Afternoon hunt
Still sporting sore knees and ankles from the rigours of tahr hunting we decided on a leisurely stroll up a gently inclining creek bed. The creek opens up into a basin surrounded by slips and Mike spotted a chamois in the NW corner travelling SW that quickly went out of view onto the ridge. We went into Stalk Mode and snuck forwards quietly for a few minutes, Mike with gun in hand ready for Anything To Happen. The chamois suddenly reappeared on the top of the ridge to our west, and started running down towards us! It crossed the basin floor ten metres ahead of us and then started up the other side. Haas made whistling chamois-like noises and it stopped a quarter of the way up to work out what was going on. Mike took a standing shot and nailed it through the heart at a distance of about 20m. His scope was still set at 12x so it was a matter of filling the scope's viewfinder with fur and pulling the trigger.
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| Mike with his chamois |
We could hear some real chamois whistling so we rushed up onto the ridge to look for more. Haas spotted some in the NW direction that he noted for the next day's hunt, while Mike went down to start skinning his animal.
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| A ridgeline Haas |
We made it back to camp just on dark and enjoyed whiskey, fillet steak and spicy noodles by the camp fire.
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| Chillaxing by the fire |
Morning hunt
The next morning we set off reasonably early to chase the chamois in the NW direction that had been spotted the previous day. We took the ridgeline route, which started with a wicked climb up through the scrub that was near vertical at times. Tussock, Horrid Spaniard, Mountain Snowberry and rocks provided the handholds and footholds needed to ascend a hard won 150m that got us onto the ridge.
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| The ridgeline, looking back towards Kaikoura |
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| Looking up the ridge... |
Ascending the ridge was then a pleasant stroll interspersed with some crawling / traversing below the lip in order to avoid being seen. When we got to the local peak we spotted a number of chamois on the steep terrain across the other sides of the gully.
We first saw a female with two kids in the N direction, and then as we crept forward another three on the ridge to the NW. Tom lined one up and waited patiently for it to be on our side of the ridge so that, all going well, it would fall into a retrievable position if he got it.
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| Waiting for the right moment... |
The stars aligned as such a few minutes later and Tom took out his target with a heart shot at 250m. It tumbled down the rocks and snow into a spot that we could get to safely.
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| Haas with chamois #2 |
After skinning this animal and taking meat we decided to try our luck descending the gully on the west side of the ridge we had been on. The terrain was dominated by fresh slips that were obviously quake-related, as well as some large scree slopes. There is a tight bit of the gully with a waterfall that is impassable, so we climbed up the ridge and descended the same way we'd come through the scrub.
And that's it!
Our objectives achieved, we asked the chopper to come and collect us the next morning and spent a couple of days in Kaikoura reacclimatising to civilisation (drying out tents/sleeping backs, doing washing, eating fruit & veg). Chamois hunting in Kaikoura is a good alternative to keep in the back pocket in case the West Coast weather is not hunting-friendly. And, Kaikoura is a top spot generally having the best of the mountains, rivers and sea all at its doorstep. Our thoughts and prayers to all those affected by the quake, and it is heart warming to see how the city has recovered and is thriving as a fantastic destination for both domestic and international travellers.
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| Mike looking back at the mountains he'd just been in, from the quake-raised seabed in front of the Pier Hotel. |
P.S. I'd never shoot chamois in France or any of their other natural habitats. Alongside deer and tahr, chamois were introduced to New Zealand by the colonists and the potentially devastating effect that they can have on the native flora and fauna leads them to be categorised as 'pests' by the NZ Department of Conservation (DOC). Outright eradication is prohibitively expensive and so the route taken by DOC is to keep the numbers under control through a combination of recreational hunting and helicopter-based culling. More information can be found here on the DOC website.
