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I got home yesterday after a couple of days in the hills. As usual I started in the foothills and got a useful bag of rabbits with my 20 VarTarg then we headed up into the high country to hunt for goats but on the way I stalked a basin I had seen a couple of red deer hinds in last trip up there in may. They were still in the same gully system but were over 400yds away. The area is a largish valley with numerous little ridges and faces but travel is considerably hindered by the profusion of mataghouri (a bush that has inch to inch and half spikes and can be from 18in to over 6ft high so a path has to be planned to get around much of it as forcing through can be painfull to impossible in places. I could see the deer were feeding on the move toward what I expected to be a bedding up place as it was getting on toward 9am so was hurrying slowly but much of the time they were out of sight as I went through the couple of faces toward them, gaining nearly a 100yds each face but they were quite mobile and it seemed that as I got to where I could see them again they were just about past the edge of where I had got to and when I had got in to 170 yds and was getting into position for a shot they stepped into the bush and were gone. I waited for about 20 minutes but they had bedded down so I spent the time working out a route down to where that were if I got a decent shot and how the heck I was going to get the meat back out of the deep valley again. I know it will be a hard slog both getting in and getting out and at 63 am starting to feel that these type of hunts are getting a bit tough but I am going back there at the end of Jan so will get into shooting position earlier in the morning ( it is a good 21/2 hrs from home)
Anyway we (Lyne and Bruno - wife and dog) carried on to the first set of bluffs where we have often got goats over the years but there was nothing to be seen or heard although I did glass a mob of about 15 that were 800yds up into a basin that had a lot of mataghouri and would have made difficult climbing so we left them and carried on round to another basin I had hunted before. That was where the first real opportunity offered itself.
After we had got to the old stone hut and got unpacked I headed off for a look over the "easy face" so Lyne and Bruno came for a walk as well, although when I got to the steeper stuff they sat on a rock and waited. There was no sound of bleating which is often the first sign of the goats but in this instance two broke from behind some scrub so a quick spine shot dropped the nanny while the billy was toofast for a second shot although he did appear in a clearing about 150yds away but a lung shot didn't drop him within the clearing and he between the scrub and the bluffs he wasn't recoverable.
With the goat gutted and headed it was the start of a decent treck back to camp.
I had got the goat down in a steep little basin on the far side of the rocks at the end of the ridge behind Lyne.
Anyway we (Lyne and Bruno - wife and dog) carried on to the first set of bluffs where we have often got goats over the years but there was nothing to be seen or heard although I did glass a mob of about 15 that were 800yds up into a basin that had a lot of mataghouri and would have made difficult climbing so we left them and carried on round to another basin I had hunted before. That was where the first real opportunity offered itself.
After we had got to the old stone hut and got unpacked I headed off for a look over the "easy face" so Lyne and Bruno came for a walk as well, although when I got to the steeper stuff they sat on a rock and waited. There was no sound of bleating which is often the first sign of the goats but in this instance two broke from behind some scrub so a quick spine shot dropped the nanny while the billy was toofast for a second shot although he did appear in a clearing about 150yds away but a lung shot didn't drop him within the clearing and he between the scrub and the bluffs he wasn't recoverable.
With the goat gutted and headed it was the start of a decent treck back to camp.
I had got the goat down in a steep little basin on the far side of the rocks at the end of the ridge behind Lyne.
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