Table of contents for Issue 71 in NZ Hunter

Over a few beers we decided to check out some Central Otago country I’d always wanted to look over. Central is great in that most of the weather that wrecks hunting along the main divide is not much more than wind by the time it gets to those great tussock clad expanses. We hadn’t anticipated any 4WDing and had pinched mum’s ute for the long road trip that is Waikato to Southland, so we bought some chains as a precaution. In the end clearance was more of an issue so we left the ute parked before any major hills. In my experience, getting yourself one ridge away from huts, tracks and other things that attract hunters doubles your chances of success. With that in mind we climbed 400m up and…

Richie had got lucky (as per usual) and drawn a tahr ballot – and a very good one at that – but that was our only concrete plan going into the month of May. The only problem was the tahr ballot clashed with the opening weekend of duck season and as long as I’m in NZ, I wouldn’t miss that for anything so I opted to catch up with Richie and Baden on the Sunday afternoon. Opening morning went well for us shooting some public land in mid-Canterbury and we secured a good fistful of Mallards and Parries. On the Saturday night we scrambled to put away the duck gear, clean the birds and get our packs together for a week’s tahr hunting. After an early morning dash, Sam and…

Alpine hunting naturally takes you into some pretty serious terrain. It’s one thing to be an experienced hunter, but having an understanding of the objective hazards (hazards that are a natural part of the environment and therefore cannot be eliminated) associated with that terrain is a whole different set of skills. If you’ve never travelled, much less hunted at higher altitudes, you could be in for an eye-opener. The tahr rut usually coincides with at least one or two substantial cold fronts and every year we hear of guys getting blasted by wind and rain or wading through waist-deep snow. We all know the ultimate in alpine hunting is to take a bull in full winter cape, which is exactly when you’re going to have to deal with short days…

From what I gather, people have varying thoughts on the extent of that hybridisation, mainly due to the difficulties in identification. A Grey duck is fairly obvious, as is a Mallard but when the two combine to produce offspring, the identification features become very blurred. The first image in this article was taken on my duck pond here in Marlborough. It had been a great opening morning that day with about a dozen birds taken before lunch. Not too bad at all for that area and that particular pond. As was usual for Marlborough, the bag was a mix of Mallards (even a couple of beautiful greenheads) Greys (which are relatively common in Marlborough) and hybrids. During the clean up of the last few birds with my Springer spaniel Meg,…

I first travelled up there in the roar of 1973 as a teenager accompanied by the current DoC CEO, Lou Sanson. Lou shot a deer in Moose Creek on the way up - very easy back then as the deer would generally appear on a large majority of the slips and river flats we crossed and fall over in front of us. Not so prolific now, but there are still quite a few animals to be had if you can handle the very rough stretches of canyon that need to be travelled to get to Serpentine. Certainly not a place for armchair hunters, but the remoteness, ruggedness, and very low visitation levels mean deer are not that accustomed to seeing two-legged types. Serpentine hut became isolated from foot traffic when…

I had a friend join me this time for the first five days. He had recently built a custom 6.5 SAUM and was keen to use it in some open country. The weather did not favour this type of hunting however as it rained off and on, with strong south-west winds gusting through most of the days and nights. This certainly tested our tents and we both thought they may collapse sometime in the night, but luckily this did not happen. We weren't seeing any animals – and who could blame them – it was horrible in that exposed country. The rain finally cleared, and the wind abated somewhat, and we started to see some deer at last. I shot a hind and my friend shot a five pointer to…

Like lots of things, jetboat driving is easy to do, but hard to master. The good news is that jetboats are about as simple as it gets for something with a motor. Water blasting out the back of the boat propels you forward; angle the jet stream, and the boat will turn (hopefully). Reverse it and you will go backwards. Most importantly, no water moving equals no control. Here are some tips related to common challenges out on the river. CORNERS AND NARROWS Knowing your boat and how to put it where you want it is the key to staying in control. Some boats slide and need to start turning into a corner early. Some are very direct and need careful steering input. In general, turn as close to the…

By taking that concept of long shutter speeds even further, it is possible to make some stunning images at night in seemingly complete darkness. With intentional use of a few fairly drastic exposure settings and a couple of extra pieces of gear, you'll be surprised at just what is achievable 'after hours'. As a freelance outdoor photographer and writer, I spend eight to nine months a year travelling around the South Island. The Otago region is one of my favourite places as it is a gold mine for the type of photography and writing I do. The landscapes are magnificent, wildlife and birds abound and the area provides many writing options and opportunities. Being situated in the deep south, Otago is also a prime location for viewing the Aurora Australis…

It’s available in hoody, quarter zip, T shirt and crew configurations - I’ve been wearing the long sleeve crew that Cam from Points South sent up. It's been through Fiordland, the Main Divide, the Greenstone and the Kawekas. In fact, prior to this review my go-to baselayer was the First Lite Wilkin top reviewed by Isaac in Issue 62, now replaced by the Wick. Advances in design and ditching the zip mean I’ve gone from a 300g Wilkin to a 215g Wick. As a system I now wear the Wilkin as my main shirt (even after a year of heavy hunting it’s in great condition), with the lighter Wick in my pack as the spare/dry set. Growing up I bought all the cheap brands of thermals, and they all claimed…

We were thinking about going to the West Coast, as we had done a few tahr trips over the past years but mostly on the eastern side. A couple of weeks later we got in touch with Dylan, a mate who lives in Ross on the West Coast and the three of us decided to have a crack at a ballot. In November we found out we were unsuccessful in the first draw but in the second draw later that month we got a third period block in the Adam’s Wilderness area – Speculation Creek for 11th May 2018. Game on! After a long winter I was not quite as fit as I could be and I knew if I was going to keep up with half-goat man Dylan, I…

Stories of Whitetail deer had been drawing my interest since I’d lived in Invercargill and I was eager to experience the hunting that Rakiura had to offer. Booking a hunting block was easy, and the Department of Conservation website had all the information I needed. DoC also collected the $30 charge that would go to the Rakiura Hunters’ Camp Trust – a branch of the Southland Deerstalkers’ Association. The money is used to maintain a suite of tidy hunters’ huts throughout the island. And with that I was off, catching the Stewart Island ferry from Bluff to Oban and then a shuttle from Oban to the start of the Rakiura Track. Then I shouldered my pack for the walk in to the Murray block on the northern coast of Rakiura.…

With business and family commitments requiring a lot of my time these days, I made the decision after more than a little soul searching. A lot of it was about what was good for the dogs. I owed them that much. And just like that, I had no pig dogs. Problem was, I loved having a dog with me and I still loved my hunting. I turned 50 last year and I realised there was still a large chunk of big country that I wanted to look into (isn’t there always?) and limited time meant much of it had been spent crawling around in gorse gullies after pigs. I have really migrated back to bush hunting in recent years too, for what in many ways is the ultimate hunting challenge.…

SAM - TUHOI KAUMATUA (I was 8 years old - over 50 years ago - so I can’t recall his surname unfortunately). Sam used to fish for trout off the spillway at Tuai power station (part of the Waikaremoana hydroelectric power scheme in the Urewera). I used to run home from school, grab my rod and head off down to join him. He was always there, it seemed. He’d greet me, we’d chat, he’d show me what fly he was using (usually a Mrs Simpson) and we’d just let our lines out and work them in the current edges as the turbine discharge churned up the feed in the lake. The day I caught my first 11-pounder, Sam was there instructing me through the tug-of-war until I landed the monster.…

I had just released a reasonably solid Brown trout and was watching him recover and swim off back to the weedy edge of the lake when I had that funny feeling that hunters often get. You know the one, when you think you’re not alone? Looking around, I couldn’t see what had made me feel this way until I glanced skywards and saw not 30 feet away, a mob of Mallards, and right in the centre of them was a pure white hen. My jaw dropped and so did my rod, with a splash. Now, when I say ‘pure white’, I mean she was pure snow white. At first I thought she may have been just another barnyard breeder cross but she was so close to me, I got an…

The 1,000 lumens on boost will reach out to 320m, and still get to 300m on high (750 lumens). Of course, all of that comes at a cost in weight, it’s the heaviest in the range at 179g so it isn’t a torch for expedition trips. But for general use such as the power to spotlight rabbits or navigate your way out of the estuary for a pre-dawn fish, the MH11 is unbeatable. The power is supported by an impressive 3200mAh rechargeable battery, twice the 1550mAh capacity of the MH8 we reviewed back in Issue 67. It also retains the proprietary magnetic charger fitting we first saw in that issue which we’re seeing more and more with the new models (this improves the waterproofing rating). Even though the top strap…