2016 Tahr Hunting Trip (Bubble Creek)

There was a lot of rain forecast for the week we were booked to go into Bubble Creek.  A break in the weather on Sunday morning allowed us to get in but the forecasts told us Tuesday was likely to be the only clear day.  We were still keen, and as the story shows it didn't stop us from getting 19 tahr in total between the four of us...  This is a story of how to keep your sanity when rain-bound in the tents, and how to make the most of the hunting when the weather clears!

Haas wondering when the chopper is going to arrive...

With camp established and only a light a drizzle of rain coming down we decided to have a little look around the immediate area.

Haas's legendary Kiwi Camper communal tent with his homemade veranda walls. Note also the chimney.

Grant went upstream to the flats and saw two nannies out of rangefinder range (>1km) then returned to camp to drink port with Pete and dig some trenches to deal with the water beginning to pool around the campsite.  During a break in the rain they spied three bulls on each side of the river, one with a group of 5 nannies.  Monday was going to be a total rain write-off so those tahr would have to wait until Tuesday to be courted by our rifles.

Mike and Haas went up the hill behind camp.  Mike found a sheltered alcove in a cliff face that had great views over the terrain below down to the river, and was full of tahr shit.  Obviously a popular bedding down area.  There was one pile of shit that was still steaming when he arrived and it dissolved in the rain while he was there. He must have followed very closely in the footsteps of a tahr - perhaps it smelled him from around the corner?

Cliff alcove (on right) with some of the view over Romping Water

During a break in the rain Mike climbed back up again to about 1400m and did see two nannies on a ridge which he contemplated as meat animals but it was raining quite a bit so he decided to pack it in and head back to camp.

Back at camp, while the rain gained strength outside, we dined on (Grant's) venison stew with potatoes and garlic broccoli on the side.  This was matched with some of Haas's mulled wine and a bottle of "la trappe quadrupel".

That night the thunder and lightning started.  In the middle of the night Pete and Grant did some major trench digging to deal with a huge accumulation of water around their tents (especially Pete's!).

Pete's river in full flow the next morning.

It rained all Monday and spirits were starting to flag a little until 5pm when we cranked the Frontier Stove up for the first time - woo-hoo!  Pete cooked a cracking stew of more (Grant's) venison, carrots, beer, apricots, almonds, mexican spices, Kaitaia Fire hot sauce and potatoes.  Now we're camping!

The stew was paired with a bottle of Highland Park cask strength (Whiskey Galore 2000 bottling), followed up by most of a bottle of Glensomething as well...  Among the topics covered that night one member of the party made it clear that even in a life or death situation they would not share a sleeping bag with a mate.  We also did quite a bit of reading to pass the time...

Tuesday morning was clear and still, -4 degC.  This was the big day, the one day of the week with perfect weather!

Haas & Mike went up the true right of Bubble Creek and stalked the ridges on both sides.  They saw two young bulls on the Romping Creek ridgeline and as they watched some suppressed sounding gunshots were fired on the other side of the ridge, which they figured must be Pete.  The tahr were a bit disturbed but not running.  Haas & Mike decided to focus on the ridges in the other direction... After climbing up through Bubble Creek the ice axes came into play to ascend a 45 degree slope of refrozen snow

And then they were on a plateau that led straight up to the skyline

Mike walked up and got within 100m of the skyline but there were clouds gathering on the other side of the valley and a long descent ahead of them so they started downhill around 3.30pm.  Just before they left they spotted a huge megabull on the skyline where Mike had just been - "DON'T MOVE!".  Unfortunately it had spotted them and despite Mike & Haas staying absolutely frozen it wandered off behind the ridge after staring at them for a couple of minutes.  Two lessons learned 1/ take the shot 2/ always take crampons (which would have been needed to safely retrieve the bull).

Mike & Haas's Tuesday route

In addition Mike & Haas saw a group of three nannies on the way up and one on the way down but let them be.  Despite all the exertion and excitement they returned to camp without having fired a shot. This may not have been so bad in the end because a couple of days later Haas had a very successful stalk in the same area.

Grant went upriver towards Romping Water and shot a 10" bull off the first slip on the right.  Then he crossed the water and explored the flats towards Repulse Creek

Towards Repulse Creek

Geology's playground

The day delivered a little variety... He saw 8 chamois and got two - one had nice 8" hooks.

Chamois 1

Chamois 2

Looking back towards camp (around the corner after the slip)

While Grant was hunting the north side of Romping Water, Pete went up along the faces past the top of the slip on the south side (the same slip as in the photo above) and underneath the cliff alcove Mike had sat in two days beforehand.  He shot three nannies that turned out to be young bulls on closer inspection and took meat.

So on the best day of the week a total of four tahr were shot... (and 2 chamois...).  Where do the other 15 come in to it???  The forecast was for Wednesday to be a washout, Thursday to clear up in the afternoon, Friday to be another washout and Saturday (extraction day) to clear up around lunchtime.

The rain fell on Wednesday as predicted.

An advantage of having a small river flow past the tent is that you don't need to go far to do the dishes

And the Landsborough River rose a little too... 

During a brief dry spell in the late afternoon we did some glassing and saw a big group of 9 nannies, 2 young bulls, 1 big bull on the other side only 700m away.  There was also a separate group of 2 nannies, 3 young bulls and a mature bull 800m away. The river must be crossed at some point! (but not that day...)

That evening we had an epic session of 500 the card game.  We didn't know the scores we just played the hands and kept records of who won what.  The scores/game outcomes have been determined retrospectively:  Pete & Grant won the first game in 5 hands, then Mike & Haas blasted them away in the second game in just two hands (masere & 8 no trumps).  Pete & Grant took the third game in 7 hands.  The fourth game was 'incomplete'

A happy camper

Thursday, "Day of Death"...  The forecast was for the rain to clear during the day and the rain in the morning was quite light too so we headed out in four different directions around 9am.  Tom up Bubble Creek, Grant over the river, Mike upriver, Pete downriver.

Pete got to the second creek past Also Gully and then spotted tahr on the other side of the river on the Townsend Creek ridge.  He waded across the river, climbed the hill and dispatched two bulls and two nannies from a distance of around 350m.  He took the cape of one of the bulls (12"). The other had fallen down a ravine.  That took Pete's tally to 5 bulls so far and he had let four nannies and four young bulls go that day.  He slogged it back with a very heavy pack!

Grant crossed the river then went 500m upstream and climbed the hill.  He heard a barrage of shots, which must have been Pete or Haas, and then started to see tahr coming in off the tussock towards him.  He trudged around and saw a nanny and a kid, took a photo...

...and then followed ground cover to find the rest of the mob.  He finally spotted the bull at a distance of 200m and dispatched it.  It turned out to be a nice 12.5" trophy!

He didn't have his ice axe so retrieval was tricky given the terrain ... he took the head & the complete skin so that he could decide what to do with it later.  He also got a nanny, and a young bull that popped up behind him after he had shot the bull.  In total he saw 17 tahr that day, with 3 taken.

Grant & his bull, as it appeared in the media!

Haas went up Bubble Creek (true right branch) and saw a bull at 300m without being seen himself.  He used his ninja skills to get 50m closer and then set up the GoPro to capture the shot, which dropped the animal like a stone.  At the sound of the shot six tahr came running out of the creek and he shot two on the run, which turned out to be juveniles.

He took one of the juvenile skins (a.k.a The Giant Rabbit Skin), and then started working towards recovering the bull.  It was steep and the bull had only fallen 50m so Haas had to do some technical climbing...  He took the head & cape, putting his feet in the bull's armpits to keep them warm while he worked on it, and with yet another very heavily laden pack came back down through the tussock to camp by 2pm.

Haas's Thursday Bull

Luke Skywalker eat your heart out. [Haas Goatshooter?]

Unfortunately Haas didn't take enough of the skin for a head mount (you need to go as far back as the balls) so he decided to just use the horns for a coat rack.  This required removing the bottom half of the skull.  There is a slow way, and a fast way of doing this...

Mike went on his own upriver because he wanted to sight in the rifle without spooking any of the tahr the others might be going after.  He did this in a gully above the opposite side of Romping Water and this proved to be worthwhile because it was shooting 10cm low at 100m.  Unfortunately the shots he let off may have spooked the tahr in the area because he saw none despite covering a lot of ground.  It was still an exhilarating day with some spectacular views including seeing a huge 600m avalanche come down off Mt McKerrow.

Mike's tahr-free route around Mt Spence (anti-clockwise)

Aftermath of the massive avalanche

Not the moon... maybe he was a bit too high for the tahr though...

That evening we dined on Haas's pasta carbonara as we reflected on the ten tahr shot that day...  The Hari Hari bacon was particularly memorable, both for the taste and the packaging ("Makin' Bacon" brand).

The forecast for Friday was light rain all day.  After a slow morning we noticed around lunchtime that the rain was very light indeed and a very large bull was spotted only about 600m away on the other side of the river.  Mike and Haas decided to go for it while Pete & Grant watched things unfold through the spotting scope.

In their enthusiasm after crossing the river (perhaps to try and warm up??) Mike & Haas went way too high and in the end stopped one ridge short of where the bull had moved to, which Grant & Pete could still see from camp.  Grant & Pete were waving their warms and pointing in the hope that the hunters would understand they only needed to go another 100m, but at the time that Mike looked back with binoculars towards camp to see if they were doing anything like that, the guys must have been looking at something else because there was no signalling to be seen..  Ironically Grant had brought some walkie-talkies that would have been perfect for the situation, if we'd taken them out!

After standing around scratching their heads for a while Mike and Haas decided to split up - Haas to head downhill and then back to camp, Mike to maintain altitude and head south to hunt the other faces opposite camp.

Faces opposite camp.  One of the black dots in the top-right is probably a tahr.

Thirty minutes later as Mike was heading away from the area he heard two gunshots spaced apart by a couple of minutes...   He climbed a steep rock gully and then continued working along the ridges wondering what escapades Haas had been up to.  When he was above Hester Gully the guys at camp were watching him through the spotting scope and he appeared to be moping around doing nothing for five minutes before suddenly laying down, taking a shot, and giving them a thumbs-up.  It had taken him a while to spot the bull watching him from the other side of the gully...

He was making his way towards the bull when a group of six nannies appeared at the top of the cliff hanging over the gully.  He got two before his .308 jammed with a round in the chamber.  It was an awkward firing position and one wasn't a clean kill unfortunately.  He removed the bolt and clambered across and up the other side of the gully to chase down and finish the job with the knife...

So what had happened to Haas?  Many hours later we found out that he had gone down below the snowline and then left around one more ridge at which point he saw a nanny way above him.  He took a shot, and as he was working his way up towards it the rest of the mob appeared including the big bull that had been seen from camp!  He took the bull out and then proceeded to climb up into the snow to retrieve it.  It was a long slow process skinning it out with the head and he only got back to camp well after nightfall, but it was worth it as it was measured at being 12.5", 13" if the horns tips hadn't been chipped off.  Also it was good he'd had 'practice' taking a head skin a couple of days earlier because it would have been a crying shame to not take enough skin for this mount.

Haas's big bull

What's a tahr's armpit good for if not for keeping your feet warm?

Dinner on Friday night was rice risotto with kransky sausages and cashew nuts in front of the Frontier Stove - toasty! Mike had a visitor in his tent when he retired.

Mikey's mouse.

On Saturday the weather did clear up as predicted and we were extracted (well, some of us were just transferred down the river a bit - but that's another story...).

From left to right: Mike, Pete, Grant and Haas

In total 19 tahr shot: 13", 12 1/2", 12",  11", 10" bulls and some smaller bulls and nannys, over the course of 2 days and a brief evening hunt.  Haas transported a massive chilly bin full of meat back up to Gisborne and numerous skins/heads have made their way to the taxidermists.

In summary, if you go on a tahr ballot with poor weather forecast: keep a close eye on the updated forecasts (satellite phones / delorme's essential), take opportunities to hunt when they arise, and make sure you have entertainment and a heat source for the tent-bound days!  A communal tent you can stand in, that has a stove or heater, is worth its weight in gold for weeks like these.