Innehållsförteckning för Issue 84 från NZ Hunter

It's always an exciting adventure but this time there was a special level of anticipation. Accompanying me to hunt the elusive chamois was Tim, my right-hand man, and Matt, my brother, who was on his first trip. We had been into this wider area almost a dozen times previously and had been lucky enough to have taken both tahr and chamois on most of them. This time we had decided on a spot on a terrace just above a river, focusing our attention on chamois. On previous trips we had gone in on foot, but now that we knew chamois were always about, dropping in amongst them would put us in close. Well, so we hoped. The West Coast weather that morning wasn’t as we had hoped for, with howling…

Hunting behind a team of pig dogs is hard yakka and could well be described as a big, fun, semi-organised ball’s up. For those of you that have been lucky enough to give it a go, you’ll be well aware that there are plenty of opportunities for things to go very wrong. And go wrong they do, I can assure you. In just the month following the Covid lockdown level 2 there were two serious hunting related injuries. One of which was a slip of the knife resulting in the hunter managing to stab themselves. My own pig hunting misadventures have taken me into some of the worst situations and nastiest gullies on the planet and for some reason I manage to forget all the bad stuff and return for…

The biv is at 865m and sits on a tussock bench that overlooks the headwaters of Jade Creek, which is a tributary of Olderog Creek. Jade Creek is fabled for its pounamu and was the site of some intensive activity in the 1970’s. A number of huts were erected in the creek and helicopters regularly flew in and out with stone cutters that were set to work on some of the bigger boulders that were found there. Two of the old huts are still standing and visible way down below as you approach the biv. One is pretty derelict but the other built by the Dalziel family and surrounded by dense sub-alpine scrub and toetoe, is remarkably dry and sound. A veritable time capsule complete with an old transistor radio…

It’s refreshing to see they clearly have input from hunters in their design, and they have a huge range of products. Recently we got sent the Terra puffer, Xone pants and Guide long sleeve shirt - all in their Biarri camo, which is well suited to our environments whilst retaining some aesthetic appeal for day-to-day use. The gear just arrived in time for a West Coast tahr ballot, what better place to test some gear! It’s also had some pretty heavy use since, like a frozen winter pig hunting tour through Central Otago, not a pursuit that’s kind to clothing. TERRA PUFFER It seems to me the general standard of puffer jackets has really lifted in recent years. The Terra is no exception, and we certainly put it to the…

These are in between the compact cameras (point and shoots) we covered last issue and full-size DSLR’s/Mirrorless cameras we’ll cover next issue. Bridge cameras have been around since film days, and have always provided the same niche – a ‘bridge’ between camera classes. They provide an introduction to DSLR’s, with similar weight and size, manual controls and electronic viewfinders (EVF) but almost never have interchangeable lenses - that is a key distinction from DSLR’s. The high zoom cameras a lot of hunters will be familiar with, the Nikon P1000 and Canon Sx70, are part of this class of camera but generally referred to as ‘superzoom’ cameras. Something I’ve neglected to hammer home in previous articles is the importance of sensor size. In this case bigger is always better. See the…

Latin - Griselinia Littoralis Maori - Kapuka or papauma Following a lot of digging and research for this plant series of articles, I discovered several studies and pieces of literature that back up and confirms what, as hunters, we already knew from our observations in the field … game animals ‘love’ broadleaf ‘Back in the day’, (don’t you love that term …. could mean last week or could refer to 40 years ago but in this case around the early '90s), my mate, Steve, and I used hunt a very steep, bluffy and fairly inaccessible tract of back country. Geologically it is rather unique in that the main rock type is limestone, unlike the rest of the province (and in indeed the whole of New Zealand) which is greywacke. Effectively,…

THIS IS ONE OF THE PHOTOS OF LAST ISSUE'S STAG AND THESE ARE THE PANEL'S OPINIONS: >Roy Right, these buggers are hard. Breeding and food plays a big part in Fallow deer. I hunt two wild herds, the Greenstone/Caples and the Blue Mountains so will pitch my experiences towards those. I also have Fallow in my paddocks. Fallow are really hard to judge by their pedicles, they tend to sit low on their skulls and their hair can be quite thick. Body wise these guys are just like a Red or Wapiti, as they age they go from leggy teenagers then start filling out. First they fill out in the chest and then bulk up in the hind quarters, but the difference between Red and Wapiti is they mature a…

Polaris NZ were very accommodating in the conversation leading up to the review, they gave us free rein to really test their machine over seven days of pig hunting from Omarama to Ranfurly so I’m happy to say that it was thoroughly tested! Side By Side (SxS) vehicles provide the best balance of off-road performance and carrying capacity for backcountry driving. 4wd vehicles like utes can’t compete, the only thing that possibly comes close is the old Suzuki Jimny (Or the Samurai, Escudo etc). SxS’s are infinitely more comfortable than a quad for passengers, not to mention the driver, and they keep the occupants out of the weather. The carrying capacity is far more than a quad, you can take a dog box, several dogs and still have room for…

There is always the weather, and maybe a spiel about hunting companions, a description of my location or the quarry. Even though it’s been done to death (and I’ve been guilty once or twice of doing it myself ) I could always fall back on ‘the sun was slowly rising in east’ or conversely ‘the sun was slowly setting behind the hills/ wetlands/ paddock in the west’ Possibly I could start with a lab and a mouth full of mallard or even, the leaves were turning brown and there was a distinct change in the weather (done that one before too). But this story had a definite starting point. It began with a text from our mate, Lyndon. It read ‘hey man, went for a scout today, saw not many…

Willie, Greg and Emil are friends, if I missed the shot the episode would be a waste and I’d be letting them down. If I missed I’d be letting myself down on my dream of a mature Rakaia bloodline stag. If I missed … I’d at least have a good excuse. I was literally sitting in a tree. My feet were dangling in thin-air as I sat astride a bend in the trunk. One arm was wrapped around the most vertical bole of the tree to reach the forend with my fingertips, while the other braced against a branch and gripped the rifle. We’d searched around the monkey scrub looking for a better place but the old stag had chosen his fortress well. Surrounded by his harem and challengers it…

We all know the feeling of needing to “get some fresh air” or put on our pack and “blow off some steam”. It was highlighted for us last year when lockdown left the hunting population of NZ trapped like ill-tempered rats stuck in our respective cages. The fact that the Red stag roar and the Wapiti ballots were about to kick off served to truly exacerbate the issue. Every one of us says “hunting is good for me”. We know it intuitively, we know we feel good being out in the hills - stretching the legs, breaking a sweat, seeing animals amongst fantastic scenery, and soaking up some vitamin D. But what is it exactly that makes it so good for us? I went another round with a case of…

We’ve progressed from calibre selection to components, through testing, assembly and tuning and now we’re finishing on exploring some different loads and the final weigh-in. Samantha and I drew a tahr ballot block in between these issues, so we actually pinched the rifle and took it for a walk before we’d finished everything off. We didn’t find anything mature enough, though I thought Sam displayed outstanding restraint in passing up an opportunity at a 12½ - 12¾” bull that was around 7 years old, her first bull. Despite not firing a shot we gained an appreciation for how spectacular the rifle was to carry around. With the suppressor and bipod stowed, there’s only 7lb 2oz (about 3.2kg for the younger generation) to carry in your hand, and only 40” of…

With a strong history of promoting firearm sports, John McGlashan College is incredibly proud of its shotgun club boasting an impressive 47 trap shooters. They also encourage hunting amongst their students with an annual hunting competition. As such, they wanted to proactively support their shooters by strengthening their skills with additional firearm safety training. #firearmsafe is a NZ based health and safety training company. We specialise in providing indoor firearm safety training courses. We use over 45 deactivated firearms to deliver a variety of services focusing on the education and training of both recreational and commercial firearms users. Our training is based around the core principle that nearly every New Zealand firearm-related incident could have been avoided with better training and drills. While range days and live firing are crucial,…

It's sound, well thought out design that suits our style of hunting, teamed with the Finn’s meticulous manufacturing and capped off with its affordable price point has ensured its success. There have been numerous variants of the T3 over the years, but some have been more aimed at the European market and not really suited to the average NZ conditions. This year there are a range of new models some with new stocks and others with new barrels. The latter is what we are reviewing here. The standard T3s have always had a fairly light barrel contour – not as skinny as the Kimbers/ Remington Model 7s, Ruger Ultra lites etc, but a fairly good compromise of rigidity verses weight for our hunting situations. There has always been the Varmint…

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.…

Comfort food to me is like a classic dish that will warm you up on a winter’s night, such as a satisfying pie, hearty stew, and calorific puddings that force decisions about whether to have cream or ice cream, and deciding to have both! All washed down with a substantial red wine while sitting in front of the fire watching a rerun of NZ Hunter Adventurers ‘cos the rugby is all over. This dish is really a combination of two delicious foods - a casserole and a scone, turned into what we call a cobbler. A venison cobbler in this case. The difference between a pie and a cobbler is that a pie has a form of pastry top and bottom, whereas a cobbler just has a top The top…