Innehållsförteckning för Issue 51 - February/March 2016 från NZ Hunter

The tops looked fantastic from our house so Joseph and I grabbed the bows and headed out. We planned to collect a trail camera Joey had setup one month prior, and to have a closer look at a good chamois buck. Sunrise saw the creek bed we were climbing get pretty hot. So we took our time glassing and picking our way up through the alpine scrub. I checked a rifleman nest I had spotted last week under a rock ledge but it was empty-the chicks must have fledged. At around 9am we reached a plateau clearing where we had both spotted animals previously. After glassing here we continued up through a patch of thick scrub. Two does and a kid shot out from above, running toward then past us…

Just the thought of a whopping big stag lying at your feet after a successful stalk is enough to keep you wanting more. With annual leave booked for the week following Easter 2015, I had nine days to track down a respectable Red stag trophy. The plan was to spend the first few days hunting around the Murchison area while some average weather passed through my more desired location down in South Westland. Unfortunately, the Murchison stags didn’t play the game for me, with not much roaring heard and only a couple of young fellas sighted. Over the next two days, I checked the long range forecast, dried out my gear, restocked my food supplies and checked the forecast again. To my delight, it looked like it was improving. I…

We have covered the GPS and this issue I want to have a chat about some of the other electronic options available that can make life a bit easier for you in the hills. Let’s go take a look at some gear » EMERGENCY LOCATOR BEACONS You may not know that there are three main type of ELB’s. They are: 1. EPIRB (emergency position-indicating radio beacon) EPIRBs are designed for and mostly used in boating. They are waterproof and designed to float in water. The battery life of an EPIRB is normally twice as long as that of a PLB (personal locator beacon). 2. PLB (personal locator beacon) PLBs are small portable beacons typically carried by outdoors people playing or working in remote areas. PLBs usually have a shorter…

You may remember Sitka was started up by Jonathan Hart and Jason Hairston when they couldn’t find clothing that suited what they loved doing - hard and high mountain hunting. When Gore bought out Sitka in 2010, Jason decided he didn’t want to be part of that. He wanted to stay true to his ideals of producing the best mountain hunting clothing and gear in the world, and felt he could best do that by staying in control from design through production and sales. And Kuiu is the result. The way Jason started and grew Kuiu is fascinating – he basically did it with an online blog with end user feedback all the way. He would start up a discussion about a particular fabric or item design, going backwards and…

The project I am referring to is the Kaweka Mountain Beech Project. The focus of the project was managing the impacts of Sika to allow for mountain beech forest to regenerate in the Central North Island.. There was growing concern since the 1970s that as Sika numbers were increasing, their impacts on mountain beech forest were becoming more severe. This was a relatively new phenomenon as not many years prior, Red deer were the most abundant deer species in the Kaweka Forest Park. Sika utilise a forest differently to Red deer, they can survive on a more fibrous diet and therefore can reach higher densities per km› than Red deer in a beech forest. In the late 1990s DOC decided that the issue was worth tackling but rather than do…

Sure enough, Rob had been called by a farmer he knows who had noticed a large mob of geese in a harvested pea paddock. I first hunted Canada Geese when I was seventeen. Two friends from school and I made a trip to Lake Wairarapa for the February summer season. I can still vividly remember my first goose, and over the last seventeen years, my passion for hunting them has only grown. I do most of my goose hunting with a couple of groups of like-minded people who share my passion. I have had some fantastic shoots in farmers’ paddocks where the geese have been feeding on grass or green feed crops, but had yet to experience goose hunting on peas. This was soon set to change as Rob and…

HE’D MADE NO MISTAKES WITH A WELL-PLACED 200 METER SHOULDER SHOT. I called Jordey, my Dutch buddy (AKA Dutchey), who was travelling around New Zealand hunting. He made some quick adjustments so he could make the trip. With a phone call to a mate the helicopter was secured. So we hastily packed our bags, glanced over the maps, and finalised our plans. We would fly into the tops for two nights and hunt our way out to a hut for pick up. Dutchey was after a buck chamois and I was hoping to secure a decent Red stag. After a short scenic flight in, the chopper landed on the tops and our gear was quickly unloaded. With a last nod to the pilot we were all alone in some prime…

We picked up the key from the station owner, who mentioned that three hunters had headed in earlier, but weren’t using the hut. It was an easy drive in, where we discovered the three young fellas had indeed arrived before us, spreading their gear over every available surface inside the hut. They had then headed out for a hunt without putting their intentions in the log book. Locked gates prevented us going further in, so we set up camp just past the hut. With the wind freshening, we decided it would be an easier retreat here, if needed, rather than camping further up the valley. We guessed the trio had headed up either of the two valleys opposite the hut, so we went up the main valley and then began…

Some hunters seem to think that it’s their god given talent to be an amazing shot with a rifle, and they don’t need to practice - just grab the gun and go and all their bullets will fly true! Well unfortunately that is simply not the case. As with all sports/skills you must practice. You must create the right automatic processes, motor skills and memory so that when the pressure is on, you can make that shot without having to specifically think about it. Ask yourself, how long is it since you did any sort of shooting practice at all, apart from firing the rifle while you are out hunting – which for most hunters is not something they get to do much of? You go to rugby practice, practice…

It was hard to know which one to go for first and it was a seriously exciting situation. There were at least eight stags roaring their heads off all within a few hundred metres. I picked two that were going nuts just off the track ahead of me. The wind was quartering on so I cut around through the bush for a couple of hundred metres to get right in behind the stags with the wind directly in my face. There was one animal making a lot of noise. His roar was high pitched and very exaggerated. The other stag was only 100 or so metres away from the first. He wasn’t roaring as often, but when he did, it was a very deep and menacing tone. He sounded a…

As a father, it can be obvious what we pass on to our children by simply looking at their hair colour or the size of their nose. However, there are things we pass on to our kids outside of our DNA. In my case it was to infect my son with ‘the hunting bug. We never used to shoot much in those early days. As much as I convinced myself that I was stalking deer, in reality my son singing his repertoire of nursery rhymes from the back pack he rode in meant that seeing a deer was never going to happen. At first he carried his water bottle and not much else. Whilst I carried the rest of our gear; tent, food, sleeping bags, and sometimes my son as…

If you have the patience and are keen enough to learn the skills you will join those that enjoy one of the greatest experiences that waterfowl hunting can offer. If like me you are one of those hunters that takes pride in getting the birds CLOSE and in your face at 25 metres or less, hunting open water can be quite a challenge. On this particular hunt down South, it had been arranged between us that we would meet at the top end of a coastal lagoon, some 7 hours travel time from Nelson my home town. Holly and I left at 6am in the morning and arrived at the lagoon at 2.30pm, just in time to have a look around and have a scout for the next few days…

Thermarest inflatable mattresses have been the main stay for serious outdoors people for many years since the release of their first self-inflating mattress in 1972. Their state of the art NeoAir is our current favourite air mattress, and the first lightweight inflatable mattress to truly give me a good night’s sleep. What most people won’t be aware of though is that Thermarest also make a range of sleeping bags, including one that I consider to be absolutely ideal for serious Kiwi wilderness hunting expeditions – a model called the Antares. I’ve discussed before the dual purpose role we expect our down jackets to perform – that is providing maximum insulation in cold conditions when stationary or not climbing/sweating hard. For example, sitting glassing for some time or round camp at…

A dark chocolate mane surrounds his rut swollen neck and his creamy white body shows every muscle as the magnificent beast takes mammoth strides in your direction. Your blood begins to boil and your heart pounds, almost crashing through your chest. You ready yourself for whatever may come next.’ Nearly two decades later, this statement still rings true. I wrote it after a trip to Idaho to hunt Elk. I had been successful on that trip and killed a small 6x6 bull. Idaho had been my second trip after Elk. I’d also been lucky enough to kill a small bull in the Cascade Mountains of Oregon a couple of years earlier. Yes, you could say I liked to hunt Elk. It all began for me as a little boy growing…

I couldn’t wait for the nights to get colder, so while the rest of my friends were dreading the start of autumn, I was counting down the days. My friend Karlene, who has joined me in previous years for the roar, came down to Gisborne with her partner Wesley from my home town Whakatane. I call Karlene my good luck charm because she was with me when I shot my 11 pointer last year. My partner Paul and I had set up our game camera in my favourite spot and we’d checked it three weeks before the stags started roaring. Maybe that’s why I was so excited. There were photos of spikers, hinds and yearlings and about 50 shots of a possum going up and down the tree he lived…

Grand Winner Justin Duncan with a fantastic 12pt Tararua Red stag shot with a 7x 57 Casey Paul aged 7 from Waikite Valley shot these turkeys with her Savage 22 Rascal First Kingi - 12kg - for 10yr old Finn Simmons while fi shing in the Coromandel with his Dad’s mate Grunta Jacob Kruger shot his fi rst deer, a Fallow doe at 20m with a 243 Holly Irvine out rabbit shooting Hamish Sinclair with his 3 last season Paradise ducks Nikau Whetu with a chamois he shot in the Dart River area The winning photo receives a Hunting & Fishing voucher to the value of $100. Send all your photos to editor@nzhunter.co.nz Note: Photos must be of a suitable size for printing - a minimum…

But usually there is a last minute job that needs to be done or one last check to make sure things are in order for the big day. A couple of times I have had to make an unexpected trip to the pond to fix a minor catastrophe, like when the dam had partially blown out during the heavy rain we invariably get just before duck season. I always try and do these jobs last thing in the evening when the ducks should be moving off to feed, so Brook and I would head out to the pond and get it done. I would lose some sweat while Brook would sort out any possums that that had taken up residence in the willows and flax since our last visit. Once…

MENU: » Home-made wild pork sausages with caramelized onion and apple » Tahr kebabs with chermoula (the chermoula recipe below I’m using as a dip) » Venison loin with grilled flat mushroom and tomato In this recipe I am using a plank to cook the meat on, no I’m not planking that is too much wasted energy, but a plank to cook food on in the BBQ, these planks can be found at most major hardware shops in the outdoor cooking section or at any BBQ store. SO WHAT IS PLANKING? Simply, planking is cooking food directly on a plank in the BBQ or an open flame. When cooking this way the food will pick up some of the natural flavour from the plank. Some experimentation in different woods will…