Innehållsförteckning för Issue 53 - June/July 2016 från NZ Hunter

The weather has been atrocious on the coast, with heavy rain and gale force winds meaning most blocks have been empty more often than not. Hopefully the weather will settle down as we get into June and at least some of the ballot holders will be able to “Get amongst them”. We’re heading in mid-June so hopefully the weather has settled somewhat by then. The Sika roar was a real mixed bag this year, with a lot of action early in April, but things went quiet over a lot of the Sika range by the 15th, which is unusually early. There were still the odd pocket with good single calling and hinds cycling, but large areas were silent except for the odd hee-haw and no-one really seems to know why?…

Photo Gallery 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 file size of 1MB is preferred.…

One in particular that we had requests for more information about is the uphill and downhill shooting tip. As it’s the bull tahr rut, and tahr hunting often requires steeply up or down hill shots more so than any other game animal in this country, it seems an opportune issue to cover this off in more detail than we had time for during the Show. So here goes. The simple issue to consider here is that shooting either up or down hill affects the trajectory of the bullet in relation to your line of sight. Everyone should be aware that gravity causes the bullet to drop from the moment it leaves the muzzle of the gun. The longer the bullet is in the air, the more it drops, which is…

Ask anyone who runs and works any type of dog and they will tell you that the more you learn, the more you realise what you don’t know. Running and training dogs is a life-long journey and you never stop learning – that’s what makes dogs so interesting. I don’t pretend for a moment to have all the answers on pig hunting; what you will read here are my thoughts based on what I have observed. WHAT MAKES A PIG DOG? Everyone agrees that pig dogs come in all shapes, sizes, colours and breeds, but there is only one thing that truly makes a dog a pig dog. To quote my mate Bob “A pig dog is a dog that stops pigs.” Another of my favourite quotes is “Talk is…

For the last ten years, I have been saying it’s my last year, but still I drag my sorry body up the Glaisnock again and again. This season was a wet one for us and while I was laid up in my tent, I had plenty of time to contemplate the positive things that have happened in the Wapiti country. Like how far we’ve come with the relationship between DoC and hunters; we sit around the table now with a common goal and all do our bit to make it work. Like the amazing turnaround of the Wapiti herd due to the work the FWF has done - taking it from the brink of extinction to the most amazing hunting experience in the country. Hunters now run deer recovery/animal management…

When Ed from Footwear and Apparel said he was sending us a couple of different models to try, I thought great! With the waterfowl season upon us wet waders are a given at some stage – whether from a stumble or a leak. Add to that gumboots and then there’s all our other boots – the jobs for a boot dryer are almost endless round here now that I come to think about it. Ed sent us two models, the Black Maxx and the MaxxDry XL. With plenty of wet waders to dry after the usual pre-season leak test (fill them up to the top with water and watch where it comes out), we were able to do good comparisons between the two units. BLACK MAXX This model uses convection…

One article in particular grabbed my attention. It was written by Graham Henry and it highlighted the Sika hunting opportunities in the Central North Island. Accompanying the article was a photograph of an eight point Sika stag taken by Lance Barnard. After reading this, I contacted another keen Southern Ruahine hunter and we booked a trip for the following June. After five days of careful bush stalking, neither my hunting companion nor I had even seen a Sika. Finally though, while I was moving through an open beech gully on a cool overcast morning, I saw a four point Sika stag standing broadside on, just 15 metres away. Raising the 270, I sent a shot echoing through the valley for the first time that week, which I followed up soon…

WINNER Send us your hunting photos featuring one of the Beretta Family of products as listed, the winning photo will receive a pair of Burris Montana 8 x 42 binoculars RRP $549 Entries should be emailed to Photo Competition email: editor@nzhunter.co.nz Firearm used must be shown in photo…

Surprisingly, it was warm and there wasn’t as much snow on the Alps as I expected for late April. My friend Jack was waiting at the airport to take me on my first alpine hunt to see and hopefully shoot a tahr. We set off in the direction of Ohau, with a few stops on the way so I could be a typical tourist (thanks Jack). After a few hours’ drive we got to the foot of the mountains. The road turned to dirt, and eventually we came to some river flats. I closed my eyes in some places as Jack drove his Hilux through ditches and waterholes and God knows what else! Coming up to a wide grassy flat after another few hours, he finally stopped where we were…

That’s not such a bad thing, especially when it seems that some hunters aren’t being all that nice, particularly to fellow hunters! For example, some can be rather secretive and evasive about their favourite hunting grounds - not wanting word to get out about that place - which it seems can be permission for others to come in and ‘clean up’. I’ve found however that a generous spirit usually reaps its own rewards and what goes around comes around, in some way. Being generous with information about a hunting area is just one way to pay it forward (without any of the mush of the movie) and I reckon responding in a different spirit helps push-back on a growing trend of being super-secretive, unwelcoming and withholding help from others. These…

We are asking for anyone who has a good photo or series of photos of a Wapiti bull to email them into us, and our ‘expert’ panel consisting of Roy Sloan, Cam Speedy and Jeremy ‘Jere’ Dearden and the Editor will be giving their age estimates and why. THIS IS THE FIRST OF THE THREE PHOTOS OF LAST ISSUE’S BULL AND THESE ARE THE PANEL’S ESTIMATES: » CAM Another great set of images that all tell part of the “age” story. The heavy body of this guy is very square with some hefty weight up front and his legs appear short relative to his size. His neck and mane are thick and well developed, joining his brisket way down low on the chest. He is developing a saddle in his…

We have had an ERMA review process giving it the thumbs up, a totally one sided propaganda rag put out by the Parliamentary Commissioner for the environment calling for more aerial 1080 to be used, Regional Councils with their noses in the ratepayers trough making aerial 1080 a permitted activity and now in combination with DoC and OSPRI seeking 35 year consents to plaster the landscape seemingly without let or hindrance. We are now faced with an abject lack of any real formal process for any of us to have real input into and some agencies thinking they can railroad the public with a sham of consultation. TWO SIGNIFICANT EVENTS THAT WILL HAVE ONGOING RAMIFICATIONS FOR THE HUNTING PUBLIC ARE: The first is a new proposed strategy to eradicate Bovine…

With tents hastily erected, we settled down behind our binoculars and eagerly started a week long search for big bull tahr. It was to be a hugely successful week. The last two years’ big tahr hunts had been thwarted by extreme weather, but I don’t think we anticipated the challenges ahead. Soaking in our surrounds, we quickly started to get a sense of the nature of the watershed. Steep-sided valley walls towered high above, cut into sharp corrugations by steep creeks. The slopes were interspersed with scrub, and nannies were dotted amongst it on the sunny side. Bulls were everywhere, and they were hard to keep track of. The rut was in full swing and each small mob of nannies was attended by at least one mature bull, his dark…

I was inspired by reading books like Phillip Holden’s ‘Guide to Hunting in New Zealand’ and ‘Pack and Rifle, and Brad Parkes’s ‘Small Game Hunting. Though keen, as a youngster, I was diagnosed with Ankylosing Spondylitis, a form of arthritis which affects my knees, feet, ankles and neck. I would always struggle on the hills and in slippery creeks and I really paid for it afterwards with pain and stiffness. Moving to South Canterbury 12 years ago and finding some fantastic new arthritis drugs have opened up a whole new world of hunting for me. South Canterbury is a great area with plenty of game opportunities at my back door. With a new range of mobility myself and having an extremely fit and enthusiastic hunter for my youngest son and…

In December 2014, the boys came down my way and I decided to provide them with a two-part alpine hunting adventure. PART ONE: TAHR HUNT, BEN OHAU RANGE We rendezvoused in Twizel and then made the short drive along Lake Pukaki to our chosen catchment. The walk in was only an hour and a half along an easy stream bed but the towering valley walls and steep bluffs on either side were somewhat daunting for the first-time tahr hunter in our midst. Craig had been putting in a bit of effort to get fit for this trip over the preceding months but the scale of the southern mountains can be overwhelming when you’re standing at the bottom of them. We clambered our way up to a rock bivvy Dave and…

On that trip, Greg asked me if I would write an article about the principles of flight for helicopters and how weather conditions and loading etc affect their performance. He said a lot of his readers fly into the backblocks and they would find it interesting and it would also provide some insight and tips for first-timers. This is a large subject and could easily fill three magazines, making it a challenge to condense it, but I told Greg I’d try. After some thought, I decided to split the subject into two parts. This part is mainly about how conditions at the same helipad can change at different times of the year. The next part will be about how a helicopter flies and the effects of wind, as well as…

“Under its throat hang two little tufts of snow-white feathers, called poies...which is not more remarkable for the beauty of its plumage than the sweetness of its note. The flesh is also most delicious and was the greatest luxury the wood afforded us.” Capt. James Cook They certainly had a wonderful way with words ‘back in the day’ but the last sentence is the one that makes me giggle the most. Imagine if someone wrote that in the local newspaper today! I’m guessing that probably everyone reading this magazine has encountered tuis on their trips. Because they are widespread, and in places abundant, it is not really surprising. On a bow hunting trip several years ago, I recall quietly stalking through a bush face looking for Red deer. You all…

Well, for the purpose of this article, we won’t be getting too flowery - let’s just say ethics in the bush are a few basic principles and rules that we hunters need to abide by when we’re out in the hills. The inspiration for this subject has come from some disgusting experiences we had earlier this year over a few roar hunting trips in both the North and South Islands, which still leave a sour taste in my mouth when I think about them today. As always, it’s a small minority of hunters who do the damage and spoil it for the rest of us, but I’m sick of the shit - literally - and I think it’s time we all took responsibility for our sport and the actions of…

They are now offering a new stand-alone rangefinder which offers simple ballistic correction to the average hunter, but also something pretty trick to the long range crowd who are interested in minimising human inputs and therefore opportunities to introduce errors into their ballistic solutions. The new Bushnell Elite 1 Mile ConX is an all new range finding unit that can Bluetooth to either your smart phone or to a Kestrel Sportsman or 5 series weather station. Simply, this allows the unit itself to give you your come-ups for any custom rifle or load for the range it has just acquired, ie, you range your target, the display then gives you the angle of inclination, and also the MOA (if that’s the unit you choose) correction for that range and angle.…

01 Quick Rest MTM Quick Rest is a lightweight, simple designed front rifle rest. Ideal for checking your rifle at hunting camp or at the range. The rest is non-adjustable and is hollow in design to make it lightweight. » Quick and simple front rifle rest » Solid one-piece plastic shooting rest with built in handle » Wide wobble-free stance with padded feet » Non-marring shooting pad to protect your firearm » If you are looking for a lightweight benchrest, you have found it. Made in USA http://www.mtmcase-gard.com/products/shooting/front-rifle-rest.php Contact your local shop for details: team@steveswholesalenz.com  - www.steveswholesalenz.com Distributed by Steve's Wholesale 02 Woman’s Bush Basics Box Set: After releasing our first woman’s hunting range we couldn’t believe the huge response from woman commenting on how great it was…