I’ve been a bit quiet lately, not much airgunning or posting about it. But Craig from Waimate got me going again, organising a day of big bore range shooting and hunting for Saturday a week ago. A welcome break from shaky Christchurch (1212 quakes since the big one and still counting).
I drove down and by 10.30 am met up with Craig and Vin. Craig took us to the Waimate Pistol Club, which has an excellent sheltered range with knock-down steel targets set up at 25, 50, 75 and 100 metres.


We had a good play sighting in the guns. This is Vin getting the 909s on target, while Craig and his son shoot a few targets with Craig’s .22.

I got the .50 cal sighted in and knocked a few steel rams over at 100 m.

In the afternoon we got kitted up and headed for the hills. Here's Craig and Vin in camo, with the bush we headed to in the background.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t ideal hunting weather, as there was a very strong Nor’wester, but we had a great tramp up through steep bush and saw plenty of deer and pig sign. Once we got to the top of the bush we could see across the valley to the neighbouring farm, and around 500 yards away we spotted 4 deer, 2 reds and 2 fallow. Here are the two nice reds, grazing lazily...


Unfortunately, we had no permission to hunt that farm (I think Craig said it is a game park) and had to forego the option of trying to stalk them. It would have been quite a mission anyway, as we would have had to go back down into the valley and up through dense bush to get anywhere near them.
We hunted around the fringes of the bush and saw only one deer, a white-tail, which eluded us. The mist started to come in, and we made our way down the hill back towards the cars.


Craig left us to continue hunting with his boss, Robert, while Vin and I, knackered by now, headed for home just as it started to both get dark and hail/snow.
We may have come away empty handed, but it was a great day out and good to catch up with Craig and Vin again.
Cheers
Neil

Hi Neil,

That looks like a great day. I'm glad you got out.

Boy - that looks like a couple of tough characters in camo ... ;?)

Beautiful landscape ... wow.

Thanks for posting.

Gary

Hi Neil,

It’s good to see you and your buddies having a good time. Thanks for sharing with us those beautiful pictures of your country.
Certainly you do live in a beautiful place.

Julio

Neil,

Great pictures! I missed this post the first time around, glad I went back through them.

NZ looks like heaven on earth.

Lon

Thanks guys. It was a nice time in some nice countryside. Now I just need to bring home some bacon...or venison!
Cheers
Neil

You'll get some next time!