return to hawaii

[kiwi hunter]

My friend Dan(a hobbit with big feet,hes about 5ft 7 inches but strides in a size 13)drew one of the govt blocks for chital and mouflon. upon hearing the good news i invited myself along. The only places i would be allowed to hunt was the private area open blocks for archery. First thing was to buy a bow and learn the necessary skills and after several weeks of training i increased the pull to 40 lb(skinny wee fella i be).when i judged the time right proceeded to put a pointy end into a fallow deer(tasty it was too). So was i ready, hell no but one must travel as life is very short. My last trip there was in 2013 at the invitation of Glasseye(a champion of a man). Well we tried hard but for whatever reason dipped out on a decent trophy, up well before daylight most days and hunted every evening(the heat kept the animals well concealed till nearly dark and only allowed a wee window at daylight). Myself and the hobbit both suffer from eye degeneration so the most crucial times for hunting we are fairly blind. Now back in the south pacific id gone up a dirty wee valley chasing tahr, along the bottom while crossing thru a nasty gorge id tipped over whilst crossing the high creek and had to change all my gear. After travelling thru the gorge part i discovered my Swarovski binos were missing, noted this and carried on to the bivy to lite a fire and dry myself and gear as it was the middle of winter and sleeping in a wet bag was not an option. Next morning i hightailed back to the crossing to pick up my swaros only to learn a bitter lesson that one of them keas or kehuas had made off with my prize possession never to be seen again. One evening right on dusk i sneaked into a wee copse and as i creeped up the gut i saw a white rock between two dark rocks, whilst i was straining my eyeballs to fathom this puzzle a curled head swung around and two speedy rams disappeared out of sight and as i hurried out to the slope i spotted one on the edge of some brush but only his bum sticking out and then gone like mist.

 

[Sawtooth]

Looks like the beginning of a great adventure.

 

[kiwi hunter]

i arrived on the island a couple of days before Dan so spend my time wondering the hiways. The photo of two deer just off the hiway had me guessing, id read somewhere that they were issuing special licenses for nite shooting and that was proof as i found them at daylight next morning with very little meat taken(i must say that the deer numbers are on the excess side as are the mouflon ewes). Most places close to the road with some form of cover had bones of whole carcasses just inside the cover line. On the southeast side of town i found a graveyard of bones and skulls. Not having binoculars was a major drawback but halfway thru the stay i utilized my rangefinder as a monocular which helped. When Dan arrived we made our way to the govt office and at my request to accompany Dan into the ballot block they informed us that this was not allowed even when we argued that our combined age was 136 yrs and assistance was needed(i did want to film one of Dan's hunts).Being old sucks as within an hour of buying a hawaii hunting license and getting the private land permit i lost them both,, so next afternoon i had to plead temporary insanity and get renewals.

 

[kiwi hunter]

The first evening after Dan's arrival we drove over the hill to the north side, checked out the view to the wreck, saw some deer in among the mesquite forest which got Dan excited as one was a good buck n then looked over the canyon area for mouflon. A young ranger had told me the boundary was as far as i could go until i could go no further, ive hunted tahr in worse places but decided not to push the boundary, as it was, only a couple of hundred yrds further along the edge i could see into the bottom further down the valley and spotted a yellow beast and cottages and workings. Its mostly all private land and ive heard the the owner was going to reforest the island as far as possible so that must be a part of it.
In the morning Dan headed for the rifle block while i hunted the south side below the airport in a canyon, one part there i got to about 5mtrs from a doe but it was above me out of sight on a bench and didn't stick around. I saw those mouflon in the pics but at over 120 yrds away and their eyesight is outstanding. There were lots of full skeleton dead animals in there so they get a fair bit of pressure and little old me had no chance to connect. As a last resort i hunted handy to the road as from my previous trip they showed a lot of cunning.
I did spot a doe and fawn just off the hiway but the terrain wasnt the easiest, in NZ a huge amount of our hunting on the east side of the south island is in the open so i just took my time and slowly creeped across the hillside until a tree could be utilized n then i creeped into a copse to get out of sight, made my way into the next gut and walked down that to hopefully be 30 yrds from the two bedded deer. Well one must never relax because two deer scampered out of the bottom before i could say bugger. I wasnt happy but something told me the these deer might not be the ones that i was stalking, so out onto a clay pan and up against a bank for cover i slowly got to within 10 mtrs of the marked spot my stupid foot or boot in this case brushed against one of those dry brittle branches that clothe the island and two very nervous deer rapidly vacated the area. My long walk back to the lodgings in the morning sun at around 30 deg sure did not help to cool my temper.

 

[duckhunt]

Great stuff

 

[live free or die]

Just to set the record straight, my current pair of pronghorns are size 14!
And do not feel sorry for that old man. He may be deaf and blind but his legs work just fine. Each morning I would drop him off six or eight miles from home and like a bad penny he always turned up.

 

[kiwi hunter]

Just to set the record straight, my current pair of pronghorns are size 14!
And do not feel sorry for that old man. He may be deaf and blind but his legs work just fine. Each morning I would drop him off six or eight miles from home and like a bad penny he always turned up.

ah, you have a sense of humor , be nice if you added on to the story with some of your exploits?

 

[live free or die]

Oh god
Ok so this year I was very surprised at the lack of hunters around. Not sure if starting the hunt on a Wednesday meant it turned people off by missing work?
Also I was disappointed with the lack of quality heads I saw.
Ewes and Lambs were pretty much everywhere but not much else.
Alright I must confess before my friend Les brings it up ( as I’m sure he would remind me) I did miss the only decent Ram I saw. It was at 350 yds and directly downwind of me in an open area so no other options.
No excuses but shit happens.
I was feeling a little cocky also after tipping over a small buck at 450 the previous day.
To add insult to injury Les would return each day from the private side with numerous pics of nice animals taken at thirty to fourth yds
I think he prefers to shoot them with the camera as I somehow think he has gone vegan on us.
I’m pretty sure that given a good bag of rocks he could eliminate most of their deer and sheep!

 

[kiwi hunter]

haha youre a funny man but thanks for posting, pm you re raffle

 

[kiwi hunter]

We drove to the airport to procure a ticket for me to fly out on a sunday as i was flying out of hawaii early monday morn, hung around for half an hour and with no sign of life drove back towards town, on the way just before getting there hawkeye spotted a bunch of chital out in the middle plain to see(now we need to explain why i sometimes call him hawkeye, you see(pun intended)he was working on a construction site and lo n behold a redwing swooped by pecking him in the eye, lucky to keep that one). As they were on a archery block it became my evening hunt. So hawkeye dropped me of with the wind in my favor and disappeared down the hiway to his rifle block. I zigzaged my way thru the likely areas but the only animals spotted were out on the private area a short 100 yrds out of bounds. Idid find where the turkeys were roosting, give a man a fright as they abandon their roost above your head. Just about out onto the road i could see a parked vehicle and thats when i stumbled onto the deer graveyard, As i passed the car two hunters appeared over a rise walking back to their transport. While waiting for my horseride whilst sitting on the ground n leaning against a lamp post a voice whispered in my ear" waiting for a ride are you", i whiped one way and then another to finally spot the culprit on a bike, good thing my heart stood up to that one.

 

[kiwi hunter]

better get my fingers cracking along, question just asked on lanai
next morn i send hawkeye off early in the opposite direction and i strolled to the office to fill out my intentions then as it broke daylight i found myself out in a open area right opposite where we spotted the deer yesterday afternoon to find around a dozen deer peering at me, of course i was busted as its pretty gloomy at that time of morning, they slowly disappeared into thicker cover by the treatment plant. most times the wind is pretty steady from one direction but this morning it was virtually non existent and with my face mask on i could not tell one way or another. cresting a rise to spot some deer on my left, as these dropped into a fold in front of me at around 100 yrds more and more deer arrived to take their place.
as the heart beat faster my glasses started to fog so i took the mask off to feel a very gently breeze from my right but behind me, so it carried my scent to the leading bunch who stared running to get across an open area and safety of the large block of bush over archery boundary. would love to hunt under that canopy of around 12 acres, bet the deer cleaned the understory and i d guess that anything up to 3/4 hundred hide in there. further along ran across a ground stand(picture)as opposed to a tree stand, right on a major trail, facing n/east so an evening spot. as i crested the rise more and more deer weaved their way thru the semi open scrub country trying to get past me and some doubled back when hitting my scent. that part of the islands archery area was either flat and open scrub or rolling. saw lots of deer but no cigar for me that morning, one place i felt a wee bit crook so lay down under a large tree (three mtrs tall) for a kip and when i woke up and crawled out to spot 4 here and there and then three stags were observed heading in my direction at 130 yrds, but no they too must have had a headache and layed under similar trees. decided that an evening hunt in that area could be productive, took note of the terrain and and made my way back towards the hiway to find another deer graveyard.

 

[kiwi hunter]

one morning hunt i got to the hunt area real early, quite gloomy but i did see deer thru the range finding monocular, there was a stag going around and round ducking in n out of the brush being followed by a young hind and she followed by a young stag, there were other deer about but it was hard to spot them in the shoulder high growth. as they were 80 yrds away i used what cover i could and shortened the distance to 25yrds in behind a high green bush and slowly drew my bow to peer over the branches, no cigar for me, they either got sick of their game or more likely one of the outliers had spotted me. for some reason this day i forgot to take my camera along and this particular day i ran into lots of quite good stags just not at a distance that i could connect. It made sense for the stags to be there as it was mostly flat to rolling and open short scrubland with scattered 3 to 3 1/2 mtr trees(if you could call them that).