Innehållsförteckning för Issue 56 - December/January 2017 från NZ Hunter

Crikey I can’t believe it's Christmas already! Hopefully you’ve all been out filling the freezer ready for lots of barbeques over the holiday season with family and friends. The big news is that Season 3 of NZ Hunter Adventures goes to air Wednesday, February 1st on Freeview Choice TV at the new time slot of 8.30pm. After much debate, we’ve decided to try the earlier 8.30pm slot this Season - but hopefully the hunters won’t have to fight off other family members wanting to watch ‘Bachelor NZ’ or one of the endless reality TV cooking, building or whatever shows that are also on at the same time on other channels! As a warm up to the start of Season 3, there’s currently a Season 2 replay running on Choice at…

This was to be my first Himalayan tahr hunt. NZ basically has the only huntable wild tahr population in the world, and the Department of Conservation controls the numbers at times by shooting them out of helicopters. My trip with Dave, Tarn and Will started with a six hour drive, and then a solid day’s hike into the first hut in the valley where we were basing ourselves for a week. Mid-morning the next day, I put on my pack, said goodbye to the team and headed for a side catchment that I hoped might be overlooked by most hunters. Within two minutes of leaving the hut, I was drenched to the core as the bush was so wet. The first kilometre of the hike was along a track (of…

The two scenarios we used after calculating showed a difference of 3000 feet in density altitude. Helicopters perform better in cooler, denser air. The rotor system produces more lift/thrust for a given pitch setting, and the engine, transmissions and gearboxes operate at cooler temperatures. We call this corrected altitude ‘density altitude’. More than elevation, this is what determines helicopter performance. In this article I will touch on the subject of principles of flight (P of F) – how a helicopter flies. Principles of flight is a huge subject and there are many books about it full of head-scratching formulas, but as before, I will endeavour to use plain language, and where possible, use similes that readers will be more familiar with. To make this worthwhile, the article has ended up…

Their Z6 rifle scope set a whole new benchmark for optical quality and reliability in a comparatively compact package with a 6x zoom range. Then came the release of the Z5 range that included one of our favourite lightweight scopes of all time – the 3.5-18x44 - still with an ample 5x zoom. That was followed by the state of the art X5 long range hunting scope, and now the largest zoom ever in a European scope – the Z8i with a whopping 8x zoom! The Z8i is a second focal plane, Milrad adjustment scope, and is available currently in four models - the 1-8x24, 1.7-13.3x42, 2-16x50 and 2.3-18x56. All have a 30mm tube and they’re all i for illuminated models, or what Swarovski calls Swarolight. The reticle has a…

I took them off and wiped my face with my t-shirt which was already soaking wet. I drank more water but I knew I didn’t have enough to quench my thirst. It was late February and it had been a very clear day. I couldn’t remember seeing a cloud all day and the wind had been almost non-existent. As the sun had climbed in the sky, so had the temperature risen, and now it was at an almost uncomfortable level. It was made worse as I climbed high to a dominant vantage point from which I could survey the greatest area of scrub. I sat for several hours and it was now late in the day. The afternoon was turning into evening and the heat of the day had begun…

Despite many young people taking up hunting, there are pressures in our increasingly urban lifestyles that are keeping others out of the outdoors altogether. Before I begin though, I do appreciate that a person has to have done a bit of time around youth issues, before he just ‘writes about it’, as the quote from Thoreau states. I was a bit surprised at turning sixty – I thought it would take longer to grow older! Perhaps though, I have done enough time to see some of the values that hunting adventures can instil and strengthen. Through 40 years of working with young people, I’ve gained some insights as well. For example, I currently work in leadership training via wilderness-based trips for young people from all over the world. Also, I…

One characteristic which gives rise to this adoration would have to be their very confiding nature often approaching within a metre or two of people. Being very small and cute goes a long way to endearing them to people also. How many times have you been out hunting and had the constant companionship of a fantail following you along in your travels ? One would like to think that the behaviour is just a friendly gesture on their part, just enjoying your company but it is actually an ecological relationship. The fantail forages or feeds by 'association'. That is, as you move through the bush a lot of insects are disturbed and either crawl or fly away. The ever present fantail is right there to harvest all the rich pickings.…

Sig Sauer is a well-known European rifle brand, but they are now venturing into the world of optics as well. Initially, they produced a highly rated electro sight for close range, rapid response combat and hunting use. They have now gone on to produce a full range of optics, including scopes, binos, spotters and a rangefinder. Sig Sauer’s optics line is made in Japan, as are a lot of other first rate optics like Nightforce, the best Nikons and March etc. All use the phonetic alphabet in their name, Romeo for their Reflex sights, Tango for tactical scopes, Whiskey for hunting scopes, Kilo for rangefinders, Oscar for spotters and Zulu for binos, plus a few others. Their binocular line ranges from the Zulu 3 up to the Zulu 9, all…

There is always a place for public forum discussion, but unless you’ve gone out and gotten your hands dirty, how can you truly back up your matter of facts? Our love for hunting, being free from the hustle and bustle and that passion for conserving our little slice of paradise led us to being helicoptered into the middle of the bush and having the most epic three month hunting adventure. During our time in the bush, I kept a diary. It was my way of keeping track of possum tallies, documenting what we saw and heard and it probably kept me a little bit sane. This is me opening up my diary; it’s a little hairy, a bit raw and it gives you a big dose of honesty from a…

THIS IS THE 8TH IN OUR SERIES OF GUESS THE AGE OF THE BULL. 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 PHOTO OF LAST ISSUE’S BULL AND THESE ARE THE PANEL’S OPINIONS: » CAM This bull is a little cryptic but what I can see speaks ‘not yet mature’ to me. He appears not long out of velvet so, if mature, should be fat as butter. But he still looks a little lean and lanky, like my teenage son. Maybe that is the rain – as…

The great thing about pig hunting is the number of challenging boxes you need to tick to get the full package. Some people focus solely on the dogs and others just focus on the pigs.. This issue I want to talk about pigs. You can’t catch a pig with a dog if you don’t put him in the right place and neither can you catch a pig with a useless dog. The bottom line is that you need to tick both boxes. This might seem plain and simple, but I have seen a lot of young pig hunters who believe that all they need to do is just wander around in an area with pigs in it and their dog/s will do the rest. Sure, you will catch pigs like…

Now we’ll carry on with the obedience training and then get into some of the gun dog specific training. THE STAY This is one of the most important commands for any hunting or gun dog, and yet probably the one you see disobeyed the most out in the field. It is so much better to be able to stay your dog while you are shooting, and not have to tie it up as you will often not have the means by which to tie it up – and this is as important for deer hunting as it is for ducks. It is also really useful any time you need real control over your dog - for example near moving vehicles, or farm stock, or when strange dogs appear. If you…

Well, since I shot that big bugger at the end of the roar, I have a wee bit to use up in the freezer and knowing I was going to be busy, I had this dish in mind as it makes it easy for any busy person to make an impression in the festive season. At a time when we’re told we should be cutting down on salt in our diet, a salt crust on the meat may seem to be an unusual choice but oddly enough, it doesn’t make the food taste salty, and you may still want to offer salt at the table. This method, which comes from ancient China, is simply a means of preparing poultry, fish and meat with little loss of moisture as the moisture…

After a couple of unsuccessful phone calls to two fellow hunters, it turned out that it was only going to be the two of us on the application form. Neither of us knew many hunters who had been to Fiordland before, so we really didn’t know what we were signing ourselves up for. That was the least of our worries at the time though, as the possibility of winning a ballot felt like only a distant dream. Everyone has a bucket list; whether it is written down or not is another story. Fiordland has always been on the bucket list for me and for many others as it’s the pinnacle of hunting in New Zealand. So it wasn’t until I opened the envelope that came in the mail that I…

1. PERSONAL LOCATOR BEACONS (PLB) Activation of these devices in remote wilderness areas has resulted in location and rescue in as little as one hour, but more often it will be several hours. Modern PLBs transmit data such as GPS location and serial numbers. Many clubs or outdoor stores hire out PLBs, and most clubs now require leaders to carry one on official trips. PLBs transmit on the 406 MHz frequency, although older ones (pre-2009) operate on 121.5 MHz. Older ones are still worth activating if that’s all you’ve got, because a passing aircraft could pick up the signal. 2. SATELLITE PHONES These may allow you to contact rescuers directly, depending on coverage limitations. They are far superior to cell phones but more expensive. Note: satellite phones will not work…

That’s true to a certain extent but wildcatting is alive and well today for a number of reasons. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn once wrote “As the fathers live, so the children play.” I forget the precise point he was endeavouring to make when he wrote it, but given that it was in the context of The Gulag Archipelago, I’m betting it was a rather bleak one. Be that as it may, I am reminded of the inexorable truth of these words almost daily. My eldest boy was probably only a couple of years old when he first began stalking the deer that infested our hallway and the wild pigs that had made a home under his bed. I’d bring up the rear while he tiptoed after rabbits with his rifle (a Gladwrap…

With a family of three girls, my wife Christine and I wanted to share the outdoors with our growing family. However our middle daughter, Dominique, was born with Down Syndrome and so our lives took a different path in many respects. Dominique’s life began with open heart surgery at 3 months old to close two holes in her tiny heart. From there we had issues with feeding, learning, mobility, language, and another condition – which was diagnosed around her fifth year – sensory integration dysfunction. This means Dominique has difficulty filtering the normal noise, activity and language that goes on around us all the time, particularly in crowd situations and other places of stress. It meant she’d shut down, and in extreme cases, would be in urgent need of removal…

As we said then, this is the best Sako for New Zealand hunting conditions that has ever been made in our opinion. It is the lightest Sako ever largely due to its 21oz/596gm stock, and this stock is also the most rigid and stable Sako have produced. As we said then, carbon fibre is currently recognised as the best stock material for light weight hunting rifles – full stop. Having only recently reviewed the CarbonLight, we will just go over the differences between the Model S previously testfired and the new L version. It is available in the two most popular magnum calibres - the 7mm Remington Magnum and the 300 Winchester Magnum. The 85 Magnum is one of the longest actions around, and the magazine can take a cartridge…

This year I was incredibly well organised; the big jobs had been long done, the food was sorted, the other gear was packed and the trailer was loaded ready to go. There was still one task left that I had promised myself I’d carry out for the 2016 season, and with only a few hours to go before I was due to head out to the farm, I was anguishing over whether or not to do it. It would only take a few minutes and would cost me practically nothing. The task I was reluctant about is now compulsory for duck hunters in some North Island Fish & Game regions, and some claim that by doing it, they are ensuring the sustainability of the waterfowl resource, while improving the image…

01 Leica Noctivid More than a century of experience in the development of long-range viewing instruments, microscopes and cameras has led to a new family of Leica premium binoculars: the Noctivid binoculars. They feature compact dimensions as well as stylish and elegant design and are at the same time incredibly robust and resilient. The optical values of the Noctivid combine the highlights of the most proven and state-of-the-art technologies. Thanks to the Schott HT™ high transmission glass for the binocular prisms already utilized in the Ultravid HD-Plus optics, the Noctivid also features maximum transmission and astoundingly natural colours. The latest optical calculations in sophisticated combination with state-of-the-art baffles and premium glass materials ensure image plasticity almost like in 3-D. Thanks to superior contrasts and uncompromisingly large depth of field, fast…