I haven’t hunted a roar since.

About 10 years ago now, would have been early May. I had been a wet few days in the bush so far without seeing squat. I was out in a Maori block north of the Waiuoru Army grounds, and came across what I thought was a big stag rubbing on the trees and grunting and hollering.

I swung my rifle up, but didn’t fire as he was behind some thick scrub and I could only see his antlers, head, and neck. And something about the movement seemed off. I decided to stalk closer and around to get a better veiw, but to go down wind I had to go in front of the stag, so I circled our further than I would have liked and then found a little posi to drop my bag and get the binos out for a better look.

Upon sighting again, I could see it really was a big stag, albeit, a little unhealthy looking going by the eyes, so i snuck in even closer, and saw it was a head and neck of a stag and not much else of the deer. Underneath the head was a stupid fucking wanker, in full camouflage. He literally had his head up inside the deers head, with a slit out of the neck to see out of.

I was furious and ended up losing my shit. I was tempted to put a bullet through his antlers and give him a scare but was too risky. So I deposited my gun back with my pack and stalked up behind the guy. Im not the best stalker, but this guy was making so much noise I probably could have ran and he wouldn’t have heard me.

As I got behind him, I grabbed my caller and spun it around, and poked it into his side and asked him politely if he would like to die. He stopped making all the racket and started shaking like a fucking twig. I pulled the caller away and ripped the deer head off him and asked him what the fuck he thought he was doing, and when he finally replied, he said he was hunting.

I told him quite loudly it looked more like committing suicide. He proceeded to try and argue the point with me and my patience dried up. I knocked his fucking lights out. While he was out I checked out his gear, and then with my knife, destroyed his deer head by cutting it into shreds and biffing it all in different directions. I could see clearly now why it’s eyes looked a bit dull.

When he came to he was looking down the barrels of both my own and his rifles. (Note I had pulled the bolts out of both rifles as I thought I might actually be tempted to shoot the stupid bastard (also to note, his rifle was loaded with safety off when I found it.))

I then preceded to yell at him and gave him a lecture for probably a good 25min until I ran out of voice. He didn’t say a bloody word. As I got up to leave I passed him his rifle back, shouldered my gear and moved off. I didn’t look back. I spent my last 3 days just wandering around and not really bothering to hunt, as he had taken the fun from me for that week.

It was only when I got home I realised I still had his rifle bolt in my pack. Still have it to this day. And i haven’t hunted a roar since.