Indholdsfortegnelse for Issue 94 i NZ Hunter

It can be full of action and excitement and there is no greater experience than being amongst a group of Sika stags calling like crazy. This article will focus on hunters who plan on calling Sika using their own voice (if you are one of the few who has that ability) or using a calling device such as the AJ Caller. Using a device such as the AJ Caller is not for everyone and I get it. For years the only hunters who could benefit from calling in Sika stags (especially in tight bush) were those who could hit the high notes needed for imitating a stag. Whatever individual views are, a calling device is just another tool in the toolbox to help increase one's odds of success, especially when…

While some hunters dust off their boots for their annual trip, others are just hoping their boots have dried since their last mission. Either way, it's fair to say it's a bloody busy time of year. This trip was no different, and as I rolled up to the carpark in my mighty Toyota Corolla my jaw just about hit the floor - there were at least 20 trucks parked up! The trailhead had transformed into a mobile heli base for the local operator and there was a stack of Jerry cans on the ground. My disappointment was quickly forgotten as I saw a friendly face awaiting me. With wet, stinky gear hanging on the fence and a smile ear to ear, my mate Raddy had just been on one hell…

NZ HUNTER MAGAZINE How To A SERIES PROFILING A TAHR BALLOT BLOCK EACH ISSUE And as such it is about where the beech forest runs out, so you'll find yourself facing a few monkey scrub swims to get up onto the tussock above camp. These faces, like much of the Landsborough, then turn into the steep rugged peaks of the Hooker Range and the Main Divide. The campsite itself is situated just above the river and is fairly flat with enough room for a number of tents, although depending on the forecast you may want to be quick in staking your claim on one of the obvious sites that has been trenched to divert the water that runs off the hill behind. The upper valley opens up into big terraces on either…

NZ HUNTER MAGAZINE Testfire With whale watching, tourist flights, commercial work and recreational access. They also run the highly popular Wings Over Whales fixed wing flights. Dan learnt to fly in NZ, in Kaikoura even. He then went over to North America and Papua New Guinea flying for mineral exploration companies for the best part of a decade before coming home in October 2016 and getting settled just in time for the huge Kaikoura earthquake. The South Pacific Helicopters Team played a crucial role in restoring and rebuilding access to the town of Kaikōura. South Pacific Heli are very uniquely situated - the only locally owned helicopter company to service the Seaward Kaikouras, and are wellplaced to do the same for all of the magnificent Clarence Reserve and the Awatere…

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JD from Amalgamated Helicopters dropped us off in clear skies and zero wind. It was our first time in this area, so it was great to be able to see the locale as we flew in. After dealing with our gear, we headed up over Mt Hector and Winchcombe Ridge, where we spotted good numbers of deer up in the tussock. However the stags we saw were all eight pointers or less. We reached the last big tussock basin and heard a stag roaring, soon locating him high in the tussock in an easy spot to take. A closer look revealed he was a large mature stag with one good right antler of six points and no antler on the left so we left him in the hope that he…

NZHUNTER MAGAZINE How To Technology is convenient, but as we are all aware, it can fail at the most inopportune time, and therefore knowing how to read a map and use a compass is as relevant today as it has always been. This article is concerned with back to basics, talking about how to use a map and compass to navigate in a step by step, easy to understand, explanation of the process. THE TOPOGRAPHICAL MAP The topographical map is an exact replication of the ground. In New Zealand we use the NZMS 260 series maps with a scale of 1:50,000. This means 1 unit on the map represents 50,000 units on the ground, or 1cm on the map is 500 metres on the ground. The topographical map shows features…

NZ HUTER MAGAZINE How To For most of us, there are no consequences of making noise. We aren't being hunted. It does not matter if we stomp around our living area. But the big game animals we hunt can pay the ultimate price to pay for being too noisy. So when we pick up our bow and think we can shift into their very quiet world for the weekend, we get a rude awakening. Just think about it. They bed down for hours with minimal noise around them. Every step is placed quietly, their hair does not make a sound as they move. If a bowhunter wants to slip into the animal's forcefield, they'd better be very quiet. When a bowhunter starts closing into less than 30 metres, every slight…

NZ HUNTER MAGAZINE How To I've just returned from a Back Country Trust renovation project there that ended up unintentionally being a sort of rebuild. The original S81 New Zealand Forest Service structure had become very run down and rat infested. Moisture had been entering in various spots including a poorly installed flue and the untreated rimu frame was rotting in numerous places. The plan was to reconstruct the hut from the floor up but once we'd stripped it down it was evident that the sub-floor and piles were too far gone for this to happen. The BCT is a community partnership that has been funding volunteers, and more recently paid workers using Jobs for Nature money, to maintain some of the lower use huts and tracks on public conservation…

NZ HUNTER MAGAZINE Testfire Founded in 2002 by Cam Brensinger in his senior year at Rhode Island School of Design, the brand has been at for forefront of innovation and technology ever since. Nemo Equipment is distributed in New Zealand by Mountain Adventure in Christchurch, who have a huge range of great brands - including the likes of La Sportiva, Fenix and Leki. Coming from a collaboration between Nemo Equipment and FirstLite (a brand known well in NZ via PointsSouth) the Tracker 2p is based on a revisited and repurposed Nemo Hornet, one of their best-known tents. The tracker is also available as a single person tent, shaving 200 grams off the total weight. My first impressions of the tent stayed the course after a week of use in the…

NZ HUNTER MAGAZINE Food & Fauna Maybe it's that we are just so busy and I am short staffed, or the fact that I like this time of the year best, so look forward to it the most, or maybe I am just getting older! Last year I went south, all the way down to Southland to experience a traditional Southland duck shooting weekend with my brother-in-law, and what a weekend it was!! It was great to see my niece Kate and Kate's mate (she doesn't have a name just “Kate's mate”) getting right into it (probably because it involved face paint), but seriously the two girls got on the board with a duck each so well done to them. I also got more than I bargained for that weekend…

We got home that night, meat in hand, to show the ladies what we had found, they let their guard down and said we should go for a weekend hunt together soon, (pre-roar as we couldn't make our normal roar trip). With this hall pass in hand we were straight into it, looking at the maps and planning our next trip! It seemed this expedition was never going to get off the ground, but after a few date revisions and my Stewart Island trip looming closer we managed to lock it in and set the date. Two long weeks of waiting, planning, and packing went by, then it was finally the evening before the main event. My mate Brian was hitting the road from Christchurch at 7am, I was leaving…

NZ HUNTER MAGAZINE How To We must be diverse in our thinking. We must surround ourselves in good proactive people and be smart with our finances. It's essential that environmental concerns are a part of our future. Of course, we must be as safe as possible doing what we do. Project management is key. Then we must tell the world what we do, why we do it and how important that it is to them that we keep doing it. Marketing - or as a friend of mine who is good at this stuff calls it “the colouring department”. Once upon a time so many decisions and plans were invented behind closed doors and some of that still needs to happen. Things need to be developed, tweaked, improved and test…

GWYN THURLOW & SAM SHEAFF - NZDA Sika Deer Cervus nippon Small, sneaky and cunning, the sika deer are well known as a very challenging animal to hunt. Having evolved alongside tigers, wolves and bears in their native Asian range, sika are an extremely alert animal, with very acute hearing, sight and smell. Sika deer are found in the central North Island, particularly in the Kaimanawa, Kaweka and Ahimanawa Ranges. Liberations It may be surprising to learn that sika deer were first introduced to New Zealand in the South Island, not the North Island, in 1885. Three deer were liberated near Kurow, North Otago, but were shot out by local farmers before they could establish. A few years later, in January 1905, three hinds and a stag, presented…

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