Innehållsförteckning för Issue 65 från NZ Hunter

Another roar has been and gone and what a shocking autumn it has been weather wise on the West Coast or anywhere near the main divide of the South Island. Continual disturbed Westerly weather systems with severe gale force winds and torrential rain. I have heard of more tents wrecked this year than ever before. The North Island fared a little better at times, but it was still a wet and windy April up there as well. The Wapiti bugle started the run of bad weather with comparatively few huntable days. The only upside should have been the saving of some promising 3 to 6 year old bulls. Unfortunately, there was still a disappointing number shot particularly in the central Wapiti area. Following on from the debacle of what happened…

I moved back to Central Hawkes Bay at Christmas and spent almost every weekend out in the hills. Once I had found an area with decent open tops and relatively good deer numbers, I stuck to it and learned where the animals liked to feed and the easy ways to get to different catchments. I wanted to spend the majority of my roar trips out in the open stuff – and I did! The first successful roar hunt was with Ryan, a mate of mine and Marley my dog. Over the two and a half days, we saw a lot of deer and covered a lot of ground – 32 kilometres to be exact. One highlight of the trip was when we spotted a young 4 pointer holding four hinds…

The terrain these animals live in is what keeps most people going back year after year, and dealing with the steepness, scrub and snow means you really need to hunt smart. It can take quite a bit of walking or some past experience to find the bulls early in the season, as they are generally still mobbed up until the onset of the rut. Once the rut gets underway these guys will be mates no longer and they will often travel quite long distances to their preferred rutting grounds, usually returning to the same area year after year. This makes your timing quite important in the early season as even in a big catchment, the bulls might be all concentrated in one or more areas. A couple of weeks later…

It’s got hardship, big landscapes, exciting stalks, scary stuff and neat stuff. It’s got the thrill of shooting, some animals down and a ‘wow’ moment too. Altogether the trip tops off what I love about ultralight hunts. The plan was simple…get away from where all the pre-roar hunters were chasing stags on the tops and enjoy some chamois hunting. Go light and fast, have some adventures and bring home meat. Tropical cyclones played havoc with this simple plan and with few gaps in my calendar, the options began to run out so I just seized the moment and hit the road for a 3-day mission. Hardship With the weather window being tight, the best option was to get into the area between fronts during the tail of a storm. Driving…

Understanding how these features work and when to apply them to the right situations will go a long way towards achieving good quality images that you will be happy with. Modern digital cameras also offer a host of other features, options and settings that are often overlooked or simply hidden in the camera's menu system. When used in the right situations, these features can make life a heck of a lot easier, save you time and, at the end of the day, potentially give you better results.. While working on a North Canterbury high country station, I spotted a group of wild turkeys high up on a scrub infested tussock face. An early finish at work one day gave me a couple of hours of evening light and an opportunity…

Its relatively large size and elegant white plumage which stands out in a crowd makes it obvious against the greens and browns of our countryside. White herons are also quite rare, with the New Zealand population standing at about 200 individuals, of which only 30 pairs breed each year at a single site on the west coast of the South Island. Outside the breeding season, individual birds disperse widely throughout the whole country and to see a kotuku is a rare and special treat. I had a fascinating encounter with an out-of-season, lone bird that I discovered in a Westhaven Inlet (Kahurangi coast) tidal estuary one afternoon. As is the case most of the time, I had my camera in the truck with me so I pulled over to see…

It became isolated when the NZFS stopped maintaining its access routes in the mid-1970s. By the turn of the millennium it was getting one visit every two to three years, which is a pity because it’s a stunning spot. It was adopted by the Permolat Group in 2011 and given some major maintenance in 2017 and ‘18. The group also reopened the access routes from the upper and lower ends of the valley, as well as a tops track providing access onto the Diedrich Range tops. Frisco is a four-bunk NZFS design with a brand new woodburner that was donated by one of the Permolat people. The hut sits at 900m on the bush faces above the Frisco Canyon. It’s a fairly challenging two-day walk from the Hokitika roadend, or…

Each of these modes of transport has revolutionised the hunting scene over the year. SSVs provide the greatest carrying capacity short of full-sized 4WDs, but with the advantage of being much lighter and more nimble vehicles. I greatly enjoy my four-wheel driving, but even I had to admit the ol’ Patrol might have struggled on some of the tracks where I took the Yamaha Wolverine With a wide array of options and some entrenched competition to its agriculturally-orientated Rhino, Yamaha has now launched the Wolverine X4. Designed to be an all-rounder, a crossover, the Wolverine X4 is the vehicle for the farmer who hunts on the weekends or the contractor who wants to take the family exploring and have some fun doing it. The launch of a new vehicle is…

I hadn’t heard of this so I looked it up and found it wasn’t a trick. A traditional burgoo was made using whatever combination of meats was available such as venison and squirrel, possum, raccoon and game birds, and it was often associated with autumn and the harvest season. Hmm – sounds good to me – yeah right! So let’s go to something that’s popular and generally sits in the top five for takeaways in NZ (top two in the UK) and also because it’s the middle of winter – what could be better than a good curry? One of the Asian chefs here makes a sensational rendang curry. Rendang has Indonesian origins (my chef doesn’t though) and is described as a rich, tender coconut stew which is flavourful and…

Three months of food must be organized and dated, depending on where and when it is needed, and for which plane it is to fly in on. Saddles must be fixed, horse shoeing equipment organized, tents mended and the list goes on. Jake, our boss who has outfitted all his life, regularly tells stories of his younger days when he used to joust with grizzly bears, wrestle moose to the ground barehanded and land float planes on puddles created by light sun showers. Strange how these things only ever happened in the good old days... Jake and his wife Cecilia bought GG Outfitting about half a decade ago in an attempt to avoid cities and office work as much as possible. While Jake battles the whole season out with us…

Fitness Training to hunt has become a big craze especially across North America and it’s great to see people putting considerable effort into their training. Like most guides, I am in a position where I generally don’t need to train because I’m hunting often and keep fit that way (well, I try to). One of the biggest things I see people miss with their training is ‘real world’ stuff. This is difficult for those who live in areas with no hills/mountains, but I would strongly suggest getting out with a pack on your back into the hills as much as possible, even if it means driving a long way to get there. ‘Hill fit’ is very different to ‘gym fit’. This is really noticeable in people who hunt a lot.…

Even though I was busy doing my first rodeo season, the months leading up to the trip seemed to take forever to pass and the trip was in the forefront of my mind throughout the summer. Finally May came around, and with a week’s worth of bags packed and gear checked, then rechecked, the long seven hour trip up to Greymouth began (slightly hungover from a pre-trip session). Arriving at Greymouth, I met up with Gerrard and Josh and we started chatting about how we could top the previous year’s hunt, where I got a 13 inch bull on the first day and Gerrard got a 14 3/8” bull on the second-to-last day. That was the trip that got me hooked on tahr hunting. Our excitement grew as we met…

Bull Bar This is a bit of a no-brainer – protecting the front of your vehicle and the engine is paramount when in 4WD terrain. It only takes a couple of dents in your panel work and a stoved-in radiator to show just how valuable a bull bar is to your vehicle set-up. Bull bars are made of either steel or aluminium (alloy) and come in a variety of styles including deluxe bars or the more basic commercial look. A winch-compatible bull bar will enable you to fit a winch to the bar (it pays to do this at the same time as fitting the bull bar) and fit spotlights and aerials to your vehicle. Side Rails Once you have a bull bar on, you can fit side rails and…

Down Jacket I’ve been living in the down jacket stone ages for far too long, so when Allsports, the NZ Marmot agents, mentioned the possibility of me testing their insulation system, I couldn’t say ‘yes’ quick enough! I’ve been using an old 850-gram Kathmandu; it’s been everywhere from the Glaisnock to the Godley and it’s done me well enough but modern fabrics and down have come a long way. The Marmot Quasar jacket is made of high quality 850-fill down and DWR-treated Pertex Quantum shell fabric, bringing my XL in at an outstandingly low weight of 330 grams. For comparison, my Ridgeline microfleece weighs 350 grams and wouldn’t keep me a quarter as warm. DWR stands for Durable Water Repellant, a hydrophobic coating that wears off over time. You feel…

I was just another very driven hunter whose principal goal in life was to shoot the big one. I have always loved to challenge myself and what better way than to chase Wapiti? Putting aside the Fiordland National Park management plan, for me there were three defining moments that changed my life as a Wapiti hunter. Each one was a conscious decision that has probably changed the direction of this herd. I remember hunting the Upper Glaisnock in 2000. I loved those days when I could almost guarantee getting a Wapiti block. Off the top of my head, there were only around 150 hunters bidding for 300 spots each year – bliss. However, animal-wise, Wapiti hunting in those days was the pits – lots of miles and limited animals –…

She has been volunteering with Horizons Unlimited in Christchurch for a number of years now, refreshing the medical curriculum. Malin is currently undertaking some independent research with regard to hunter-specific injuries, injury prevention and emergency management by hunters for themselves and their hunting companions, so please help save some lives and check out the links in the QR codes at the end of the article. CPR This is used if somebody has drowned and their heart has stopped, or when a person who has heart disease develops a cardiac arrest. Early use of a defibrillator greatly increases the chance of survival. It is very important to give mouth-to-mouth (ie ventilations) since it is the lack of air that has caused the heart to stop. If somebody knocks their head hard…

I am sure many of you experienced and proficient hunters can relate to that emotion. On one of our goose blocks situated on a high country station, I have always taken note of the abundance of hares in the area. I had made a promise to myself that when time and money permitted, I would set up a rifle specifically for this purpose. First up, a bit of history on Harold. Hares were first brought to NZ from the Queen’s country and released on the Canterbury Plains in 1851, primarily for a bit of sport, old chap. Further liberations around the country ensured that we had Harold to stay. The hare’s real name is actually Lepus europaeus occidentalis. The young are called leverets and there are 3-4 per litter, and…

But no, this is actually about a recent hunt where my boy Jake and I made the right call on the day, resulting in some very satisfying hunting later on. During the school holidays we had a good run of frosty weather when ponds, puddles and other small waterways without much current all froze over. As a result of this, good numbers of ducks started appearing on most large bodies of water on the coast and places up country where there was running water. Previous experience had told me that when this happens, it was time to jump-shoot one of my favourite little streams. I’m a self-confessed ‘decoyaholic’ and live for the sight of cupped-up Mallards backpedalling over the decoys but once or twice a year, just for a bit…

It’s now very well known that the NZ kea is in trouble, population is declining. However it’s looking like the Wapiti area of Fiordland could be one of its last strong holds. So the Fiordland Wapiti Foundation and the Kea Conservation Trust teamed up to help these birds. The first of the kea survey trips ran for eight nights in January 2018. Surveying was conducted on 28 sites for three hours each night and three hours each morning. The survey team was made up of 14 personnel (experienced kea handlers teamed up with volunteers from the Fiordland Wapiti Foundation, Nga Whenua Rahui and DoC). During the survey period 44 kea were caught and banded and two adult females were fitted with transmitters to allow for follow up nest monitoring this…

New Blaser scopes There is a whole new range of Blaser scopes that we will be releasing in NZ later in the year. The scopes that will be good for our Blaser clients in NZ will be: • Blaser RD17 red dot sight. • Blaser Infinity 1-7x28IC scope. • Blaser Infinity 2.8-20x50IC scope. Features of the Infinity Scopes in a nutshell: • 34mm tubes • Extremely high light transmission rating, highest in the industry. • Highest clarity rating possible • Perfect colour rendition • “QDC” Quick Distance Control turret. The Infinity 2.8-20x50 has a built in low profile quick change elevation turret for long range shots. It provides up to 8mil (80cm at 100m) of elevation. • Front focal plane reticle for absolute precision even when zoom is changed. Adjustable…