The Most Exciting Day of my Life
By Daniel Highman (Age 11)
It was the Easter weekend, Hunting and Fishing New Zealand's annual stag and boar hunt, at the Woodbourne Tavern in Renwick.
My mum had acquired her firearms licence a few weeks previously and I decided to enter the hunt taking mum with me; this was the first time she had been out on a proper hunt.
Mum woke me at 6.30am, half-an-hour later than planned, as we had wanted to get out before sunrise. We knew we had to be back for my brothers and sister at 8.00am because dad had to go to work. Mum and I were pretty exhausted from the previous day and decided to head into the forestry at the back of our house and try for a rabbit or two.
Parking the truck half way along the track, we set off and soon could hear a stag roaring nearby, assuming it was coming from the deer farm bordering the forestry. Towards the end of the track a fallen tree had blocked the path and this was usually where we turned round to head back. I suggested that we should climb over and a look down the end firebreak. Reaching the end, I rested the .243on the gate and peered through the scope to see if I could spot the farm deer on the hills beyond.
The next thing I heard was mum saying, "There it is, right in front of you". Taking my eye away from the scope I was flabbergasted to see the most beautiful stag standing in the middle of the firebreak about 100m away. I couldn't believe my eyes and couldn't have been in a better position, with the rifle resting on the gate.
"Get down," I whispered urgently to mum.
"No, I'm not moving,' she replied.
I very slowly chambered a round. My heart was pounding and my hands shaking with excitement. I placed the crosshairs behind the front shoulder and gently squeezed the trigger - BANG - the stag dropped where it had stood. Mum leaped the gate, grabbing the rifle from me and chambered another round, but this one wasn't going anywhere. Mum made the rifle safe and we ran to see my trophy stag. It was a clean shot and I stared in disbelief, counting the points, a 12 pointer with the most magnificent even head. This was better than a couple of rabbits I thought, apart from the smell - it was definitely in the roar. But guess what? We left the knife in the truck, so we were unable to bleed it.
Mum looked at her watch - 7.30am. By the time we got back to the truck it would be nearly 8.ooam so we had to run fast, the adrenaline making us move pretty quickly.
On reaching the truck, I couldn't wait to grab mum's mobile and phone dad, "Have you time to come and help us load a 12-pointer?"
"Yeh-yeh," was dad's reply.
On reaching home, dad was just going out of the door in a hurry. I told him about the stag and when he left, I think he was still unsure of the truth.
Mum rang our good friends Brian and Pauline for help. An hour later they came to the rescue and we set off up the forestry with my brothers and sister. The first obstacle was to clear the tree so that we could get the truck to the stag. This didn't take Brian long once he set to with the chainsaw.
The stag was quickly and efficiently gutted; fortunately, the round had caused it to bleed itself, so the meat had not been ruined. My little sister watched horrified and all she could say was, "Dirty deer," and "smelly'. We struggled together to haul it onto the back of the ute and took it straight to to hang in our friend's chiller before the weigh in.
Later that afternoon, we collected the stag and set off to the Woodbourne Tavern where a fair few stags lay lined up under the rack of hanging pigs. Some people I knew were there and a snide comment suggesting I shot it in a fenced paddock was made, but that didn't worry me as I was still on a high, knowing the real truth. The stag weighed in at 133kgs and was the fifth heaviest; shame there wasn't a prize for kids' heaviest stag.
This was probably one of the most exciting days of my life and the meat was really tender.
