West Coast chamois hunt

The morning starting off by picking up my bike from the fabricators after having a gun rack installed, then off to the bike shop to pick up a new rear tyre, then finally packing all my gear on the bike ready for the trip.  I finally hit the road, departing Christchurch and headed for the West Coast knowing full well I would run out of daylight half way through the four hour walk that awaited me. Sure enough as 8:30 p.m. rolled around darkness set in and on went the head lamp for the rest of the walk to the tops. Looking for a flat spot proved unsuccessful so by the time I set up the fly camp on the ridgeline and jumped in to my sleeping bag, it was 11:30 p.m. and I was pretty shattered.

Arriving at the Coast ready to unpack and duck up the hill

Great views as the sun was retiring for the day

The next morning's view after setting up fly camp on the ridgeline

Realising just how knackered I was as morning broke, I was a bit reluctant to beat the sun up. Knowing I had two full days of hunting I was happy to have a cheeky sleep-in till 8:30am and leisurely spend the day exploring the slopes preparing for an evening shoot.  After breakfast and preparing my daypack I left camp with the first objective being to fill my water bottle.  The topo indicated water holding creeks on both the left and right of the ridgeline I was on.  I could clearly hear running water from the left creek but it was pretty bluffy and looked difficult to access, the right hand side creek looked far easier so off I went. Ten minutes later after catching my rifle on every possible bush and branch on the way there, I arrived to find not one drop of water. So back I went with a plan to find a safe route to the left hand creek. To make things easier, I left my day pack and gun behind taking just the water bottle to quickly fill, and get on my way up and over the tops.  As I sidled the ridgeline and stopped for a minute to plan a safe route to the creek, I heard the dreaded sound of a chamois whistling as it bolted down a slip on the opposite valley face and scampered under cover. I was instantly kicking myself for blowing a potential chance, but out of the corner of my eye two other chamois popped their heads up to see what the commotion was about.  These other chamois were further up the valley so I was partially obscured by tussock and scrub, I froze, and ever so slowly pulled in closer to fully conceal myself in the tussocks.  I was excited to see although they were on high alert, neither of the chamois had spotted me. I carefully pulled out my binos to get a better look. Both appeared to be bucks, one youngin of about 6 inches, one of about 9 inches, and they were both standing in full view all of only 150m away, but of course, my rifle was back up on the ridgeline with my daypack!  I watched them for a further 10 minutes, they appeared to relax and continued casually feeding. Waiting till their heads were down or they were looking in a different direction, I slowly inched my way crawling through the tussocks back to my rifle trying to keep out of sight. Grabbing my rifle, I then made my way up to a cluster of rocks to hide behind and setup my pack for a shooting platform.  As I regained full view of the valley the chamois were gone, however I could hear the occasional rustle of them moving about.  I knew the one with the darker coat was about 9 inches, it was a matter of hoping he would show himself for a clear shot.  Half an hour passed of watching and waiting, I could hear one of them every five minutes or so then all of a sudden one popped in to view. I swung around and lined him up in the scope finger on trigger and ready, but it was the small buck. I refrained from shooting as the thought of a 9 inch was far more inviting than a 6 inch. Patience was soon rewarded, ten minutes later right up the valley at about 175m the target chamois exposed himself. Immediately lining him up was soon followed by the sound of a suppressed T3 7mm08 dropping the chamois where it stood. You beauty!  I took a minute to replay the series of events and realised that although a little stealth and a lot of patience did play a factor in this success, a decent chunk of luck was involved that I wasn't spotted by either chamois first.

Looking across the valley, the other 6 or so inch buck left to beef up a little more for next time

The 8 1/2 inch buck

Recovering the animal was a bit of a mission as I had to walk right round the top of the ridgeline and drop into some real steep stuff on the opposite valley face, but it was early, the weather was holding out, camp wasn't too far from where the animal dropped, and I had all day up my sleeve. I couldn't have asked for a better day.

Standing where the chamois was dropped looking accross the valley to the fly camp on the ridgeline

Making my way back as the fog started to roll in

After removing the back steaks, boning out the hindquarters, and packing up the head for a boil up (that turned out to be not 9" but 8 1/2"), I took everything back to camp and filled up my water bottle along the way.  If my motorbike didn't have such short range and need a fill at Arthurs Pass to get home I would have headed off, however by the time it would have taken to pack up, walk out and ride to Arthurs, the petrol station would have been closed.  So, the plan was to stay another night and leisurely walk out in the morning when the petrol station would be open.  Well that certainly made things interesting, late that afternoon the predicted light drizzle turned in to a howling southwest storm dumping bucket loads of rain that continued all night resulting in very little sleep under a violently shaking fly.  The next day it didn't ease up either, the long walk out was certainly a wet one, so too was the ride back through to Arthurs Pass, but this didn't bother me too much as all the right gear kept me dry and the trip all in all was highly successful and enjoyable.