The stags I encountered in New Zealand had a wide range of coat color. This one was dark, but some were red, the color of mule deer, or whitetail, in summer. Most of the largest stags we saw had a rich dark coat, almost a chestnut or dark auburn, but instead of their faces being darker, they were buff-toned, somewhat like the face of an old golden retriever.

Adrian told me stags are territorial, and will dependably stay in the same general area, as long as they are not disturbed. I found this to be true as I spent the next two afternoons trying to sneak into the area below the rim rock, only to have to back out each time. When the wind changed on the third afternoon I was able to build a tiny ground blind in the brush above the wallow and sit in it until dark. Luck was with the stag on this day, because the wind picked up keeping he and his hinds in the lee of the nearby timber. He was so close I could hear every roar and grunt he made, but he didnít show himself. The next evening he followed the hinds out of the same patch and strutted his stuff just up the mountain from me. I felt sure he would come to the wallow, but the best he would do was to bed in plain view 80 yards from me, bellowing his superiority to the world. It was an unforgettable sight.

The hinds feeding around me wouldn't let me stalk that bull, so at dark I snuck out of the area,undetected. I didn't know that the wind would change 180 degrees that night, forcing me to abandon my efforts at that high meadow. I honestly felt lucky just to watch that stag on his meadow in the New Zealand highlands.

NO CIGAR
We were close, Adrian and I, but not close enough. I don't believe that enough bowhunting has been done for free-ranging red stags to have figured out the system yet. In the future, as more bowhunters pursue these animals, we may find ways to produce new sounds that will bring stags running. I'm convinced that there must be a hind call not yet discovered that will lure stags.

In the meantime, red stag remain one of the toughest trophies I have hunted. They are shy and quiet compared to elk, and intolerant of nearby disturbances. While you can come crashing into a herd of elk, a red deer that hears a noise is soon gone. And red deer don't seem to roam as freely and widely as elk, so the deer know their territory well and live in a manner that takes best advantage of the safety of predominant winds and the terrain.

Getting There Adrian Moody can guide you to free-ranging red stag, sika deer, wild ram or boar. He also offers game ranch hunting for fallow buck, sika stag, wild ram, goat or boar. Adrian can also guide you to excellent turkey hunting (Rio Grande birds). Visit www.wave.co.nz/~mhunters/ Joseph Sanchez and his family have rights to some of the best private-land elk hunting in northern Colorado. Joe and his brother Jacob are part of the excellent guide team at the family-run Eagle Spirit Outfitters. For more information on a Colorado elk hunt visit www.eaglespiritoutfitters.com

Several times during the hunt Adrian offered the use of the .308 rifle he kept back at camp, and frankly, we were well within rifle range of many wonderful stags, as well as a number of record book quality sika deer. But I had to decline. If there is one thing I have learned in my years of bowhunting, it is this: Nothing will so surely guarantee failure with a bow as the promise of a backup gun. I came to bowhunt, and bowhunt I must, stag or not. Besides, what kind of a bowhunting tale would it be, if the bowhunter used a gun?

A TALE OF SUCCESS
If I've made elk sound like pushovers in this account, my apologies to all the elk bowhunters out there who know differently. I received another dose of humility last fall when I hunted elk in the Gila Wilderness in New Mexico and failed for the second straight year to take a trophy.

I did, however, redeem myself in Colorado a couple of weeks later with guide Joseph Sanchez of Eagle Spirit Outfitters. Joseph is a young guy who, like Adrian Moody, has that incredible gift that the best deer guides share: a sixth sense about game and how to get close to it. I must admit, however, that at the end of five days of hard hunting in Colorado, I was getting concerned, and tired.

Joseph and I followed a bull and his cows to the top of a steep ridge on an evening when the sky was spitting rain and my hunt was nearing a close. When the bull and cows bailed over the top and down the other side near sunset, I thought taps had blown on my elk hunt. But Joseph was undaunted. He spotted another bull in the canyon below and with a series of carefully chosen cow calls was able to bring the nice 5x5 on a steady climb up the steep canyon. When the bull cleared some brush 25 yards below I was able to launch an arrow that found home. The bull ran 50 yards before pitching head-over-heels on the steep slope. Sometimes that's all it takes, a moment of luck.