npaden
Well-known member
I forgot to mention that he was a super old deer. Just had 3 teeth left in the front and those were worn down next to nothing. Haven’t had a chance to see the molars but the guide said he was a very old stag.
New Zealand touristy stuff and Red Stag hunt
- Thread starter npaden
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Badknees104
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good shot, that booger's huge. will have to remember the phrase "He's nuts up!!" great trip, thanks for taking us along
Hem
Well-known member
Very cool.
Congrats to your son.
So a couple of questions...
Curious, did circumstances prevent getter a closer shot? Wondering what average shot distances people take for these stars.
What sort of hoops to get the horns/ head back to the States?
Might PM about cost at some point.
Looks like a great trip, appreciate sharing on Hunttalk.
Congrats to your son.
So a couple of questions...
Curious, did circumstances prevent getter a closer shot? Wondering what average shot distances people take for these stars.
What sort of hoops to get the horns/ head back to the States?
Might PM about cost at some point.
Looks like a great trip, appreciate sharing on Hunttalk.
Wildabeest
Well-known member
Does the plural nature of this statement mean we will be seeing pics of an other dead stag?
npaden
Well-known member
Shot mine this morning. Eating lunch and then doing the helicopter ride out for a tahr hunt this afternoon.
Haven’t had a chance to get the good photos from the guide so here are a couple I took with my camera.
Haven’t had a chance to get the good photos from the guide so here are a couple I took with my camera.
npaden
Well-known member
I don’t think they actually ever measure them, or at least not for the size of ones we are shooting, but the estimate they are using is that Eli’s would have been 464” with both antlers and mine was estimated at 443”. His was 14 points on the right and 16 points on the broken off left, and mine was 13 points on each side.
The main beams are deceivingly short compared to elk but they make up for it on score with all the extra points.
The main beams are deceivingly short compared to elk but they make up for it on score with all the extra points.
Bowmannate2000
Well-known member
Really cool animals. Congrats!
kiwi hunter
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Great shot. I spend many an hour working out how to get to that patch of beech forest behind you, it's public land.
Spectacular
npaden
Well-known member
Okay. What a rush! We both ended up getting 7 1/2 year old tahrs. Eli’s ended up being a little bigger than mine. I nearly had to talk him into hunting one and now he wants a full body mount.
We were in a big rush because we added him on at the end after he finally decided he wanted to do it.
Our guide had a deal in town he needed to get to so no time to share pictures with us tonight.
Did get his picture of an amazing sunset waiting for Eli to get back from his helicopter ride.
I had the most amazing 20 minute video of helicopter flying in amazing places and seeing the tahr literally flying down the mountains and when I went to press stop on the video I accidentally double tapped it and canceled the entire video.
Eli got some footage of his hunt but it wasn’t in nearly as gnarly of mountains but he didn’t delete his footage like I did mine.
Going to have to wait until tomorrow for more pictures. We are done hunting and will be headed to Christchurch tomorrow morning. This amazing trip is quickly coming to an end.
We were in a big rush because we added him on at the end after he finally decided he wanted to do it.
Our guide had a deal in town he needed to get to so no time to share pictures with us tonight.
Did get his picture of an amazing sunset waiting for Eli to get back from his helicopter ride.
I had the most amazing 20 minute video of helicopter flying in amazing places and seeing the tahr literally flying down the mountains and when I went to press stop on the video I accidentally double tapped it and canceled the entire video.
Eli got some footage of his hunt but it wasn’t in nearly as gnarly of mountains but he didn’t delete his footage like I did mine.
Going to have to wait until tomorrow for more pictures. We are done hunting and will be headed to Christchurch tomorrow morning. This amazing trip is quickly coming to an end.
npaden
Well-known member
Part of the issue hunting this property is that they have a lot of fallow deer as well as the red deer. Where these stags were at was up on the hill with some fallow deer between us and them.
We actually spotted these stags about 800 yards off, closed to 700, then 600 and finally cut it to 500 and just ran out of places to hide. They had the high ground and there just wasn’t anyway to cut the distance. That stags stood there for 30+ minutes while the other stags were moving around and feeding. He seemed to have us pegged.
The guide was confident in his rifle and did a great job coaching my son through the shot. I think he dry fired 6 times before the live round went in the chamber. There wasn’t a stitch of wind so that helped too.
The way this property is laid out doesn’t really lend itself to close shots. Fairly open and the stags know where to go to get the sight advantage. The guide said that 500 yards was the 3rd longest shot taken on an animal with that rifle with the longest one being 620 yards so I would guess the average would be somewhere in the 300-400 yard range.
The guide said he prefers to have a calm animal that doesn’t know you are there than to have a animal on alert and ready to move even if it means taking a slightly longer shot.
The import restrictions are way easier than Africa and the main cost is just shipping to get stuff home. If you really had it together you might could bring them home with you if you split the skull plate or something like that to make it fit within the allowable baggage limits.
We are just going to take the easy way out and have it shipped home.
Kiwi
Well-known member
Awesome. Glad you got to hunt tahr in the mountains.
Hem
Well-known member
Thanks for taking the time to elaborate. Those stags you guys harvested are pretty dang impressive.
Love the gnarly racks.
brownbear932008
Well-known member
An absolute awesome trip. It's been awesome following along with this one.
npaden
Well-known member
Pretty much 100% of the red stag hunts in New Zealand for trophy stags are high fence. You can hunt them on public land but your chance of success is going to go way down and you are going to be hoping to shoot a stag in the 250” (or less) type range. You can hunt public land for free and there is no guide required. No permit requirements either. No season, just 24/7/365 fair game. So you can see why it would be a pretty tough hunt and they aren’t going to get very old.
forrestleitch made a great post on that type of hunt and did very well to harvest a tahr and a stag on his hunt.
New Zealand DIY tahr/deer journal
Travel: Drove to MSP early on Sunday morning, flight at 8am to Houston. Landed in Houston around 11:30am. Long layover, next flight out of Houston 10pm to Auckland (north island). 14 hour flight from Houston to Auckland, once I landed had a couple hours to get all checked in through customs and...
www.hunttalk.com
One interesting thing is the high fences really aren’t that high. I think the stags could jump them if they really wanted to. They said the only real time they have issues with that is during the rut. The fallow deer do jump them occasionally and the tahr and chamois pretty much go through the fences.
My son wanted to shoot a nice stag and about the only way to do that in New Zealand is behind a fence. We tried to pick a place with one of the bigger fenced in areas.
I’m going to try to craft up a post as we wind things up and give my perspective on things. It definitely wouldn’t be for everyone. Even the helicopter tahr hunt didn’t especially smack of fair chase, but it was a huge thrill riding in the helicopter and for sure not a slam dunk thing.
They are some beautiful animals and they are in an amazing place and overall it was a once in a lifetime type experience for us.
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npaden
Well-known member
Just got the pictures air dropped to us and will post those. Will be adding some videos probably later today or this evening here.
My red stag.
My tahr.
Eli’s tahr.
Our guide was amazing and got videos of the shots on both tahrs and also on my stag that I will update and narrate part of the stalk and hunt when I get those uploaded.
My red stag.
My tahr.
Eli’s tahr.
Our guide was amazing and got videos of the shots on both tahrs and also on my stag that I will update and narrate part of the stalk and hunt when I get those uploaded.
npaden
Well-known member
Okay, got a few videos uploaded.
Here’s the shots on my red stag. I haven’t missed a shot in a long time but my streak ended yesterday. I think after the 300 yard target practice shot and then Eli making the perfect 500 yard shot on his stag I got a little over confident and didn’t respect the distance.
I’ve played it over and over in my head and really felt good about the first shot when I pulled the trigger but it was a clean miss. First shot was ranged at 490 and based on how far he moved we are guessing the second shot was close to 500. Maybe there was a slight left to right breeze we didn’t account for as both shots were right of the point I was aiming at.
After he went out of view we quickly moved up and you could tell he was hurting but he was still standing. We backed out and got even closer but the angle was bad and he wasn’t moving. They busted us and started moving out and the stags he was will kept moving out of the country and he stopped and laid down after stumbling a bit.
Again not the ideal angle but I was able to sneak one in there from about 230 yards.
Next videos are from the tahr hunts. On mine I had the awesome video of flying and finding them that I ended up deleting but I did get a little that I’m going to try to go back and see what can be uploaded. Eli got some from his hunt as well. That’s going to take a bit more work editing it all though.
Here’s the video the guide took after we got dropped off on my tahr. If you zoom in on the video you should be able to see the tahr. He was around 200 yards away and wouldn’t stop moving so my shooting was not that impressive. Good thing is that the end result was still a dead tahr.
Not sure if it comes across in the video but we were on a very steep slope. When he dropped us off he nosed the front skids of the helicopter into the side of the mountain and kept it at full power while we climbed out. The back of the skid was probably 6 or 8 feet off the ground. It was about all I could do to keep from sliding down the side of the hill let alone stay steady for a shot. Talk about an adrenaline rush.
Oh well, here is the video.
On the audio he is talking to the helicopter pilot as I’m working on getting the tahr shot.
Last couple are from Eli’s hunt. They want to keep the helicopter as light as possible so it is strictly the pilot, hunter and guide, no tag along.
He fired 3 shots this week. All perfectly placed! 1 on the target and 2 on animals. Of course his setup was a lot nicer than mine and he was able to get prone on a nice level spot.
Last video. This gives you a good idea of the area we were hunting in. Right at the end of the video you can see some tahr slamming down the mountain.
Here’s the shots on my red stag. I haven’t missed a shot in a long time but my streak ended yesterday. I think after the 300 yard target practice shot and then Eli making the perfect 500 yard shot on his stag I got a little over confident and didn’t respect the distance.
I’ve played it over and over in my head and really felt good about the first shot when I pulled the trigger but it was a clean miss. First shot was ranged at 490 and based on how far he moved we are guessing the second shot was close to 500. Maybe there was a slight left to right breeze we didn’t account for as both shots were right of the point I was aiming at.
After he went out of view we quickly moved up and you could tell he was hurting but he was still standing. We backed out and got even closer but the angle was bad and he wasn’t moving. They busted us and started moving out and the stags he was will kept moving out of the country and he stopped and laid down after stumbling a bit.
Again not the ideal angle but I was able to sneak one in there from about 230 yards.
Next videos are from the tahr hunts. On mine I had the awesome video of flying and finding them that I ended up deleting but I did get a little that I’m going to try to go back and see what can be uploaded. Eli got some from his hunt as well. That’s going to take a bit more work editing it all though.
Here’s the video the guide took after we got dropped off on my tahr. If you zoom in on the video you should be able to see the tahr. He was around 200 yards away and wouldn’t stop moving so my shooting was not that impressive. Good thing is that the end result was still a dead tahr.
Not sure if it comes across in the video but we were on a very steep slope. When he dropped us off he nosed the front skids of the helicopter into the side of the mountain and kept it at full power while we climbed out. The back of the skid was probably 6 or 8 feet off the ground. It was about all I could do to keep from sliding down the side of the hill let alone stay steady for a shot. Talk about an adrenaline rush.
Oh well, here is the video.
On the audio he is talking to the helicopter pilot as I’m working on getting the tahr shot.
Last couple are from Eli’s hunt. They want to keep the helicopter as light as possible so it is strictly the pilot, hunter and guide, no tag along.
He fired 3 shots this week. All perfectly placed! 1 on the target and 2 on animals. Of course his setup was a lot nicer than mine and he was able to get prone on a nice level spot.
Last video. This gives you a good idea of the area we were hunting in. Right at the end of the video you can see some tahr slamming down the mountain.
npaden
Well-known member
I was wrong on this. We ended up measuring them today. Interesting that they only get 3 mass measurements instead of 4 like deer and elk. Very tricky measuring up on the crown.
Eli’s ended up scoring a bit better than the estimate. Giving him a 28” spread credit puts his at 476 4/8”.
Looking at mine, he looked better the more we handled him. Great mass and crowns. Really looked bigger than my son’s in many ways with them sitting next to each other as we were measuring them.
As he is measuring it, the guide says he thinks he guessed low on mine also. Add up the numbers and… 419 0/8.
There was a broken off tine in the crown that we guessed would have been about 6” or so which would have gotten him up to 425” but still considerably short of the 443” that they had him estimated at. Guide was shocked and is going to remeasure him. I compared the scoresheets and I think that the numbers are right. Eli’s stag has the extra points down on the g1 and g3s and they are all just a few inches longer than on mine. It adds up to around 50” just on his bottom 3 times. That’s about the difference between his stag and mine. You just don’t notice the shorter times down low on mine although you do notice the longer tines on his plus the extras.
Either way I’m very happy with my stag whether he is 443” or 419” or whatever he scores. I like the way he looks.
We didn’t measure the tahrs, but his is bigger than mine there also. About 1 1/2” or so on both horns. The bases on mine are bigger but no idea how to score them. I would assume 4 mass measurements so maybe they might be a little closer on score.
Both are 7 1/2 years old and his was a bit bigger bodied as well. Both had great capes which is a big part of the trophy quality to me. We are going to do shoulder mounts on both of them.
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