You Need To Go Himalayan Tahr Hunting In New Zealand

If you’re looking for an incredible mountain hunting adventure, you should really consider a Himalayan Tahr hunt in New Zealand.

Along with red deer, fallow deer and several other big-game species, Himalayan tahr were introduced to New Zealand for hunting many years ago. Since then, their numbers have exploded, and now the country has some absolutely fantastic tahr hunting.

I recently had the opportunity to go on one of these hunts, specifically in the South Canterbury Region of New Zealand’s South Island. After several days of hunting on foot (no, we didn’t use a helicopter at all), we’d glassed up a number of nice bulls and even put an unsuccessful stalk on one, but I wasn’t quite able to close the deal.

However, we spotted a really nice bull during the evening of the third day. When we returned the next morning, we found him pretty close to where we left him the previous night. We carefully watched him that morning and noted where he bedded down for the day. Then, we had a pretty strenuous climb to get above him.

Luckily, the wind held and we were able to creep within 200 yards, where we set up for a shot with my Ruger Hawkeye FTW Hunter, which is chambered in .300 Winchester Magnum.

Watch the video to see what happened next.

As you can see, the tahr had no idea we were there. Fortunately, my shot hit just behind the left shoulder, tagging both lungs.

Himalayan tahr are really darn tough. Though he quickly ran out of sight, he only ran about 50 yards, and it didn’t take long for us to find him afterwards.

Though we knew he was big when we spotted him, we had no idea we were looking at an 11-year-old, 15-inch tahr until we saw him up close!

What a hunt! I worked hard, but had a lot of fun, got to hunt in some absolutely magnificent country, saw a number of tahr and ended up taking a really nice, mature bull tahr.

If that sounds like your kind of mountain hunting adventure, you really need to consider going on a Himalayan tahr hunt in New Zealand for yourself!

Like what you see here? Check out John McAdams on his hunting blog. Learn more about the New Zealand tahr hunting packages Big Game Hunting Adventures offers on their web site or follow them on Facebook, YouTube, & Instagram.

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