where the noise was coming from then I spotted 3 Tahr as they made there escape, only seeing them when they jumped high over the scrub. It was 2 young bulls and a Nanny so I was not too worried. Good to see some so close to camp. We carried on up the creek making it up to about 5500 feet just below the deep snow. From here we spotted a mob of nannies with 2 very good looking mature bulls with them. It was 4.30pm and they were still about 2-3 hours away at least in some very hard to access tussock benches.
We decided to head back to camp and try for them tomorrow. Kadin and Adrian stalked about in some monkey scrub and missed a bull at 25 yards, hitting some dense brush inches from the bull. It was a good start to the trip!
to be continued haha...
Been pretty busy out in the hills guiding but finally got away on trip for myself. Its abit of a long story but hope you have the time to have a read
About 3 months ago I got a message from my mate asking if I was keen to go on a fly in Tahr hunt. Of course I said yes the only catch was it was a bows only trip…
The plan was to apply for one of the Landsborough Ballot blocks, although you can hunt public land year round in NZ there are some areas that have restricted helicopter access, and foot access is near impossible. The Upper Landsborough is one of these areas, allowing heli access for 2 months of the year with set landing sites and ballot type system to get a “block” for a week of hunting. So my friend filled out the forms and we waited and as luck would have it we drew a block in the 2nd week of May. This was good news for bow hunting as the earlier we could get in there the better as some rifle hunters will be shooting pretty much everything they see.
So it was set, 4 bow hunters would fly in on the 10th and out on the 17th.
The team was myself, Adrian, Kadin and my partner Mirella. Adrian and Kadin have been bow hunting for years(Kadin since he was 6) and I have been shooting a bow for nearly 5 months, and Mirella about 3 months. So I didn’t have too higher expectations of getting one. The lead up to the hunt was going pretty well, my shooting was pretty good and I was happy out to 40 yards. I was flat out guiding the month before we were due to set off so was fit and had plenty of practice chasing Tahr, but then disaster struck.
The week before our hunt I managed to derail my Bow (don’t ask how!). We managed to get the string back on with a portable bow press of Adrian’s but realised I had cracked a limb and smashed the bearings in the cams. This might not seem too bad but we live on the west coast of the south island and there are no bow shops in the whole south island the closest being in the north island 2-3 days courier away. I was a little stressed to say the least. I had my Bow sent in the courier the next day but it was very unlikely to make it back in time.
Luckily another friend of mine had his bow at my place so I started shooting this as it was likely my bow couldn’t be fixed in time. Now this bow was not the prettiest thing around, a PL(Perfect Line) bow with about 10% let off, but it was better than nothing(or so I kept telling myself). I got a lot of shooting in that week and was pretty confident out to 30-40 yards with it.
Anyway back to the hunt.
Day 1
We met at the heli pad hoping to fly in at 9.30-10am but low cloud kept the flight delayed till midday. It was good to see the other parties coming out with a few Tahr and Chamois heads and a lot of wet cold gear as they had only one day with-out rain in their week of hunting.
The flight in was spectacular, flying past some of the highest and most rugged mountains in the country. We landed out our campsite which was about 3000(960m) feet above sea level at 12.30. We were lucky to draw one the highest blocks so our camp was above the bush line and almost in the open tussock.
We quickly set up camp and split up to have a look around. Mirella and I went up the creek bed behind camp and Adrian and Kadin went up straight up the hill behind camp.

The creek was good to travel up but had dense monkey scrub on both sides. Monkey scrub is hard to describe but it is generally a dense jungle about 4-6 feet high. Making it impossible to go under or over the top. After about 10 mins of stalking and glassing we heard some Tahr whistling at us in the creek. We couldn’t see where the noise was coming from then I spotted 3 Tahr as they made there escape, only seeing them when they jumped high over the scrub. It was 2 young bulls and a Nanny so I was not too worried. Good to see some so close to camp. We carried on up the creek making it up to about 5500 feet just below the deep snow. From here we spotted a mob of nannies with 2 very good looking mature bulls with them. It was 4.30pm and they were still about 2-3 hours away at least in some very hard to access tussock benches.

We decided to head back to camp and try for them tomorrow. Kadin and Adrian stalked about in some monkey scrub and missed a bull at 25 yards, hitting some dense brush inches from the bull. It was a good start to the trip!

to be continued haha...