NZ Hunter

We currently have opportunities for hunter lead management we’ve never had before, but that comes with significant risk if we cannot deliver – and there’s plenty of ideologues out there with totally unrealistic goals waiting for us to trip up! The GAC is really stepping up in this space, and we need to make sure we are a united sector behind them. The media lately has been full of not particularly factual stories of the “deer plague”, particularly in Westland. There are definitely some areas where there are too many deer – particularly the farm and town edges all the way down the West Coast, as well as the lower valley river flats in the main catchments. These problem private land areas have developed due to a lack of access…

HI GREG I want to ask your advice on my 22” 270 Sako. I want a shorter lighter BushPig. What is a safe barrel length and will my old Gunworks suppressor be good to carry on using? Any advice much appreciated! CHEERS, TED HI TED We build lots of 18” 270’s that go really well. If using handloads this will outperform your 22” with factory ammo. Even with factory 130gn ammo, you’ll still get reasonable velocity, and it will be much handier to use. As to the suppressor, if it’s the old original Gunworks without an isolating tube then no, I’d change to a newer version with the isolating tube. Also, you want the largest diameter muzzle thread that still provides a 20 thou a-side shoulder to pull the can…

Beware of over-concern for money, or position, or glory. Someday you will meet a man who cares for none of these things. Then you will know how poor you are. Rudyard Kipling The deer found themselves free to roam a landscape that had never been browsed by any mammal – vast valleys and endless alpine grassland with no predators. Many simply followed the prevailing wind and walked into new territory every year. It was soon noticed that some were growing to sizes that were seldom seen back in the hard granite valleys of Scotland, where overpopulation and starvation were common. These New World stags began to show antlers of terrific length, spread and style. They found their echo in the new settlers. Jim Muir was born deep in the heart of…

As March came around, the days began to get colder and I was fizzing. A good six months of thought and planning had gone into this roar, and I had lined up a month of spare time for chasing stags. It was the 26th of March and we were into it. I piggybacked this trip off an unsuccessful early roar trip into Hamner area. With Dad's adventure racing days over, he was a bit undercooked for this trip, so we opted for a helicopter to take some pressure off the legs. We arrived at the pickup point and within 20 minutes, we were in our planned location on the Main Divide. Once landed, we sat around for a while letting the surroundings soak in. I find it an unusual feeling…

Our trip to western USA in the autumn of 2024 was planned simply as a roadtrip. It just happened to be during the rut. We’d enjoyed it so much in 2020 and had so much more to see that in 2024 we just wanted to get in a van and hoon around for as long as we could while visiting as many National Parks as possible This time we started in San Francisco and did a loop through Nevada, Idaho, Montana, Washington and Oregon. We hadn’t planned any hunting, but we were stopping to see our friends the Dzwiogo family (that’s pronounced ‘Jeffco’ – Polish heritage, I didn’t even try) who were now in Columbia Falls, Montana. Cory had arranged our original Pronghorn hunt back in 2020 and we’d returned…

The weather looked good, and it was the peak of the roar, so we packed up and got on the road. I really wanted to get a big stag, some good footage, and some tasty meat. We got to the car park and were soon paddling on our way. After only twenty minutes, we heard our first roar, so jumped out of the boat and walked over. We roared a couple of times but got no answer, which was a shame, but still a promising start. Thirty minutes later, we heard another roar, but this time it was much closer. We got out of the boat, but same as before, there was nothing to be heard or seen. After two hours of paddling, we got to Hidden Falls Hut and…