Mad Men of the Mountains by Al Lester

Author:Al Lester [Lester, ‘Big Al’]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781742539423
Publisher: Penguin Random House New Zealand
Published: 2013-03-04T00:00:00+00:00

8

Son of a Gun

The following is Corrie’s story. He’s a middle-aged, lean, extremely fit man who believes that six hours’ sleep is one too many. No matter how closely his wife looks, she’s never been able to find a morsel of fat on the man. Above all else, Corrie is a family man with a grand sense of humour and a love for the mountains.

Over to Corrie.

As I lay prostrate on top of the high alpine ridge, I struggled to focus my binoculars on the stag. The animal was resting on a small terrace above a steep tussock- and rock-covered face. Tussock grass was waving annoyingly in my line of vision as I tried to stay hidden from view while assessing its antlers. When the blustery northwest wind blew the tussock flat and exposed the stag, the sun almost glistened on its ginger coat. The animal sat motionless as it regally surveyed its mountain kingdom and soaked up the warmth of the late afternoon sun. Plainly visible above the waving tussock were the tops of its massive antlers.

It had been almost seven hours earlier and from the valley floor that I had first sighted the stag while glassing the many tussock and rock-faces that formed the high Southern Alps. I spied the stag as it grazed, but it was too far away for me to make out whether or not it was the stag I’d spent a lifetime searching for. It had been a long, steep climb that got me to where I could finally assess the stag at close range.

There on the far side of the wide gully from me was the stag I had come to find. It was a trophy far better than any I’d previously encountered in a lifetime of hunting.

I watched the stag for almost an hour before shimmying backwards and dropping behind the ridge and out of its line of sight. I wore a self-satisfied smile as I clambered back down the mountain, leaving the animal undisturbed behind me. It had been a very successful day indeed.

For years prior to this trip I had done research in order to identify the areas where I was most likely to find a good trophy stag. It now seemed that my research had proved correct. This was my second reconnaissance trip to the area, but, while both times I’d seen some good stags, none had been up to the standard I sought. Today I’d searched some new country and had hit the jackpot. It was the second week of March, and in three weeks’ time I intended to bring my 16-year-old son to the area on his first roar hunt.

6 April 2012: The weather forecast was less than promising, and heavy rain clouds were threatening as the helicopter lifted off and headed up the Rakaia Valley towards our destination at its headwaters.

Other than the pilot, the two others on-board were my long-time hunting mate, Daz, and my son, Adam.

Daz is a big, round-faced, barrel-chested man who laughs easily and who never gives up on anything.

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