Petersen's Hunting Guide to Whitetail Deer by Petersen's Hunting

Author:Petersen's Hunting
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Skyhorse Publishing
Published: 2016-01-15T00:00:00+00:00

Although its’ range is limited, sambar have been free-ranging on New Zealand’s North Island since 1876. This is a nice stag, with typical three-tined antler and burly body. The rifle is a Remington M700 rebarreled to .300 H&H, topped with a Zeiss variable.

SERENDIPITOUS SAMBAR

WE HAD JUST taken a whitetail, South Pacific’s most difficult creature. There are 14, and I had hunted them all, but not all successfully. One hurdle remained, the magnificent sambar, first introduced into New Zealand’s North Island from Sri Lanka in 1876. I had tried and failed in Victoria Province, Australia, where the population is large and widespread—but never easy to hunt. With the whitetail secured more quickly than we dared hope, we rendezvoused at Chris and Peg’s place. He knew a sheep farmer on the North Island, in sambar range, who said he had some. Should we give it a go?

So we flew to Palmerston North, where our new friend Greg Gower met us. Two hours later we were looking at a nice sambar stag. This seemed unbelievable, and I thought we should shoot him. We did not. After all, we had almost three days remaining to take the South Pacific’s greatest trophy—but only second-most after the whitetail in difficulty. Insanity!

The sambar lived in thick gorse brush in gulleys and canyons, coming into the open paddocks mostly at night—but the tropical deer they are, they stand up and feed in the brush when the sun shines. Except we caught yet another week of intermittent rain and cold wind. I was sure we had made a terrible mistake—and then, on the second afternoon, a pale sun popped, and so did the sambar. We found a good stag bedded on a little shelf with some hinds, bad angle and too much wind to take the shot from there. We circled around and above him, got a view, and waited a long time before I was confident of the shot. When I was sure, we shot him—a wonderful coal-black stag, and ended a 21-year South Pacific saga.

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