Innehållsförteckning för Issue 59 - June/July 2017 från NZ Hunter

The two of us and a good mate, Tim would be making up the team for the year. Leading up to the hunt the weather looked fairly average and after a chat with James Scott, we decided to pull out of our West Coast adventure. I’ve spent plenty of time in a tent waiting for weather to clear and I was keen to explore some new East Coast country so we made a new plan. We would head to a large private property where I have access to hunt wallabies and Fallow deer while the worst of the weather passed and then we’d go into the mountains for tahr. Wallabies are in high numbers on this farm and we were set to do a bit of a clean-up for the…

My story starts when four good mates and I helicoptered into one of the DoC huts on Stewart Island. It was a very impressive hut with plenty of bunks and mattresses, a big table, a bench, a kitchen sink with cold running water, a ripper heater, a drying rack and a toilet out the back. This was to be our home for nine days. The first day I got the lay of the land and part of the track. I hunted a mixture of sand dune fringes and bush; some okay, some horrendously thick. I saw no deer but there was a bit of tracking along the dunes. The second morning, I hunted my way up to the head of a dune. Again, there were some tracks but no deer.…

His body language told me there was a deer straight ahead, probably within 200 metres. I followed the dog as he worked his way up through some windfall and a couple of small side creeks. After about 150 metres, we broke out onto a gently sloping beech face, scattered with pepperwoods. Print looked really keen now. I gave the young dog a quiet steady command to slow him down then started taking one step at a time as we moved forward on full alert. Sure enough, 20m on, there was a loud squeal out to my left and a Sika hind took a couple of bounds through the pepperwoods and stopped. The subsonic round was sent on its way with a dull pop. The whack of the bullet striking the…

This is the 2200 Kilo model, which has recently superseded the older 2000 model. The Kilo is a handheld monocular type rangefinder that looks similar to some of the little golfing type rangefinders that have been around for a few years. At first glance I was thinking, “Here we go, another ho-hum cheapie that struggles to do what its s’posed to”. Well, I couldn’t have been more wrong! The KILO 2200 MR also benefits from the SIG SAUER Infinite Guarantee Program. The company will repair or replace a SIG SAUER product in the event it becomes damaged or defective, at no charge. If they cannot repair the product, they will replace it with a product in perfect working order of equal or better physical condition. It doesn’t matter how it…

Acting on this decision, I planned a short trip with Phil, a good friend of mine into Fiordland for the coming weekend to try our luck. Due to living close by, we didn’t need to leave until the Friday night and before we knew it, we were bouncing up the riverbed in Phil’s trusty green machine. As the boulders started to tickle the belly of the truck, we decided it was best to park up for the night. After a can of cold baked beans for tea, it was time to hit the scratcher, which happened to be a sleeping bag under a tarpaulin… There was a heavy frost overnight, which made for an icy night’s sleep under the stars. Waking up to the snow-covered mountain tops silhouetted against the…

Over the past few years I’ve noticed consistently better “trophy” type animals being harvested. Now this could be because of the influx of ways to communicate your hunting success; I mean, if you didn’t put it on Facebook, did you even shoot a stag? It’s far easier now to keep track of who is shooting what and to judge the quality rather than hearing from the old mate at the pub that Bruce from down the way shot a bloody big stag the other day. There are actually very few people I trust when they tell me they saw a good animal (maybe I’m just getting picky) but photos don’t lie. Another reason may be that hunters are getting more educated on what and when they should be shooting. There…

1 Crystal Radford with a 13 point Red from the Raukumara Ranges shot in the neck at 150 yards with a Tikka T3 308 Bushpig 27 year old Shay Robson shot his first stag this roar, a Fallow buck! 3 Steve Kirsopp with a young high country Red hind shot near Kurow with a Sako A7 270 topped with a Leupold VX2 scope 4 Bex Whaitiri with her first public land stag shot with a Tikka T3 7mm-08 on the tops of the Ruahine Ranges 5 Patrick Hurley with his first ever first Sika shot in the Kawekas, with his new Tikka T3 206 6 11 year old Josh Telford shot his first deer off the 42 Traverse with a Tikka T3 Forest 7 Megan Vorster shot her first bull…

My mate and I were sitting near the edge of a large wallow situated in a remote bush saddle, all senses on alert trying to identify the source of the sound and movement. This particular wallow was one we’d hunted each roar and almost always had a stag or two frequenting it. We also believed it was a year-round 'communal' wallow so the animal causing the disturbance could have also been a hind or even a pig. In whispering tones my mate told me he reckoned he could see an antler through the pepperwood branches and several minutes later I was adamant I was looking at a foreleg. After many frustrating minutes we decided one of us should change the angle to hopefully gain a better view. Slowly and quietly…

My pup Kiera soon returned with her own duck, this time a hen, and it too was left to cool. Both the dogs were revelling in the extreme conditions of the morning’s hunt. This is what Labs are made for – big water hunting in the rain and wind – their only worry that day was who was going to get let off the chain to retrieve next. As the rain slashed our faces and made its way down our necks, we continued to scan the storm-ravaged sky for the last few ducks to fill our combined limit of 20. If there had been any passers-by who didn’t hunt, one look at Steve and the dogs and I would have convinced them that we were insane. Here we were parked…

This is my favourite time of year to chase stags; I call it the ‘silly season’, when they will take great risks to feed up and recover lost condition before winter. I have often found stags out in the open at this time of year. Jacques and I had a three day weekend free for another hunt. Our transport for the weekend was a home-built fixed-wing bush aircraft, which is a great alternative to renting a helicopter. The hunter-pilot concept harks back to the 1950s and ’60s in New Zealand, when venison hunters pushed further and further into the backcountry in search of good deer numbers. In the time before helicopters dominated venison recovery and deer populations alike, venison hunters accessed remote valleys in any way they could. Many chose…

Dozens if not hundreds of failed stalks have left me frustrated and confused as to what the bloody hell went wrong when it seemed like I had it in the bag. However, each failure leaves you with a lesson and if you pay attention to these lessons, you’ll eventually pick up a few tricks that turn effort into success. For example, there’s understanding anabatic and katabatic winds. This is very important as they come into effect at the best times of the day for hunting – morning and evening. Generally, first thing in the morning, you’ll have a slight downhill wind when the cool, heavy air sucks down to the valley floors – that’s katabatic wind. As the ground starts to heat up via the sun, the rising air will…

“No bast**d’s gonna tell me what I can and can’t shoot!”Recent quote from an online hunting forum. “If you take care of the pennies, the pounds will take care of themselves. Lots of little actions will go together to make a big difference.”Quote from my mother. In the last issue we had a chat about conservation, hunters and politics. I apologise if it was heavy going but as hunters, we need to get involved if we want to protect and enhance our sport and the environment in which we enjoy it. I finished with the comment that the responsibility for making a difference sits directly with each one of us. Flowery I know, but true. And the harsh reality is that even if we do succeed in making changes, there…

By the sounds of it there were plenty of animals around and some great genetics to boot. Conor, Cain and I were getting pretty excited by the prospect of our trip into the area, which was sounding better by the minute. There was a temptation to stay up late and keep talking about the block, but this was my first roar trip and I was so grateful to be here and planned on making the most of my time so we settled in and got plenty of rest for our three hour walk into the back country. Up bright and early the boys jumped straight into cooking a big feed of bacon and eggs to kickstart the wet, dull and pretty miserable looking day. We three young lads were dropped…

This neat little wood stove is so light and compact when folded up you can take it just about anywhere! Made by Wayne Bakewell of Tauranga, its construction is of corrosion proof aluminium with a stainless flue and water box. It all dismantles in seconds and stows away inside the fire box for transport, and then is as easily assembled again. The wood box is 40cm long x 22cm wide x 20 cm high, so takes foot long pieces of wood with ease. The cook top is large enough for a decent size frying pan and a billy, and the side tray keeps things warm or simmering, or gets hot enough to fry an egg on or similar. The water heater on the side holds 5 litres, and boils in…