One Heck Of A Ride

203 The South Pacific in the Mannlicher’s scope and dropped her first animal with a heart shot. What a ram! I was so Author and wife Marty with her first ever trophy, a top ten Arapawa Sheep proud of her. Later that evening, we came across a very good stag in a meadow. Mike and I watched it in our binoculars for a long time. I knew we both were thinking the same thing. “Well?” I said. “Let’s talk with Shane,” Mike said. Without actually saying it, I was asking Mike if this was a management stag, and if Marty could take him. The next morning at first light, with Shane’s permission, Marty, Mike and I set out to hunt for that stag. We found him in the same valley we’d seen him the previous evening. During the stalk, Marty had time to think about the stag she was about to shoot, and a bit of buck fever may have set in. When we were within range, she got ready to shoot from the prone position and found the stag in her scope. Meanwhile, I was thinking that stag would die of old age before she shot it, but she eventually fired the .308 and the stag took a few steps, wobbled and died from a perfectly placed lung shot. Marty said her hands were sweaty and shaking. I hugged her and told her this was a part of hunting. I had experienced the joy of sharing a truly fine hunt with my wife. After posing for photos with her stag we returned to the lodge to get Shane to ferry the deer out with his helicopter. With my deer and sheep hunt over, Mike and I had plenty of time left that afternoon to shoot a pair of paradise ducks and locate a great fallow Marty with guide Mike Moss and Martys Fine Red Stag deer at last light. We found him again the next morning in an open valley where the closest we Pair of Paradice Ducks