New Zealand Red Stag

xphunter

Handloader
Sep 15, 2005
1,199
2,125
I really thought that I had posted this before.
A number of years ago, my wife and I took a vacation to New Zealand. She told me that I could do some hunting for 2 1/2 to 3 days while we were there. I knew a guy that did some outfitting in New Zealand, and when he hunted in Africa, he would hunt with a specialty pistol. I contacted him and made an agreement that I would hunt for a silver medal stag. After a very long flight, we made it to the north island, and then waited about an hour or so, and then hopped on another plane to go to the south island where I would be hunting. We had not slept, hardly at all for many many hours. We drove for a while, and then got a bite to eat around lunchtime, and then headed to the bed-and-breakfast where my wife and I would be staying for several days. After we got unloaded, I immediately changed clothes, and went outside on the front lawn and dry fired the guides RIFLE a few times. It is illegal to hunt with a handgun in New Zealand, so I just decided to use the guides rifle, instead of trying to haul one of my rifles around the country for the rest of our vacation. My wife and I then hopped back into the guides truck with his helper and now we begin making our way toward the hunting area for a afternoon/evening hunt. It was probably around an hour drive, and we got to the location and we were seeing some animals but nothing that we were looking for. We ended up getting on a high ridge and was glassing toward the north in the wide open country with beautiful mountains in the background. We saw a herd that had two stags in it. I really didn’t know what a silver metal red stag would look like, but I knew that the two stags I was looking at were definitely not silver, they both were big. I was pretty content that we would not be doing any shooting that evening, as the day was coming to an end. The Guide asked me what our price agreement was for the silver metal stag, and I went back and showed him our agreement that we had talked about that I had say via messenger. It’s the number that he thought, then he completely surprised me. He said I’m gonna do a good one, I’m gonna let you take one of those gold medal tags for the price of the silver, that we agreed on. I was literally in shock . He asked me which one I wanted to go for, and I told him the freak. He had dropped times and was just weird. The problem was, is that these animals were over 600 yards away, and the guy that told me before we even came over that all shots would be limited to 350 yards and under.
He knew that I did some distance, shooting with my specialty pistols beforehand as well.
We were in such wide-open country, I was trying to figure out a way to get to the animals before we ran out of light. I gave a suggestion, and he kind of looked at me, and then walked away, and headed toward his truck. He then grabbed the gun case out of the back of the truck, took the rifle, which was at 338 Lapua, and set it up at the very edge of this flat area that we were on, and announced that I would shoot it from there. I thought to myself, well, this is a certainly a change of plans from what I expected. I had already downloaded all of the information that he had given me about the Rifle and its ballistics and put it into my ballistic software that I had on my phone. The stag was right at 624 yards. I dialed up to compensate for drop, and then we begin talking about wind. He disagreed with my assessment and only told me to add a quarter minute right. I was convinced the wind was more than that, but this was his area not mine, and so I complied.
He wanted to wait until the animal got completely broadside, and he wanted me to double shoulder shoot him. I expected the wind to carry the bullet back into the heart and lung area, which I was fine with as well.
If his win call was right, I would shoot him through the shoulders.
Either way was a win-win.
At the shot, the 285 grain Long Range AccuBond did its job. I punched a hole right through the top of his heart, and there was like a water hose of blood flowing out of him, the guide said.
He was ecstatic. Sometimes I should keep my mouth shut, but when the animal dropped, I told him, “I told you there was more wind than that.” He just smiled and laughed, and said something to the effect of, that he kept forgetting that I shot at distance.
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The stag was behind and a little bit to the left of that tree. You see the tree on the right side of the picture.
 
Excellent account, Ernie. As I read your account, I found myself wondering whether this was w/o sleep. :unsure:
You would be correct.
We had not slept in a very long time.
I did do some catnapping on the plane, but not very much.
I kept talking to myself (In my head), and made myself do a mental checklist of all of the fundamentals, while I was on the gun, waiting for the perfect broadside.
This was the first time my wife had ever been with me, while hunting. She knew about the earlier range limits, and was surprised as well.
 
Great story Ernie. Great shooting and congrats on your red stag.

JD338
 
Nice stag!
Wicked mass!

I ended up with an upgrade by the guide on my stag too.
I had booked for a 300-340 class stag, but did have it my budget to upgrade to a 340-360 class stag, if the right one presented itself.
I ended up shooting the second smallest stag we saw during the entire hunt. It was a 380-400 class stag. (I actually teased the owner about not having enough smaller stags to hunt! LOL )They offered me the stag I got for the same price as a 340-360 class stag. (2 class upgrade! I am very happy with my stag, and couldn't stop smiling for several days!)
The smaller stag was a spike. The rest of the stags we saw during our stay were 400+! They did assure me that they did have more smaller stags it was just that we were not finding them. There is an awful lot of thick brush and many hidey holes in that mountainous country where you have 20,000 plus acres to hunt on their 2 pieces of property where they do their hunting!

Interestingly, the owner told me that for many years, most of the hunters were after 400+ class stags with lots of non-typical points and mass (and we saw lots of those!), but since covid, most of the hunters have been after the smaller, more classic typical stags.

They did have a couple of wounded 400 class stags we found that they did offer to us for the same price as the 340-360 class stag price, that were absolutely beautiful animals. One had an injured front shoulder and the other had an injured rear leg. Neither animals leg's was broken, but definitely hurting and staying to relatively small patches of feed and bedding due to limited mobility, and we saw them just about every day after that. The one with the injured front shoulder was heavily favouring it front leg and was in a nasty place to get to in a deep ravine (or gut as they call it; and with Susan's limited mobility not an option for her to get into or out of to make the shot - we could see him from one vantage point about 2 miles away), while the other with the injured back leg, but was not as badly injured (noticeable limp) was in a handy spot (he also had a mess of wire in his antlers that was kind of cool to see, but also good that it wasn't hampering him in any way). I had already gotten my stag, and Susan did consider it, but we would have had to pass on the fallow bucks and Arapawa rams, if she chose the stag. And we were having a lot of fun hunting the fallow bucks and Susan really wanted a ram! (They proved to be a lot more challenging to hunt than the stags). If I hadn't gotten my stag already, I would have opted for the latter, as he was a beautiful typical stag!
They did have more hunters coming in after we were leaving, so others were going to be given the same opportunity. Our guide did not think that they would suffer long, and that the latter would probably recover just fine.

The outfitter we used (Leithen Valley Hunts) does offer cull hunts in July for old and wounded stags for reduced costs so that they can remove the ones that likely won't make it through the winter. If a person is willing to hunt well after the roar for a larger animal for a better price, this would be a hunt to consider.
 
Nice stag!
Wicked mass!

I ended up with an upgrade by the guide on my stag too.
I had booked for a 300-340 class stag, but did have it my budget to upgrade to a 340-360 class stag, if the right one presented itself.
I ended up shooting the second smallest stag we saw during the entire hunt. It was a 380-400 class stag. (I actually teased the owner about not having enough smaller stags to hunt! LOL )They offered me the stag I got for the same price as a 340-360 class stag. (2 class upgrade! I am very happy with my stag, and couldn't stop smiling for several days!)
PICTURES!!!
 
Those stags are a beast Ernie and Blkram, those horns are wicked thick and impressive. Just wow.
Good story Ernie, glad you had fun out there.
 
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