Rakiura/Stewart Island: Smoky Beach

Hunting and Wildlife Magazine - Issue 224 - Autumn 2024

Words By: : John DeLury

Murray Vague is an Australian who travelled to New Zealand as a young man to hunt in the 1960s. He hunted red deer and sika on the North Island, where he met and was looked after by NZDA stalwarts Jack Dillon and Fred Stratford. On the West Coast, he hitchhiked to hunt tahr and chamois.

He hunted on Stewart Island with his Australian mate, where he developed a deep affinity for whitetail deer. He made several trips to the Island, one of which led to a chance meeting with Mason Bay sheep farmer, Tim TeAika. With his friend Keith McAuliffe, they developed Rakiura/Stewart Island’s only commercial hunting operation, ‘Stewart Island Safaris’, which they marketed to hunters mainly in Victoria. Catering for about ten clients annually, the operation ran for nearly ten years, and during that time, Murray shot a fine 8-point buck, which measured 153 DS.

My first contact with Murray was while organising the Whitetail Exhibition in conjunction with the National Conference at Invercargill in 2003, where 64 trophies were displayed. When I wrote my second whitetail book, Murray provided a significant chapter on his early hunts on the Island and several pictures of trophies taken by hunters during the SI Safaris days. Murray still had a powerful Whitetail itch to scratch.

Some 40 years after his last hunt, I invited him to join Mike, Hacky, Kerry and I on a trip to Smoky Beach in April 2023. I was aware he had back issues, but I knew a spot 15 minutes from the hut which would be perfect for him. He would be comfortable sitting on the edge of a terrace overlooking a nice gully. On a previous hunt at Smoky, Kerry and I had sat there for two evenings. On the first, we were a little late getting there and spooked a deer below us in the gloom. The next night, we were early, and just before dark, a deer came in behind us, caught us completely off guard, snorted at us and bolted. Flashes of white were all we saw.

Weeks of anticipation went by until our permit day arrived. The sun was hiding when we arrived at the helicopter base at Bluff. As our gear was all stacked alongside the Squirrel, the feeling that everything wouldn’t fit was foremost in my mind. Full credit to the pilot, who soon had everything packed and 20 minutes later, we were at Smoky Beach. The most stupid aviation rule ever prohibits the carriage of LPG on aircraft, so we reverted to an old-school white spirit cooker. You can’t carry gas but can carry as much petrol as you like. I hope that gets reviewed soon.

It was a more comfortable journey than some of the three or four-hour boat journeys getting pounded all the way down the east coast of the island. As we flew in, we saw several deer tracks crisscrossing the sand. Some looked like they were made by a large animal, and hopes were high.

After a quick sort out in the hut, I took Murray to what would be his possie for the next 10 days. Things were as I remembered them, and we set him up with a little event chair, something to rest his back on. There was enough sign in the gully to say he would see deer here. I put a trail camera up in the gully bottom and left him to find my own spot.

I decided on another place I had been previously. I crossed the river and headed up a ridge to where there was a little saddle that deer used. I found a punga hide overlooking the saddle that another hunter had built, but it hadn’t been used for some time. I put another camera up and arrived back at the hut in the dark. Mike had brought enough groper to feed everyone for dinner, probably a first for an island hunting camp.

Heavy rain during the night eased by daylight, and Kerry and I set off up the track to Long Harry to hunt an area on our block boundary, using the logic that it would be relatively untouched. Half an hour up, the track became quite steep. It was very muggy, we were sweating, my glasses were fogging, and there were a couple of breaks. During one, I looked up the track as a doe stepped out and stared down at us. But not for long, and she was gone. We didn’t quite get as far as planned but dropped down into the forest. It was not very good going with a lot of scrub, but the lower we got, the better the hunting. We saw a deer scamper away in a tight little gully but could not see what it was or get a shot. The rain had also improved by this time, and we headed for the hut. The fire was going when we arrived, and it was a happy time to change into dry clothes in the warmth and have a little drink. This was more satisfying as it was a hut that Mike, Hacky, Ray Phillips, Mark Casserly and I had built eight years earlier for Rakiura Hunter Camp Trust. It was the 21st of the 22 hunter huts we had built on the Island, so the building process went smoothly. 

The following day, I walked to the far end of the beach and hunted back towards the hut – unsuccessfully. By 2.30pm, I had had enough; the big day with Kerry yesterday was probably too much for old legs. As I walked back along the sand, I could see the buoys that marked the start of the track to the hut. I noticed a movement at the buoys and thought it was one of the others. As I got to the buoys, a whitetail fawn flashed its tail, and it bounced away through the ferns. She was only three metres away inside the scrub, but my mind was on a coffee. Besides, it was hardly big enough to feed the five of us.

As Kerry had been having trouble with his trail cam, I had a look at it and couldn’t get it to set correctly until I put a new SD card in it. Maybe I could get images of the animals leaving the tracks on the sand, so I set it on the tramping track 20m from the hut door. It recorded us all coming and going: possums, kiwis, a cat and one solo tramper, as well as the little fawn that was on it every day, usually early afternoon when we were hunting and occasionally at night.

Hacky arrived back at the hut, and we had a brew together. I took him around where I had left the trail cam the previous day. It took us 20 minutes to get there. “Sit here in the pungas, and I will sit on the other side; the camera is just down on the saddle.” I had just sat down, looked up the ridge and spotted a whitetail descending toward the saddle. I could see that Hacky was unsighted and took the shot. Deer down, it turned out to be a 4-pointer with small antlers. They were so small I had not seen them when I looked through the scope and pulled the trigger. The deer was in good condition, and as it got dark, we hung it in a tree to collect it the next day. Checking the trail cam, we were surprised to find some good images.

Mike had hunted inland and saw five deer. I thought he must be slowing up as they were all still running. However, it was a promising start, and it was even better when we looked at the camera where Murray had been sitting to see a nice 8-pointer passed on each of the first two nights. That really got Murray enthusiastic about the spot we had chosen for him.

The following day, Hacky and I took a leisurely stroll and recovered all the meat from the buck. His jawbone indicated three years, so he would never be a great trophy. Just after 2pm, Kerry and Murray looked at the timber remains in the river of the brig “Workington”, which took on water in a storm in 1857. She was run ashore and became a total wreck. To their surprise, two deer moved through the bush on the opposite side of the river, and of course, no rifles were present.

That night, the weather forecast on the Garmin inReach showed heavy rain from 9am, but the weather on the transistor was showers, so it was raincoats on and away soon after daylight. I was the only one to cross the swing bridge and hunt through several small scrub-filled gullies. The showers had stopped, so I took my raincoat off and sat watching a promising gully for some time. I crossed it and noted several fresh droppings. Having spent so long watching, I wasn’t expecting to see anything, so I was surprised to see a deer feeding over the crest of the ridge.

A doe, I thought, and she died instantly. The distance was only 9m. Then I had that nagging feeling that I should have tried for a photo instead of the meat - but as it turned out, it was a good thing I didn’t, as no one else was providing. I grabbed the back leg and was surprised to find buck equipment. Pulling the head out of the moss, I found two little spikes less than an inch long. I excused myself for thinking it was a doe but was annoyed. I frequently say you can’t get big bucks if you keep shooting the little ones. Maybe this was one of the reasons the male/female kill ratio of mature deer aged from the island seems male-dominated. It is particularly noticeable once the easy yearling stage is passed. If more does are taken, the bucks will be more aggressive and hopefully easier to find.

I left the deer hanging in a tree and carried on. I found a couple of buck scrapes, but before an hour had passed, the inReach report proved correct. The rain was so heavy I could hardly hear anything other than the sound of it on the foliage. It was time to pick up the deer and head for the hut to dry off.

The following day, I returned to the same area of the scrapes, intending to head further inland. However, the creek was running high and fast, and I was not prepared to cross it. There had been more rain than I thought, so I gave up on the plan, as the weather was still threatening more rain.

Mike and Kerry had been hunting upstream. They reported good sign and a couple of fresh scrapes. They continued to be quite secretive about where they were going until day eight, when Mike invited me to accompany him for the evening hunt. We had only been 15 minutes from the hut when we went past a large rub on a tree. “This is a good spot to stalk,” he said. “I can see that,” I said, “but why haven’t you been using that tree stand?” I pointed out the 4x2 boards that had been fixed up the tree. Sometimes, it is just as important to look up as someone else may have been looking to provide a better field of view. 

Some hunters assume big rubs on trees are caused by bucks rubbing off their velvet. This is not the case. While most hunters have disturbed a whitetail and heard them snort at us, usually, there are no deer sounds heard in the bush. The most common way whitetail communicate is by scent. These large rubs are a buck’s signpost. The dominant buck works the tree with his basal snags and the pearling on his lower antlers. The gouges are generally made by his basals, not his upper antler points. At the same time, he is rubbing his forehead over the area of the tree he is working on. A gland in his forehead secretes a fatty oil. The scent of this oil is compounded by the buck rubbing his forehead on his tarsal gland. The smell is of rank, oily urine, barely noticeable by us humans, but easily detected by other deer. The older the buck, the darker the hair around both these glands becomes, especially the forehead. Of course, these rubs also become a visual signpost and may give some indication of the direction the buck is approaching from. Bucks use these same signposts year after year. Signposts announce his presence in the area, saying this is their territory. And like scrapes, they may be frequented by more than one buck. Junior bucks won’t use the signposts! They will smell them but not use them!

We went on a little further, and Mike pointed out the scrape where he had a trail camera set. A buck had visited and could be seen mouthing the foliage overhanging the scrape. I left Mike a little later to head over to Murray’s spot. He was having a night off, and I thought I might get a look at the camera buck. Just before dark, I heard Mike shoot, and after a few whistles to each other, I caught up with him and the evidence of a solid hit, but by this time, it was as dark as the inside of a tunnel. Headlights on, we couldn’t find the deer in the ferns where he said he had heard it. He said it was a young animal, and I was so pleased it was not the buck, and I felt guilty about intruding on Murray’s territory. I checked the trail camera as we left and saw the same buck had been passed at 11.30pm the previous night for the fifth time. The following morning, four of us went back, and after some fruitless searching in the ferns, we found the dead yearling in the area's most open piece of bush.

As the trip ended, I told Murray it was a pity the buck never showed at his gully during daylight hours. “No worries”, he said, “I had some fun getting the pictures of the young deer and does that went through the gully while I was there. Thanks for looking after me at 77. I hope I didn’t slow things down too much”. My answer was, “Murray, all you did was lift the average age of the party to 73.”  The attractions of hunting whitetail deer are that older is never too old, and a little fitness helps, but you don’t have to be super-fit!

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