NZ Hunter Issue 72

I hope the tahr ballot block weather worked more in your favour than it did in ours. We had Speculation Creek the 3rd week in May and it was a complete washout, no-one was able to get in. Oh well, back to walking in when the weather is more suitable, which is more our style anyway. We’ve had some great success off camera since then, doing shorter trips driving in up the East Coast rivers, thinking we won’t film this as we probably won’t find anything very mature. Murphy’s law of course and we managed to find the Garmin guys (one of one of our sponsors and true good barstards in the NZ outdoor industry) a cracker bull up an often forgotten headwater. Look out for that story in a…

HEY THERE I am tossing up the 300WSM or 7mmRM. I am thinking the 300WSM might be a bit more versatile bush/long range. But I am also wondering about suppressors. I saw that the DPT Magnum centerfire over barrel modular with s/s blast baffle would be a good suppressor but I am concerned there won't be enough recoil reduction. For these cartridges would you fit a suppressor or brake? Do suppressors actually take much recoil out?. Thanks, THOMAS HI THOMAS, In our opinion, the 7mm mag is more versatile at all ranges for sure, and with less recoil. It has better long range ballistic performance than the 300WSM. To get the same long range ballistic performance as the 7mm Rem mag, you will need to go to a bigger 30cal…

Emil and I strolled in to the hut with a few luxuries slowing us down, arriving in time to appreciate the landscape before cold and darkness drove us indoors. Given we were on a purely recreational trip with no pressure for success we didn’t get up ‘til about 8.30ish I’ve always found these great rolling seas of tussock alluring, top it with the clean white snow against an aching blue sky and I feel small and humbled. Just the kind of country I like to hunt in. Winding our way up the gravel roads I felt stresses I didn’t even know where there lifting off my chest. After a quick brekkie we plodded across the flats and up a leading spur onto the main ridge. As we wandered, getting a…

It began with seeing photos of guys with big trophy bucks in magazines when I first started hunting and progressed to seeing and harvesting a young chamois buck, my first ever animal taken on DoC land on a solo hunt. Something about chamois has always piqued my interest, probably because it generally involves being high above the bush line in the alpine country, where I’m most at home. I’ve spent many hours in the scrub watching them, gaining more and more respect for the animals and increasing my knowledge of their behaviour on each trip – although they always find a way to surprise me! I’ve been lucky enough to take three respectable bucks all at the 9½ inch mark on my adventures so far, as well as a few…

When I’d first started, I spent a lot of time in this area and it was the place where I took my first chamois and first solo animal. It was mid-August and this trip started like the rest of them, with nerves and a sense of anticipation about what we were going to see and what would happen. The aim of the trip was to blood Chris’s brand new 308 with a deer or a chamois. We spotted a few deer on the Friday evening but since it was the start of the hunt and the deer were relatively high up, as they usually are in winter, we decided to leave them and try to get something with horns. On the first morning we left camp and hunted a side…

Bushnell are proud to promote this page aimed at celebrating our game animals. Send in your photos of live game animals to luke@nzhunter.co.nz to go in the draw to win an exciting product each issue. The prize for this issue is... Bushnell Prime 10x28 Binoculars With an RRP of $299!…