Rangitata Tahr - Perseverance pays off!

Hunting and Wildlife Magazine - Issue 225 - Winter 2024

Words By: Stuart Langslow 

Sometimes, trips fall into place and just happen; this was not one of them.
Not long after I booked flights to the NZDA conference in Ashburton, I thought of how to turn it into a hunting trip. It wasn’t long before a group of four committed to spending the best part of a week up the Rangitata Valley. It didn’t take long before the first member of our party had to pull out due to work commitments. Approximately three weeks before we were all scheduled to head south, another member pulled out for family reasons. So, now, with both of our South Island contacts unable to partake in our adventure, we were without transport.

After a few phone calls and worried moments, thinking we weren’t going to be able to make the trip happen, a member of the Rakaia Branch stepped in and offered us a ute to use; how good is that!

After all the planning and thinking, we had overcome the main hurdle, I was gutted to wake up on the Friday morning to a notification that my flight from New Plymouth had been cancelled due to high winds. Luckily, we could drive to Wellington and make it in time for a flight to Christchurch that afternoon.

We eventually made it to the conference and were greeted at the door by the President of the Waikato branch with a beer in each hand. It was just what was needed to start the weekend off. During the conference, a weather bomb hit the South Island, which was due to last several days. Plans were made to sleep on a couch Sunday night with fingers crossed that the weather was due to clear.

Monday morning was still very wet, but we managed to do last-minute shopping for food and gas and kick rocks until about 10am, when the weather started to clear. By this point, we were beginning to believe the hunting gods just didn’t want us to go, and we were wondering what else they had in store for us.

After getting to the car park, we saw the sun for the first time in a while, as we shouldered heavy packs for the long walk up the river. After a long, uneventful walk, we arrived at last light to a freezing, very basic hut. In hindsight, we might have been better off sleeping in our tents, as, even with the fire roaring, we could still see our breath in the air.

On Tuesday morning, we started walking to our intended hunting area and spotted a good bull from the valley floor. Assessing him as an older 12.5” bull, I took him, as this was a personal best for me, and he had a good winter skin. After hitting him with the rangefinder, I consulted my Strelok ballistic calculator app to verify the bullet drop for the 600m shot. It was then that I realised I had no ballistic data. It had gotten so cold the night before that my iPhone shut down, and none of my apps were working, including the Garmin inReach, Topo50 & Strelok. Not being confident in the shot at 600m without the ballistic data, we had to sneak in on the bull to get closer. I got into position and made a perfect 150m shot with my Christensen Arms 28 Nosler; the 195gr Berger- knocking him off his feet.

The recovery was surprisingly easy compared to others I’ve had previously in tahr country. However, I did manage to have a substantial fight with a matagouri bush, which left me with plenty of marks. Skinning the big-bodied bull was tricky on the steep scree but was completed without too many punctures in the thick, heavy winter coat. The skin and horns were then stashed in the shade to be retrieved on the way back out as we headed further into the area, which we’d been told was a ‘Honey Hole’.
Several more hours of hiking brought us to a suitable campsite. We quickly set up camp, dropped off all the gear we didn’t need, and then shot up a side creek to try to secure Jacob a bull.

After several hours of glassing, we had not managed to pick up any animals. While complaining about this, we noticed some clouds coming down the valley. It was mentioned that if they come much closer, we would need to get off these tops and back into our tents very quickly. A few minutes later, we realised it was coming in fast, and we ran down a game trail back to our tents for the night.

Wednesday morning, we woke to a light snowfall and frozen boots and socks. After a quick breakfast, we walked upriver to check out some new areas. With Jacob 100m in the lead, he spooked a young nanny, who ran to within five metres of me, which was a cool experience.

Soon enough, we spotted more bulls about 700m away and started to get within shooting range. We closed the distance to 400m, and Jacob settled behind his rifle. He was confident with it out to 600m, so the 400m shot should have been nothing more than a formality, but that’s where it all went wrong. Jacob missed - with his 150gr Hornady projectile sailing about a foot over the bull’s front shoulder, the surprised echo of “high? indicating that he was surprised he missed by any amount, let alone a foot. Follow-up shots were unsuccessful and followed the same pattern as the first. The footage was checked in disbelief, and the realisation kicked in that we would unlikely see any more in that direction.

Deciding that anything further up the valley would be spooked or gone, we decided to hunt our way back to camp. We stopped to glass at every spot we could find in our attempt to pick up another bull with a good skin or horns. Finally, we spotted some movement. At first glance, it appeared that one of the rocks was moving, and on closer inspection, we identified it as a bull tahr.

The following 200m elevation climb was slow for me, but Jacob being half my age,shot up to get a closer look and assess the animals. By the time I caught up, Jacob had the camera firmly focused on the mob and had assessed them as not massive but as having good skins.

Due to his lack of confidence in his rifle, Jacob asked to borrow mine, however, with my lack of ballistics data, Jacob still had another 100m to stalk up to a nice-scree slope from which to shoot. He grabbed my 28 Nosler and a couple of rounds and hurried through the tussock as the bulls moved in and out of view.
Anyone who has shot a magnum cartridge with a muzzle brake knows that hearing protection is essential, and in his haste and excitement, this was neglected. The first shot sailed high again and left me questioning if bull fever had indeed taken hold. The bulls ran from left to right and back again, confused about where the danger was coming from and made the fatal mistake of stopping near where they had started. The next thunderous boom left one of the bulls rolling down the face at a great rate of knots. Watching Jacob stand up, put his fingers in his ears, and wiggle them to try to stop the ringing was a humorous sight; lesson learned!

Pulling out my Garmin inReach mini to hit the ‘animal down’ pre-set message, I noticed it was 3pm and zero degrees - no wonder I hadn’t needed to take any layers off. We raced up the hill to find the bull realising that there were only several hours of remaining light. After locating the bull, there was a quick photo session before we loaded up the skin, horns and meat and made our way back to camp much more content than we had been only hours earlier.

By the time we returned to camp, the sun had well and truly made its way behind the hills, so we quickly layered up and gathered food, water and the home-brew beer that we had been given by one of the friendly local NZDA members. We ate, drank, and talked rubbish under a perfectly still night in scenery that must be seen to be believed.

Thursday morning was even colder than the day before, and water bottles and boots frozen inside our tents. While having breakfast and tipping warm water on our boots to make them pliable, we discussed the option of walking out that day, as the amount of time we had available on Friday was very limited with what we had to achieve.

Packing back out to the truck, our packs loaded with tahr skins and horns, was slow. It took most of the day, and we finally arrived back at the ute in the late afternoon. Friday was understandably a slow start, but we leapt into life after a short sleep-in, filled up the ute we had borrowed, and left the glove box full of the owner’s favourite lollies. After a quick stop at the local tannery, we were checked in at Christchurch Airport for the flight home. Our bags were still right on the 23kg allowance, and we were left wondering how a trip goes so fast and when the next big adventure would be…

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