Report from February 2007

Heres a few photos from the long weekend chasing chamois on the westcoast. We were away for 4days chasing chamois in and around that Whataroa Country. We had some brilliant weather, but the mist and cloud hugged the tops of the hill where we were camping, so we were forced lower into the scrubbier country.

We flew in first thing in the morning with James scott, and set up base camp. On the flight in we saw a group of 3chamois cutting up through the bluffs, and then another mob of 8 diving down towards the sub-alpine scrub. Several of the chams were carrying decent horns and beautiful summer coats.

Looking down from camp to where two chamois bucks are spotted sunning themselves on two different spurs about 1.5km across the other side of the catchment. We dropped down to the biggest one but my hunting mate clean missed it at 261m. Through the waves of cloud you could make the chamois out through the binos and spotting scope.

base camp with the boys, as the mist rolls in on day one :( At the end of day one we had seen 6chamois

This is first thing on day 2, I popped over the ridge from camp to have a glass while the others glassed across the camp. I got onto three chamois, a nanny, a kid and what appeared to be a buck [because of his body size] but I suspect it was a nanny because bucks are generally solo at this time of the year... so it may have been a great conditioned nanny.

This one is the chamois that I thought was a buck

zoomed in..

and again..

Here is a one horned nanny. It had horn rott at the base of one of its horns, and seeing as it was such a long horn I wanted to take it's unique head home for show and tell.

This is by far the longest chamois horn I've ever seen - it looks longer than you think purely because it has no throw down... if this had throw downs as well as length then you'd be looking at a 12 or 12.5inch chamois. Which is freakish. This nanny was going on 10years old according to the ring counnts [im no expert]

you can see the base of the long horn is also showing signs of horn rot.

this 10.25inch buck was shot on the angle, facing semi front on at 269m with the 25-06. Sorry about the mess, that's the exit hole - the entry is on the other shoulder.

we packed up and moved down from base camp in the top of the tops, to down below the cloud. Although it was fine weather, there was no wind to blow the fog and cloud out of the valleys.

chamois country like this is breath taking. our camp was above the water fall to the left, where the river does a sharp triangle bend. We we camped at that bend slightly out of sight. That bend is where I kept photographing the blue ducks!! they were awesome

This blue duck male was one of three for the area [as far as I know this one trip]. It wasn't too concerned about our whereabouts

Looking out across to the main divide on the third day - when the weather was really starting to pick up for us in terms of clarity. What you don't see are photos of when it was clagged in, simply because I did't take my camera out when the conditions were wet and foggy. 60% of our hunting was in low cloud and wofts of wet mist.

but this made it all worth while

That's me enjoying a moment after a morning scout around.