Posted By: Theringworm
New Zealand Hunt ....pic heavy - 04/12/16 08:44 PM
As some of you know, I have had this hunt booked for two years now. All I can say is, WOW. New Zealand has to be one of the Worlds most beautiful places. From flat lush farmlands, rolling sheep covered hills, and steep terrain rain forests on the North island, to absolute fjords and snow capped mountain peaks on the South island, this place is an outdoorsman's paradise.
We started our trip off in Auckland for one night and did a whale/dolphin watching tour. No whales, but there were plenty of dolphins.
The next morning we traveled to Matamata & Rotorua. There, we visited the film location of Lord of the Rings (Hobbiton), Zip lining, hot springs/geysers, and rafted the tallest commercially navigable waterfall in the world which was roughly a 21ft drop.
You can barely see our raft under the water in this pic.
From Rotorua we drove south to the town of Wanganui where we met our head guide who led us up the Wanganui river to our hunting location. We hunted with Wanganui Safaris on 15,000 acres of free range that the family homesteaded back in the late 1800s with an additional 100,000 acres of Maori tribe land next to it. Having a guide that was 50% Maori gave us access to this tribal land so there was more than enough land to hunt and an absolute ton of game. What I didn't realize was the reason why there were so many animals and why they all grew to trophy size. The reason is this: New Zealand has ZERO predators. No cats of any kind, no coyotes, no snakes, nothing that targets the animals on the land. And due to the enormous amounts of annual rain fall and lush vegetation, there is never a shortage of food. There wasn't any supplemental feed on this ranch. No protein blocks or feeders, nothing of the sort. Simply grass fed free range game.
Upon arrival we were shown our rooms and unpacked. 3:00pm sharp we would meet and zero in our rifles (we borrowed theirs since we would be traveling after the hunt as well and didn't want to carry rifles around). The rifle I borrowed was a suppressed Sako .308 with a Zeiss scope. 3 shots and I was dead bulls eye. My best friend used a Tikka 7mm and his father was given a Sako .300winmag. We were all paired up with guides. I was paired up with an slender & wiry 18 yo Kiwi whom had been guiding for 3 yrs. My greatest fear had just become a reality. This young man was going to hike me into the ground. If you can't tell by the pictures, flat land does not exist. This was some of the steepest terrain I have been on and after my recent adventure in October with my aoudad hunt, I didn't think it could get any more difficult. Well, it did and this was hard work from the get go. We logged on average 10 miles of hiking a day with an average elevation change of 2,000ft per day.
On day one as we were leaving the ranch and heading out to the tribal land I spotted a monster stag that was sitting on a knoll overlooking the bottom. He glared at us and casually stood up as to say, "I am untouchable" and slowly walked into the thick bush. This was 10 minutes into the hunt on the 1st day. My heart was pounding. All I waned to know was how big he was. My guide (who told me on the way out, "I am not going to let you shoot a stag today. You need to see more than one in person so you have a better idea what you are after.") said he didn't get a great look at him but said he probably was around 450 SCI. That initial impression haunted me the rest of the night and actually the rest of the trip. We eventually got to the location we wanted to hunt. Just before getting to a clearing we jumped something in the bush but couldn't immediately see it. My guide, with his keen sense of sight and pulling things from the dark gloomy undergrowth quietly whispered out, "STAG" and motioned me forward. I got a glimpse of its rear end and muzzle for a brief moment until it proceeded deeper into the bush. We waited for 20 minutes to see if it would circle around and come out into the open. It never did, but it also didn't gallop off through the forest either. My guide whispered back that, "he is still close by". So we very quietly hugged the forest edge until we got to a point where there was no foliage from the ground to about 4 ft in the air. We glassed and glassed, my guide being about 15ft in front of me. He froze, I froze. He pointed and I glassed. There he was. My first real good look at what I came for, a Red Stag. he was bedded down on a ridge with trees between him and us overlooking an opening in the forest down below. His massive rack swiveling back and forth as he soured the area below. What a sight to see. I asked his score. My guide said, 350's. He then said, lets see how close we can get. We ended up ranging him at 27 yds before he slowly got up and walked away. What a first night of hunting.
We started our trip off in Auckland for one night and did a whale/dolphin watching tour. No whales, but there were plenty of dolphins.
The next morning we traveled to Matamata & Rotorua. There, we visited the film location of Lord of the Rings (Hobbiton), Zip lining, hot springs/geysers, and rafted the tallest commercially navigable waterfall in the world which was roughly a 21ft drop.
You can barely see our raft under the water in this pic.
From Rotorua we drove south to the town of Wanganui where we met our head guide who led us up the Wanganui river to our hunting location. We hunted with Wanganui Safaris on 15,000 acres of free range that the family homesteaded back in the late 1800s with an additional 100,000 acres of Maori tribe land next to it. Having a guide that was 50% Maori gave us access to this tribal land so there was more than enough land to hunt and an absolute ton of game. What I didn't realize was the reason why there were so many animals and why they all grew to trophy size. The reason is this: New Zealand has ZERO predators. No cats of any kind, no coyotes, no snakes, nothing that targets the animals on the land. And due to the enormous amounts of annual rain fall and lush vegetation, there is never a shortage of food. There wasn't any supplemental feed on this ranch. No protein blocks or feeders, nothing of the sort. Simply grass fed free range game.
Upon arrival we were shown our rooms and unpacked. 3:00pm sharp we would meet and zero in our rifles (we borrowed theirs since we would be traveling after the hunt as well and didn't want to carry rifles around). The rifle I borrowed was a suppressed Sako .308 with a Zeiss scope. 3 shots and I was dead bulls eye. My best friend used a Tikka 7mm and his father was given a Sako .300winmag. We were all paired up with guides. I was paired up with an slender & wiry 18 yo Kiwi whom had been guiding for 3 yrs. My greatest fear had just become a reality. This young man was going to hike me into the ground. If you can't tell by the pictures, flat land does not exist. This was some of the steepest terrain I have been on and after my recent adventure in October with my aoudad hunt, I didn't think it could get any more difficult. Well, it did and this was hard work from the get go. We logged on average 10 miles of hiking a day with an average elevation change of 2,000ft per day.
On day one as we were leaving the ranch and heading out to the tribal land I spotted a monster stag that was sitting on a knoll overlooking the bottom. He glared at us and casually stood up as to say, "I am untouchable" and slowly walked into the thick bush. This was 10 minutes into the hunt on the 1st day. My heart was pounding. All I waned to know was how big he was. My guide (who told me on the way out, "I am not going to let you shoot a stag today. You need to see more than one in person so you have a better idea what you are after.") said he didn't get a great look at him but said he probably was around 450 SCI. That initial impression haunted me the rest of the night and actually the rest of the trip. We eventually got to the location we wanted to hunt. Just before getting to a clearing we jumped something in the bush but couldn't immediately see it. My guide, with his keen sense of sight and pulling things from the dark gloomy undergrowth quietly whispered out, "STAG" and motioned me forward. I got a glimpse of its rear end and muzzle for a brief moment until it proceeded deeper into the bush. We waited for 20 minutes to see if it would circle around and come out into the open. It never did, but it also didn't gallop off through the forest either. My guide whispered back that, "he is still close by". So we very quietly hugged the forest edge until we got to a point where there was no foliage from the ground to about 4 ft in the air. We glassed and glassed, my guide being about 15ft in front of me. He froze, I froze. He pointed and I glassed. There he was. My first real good look at what I came for, a Red Stag. he was bedded down on a ridge with trees between him and us overlooking an opening in the forest down below. His massive rack swiveling back and forth as he soured the area below. What a sight to see. I asked his score. My guide said, 350's. He then said, lets see how close we can get. We ended up ranging him at 27 yds before he slowly got up and walked away. What a first night of hunting.
