Table of contents for Issue 55 - October/November 2016 in NZ Hunter

‘Popey – you keen to head in for the tahr ballot in May?’ Norts texted me. Hell yeah!’ I hastily replied ‘when – and who’s going?’ ‘May 14-18th. Me, Khan and Dennon. Reckon you can get time off from your new job?’ ‘Haha mate – I’ll make bloody sure – I’ll sweet talk the bosses round!’ I replied. I was not going to turn down an awesome opportunity like that. I’d done plenty of tahr hunting on the East Coast, but I was still stuck on the 12 inch mark and I was keen to change that. As the departure date loomed, the weather forecast didn’t look great. Norts was sending me photos of the rain radar and most people would have instantly pulled the pin but not much stops…

The plane was bringing new clients in for our next hunt – and food! We were all getting pretty hungry and there’s nothing like fresh groceries after a month in the bush. As the plane roared off back to Juneau, the usual chitchat ensued “Where are you from, what do you do?” We had a mixed group of Canadian and American clients who must have thought they’d landed in the wrong country as a team of keen young Kiwi guides greeted them. After a bit of a yarn, we made some plans. We mainly had mountain goat hunters along with a few bear tags as well. We decided I would take the two boys from Kentucky, Chris and Tony. They had great senses of humour and I knew we would…

The weather wasn’t playing the game and the unsettled conditions of the last three days continued into the fourth and final day of our hunting trip. My son Corey had taken a nice 9 pointer on the second day, and Mel wasn’t about to be outdone by her older brother – especially when it came to hunting – and especially during the roar. On the final morning, I woke to the alarm, blindly grabbed around for my phone and switched it off. I blinked and rubbed my eyes and listened. Bugger, I could hear light rain on the hut roof, another wet morning to contend with. I fought my way out of my sleeping bag and climbed down off my bunk, turned on my torch and woke the teenagers. We…

Ben Buschl was born without ‘normal’ use of his legs and now uses a wheelchair . . . but that hasn’t stopped him enjoying life to the full. Growing up with an enthusiastic outdoor family meant that he literally had to drag himself along on many adventures . . . including going hunting. In this issue we chat with this inspirational young hunter who seems to work with his ‘disability’ rather than against it. MATE . . . IN YOUR FAMILY YOU’RE SURROUNDED BY HUNTERS . . . YOU COULDN’T HELP BUT GET INTO IT. SO WHEN DID YOU START HUNTING? Pretty much straight away, I suppose. My parents, Russell and Jane, had a small farm up in the back of Brightwater (Nelson/ Tasman region) and I’d be taken along…

However, Teresa has been too busy for the last year to continue her series, and we’re getting lots of requests for more on gun dog training, especially requests for a basic, concise version of what Teresa has covered over her many articles. I doubt there are few busier out there than us, and over the years we have developed our version of Teresa’s training methods to suit our limited formal training time with our dogs. Now there are many, many dog training methods and no doubt some will disagree with what we do as we sure ain’t no experts, but we’ve fine-tuned it over the years and it works for us. So where to start? First let’s run through some basic principles. The most important things to instil in your…

Their venture into scope manufacture has been comparatively recent compared with other optics companies, and their initial offerings were in models and magnifications traditional for hunting scopes. Jess from Lacklands sent us their first venture into the longer range market to have a play with – the 6.5-26x56. This scope is bit of a European/ American hybrid with some features more commonly seen either side of the Atlantic. Of all the Leica scope line, this 2nd focal plane scope is the one most aimed at the US market. The magnification and the LRS designation (Long Range Scope) pretty much tells you what its target market is – longer range shooting and hunting. First impressions are this is quite a big scope, but it weighs in at just 26.5oz/750gms, which is…

She found a suitable spot to sit and her heart rate returned to normal. Glassing across the gully to the manuka clearings dotted throughout the face, she started searching methodically with the sinking sun at her back. [EMMA] Patience is a virtue, I told myself as I glassed the clearings across from me, looking hard at the clumps of tussock, broken rocks and the darker shadows of the big manuka. Suddenly a Sika hind grazed into view at the top of the highest clearing. Nice ... where there are girls ... the boys are usually not too far away. Just above the hind I spied another deer that had its head down, grazing. Wow… didn’t see that one. I refocused for a closer look as it put its head up…

We’d been hunting this area for a few years but had yet to take a decent head from it, that’s if you exclude Grant’s monster chamois buck, which is another story…We knew the area had occasionally produced a good head in the past, so we looked forward to the 2016 roar with eager anticipation. We were cautiously optimistic about our block and the long term weather forecast looked good – things seemed to be coming together. We planned to use the first day to walk the 25km to the top of the block where we’d base ourselves for a couple of nights, and then slowly hunt our way back towards the truck. As it turned out, the day had other plans for us. We were making good time when two…

The deer fed quietly less than 25 metres away but because of its body angle it did not present a shot. I needed to wait for it to turn broadside on, a gambler’s share of risk. I tried my best to focus on the task, watching the deer move, and visualising my aiming point. Slowly it turned and fed closer, each movement exposing more of its kill area. The sand in my hourglass was quickly running down but still I had to wait for the right moment. Three more steps, two, one only; a few more breaths. The deer was now broadside – the perfect shot. I slowly raised my bow but my eye never left the kill zone. Reaching full draw, I tucked into my anchor point and the…

Starting at sea level and rising to over 500m, Te Awaiti has a wide variety of terrain and hunting conditions, large native podocarp forests, kanuka/ manuka scrub, clearings and open grass areas. Red deer, Fallow deer, goats and pigs are plentiful. This is a truly wild and free range trophy and meat hunting property with the added bonus of 12 kms of wild coast line, offering pauas and crayfish when the conditions allow. Chris Jolly has run his very successful guided hunting operation at Te Awaiti for about 25 years. This year Martin Reid and Mark Melody threw in their full-time jobs, purchased the hunting business from Chris and formed Te Awaiti Hunting Adventures. Recently, they invited me down for a few days to see some new country. We’ve known…

With a bipod up front and your off-hand or a little pouch or similar under the butt, they provide the most stable shooting platform in the most portable shooting system. On expedition wilderness trips where we weigh every ounce, at times we’ve left the bipod behind to save a little more weight. The average 9 - 13 inch swivel bipod weighs around 400gms, the lighter non-swivels we have been using for hunting are around 300gms, but we’ve just been sent a quality bipod that weighs just 80gms, or 114gms including its mounting adapter! Steinert Systems are a Norwegian company that also make an acoustic chronograph and an acoustic target, and now they have entered the ultralight bipod market. The NeoPod is made of a carbon fibre reinforced PEEK polymer that…

» NEW RELEASE « » Ultra light weight – 18oz/510gms including sling swivel studs and recoil pad » Super strong and rigid – carbon fibre is the current state of the art material for stock manufacture » Bipod compatible – designed to be shot off a bipod » Higher comb – to provide a proper cheek weld for accurate shooting, especially from the prone position » Two comb heights available - for low mounted 1 inch on up to extra high 30mm big objective scopes » Checkering – the only ultra-light T3 stock available with checkering for a sure grip and great looks » Low thumb height – to better withstand recoil and provide a more comfortable and ergonomic grip » Two stock length options – to fit both the…

The hot topic of conversation on the way down was where to go. We discussed Marlborough, Greymouth and Hokitika as areas of interest but finally made the decision to continue all the way down to the southern West Coast because Tim had always wanted to hunt there. We arrived in Picton at midnight on the ferry and after a quick sleep in a local hostel we were back on the road by 7am. We got to our destination just before dark and set up camp on the side of the road next to the truck. At around 9pm, three stags fired up around us – epic! A stunning, calm and crisp morning greeted us at 5am. We could hear a stag still roaring well close by so we hatched a…

That’s true to a certain extent but wildcatting is alive and well today for a number of reasons. Various wildcats have been developed over time, all with the same goals in mind: to increase performance and or to fit a certain amount of performance into a certain platform. Let’s take a look at the more common ideas and techniques of wildcatting cartridges. NECKING UP OR DOWN This is probably the simplest form of wildcatting and it means taking a given case and running it into a die to change to a different bullet diameter. There is no fire forming, no ‘muss’ and no fuss; dirt simple. Some good examples of this are the 22-250 Remington (a 250 Savage necked down to .224”), the 17 Remington (a 222 Rem necked down…

Although we had shot a lot of geese on this particular farm, including some bigger tallies, this day would be filed in the memory banks because of the sights we saw, the way the birds had decoyed and the way our patience had paid off. The planning for the hunt had started in late January when the first geese had begun to arrive after their annual moult. The geese don’t normally show up on this farm until mid-February but due to the warmer and dryer weather we were experiencing, nice green grass was in short supply. The places they normally hit first had lots of dry seedy grass while over the fence was fresh new feed so I wasn’t surprised to spot a small mob of 40 birds feeding flat…

For a retail currently around the $650 to $700 mark, the optical performance for your dollar has been hard to beat, especially when combined with Leupolds Gold Ring lifetime warranty – arguably the best in the business. The Cascades are single bridge, phase coated roof prism binoculars. With twin bridge binoculars being the new fashion housing wise, Leupold released their Mojave (pronounced mo-har-vee) as the next step up from the Cascades, but few in this country anyway really saw the need to step up from the Cascades. Now Leupold have incorporated fluorite HD lenses into a stepped up model, which they call their BX-3 Mojave Pro Guide HD. The Mojaves Pro Guide HDs have an armoured alloy body in the newer style twin bridge configuration, which allows you to wrap…

My knives are sharpened and it’s just a case of one final cook-off in Auckland before we pack the last of the uniforms and board the big tin bird to head north for the Culinary Olympics in Erfurt, Germany. Then the fun of working through the nights and getting stuff ready for the following day’s competition begins. Well, that’s what will be happening for me as you read this in October. Although spring in NZ officially starts in September, it can be a bit later in the high country depending on the weather and any late snow dumps. Spring vegetables start to appear at last and newborn animals make their way into the world. These can be the easiest of targets – and they make some of the most delicious…