I was asked about the pic in my avatar. I sent these pics and was told I should post them in here.
We had an excellent trip in New Zealand. Managed to harvest almost all the trophies we were after. Here are a few of the pics.
Also got our Paradise Ducks. Can’t wait to see them in the trophy room.
PM SENT
Ruger….welcome to the site! Awesome photo’s! 
First one’s of Red Stag that I’ve seen on here! WOW!!! 
WOW!!! Welcome to In-Depth Outdoors Ruger! 
That looked like a fantastic trip. Red Stag is on my list of animals to hunt someday. Those pictures are awesome. Feel free to tell the story of the trip, I know many would love to hear it! Congrats
SaaaWEET 
I’m pretty sure all of us are jealous.
welcome!! I love those stag! are you getting any mounts done besides the ducks??
Quote:
welcome!! I love those stag! are you getting any mounts done besides the ducks??
Oh yes, shoulder mounts of all the species harvested. The game room is getting rather full. The Stag and the Moose took up a ton of space.
Looks like an awesome trip! Thanks for sharing!
The story, well….
We flew into New Zealand on June 20th 2008. We had a grand total of 34 hours invested on planes and in airports. I was ready to finally be in Christchurch when we got there. It was the first month of winter there and the weather was beautiful. Approximately 30 degrees at night and 35 to 40 during the day. Very beautiful.
We drove 2 hours southwest of Christchurch into the mountains and stayed at a lodge in a river basin area completely surrounded by mountains.
We were told by the guides not to shoot the first stag we see, as they all have a ton of crap on top their heads and you have many options as to what you really want. If you look at the 3 stag, you’ll see Chuck’s has great palms/crowns, dad’s has just a ton of junk on top, and mine has great mass and width. As we saw various animals, we all decided on different characteristics that we wanted in our animals and searched for those characteristics.
Dad and I shot our animals in almost the exact same spot. It is a secluded area (a bowl actually) hidden by the hills. The animals seem to hang out in there and feel safe. It was as easy as spot and stalk. You could get up on top of the foothills and look down into these bowls. Then stalk to within range. Mine busted me at 80 yards and ran out to 130 only to turn and look back. That was an error on his part. Dad’s, we were able to stalk to within a 100 yards and he never knew what happened. Chuck’s was a little more exciting. We put 3 stalks on his stag. He was a wary bugger and busted us 2 times before Chuck finally got in position to make a 175 yard shot on him. We actually thought he missed when the stag didn’t act hit. The only way we knew, was when the other 3 stags ran around the ridge top, Chuck’s stag was not with them. He had died and rolled down the hill into the basin. It was rather challenging getting down there and getting him out.
I hadn’t planned on shooting a fallow deer, however we saw a monster the first hour of the first day. That sight ate at me for the better part of three days before I decided if I saw him again, I’d take him. We never did see him again, however we did find the one I took with about 1.5 hours left in the hunt. This one was just a hair smaller than the first fallow, and I’m damn proud to have him on the wall. He may be my favorite.
The Tahr hunt was unreal. Our guides had an idea where they were, but wasn’t 100% sure. So we made an dangerous and exhausting climb up cliffs and shale fields for approximately 1000 – 1500 feet. Once up there, low and behold there was the herd. Of course they busted us and we had to make a rather quick walk around the ridge over the same shale field. All there was to hold on to was a thorny little brush and I was darn happy to hold on to it!
The herd thought they lost us and moved on across the ravine to a sheltered area. However it was an area we could see. They were 254 yards away and we were sick of chasing them up there. So Chuck and I reluctantly decided to do the shoot at the same time thing. I hate doing it, but I didn’t want to run around up there anymore than I had to. I picked my animal, Chuck picked his animal, counted down and shot. My Tahr fell, and fell some more, and fell some more, and even some more. It was very steep over there. Chuck’s did not fall. However, it did run around the ravine towards us. So Chuck just waited and took the closer shot when the Tahr presented itself. Of course his got hung up in a bush and died nice and close. At that point and time my father was suffering from old age and wanted me to fill his hind(female) tag. He was able to get up to about 500 feet and didn’t feel safe. We were all proud of a 60 year old man with a history of heart disease to even get that far. But the shale proved to be to dangerous. A nice female decided to stay behind and watch the shooting and present a nice 267 yard shot. She feel some distance as well. It took some time to safely get down to my animals. Despite their fall, they were both in prefect shape. It still took us 2 hours to get down to the basin.
After that, we did some duck hunting and sight seeing. New Zealand is a beautiful country. I will be going back sooner rather than later. I can tell you 11 days was not enough. I’ll be taking 3 weeks or so next time. I’ve been told by others that 3 weeks isn’t enough either.
Great pics!
Great story and pics. The adventure of a lifetime!
Joel
Any pictures of the ducks.
Quote:
Any pictures of the ducks.
We did not get any good pics of the ducks. I’ll have to wait till they are done.
Here is some pics of some Paradise ducks in the park. The hens have the white head and are teh prettier of the two.
Chriss: Who cares???? They are JUST ducks! 
Quote:
OK Pheasant Boy! 
Quote:
I’ll keep that in mind when you post begging for land.
Welcome to the hunting side Ruger 
Great photo’s, great story and indeed the trip of a life time. 
What does a tag for three trophey’s like that cost
Quote:
Welcome to the hunting side Ruger
What does a tag for three trophey’s like that cost
Long story short, I spent around 14K including moutning the animals. It was about 8K for the hunt and lodge portion of the trip.
Ruger,
Great pics. PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE post the mounts when done.
WOW! What a dream hunt. Great story and awesome pics. Thanks for sharing!
again thanks for sharing awesome pics sounds like the hunt of a lifetime congrats
i dream of shooting a roaring stag with my bow 
Quote:
i dream of shooting a roaring stag with my bow
Yep!
Man, that would be a trip to remember Congrats!
If you link out to photos on photobucket be sure that they are no wider than 450 pixels on either side or you will stretch the page here on the site.
Using the photo upload system here on the site is FAR easier and quicker than using photobucket or other photo hosting sites. The other nice thing about uploading photos to the IDA server is that they’ll always be part of the post you added them to. If you browse old threads you’ll find nearly all photos added using a hosting site are missing… so the posts that are loaded with all those red “X’s” indicating a missing file.
Those reds sure are beautiful! Congrats on you and your party’s success!
Nice animals ruger Someday, I would like to get to NZ for a Stag hunt 
big G
Welcome to IDO Ruger and thank you for sharing your New Zealand harvest photos and stories. I’m sure it is a hunt that your family will cherish for years to come.
And Congrats on some magnificent trophies! Can’t wait to see the mounts! 
You must be logged in to reply to this topic.
