in thick scrub , a small-bodied buck with 8½ inch horns .
It was with some difficulty that we climbed out of that place , but once back on the ridge hawk-eyed Charles soon spotted two more bucks at 240 yards . He fired a shot at one but since the angle was steep the bullet went high . In hindsight I think that was a blessing because it would have been a very difficult retrieval from that spot .
From there it was a bit of a sweat to the top of the pass we were heading for , and we started our descent towards the camp via the spot where Charles had shot his buck . When we were close to the trophy we spotted another young buck and I got some good video footage of it .
Andrew ’ s chamois turned out to be an 8 5 ⁄ 8 ” buck , again very small-bodied . I think that because the horns look bigger on a small-bodied animal , we were misled into thinking they were longer than they actually were .
By the time we got back to the camp we had been away for about 15 hours and were all fairly stuffed . A tin of lasagne and a bit of vino and we were all in bed by 11.30 pm , though I was awake for another half hour writing my diary by the light of my head torch .
Next morning we had a bit of a sleep-in and after a late breakfast were back on the hill at 10 am . We headed up towards the top of the ridge above the camp , and when we were about 60 metres from the top we sat down to do some glassing . We heard a noise above us and immediately spotted a good-looking buck at the top of the ridge , thumping his feet and whistling in alarm . Andrew fired a quick shot with his 7mm magnum and the buck rolled 30 yards down towards us . Its horns turned out to be 9 5 / 8 ” so Andrew was ecstatic and wore a Cheshire cat smile ! Since we were only 150 yards from camp we took the animal back there after the
We were woken by a kea after a nap on the tops
Some of the chamois we shot were on the steep faces at left
40 NZ Hunting & Wildlife 196 - Autumn 2017