Two Tales Same Story

We were all lean, keen and quite fit and because we were hunting regularly such trips just got more and more ambitious in terms of how much country we anticipated looking over. This trip was no exception and we planned to cover a considerable chunk of the tops between the Nina Hut and the Nina Biv before heading down the valley floor.

We set off at a good clip to make the bushline by daybreak. It took me some time to appreciate that being in good physical shape just meant we tended to walk or climb faster and we would still arrive at the bushline covered in sweat.

To shorten this tale considerably I shot a spiker not far out from the bush edge, which we gutted and hung in the cool. We adjusted our plan, aiming to take in a big navigation through some basins and onto the main ridge which would allow us to check the catchments on the western flanks before returning to the meat stash. It seemed like a grand plan at the time.

We spent the day on the tops in beautiful conditions and looked over a lot of country with no other sign of deer. We did try to get onto a lone buck chamois in the late afternoon but were spotted before we could close the range sufficiently.

In the