If any of you have watched the movie (Lord Of the Rings) you will know what the term middle earth means. It is New Zealand and it is just as beautiful as it appears in the movie. Nothing but rolling green mountains, with crystal, clear trout streams and mature pine forest.
My journey started very different from the journey in the movie. I departed on May 7th, 2004 from Traverse City, flew to the Twin Cities to Los Angles and then took a 12hour flight (over night) from L.A. to Auckland, New Zealand. I arrived in Auckland at 7:00 AM a day earlier because they are 18 hours ahead of us who live in the mid-west.
I had been planning this trip for over two years. This is only the first stop of my South Pacific hunting trip. After 4 days of hunting in New Zealand my next stop is going to be Australia. That hunting story will be in the next edition of woods-n-water magazine.
I was scheduled to catch a flight out of Auckland at 9:00AM to Wanganui. Once arriving there I was to be picked up by my guide Paul Bamber and would start my first day of hunting that afternoon. My goal was to harvest a Red Deer Stag that would score up to 325 inches. This hunt is normally 5 days in length, but I shortened it to 4 days because of the length of time I would be gone on this trip. As it stood I was going to be gone for 14 days, much longer than I had ever been gone on a hunting trip before. It turned out my flight to Wanganui was canceled because of fog which covered most of the North Island of New Zealand.
I was finally able to catch a flight to Taupo. Air New Zealand then provided a taxi to take me to the airport in Wanganui where I was finally picked up and driven out to the hunting lodge on top of a mountain. Unfortunately, I arrived late in the evening and missed my first day of hunting. I was now down to 3 days of hunting remaining in my quest for a red stag. I was beginning to wonder if I had made a big mistake cutting the trip down by one day.
My guide for the next 3 days was going to be Matt Shoemaker. Matt is from Missouri and comes over every spring and guides for 3 months then returns back to Missouri. Matt and I discussed how we would hunt the next three days. Mostly spot and stalk. Matt asked me what kind of a stag I was looking for and I told him one that would score around 325 inches. He told me he just had a bow hunter in camp that just took a really good stag that scored over 350 inches. But the roar (rut) was over and finding these big boys might be a little harder than normal.
Besides having to adjust to the time difference of 18 hours, I also had to adjust to the change in the seasons. Leaving Michigan in May usually means the beginning of spring (not this year). In New Zealand it was the fall, in fact the roar or the rut as they call it here in the states, had just ended. It usually starts at the end of March and runs through April. Now most of the big stags were holding pretty tight in the thick brush trying to heal up from the roar and all of the fights that they had been involved in during the past several weeks fighting for the right to mate with the heins (does).
It was a little hard getting up the first morning. I think my body was trying to tell me it needed a little more sleep. After breakfast Matt and I started out. As soon as the sun began to rise all I could see was one rolling hill after another. I was glad we had driven to the top of this mountain and did not have to walk up. The ranch had enough two-track trails on it to make walking up one hill to another fairly easy. There was game everywhere. Ferral goats, Wild boar, Sika deer, Fallow deer and lots of Red deer. I soon noticed that the biggest problem we were going to have is that there was too much game. Every time we kicked up a herd of animals they ran off and spooked another herd of animals. This continued most of the morning. After a great lunch back at the lodge we headed back out for the afternoon hunt. Which had about the same results as the morning, spooking one heard of animals into another. The one thing I had not yet seen was a mature red stag.
That night while in bed trying to fall asleep, I was again thinking I might have made a big mistake cutting this hunt down by a day. After loosing another day to the weather, I was now down to two days of hunting. Adding in the fact that I wasn�t hunting during the roar and the stags were hard to find kept me awake for sometime.
It was a lot easier to get up this morning. I was up, dressed and ready to go at least an hour before daylight. Matt and I headed to a different part of the ranch this morning. Again a lot of hills, but not too difficult to manage. We saw several world class Sika and Fallow bucks that morning; some real monsters. At about 10:00am we finally saw a mature Red stag, unfortunately he saw us about the same time and was gone into the bush before we could get a good look at him.
Matt and I sat down to take a break and to figure out what our next move was going to be. Matt figured that if the stags were laying low in the thick cover we might just have to go in after them. Not far from where we were sitting was a spot that Matt knew they liked to bed down in. We decided we would go into these thick patches of cover very slowly and try to get close enough to one for a shot before the stag had a chance to run.
Easier said then done. This cover was some of the thickest stuff I have ever been in before. Mostly it was up hill and very tough to walk up because the recent rain had made the ground very muddy. After we entered the third thicket we both noticed some very large antlers moving ahead of us, but we couldn�t get a clear look at the stag. Matt was trying to go up hill above the stag in order to force him down hill and out into the open for a better look, and maybe a shot. It worked. The stag ran out into the open with another stag. They started to climb the hill on the other side of the creek. Matt got a good look at the stag through his spotting scope. He told me the second stag was what we were looking for. He looked through his range finder and told me it was 175 yards away and still climbing the hill. I was breathing pretty hard at this point from climbing the hills trying to keep up with the stags. I took my first shot and it was a clear miss. I held my breath and tried to focus better with the second shot. When the shot rang out from my Browning 338, I saw the stag drop in his tracks. Then he started to roll down the hill and disappeared.
Needless to say I was very happy. I had been thinking to myself that with the way things had been going and the limited amount of time I had to hunt, I might be going home without a stag. Matt being 26 and I just turning 48, Matt made it up the hill much faster then I did. Once he got there he found out why the stag had disappeared. The stag had rolled into a small gully and was laying upside down. It took the two of us a 1/2 hour to get the stag upright and to pull him out of the gully. Matt figured the stag weighed about 500lbs and it had 14 points. It was a true trophy. I couldn�t get my hands around the base of its beams.
Now the fun was to begin. You would think dragging something down hill would be easy. WRONG, it took us an hour to move him about 100 yards to a flat area so we could cape him out. Matt pointed out to me that I shot him at the farthest point on the ranch away from the lodge.
Matt started out with the cape and horns on his back; it had to weigh at least 80lbs. I offered to carry Matt�s backpack, which I didn�t think would be too heavy. I already had my backpack on and my rifle slung over my shoulder. Once I grabbed Matt�s pack and felt the weight of it I asked him how many rocks he had in it. It was heavier than my pack and rifle put together. But, that was ok. I was happy with the stag I had just taken and knew we only had to go up hill about 300 yards, then we could set everything down and walk back to the lodge and come back with the Polaris ATV. Walking that 300 yards was a lot harder than I thought it was going to be. Once we got there, we left everything there and started walking back to the lodge. Half way back one of the other guides met us with the ATV. We picked up everything and were back at the lodge in time for a late lunch.
That evening Matt scored the stag and it was 325 7/8 inches. If you recall the first day Matt asked me what kind of a stag I was looking for and I said one that would score 325 inches.
Later that afternoon I was asked by Paul Bamber if I minded going out and culling some heins (does). He needed some venison to take into town for some seniors. So I ended up taking two that day and one more the last day I was in camp. There was another hunter in camp from Wisconsin who took a stag the last day I was in camp. To date they had been 100% successful on Red stags, some scoring into the 400�s.
Paul has been in business almost 20 years and has hunters from all over the world hunt with him each year. His lodge is very nice, food is great, and the guides are outstanding.
If you�re looking for a trophy hunt for Red stag, Sita deer, Fallow deer, Chamois or Tahr or just want to visit MIDDLE EARTH contact me at 989-344-9038 or at [email protected].
Read next month�s edition of woods-n-water to find out how I did hunting water buffalo in Australia.
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