jbm
New member
just returned from a tahr hunt in new zealand. started out a few months ago when a hunting mate in nz got a tahr ballot block for may 7-13 and sent me an invite to join in on the hunt. in the area he got we would be the 2nd group in on this area. the first group of guys was 3 of them hunting from april 3 to may 6. they ended up with only 7 days of rain on a 7 day hunt and only seen like 3 tahr from camp and no shooting. bad news for them but maybe good for us with no tahr taken we would be hunting all the area that no tahr were taken from. we landed on sat and set up camp and started looking at close to 30 tahr bulls via spotting scope right from the tent.
the next morning we ate breakfast and headed up to maybe find a cpl of the bulls we spotted the day before. we got up the base of a mountain and spotted 1 nice bull right off the bat and my nz friend had my montana friend in tow and an hr later the first bull tahr was on the ground. he was on the edge a little cliff at 440 yrds and after the 120gr fired from a 260 hit home the bull dropped over the edge for a 150-200 yrd drop. he landed in a spot that we needed a rope to get down to him. the next morning my nz friend found a way to get to him and a cpl hrs later we were all looking at a 13 1/2" bull that broke off at least 1/2" when he took the fast way down off the cliff
next up was a friend from oz who took a very nice bull right at the rivers edge right before he crossed. he was a solid 12" bull at right in the bottom was easy to get to. next up was me and we headed up towards a area we had seen a few other bulls in. after a 46 hr hike strait up a cliff [ well maybe only a cpl hrs but still seemed strait up to me lol ] we got into a few tahr. 1 young bull with a cpl females so we passed on them and found a nice bull just a few hundred yrds to our left and short climp up. we got in place for a shot and my nz friend gave me back a range of 472 yrds. this past my longest ever shot with my 25x47 but i had a good rest and he looked good in my scope so i took a shot. it landed just under him so i gave him a few more inches up and the second shot hit perfect on the left side of his chest and the bullet stopped on the far side just behind his last rib. he fan about 30 yrds and started to roll down hill for about 50 yrds.
we made it up to him got a few pix skinned and loaded in the pack and headed back hoping to make it to the river before dark. well my slow tired ass was dragging a bit and we all ended up at the river just at dark which made for a fun crossing in the dark. made back to camp about 30 min after crossing the river and had a fast meal then bed time. next morning woke to rain and ended up in camp all day cleaning head skins and sculls for salting. the next morning was still raining so still stuck in camp just relaxing. after a cpl hrs of the hard relaxing we seen a chopper heading our way. he landed and said it would be best to fly out or be left there for a week of rain and gail force winds. took all of us about 10 seconds to all say lets go. so they tell me 2 full days of sun on the west coast is a very good thing
as it turned out they were looking at 700 mm of rain for the next 5 days with very high winds so pulling out was the best thing to do
the next morning we ate breakfast and headed up to maybe find a cpl of the bulls we spotted the day before. we got up the base of a mountain and spotted 1 nice bull right off the bat and my nz friend had my montana friend in tow and an hr later the first bull tahr was on the ground. he was on the edge a little cliff at 440 yrds and after the 120gr fired from a 260 hit home the bull dropped over the edge for a 150-200 yrd drop. he landed in a spot that we needed a rope to get down to him. the next morning my nz friend found a way to get to him and a cpl hrs later we were all looking at a 13 1/2" bull that broke off at least 1/2" when he took the fast way down off the cliff
next up was a friend from oz who took a very nice bull right at the rivers edge right before he crossed. he was a solid 12" bull at right in the bottom was easy to get to. next up was me and we headed up towards a area we had seen a few other bulls in. after a 46 hr hike strait up a cliff [ well maybe only a cpl hrs but still seemed strait up to me lol ] we got into a few tahr. 1 young bull with a cpl females so we passed on them and found a nice bull just a few hundred yrds to our left and short climp up. we got in place for a shot and my nz friend gave me back a range of 472 yrds. this past my longest ever shot with my 25x47 but i had a good rest and he looked good in my scope so i took a shot. it landed just under him so i gave him a few more inches up and the second shot hit perfect on the left side of his chest and the bullet stopped on the far side just behind his last rib. he fan about 30 yrds and started to roll down hill for about 50 yrds.
we made it up to him got a few pix skinned and loaded in the pack and headed back hoping to make it to the river before dark. well my slow tired ass was dragging a bit and we all ended up at the river just at dark which made for a fun crossing in the dark. made back to camp about 30 min after crossing the river and had a fast meal then bed time. next morning woke to rain and ended up in camp all day cleaning head skins and sculls for salting. the next morning was still raining so still stuck in camp just relaxing. after a cpl hrs of the hard relaxing we seen a chopper heading our way. he landed and said it would be best to fly out or be left there for a week of rain and gail force winds. took all of us about 10 seconds to all say lets go. so they tell me 2 full days of sun on the west coast is a very good thing
as it turned out they were looking at 700 mm of rain for the next 5 days with very high winds so pulling out was the best thing to do
