Tahr In The Twelfth Hour

FEATURE STORY: NZDA membership renewal prize winning hunt

Hunting and Wildlife Magazine - Issue 225 - Winter 2024

Words By: Courtney Hickton

James McKenzie from the Wellington branch received an exciting phone call in April. He had won the NZDA membership renewal prize, which included not only a wicked prize pack but also an alpine tahr hunting trip with the advocacy team in May. This tahr hunt included all the attributes of a good hunting yarn: optimism and sunshine, bull tahr, a bit of sweat, with a side of gore, and, of course, sweet redemption.

The chopper's skids touched the snow-swept saddle just after noon, giving us enough time to get a decent hunt in for the day. Bruce Hansen (NZDA National Tahr Rep), James, and I were dropped a few catchments over from the rest of our hunting party. Our mission was to hunt our way over to them with the carrot of an M.I.A abode waiting just for us. I will cut to the chase though - we never made it over.

As the rotors faded away, we quickly glassed our surroundings and decided to check out the undisturbed catchment over the back of the saddle. Having already decided to stay the night here, we dropped packs, geared up and made our way to a vantage point. It wasn’t long into glassing before I’d called for the spotter, locking eyes on a bull on the adjacent ridge. Much to my surprise, he wasn’t perched around rocks but rather a dozen nannies that were too far and small for my 10x42s to pick up. It was a beautiful day, and we weren’t mucking around; the only issue was that our pursuit of the bull was rather exposed in the lay of the land. While cutting tracks in the snow, we bumped a couple of younger bulls. Once we had made it up onto his ridge, having closed the gap and regained visibility, his ladies were gone. He, however, was standing proud and exposed, putting on a show, but unfortunately, not long enough for James to take a shot.

Back at camp, we set up for the night, with me being under a fly for the first time in the alpine. Once coffees were had in the morning, we returned to where we’d first glassed that bull. Of course, they were back, and despite our plans to hunt our way to the base camp, he wasn’t necessarily in the wrong direction, but not precisely in the right direction. This being hunting, we decided we could make it work. James gave him a good decent hunt again and got back into a couple of hundred metres, though the opportunity didn’t quite present itself. Acknowledging that we had plenty of ground to cover between ourselves and basecamp, we didn’t want to let that disappointment ruin our morale for other potential opportunities. Scoffing snakes in preparation for a long walk, we made our way up the ridge, which proved to be a bit of a climb.

At 2000m, we had a quick photo session at the peak, conscious that we still had a fair way to go to drop into the saddle of the next catchment. James took a slip on our descent, got up quickly and we kept making tracks. Not too long had passed when James called out that he was bleeding. He had his heavy gloves on, so it had taken a while for the blood to make its way into his sight. It turns out that those vertically jagged shingle rocks you often see on bare alpine ridges are pretty sharp, especially when you land on that soft patch of skin between your jacket and glove. James’ wrist had split open like a peach. Between the three of us, no one had butterfly stitch plasters. Instead, we cut the sticky bit of a band-aid strip, and Bruce had the honour of sticking the wound shut while James had it pinched together. For extra packaging we strapped his wrist and used my electrical tape to fix it together. It worked a treat.

Before there was time to discuss what this injury might mean for the hunt, the clag had drifted in, and we had to keep moving. One of my favourite alpine pastimes was on the cards – scree skiing. Once we had made the saddle, it took a bit of effort trying to find a spot to camp for the night, with visibility not being too good. After walking in a few circles, we set up for the night. Checking in on James, he acknowledged he wouldn’t be able to sidle and climb himself around the somewhat intimidating mountain that we knew was the obstacle between us and basecamp. With a restricted ability to pull his weight on that hand, we all agreed that it wouldn’t be an option. Knowing we had to make a sound plan for James’ safety and one that worked in tandem with the others at basecamp, we checked the InReach weather. We were due for 18cm of snow the day after next with high winds coming through, which made getting pulled out at the end of the weekend less and less possible. Our best chance of getting flown out to make our return flights home suddenly became the next day, Friday. We contacted the base camp via radio and decided to take the early pickup.

The next day, Friday, was another beautiful day; we had until later in the afternoon to hang tight while waiting to get picked up at approximately 3:00pm. We mooched about the saddle, glassing every angle we could, but spent most of the day glassing that big old mountain between us and basecamp. Just after 2:30pm, a promising bull breached the ridge; we chucked the spotter on him straight away and watched in disbelief as he sidled in our direction. Bruce had confirmed that he looked like a shooter and James was setting his rifle up in a quick flash. The bull came directly in line with where the mountain met the saddle we were on; at a bit over 300m, James smoothly squeezed the trigger. A second shot later, he was down, sliding down a crease in the hill. The celebration was epic; we were all in disbelief that the hunt had come together at this late hour.

It wasn’t long before the panic started to set in; looking at the time, Scott at Heli Rural was due any minute and we had a bull to haul out. With James still limited in function with his wrist, Bruce and I took a knife each and left James with the packs on the lookout. We had all but the bull's head off when Scott flew over; lucky for us, he passed us by to pick up basecamp first. We hurried up the scree back to James with the precious cargo and backstraps in hand, making it back to our packs to take a few quick celebratory photos with only minutes to spare before our ride arrived. It was an adrenaline-packed end to a successful hunt; James was beyond stoked.

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