NZ Hunter Issue 56 - December/January 2017

Crikey I can’t believe it's Christmas already! Hopefully you’ve all been out filling the freezer ready for lots of barbeques over the holiday season with family and friends. The big news is that Season 3 of NZ Hunter Adventures goes to air Wednesday, February 1st on Freeview Choice TV at the new time slot of 8.30pm. After much debate, we’ve decided to try the earlier 8.30pm slot this Season - but hopefully the hunters won’t have to fight off other family members wanting to watch ‘Bachelor NZ’ or one of the endless reality TV cooking, building or whatever shows that are also on at the same time on other channels! As a warm up to the start of Season 3, there’s currently a Season 2 replay running on Choice at…

Hey Greg I have a T3 in 284 Win with a 20 inch barrel, Hardy suppressor, 4.5 - 14 x 50 VX3 with CDS. At this point my ballistics are telling me I'm only doing around 2600 fps. I had to fudge the speed in my ballistic program to match bullet drop. Using 52.5gns of 2209 the 162gn A-max shoots a 3 shot group holding hands. Would you recommend Reloder 17 in the 20 inch barrel? I cannot find any Re17, so what other powder would you use? Cheers, Paul Hi Paul, Sounds like you have a good set-up for an all-round hunting rifle there, but just need a bit more velocity to get the most out of it. There’s nothing wrong with 2209. Reloder17 will give you 60fps more…

After a couple of unsuccessful phone calls to two fellow hunters, it turned out that it was only going to be the two of us on the application form. Neither of us knew many hunters who had been to Fiordland before, so we really didn’t know what we were signing ourselves up for. That was the least of our worries at the time though, as the possibility of winning a ballot felt like only a distant dream. Everyone has a bucket list; whether it is written down or not is another story. Fiordland has always been on the bucket list for me and for many others as it’s the pinnacle of hunting in New Zealand. So it wasn’t until I opened the envelope that came in the mail that I…

This was to be my first Himalayan tahr hunt. NZ basically has the only huntable wild tahr population in the world, and the Department of Conservation controls the numbers at times by shooting them out of helicopters. My trip with Dave, Tarn and Will started with a six hour drive, and then a solid day’s hike into the first hut in the valley where we were basing ourselves for a week. Mid-morning the next day, I put on my pack, said goodbye to the team and headed for a side catchment that I hoped might be overlooked by most hunters. Within two minutes of leaving the hut, I was drenched to the core as the bush was so wet. The first kilometre of the hike was along a track (of…

We’d made a last minute decision to hunt a valley on DoC land we’d never been to before after being rained out of our original plans. The weather was looking mint for the first two days of our hunt so we were excited to get to the bush. That morning we’d packed up our food, camping and hunting gear for a three night stay. Rob had decided to bring his compound bow in case we could roar any stags in and I brought my Tikka 260 Lite for anything else. Our plan was to climb up to the tops and look for ‘the big one’. On these trips, we always try to minimize our food and equipment weight so we can maximize the amount of meat we carry out. As…

Grand Winner Emma Brooks aged 9, having fun with Dad on Father's Day George Faulkner aged 10 with his first turkey shot with a bow Zac Rayward with a yearling stag using a Steyr 308 Lochlan Penn aged 3 loves to get out hunting. Here he is with his Dad's Fallow buck Scott Peterson aged 6 stoked after his first hunt with his CZ452 Shann Jane with his first Fallow buck shot in the chest at 40m with his bow Photo Gallery The winning photo receives a Hunting & Fishing voucher to the value of $100. Send all your photos to editor@nzhunter.co.nz Note: Photos must be of a suitable size for printing - a minimum file size of 1MB is preferred.…