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Doug Stojanovski
6/13/2010
For many here in the South Pacific, the opportunity to find great hunting challenges can be limited only to your desire to seek out a wild adventure. With choices from mountain-high destinations to expansive swampland, your options are without question multiple and varied. Though with that said, the chance also exists, for those willing, to discover a truly unbridled experience in a land free from human spoils. Painfully inviting, here lies a place where your want for all-things-wild will undeniably be fed.
When tackled unguided – and without the aid of a flying machine (most notably the helicopter) – many parts of New Zealand’s Southern Alps will without doubt question your willingness, and furthermore your desire, for the great outdoors. It’s trips like these that allow us to dig deep and realize our lifelong hunting desires. Make no mistake: These adventures are not for the ill prepared. But for the driven individual it’s a thrilling journey that will challenge even the most determined bowhunter. The temptation for us to tackle this foreboding land from our home in southern Australia can, at times, seem all encompassing and consuming.
Being a relatively young country by world standards, New Zealand’s absence of foothills allows its mountains to rise abruptly from sea level to towering peaks reaching well over 3000 meters. This land of spectacular glaciers offers hunting opportunities that can easily be considered unique. There may be few greater challenges for the determined bowhunter than those found while in pursuit of this country’s only true alpine game animals – the rock-dwelling Himalayan Tahr and the fleet footed Chamois.
Calling alpine bluffs and boulder-ridden creek beds home, these beasts seem to delight in locations that easily would make a seasoned mountain man question his worth – all the while, allowing us the opportunity to taste the extraordinarily tempting, yet downright punishing, terrain that these creatures call home.
Awkwardly inviting, the sheer presence of these mountains signals a challenge of absolute endurance. For if this punishing mass of tall hills doesn’t trouble you, then most probably the flooding rains will. The real potential exists for one to lose way too many days, if not your entire hunting trip, to the persistent rain. On more than one occasion, we have been on the receiving end of such hostility, ultimately being driven out of the mountains not unlike drowned rats.
Not to be discouraged though, spending enough time on the mountain will most certainly result in cloudless days, and with that the opportunity to realize the true scenic brilliance of these surrounds. When the clouds do not threaten and rains don’t beckon, there can be no greater place than on a towering ridge top with the warming rays of the sun shadowing your every move. It can unquestionably be considered a true heaven on earth.
Over the past few years many more willing bowhunters are realizing the immense challenge offered by hunting, and ultimately being successful, at taking either of these creatures. As more hunting archers take to the hills, it can be accepted that many more of these cunning beasts will ultimately be harvested. Seeing that only just a decade earlier, the taking of either Tahr and Chamois with a bow, though realized, was considered infrequent at best. The opportunity for the aspiring bowhunter wanting to experience an alpine adventure in this part of the world is now more recognized and, furthermore, it is now realized as a plausible proposition.
These two species aside, there is also one other animal that is revered by all who have taken on the immense hunting challenge New Zealand can offer. Easily regarded as New Zealand’s largest national park, Fiordland may well be considered this part of the world’s last true frontier – and the Wapiti (elk) that inhabit this area are most certainly thought of as one of our greatest hunting challenges, regardless of your choice of weapon.
Bounded by the Tasman Sea on its western flank and a solid portion of Lake Te Anau on its eastern boundary, access to this landmass is achieved only by air or water. For one to contemplate tackling parts of this untracked landmass you have no option but to handle it by foot – for it is a requirement by law, unlike most other valleys found within New Zealand, where the use of helicopters is common practice nowadays. The Wapiti are home to a tranquil yet gruelling environment that somehow beckons all who set foot on it. It’s not surprising that every year the bugle period brings out those keenly seeking a winning ticket in the popular balloted lottery.
Fiordland is a place with very few walking tracks, where more often than not, the extensive deer trails are used as common travel routes. Not being short of a drop of rain either, consider it common for their rainfall to be measured in feet, or in our case meters. It’s plausible for it to rain uncontrollably for days on end. We have been on the receiving end of precipitation that has exceeded 500mm (20 inches) in one single day. This factor alone will surely do well to dampen your hunting spirit.
Such is the demanding nature of hunting these animals, where in all probability this Sandfly ridden landscape that these critters call home, affords just as great a challenge as hunting the animal itself. To this day there have been few, if any, wapiti successfully taken with the bow. After three consecutive years in pursuit of these beasts, we are yet to find ourselves standing over a dead wapiti. Our hunts have been enduring and testing, but most of all they have been endearing, leaving those with a liking for such an adventure with a longing to once again make certain your return.
When it comes to the equipment you carry onto the hill, the potential for concern is greater than on any other adventure that we may undertake here in the Southern Hemisphere. Considering the obvious constraints associated with hauling all of one’s gear into the mountains, be assured that what your carry needs to be limited, practical and most important of all up to the task of seeing you safely through your stay on the hill. Like, for instance, the clothes you choose to wear. We do not take a spare change of clothing. What we have on our backs is all we carry. This may seem foolhardy, but in reality, when practiced with the right clothes, this results in a safe and logical means of efficiently tackling these mountains.
Make no mistake though, carry the wrong gear, or make the wrong move, and you may well end up with more than just a hard-luck hunting story to deal with. These mountains, like all others that stand before them, have a habit of punishing the ill prepared.
From the pack on your back, down to the boots on your feet, if there are any certainties while on the hill, it’s that all your equipment will be tested without question. And likewise for the bow you choose to carry. Over the years our Hoyt bows have taken some serious tumbles, suffered many concerning bumps and bruises, though ultimately, they have all survived to climb another mountain. In a place where second chances are infrequent at best, choosing the right equipment can be the difference between standing over a hard won trophy, or just having another tough luck story to tell.