In
the land of the Kiwi, Everything not Native is a Varmint
“John, we have an opportunity that we may want you to work on in New Zealand,”
my client said on the voice message. “We have a conference call on Monday to
discuss it.”
New Zealand. Certainly a destination for those in search of the world’s best
hunting, I thought. I quickly tossed around the idea of stringing a hunt on the
backend of this business trip, should I be so lucky. I began my research by
searching the web and identifying those who offered hunts. Three days later I
sat in on the conference call and got some good and bad news. While I was
indeed on my way to New Zealand, commitments the following week would prevent me
from staying over and hunting.
Several years ago, on the way back from a trip to Australia, I had a layover in
Auckland. Perusing through the bookstore in the airport, I found a treasure: a
complete guide to fishing in that wonderful country. Each page of that book,
printed on heavy coated paper, held stunning photographs of that mystical
country. I was sure then that I would someday return to hunt and fish in what
had to be an outdoor paradise. Even though this return trip was not what I had
planned, I intended to do a little scouting nevertheless in preparation for any
return.
A whirlwind five days sucked up just about ever minute I had during the week I
spent on New Zealand’s North Island, but when time permitted, I ate red deer
warmed in a control room microwave, chatted with the employees of my client’s
client – and learned a lot in the process. I learned, for example, that the
North Island has excellent red deer hunting, but no chamois and tahr hunting –
those can be exclusively found on the more mountainous South Island. Since I
had shot several red stag in Scotland in 2002, I thought I would give the
species a break and hunt something else. I love hunting mountain game, and had
always wanted to have a try at chamois and tahr in New Zealand.
I also learned that all species of big game in New Zealand are essentially
varmints and can be hunted all year with no limit. Furthermore, one is not
required to hire a guide. You read that correctly, sportsfans: you don’t need a
guide to hunt in New Zealand, and there is no limit on animals such as red stag,
tahr, and chamois. All of these animals are transplants, and the government,
fearing habitat destruction by non-native species, allows hunting all year
round.
A few weeks after my return from New Zealand, I received some news to warm the
heart of anyone who seeks adventure: I would be returning to New Zealand for a
one day meeting with the senior management of my client’s client. I quickly
mobilized the internet and selected a guide with whom to hunt: a quiet guy named
Bert.
I could have tried hunting on my own, but I thought hiring a guide would be
smart, at least on my first trip. I bought some hunting reports from Don
Causey, who runs the Hunting Report and learned that Bert pretty much ran the
table when it came to clean references. That sealed the deal for me. I was a
little apprehensive about the season I would hunt, for December is summer in New
Zealand, but with my client picking up my airfare, and prices sure to rise in
calendar year 2004, I booked a five day hunt to start two days after my meeting
in Auckland. We burned some United Airline miles to allow Catherine to meet me
in Auckland the night I finished my business obligations. I boarded a New
Zealand Airways 747-400 in Los Angeles the Sunday after Thanksgiving and 12 ½
hours later, landed in Auckland.
Before leaving the US, I applied for a gun permit. Being a lifetime member of
the NRA, I profess my devotion to that institution, but I have to say they tend
to create the impression in most folk’s minds that all countries outside the US
prohibit or restrict guns to such an extent that you may as well never leave the
friendly confines of America. Nothing could be further from the truth.
Importation of guns into New Zealand proved to be painless. Upon arrival in
Auckland, the police had my permit application waiting. After insuring the
serial numbers of my guns matched, I paid NZ $25 for my gun permit and was soon
on my way.
Forty-eight hours later, my meeting successfully over, I returned to the airport
to meet Catherine, who was on the same flight I had been on two days earlier.
After a restful night in a nearby airport hotel, we were soon on our way to
Christchurch on New Zealand’s South Island. Nearly after an hour after we
landed, we had yet to be met by Bert, but I had faith he would search out the
baggage cart with the long silver gun case, and sure enough, he soon introduced
himself. After a two hour drive, we arrived at his ranch house, where I
verified the zero of my rifle, and then relaxed over cocktails and hors
devours. We then feasted on a sumptuous dinner prepared by the woman who keeps
Bert on the straight and narrow: his wife Pennie. Thank God for Pennie. We
also met their children and took a wonderful tour of their sprawling stone
house, built 120 years ago.
I could tell Catherine was more than a little apprehensive when Bert informed us
he would wake us at 3:15 am, and to be sure, my eyelids felt like sandpaper 4 ½
hours later when Bert rapped on the door to wake us. We threw on surplus
military BDUs, and then came downstairs for a quick breakfast of cereal and hot
coffee. We also met Grant South, Bert’s assistant who prefers the nickname
“Southy.”
We drove through the ink-black darkness of predawn to find mountains as the
fingers of the rising sun began to peel away the cover of darkness. The initial
climb over a grass covered slope was steep enough to raise our pulses just a
bit. Bert was ahead of us, and for good reason: as we reached the top of that
hill, we found Bert glassing tahr, and already he had spotted plenty.
The skies were gray and wind began to pick as we pulled on jackets to ward off
the cold. Bert glassed several tahr, while Southy, on another ridge and in
contact by radio, spotted a red stag, a few chamois, and plenty of tahr. I
wasn’t too keen on using a radio but didn’t say anything. We continued our way
up the slopes where we met Southy. Further glassing revealed a so-so chamois
and plenty of tahr, but none worth taking just yet. Bert and I walked to the
top of the draw so that we could look down into it, but spotted nothing. Southy
and Catherine followed us up, and we soon took up positions on a grass slope to
glass. The wind was by this time brutal, and Catherine and I hunkered down to
take a nap while Southy and Bert glassed.
“We found your taaahr,” Bert drawled in his Kiwi accent.
“Where?” I asked.
Bert pointed to a herd. I threw up my Leica 8X32s and found several bulls.
Tahr do not have massive horns to begin with, and having a guide there to choose
a worthy specimen is worth the money. But even so, I could tell this one’s tips
did not carry out behind him like I thought they should.
“Do you think we would see a bigger one if we kept hunting?” I asked Bert.
“I suppose we would, but we have looked at over 50 animals today, and that one
looks pretty good,” replied Bert in the composed voice of guide telling you it
is your decision.
My Leica 1200 told me the bull was 285 yards away, an easy shot, but the wind
was howling. My other long range gadget, a Kestrel pocket anemometer, told me
the wind was gusting to 20 mph, and even worse, it was shifting direction
constantly – one minute it was right to left, the next minute somewhat calm, and
the minute after left to right. But a fairly steep ravine lie between us and
the tahr, and weekly shooting sessions, often in the wind at even longer ranges
gave me confidence that I would make this shot. I asked Catherine to hand me
the Harris bipod, which was in my daypack. Bert began to tie the tall grass
around my shooting position into knots so that I could shoot. I attached the
bipod, sat on my butt, extended the legs, and got into a sitting position. I
pushed my arm through the sling, flipped my ball cap backwards, and put in my
earplugs. I waited for Bert, who was now filming, to give the word.
“Okay, take him,” Bert said.
“I can’t make out his anatomy, Bert – I can’t see the front leg.”
“Okay, just wait,” Bert said.
As we waited, the tahr turned. He was now quartering slightly to the front. I
checked the wind. It seemed to be averaging about 10 mph left to right. I
checked the hair on the thick mane of the bull tahr and could see the direction
was the same in his location. The range was 265 yards. I dialed in 7 clicks of
windage, 7 clicks of elevation, planted the crosshairs behind the shoulder, and
mashed the trigger. I wasn’t about to wait for the wind to change.
I don’t remember if we heard the bullet hit, but we could tell I hit the tahr.
It walked uphill perhaps 10 yards, then fell over and rolled into the creek
below. Bert was ecstatic. He and Southy headed off at a quick-time march while
Catherine and I followed. We side hilled the steep slope, and then dipped down
into a small creek covered with thick ferns that reminded me of Alaska,
especially when you stepped on them and they turned to grease. We crossed over
a ridge and dropped into the creek into which we saw the tahr plunge.
We found Southy and Bert looking vainly for the tahr. After perhaps 20 minutes,
Southy found him, farther downstream than we expected. We posed for
photographs, then Bert took his skinning knife and made short order of the
tahr. We took the backstraps, but left the rest. I felt a little weird leaving
an animal like that for the maggots, but these animals are treated like
varmints. You won’t read that in other hunting magazines, but that is the way
it is done in New Zealand.
We were all pretty tired, but took our time heading back to the truck. Bert
stopped to occasionally glass the hills.
“I would love a bit of Christmas pork,” he said softly as he carefully dissected
the hills with his binocular. In the end, we didn’t shoot any porkers. By the
time we hit the truck and headed out, the rabbits were coming out for their
evening feed. Bert handed me a slick BRNO .22 bolt gun with open sights and I
picked off several. These too, are varmints, but Catherine and I love rabbit,
so we inspected the victims to see if any were worthy of the pot. No luck there
– rabbits in Kiwiland are huge, sort of like a combination jack rabbit and
cottontail.
We headed back to the house, were after hot showers we again settled around a
spread of hors devours and cocktails. After perhaps an hour, Penny once again
called us to a stupendous meal.
After dinner we retired to the living room where we swapped stories later than
we should have, but given the fact that the tahr was in the bag, we not going to
race the sunrise out of bed. Indeed, we slept in the next morning, enjoyed
bacon and eggs for breakfast, and then headed out for chamois.
We headed to the same general area in which we had shot the tahr, but then Bert
turned the Toyota onto a road that followed a river up into a valley. We
occasionally stopped to glass the surrounding cliffs. Just when I thought the
afternoon would be a bust, I heard Southy exclaim, “Chamois – good one.”
That Southy spotted him from the car was impressive enough, but the fact that he
judged this animal to be a good one had my heart racing.
“I only got a glance of him,” Southy said, “before he ducked down behind that
flax plant.”
Bert grabbed his binocular and glassed the animal, now bedded down under a cliff
behind a flax plant.
“He looks pretty good,” Bert said in a whisper. “Let’s drive down the road and
park the truck around the next bend.”
We did just that and then grabbed our packs. The plan was to climb above the
chamois and side hill around until we were in front of him. The plan worked
brilliantly. I soon found myself 200 yards from the chamois. I had intended to
shoot him from a sitting position using a sling, but the animal was so calm that
I decided to attach my bipod. I had to extend the legs all the way, given the
slope of the hill, but with the buttstock of the rifle on my knee and the sling
tight on my left arm, I was dead steady. I could see the dainty chamois bedded
under the cliff, its head upright looking right at me.
Shooting at bedded animals is not my favorite shot. You see, the very act of
them lying down tends to distort the positions of their organs, making the shot
a little more unpredictable. So I was more that a bit deliberate when I placed
the crosshairs behind his shoulder. The hold was dead steady. Bert had the
video camera rolling, and when he gave the word, I pressed the trigger. As the
rifle recoiled, I bolted in another round.
The chamois did not move. His head was no longer up. He looked dead to me, but
any animal that dies without moving is something to be concerned with. Southy
went to investigate while I stood watch. In due time Southy waved us over.
Catherine and I posed for yet more photos. Bert took the entire animal. We
continued up the valley road, explored an old sheepherder’s camp, and then
crossed over a pass. As we descended the other side, we spotted some red deer,
but we were on private land and did not have permission to shoot them. On the
way out I shot some more rabbits, which was actually quite the varmint hunt
itself.
The next day we slept in; Catherine participated in a sheep roundup with Bert
and his daughter, while I sat in the front yard, drank beer, and wrote my
hunting notes. That evening we bid farewell to Pennie and her children and
headed south with Bert for the next part of our adventure – a wilderness
hunt/fish combo in, would you believe, a national park?
I don’t know if hunting is allowed in every national park in New Zealand, but it
is allowed in the one visited. After pitching a tent in the backyard of our
helicopter pilot’s house, we lifted off early the next morning and followed a
river upstream. The scenery was absolutely stunning; it reminded me quite a bit
of Alaska. After perhaps a ten minute flight the river forked; we followed the
branch to the left.
“There is a good spot to camp and glass for red deer,” our pilot said as he
pointed to a grassy flat area. “Red deer like to feed here early in the morning
and just before dark.”
I took a good look. The country all around the grassy flat was steep and
heavily forested – why one would be lucky to get a shot off at all in the rain
forest, I thought, but the grassy flat more than evened the odds – as long as
the red deer were willing to come out. As the helicopter flew up the fork, we
could see several gorges where the aquamarine water cascaded in a series of
waterfalls. Before we knew it, the chopper rose up, as if appearing before God,
and showed us a most unbelievable sight: a pristine alpine lake surrounded on
three sides by cliffs at least 1000 feet high. Perched on top of these cliffs
were glaciers. It was a most incredible sight.
As the chopper landed, we pulled off our packs and scrunched down low as the
bird lifted off. It had been a long time for me since I had been in a
helicopter – not since my Army days in Alaska in the mid-1980s. Suddenly,
before we knew it, we were surrounded by silence. But that was soon interrupted
by a tremendous roar – the glacier had calved off and crashed down the cliff
into the lake below!
For the next hour we sat there and watched the glacier calve off. I glassed the
surrounding cliffs for chamois, which Bert had told us we might find. After an
hour, I clipped my Remington Model Seven to my pack and we headed to the outlet
of the lake, where the stream that would be our roadmap back to the world
started.
We spent that day moving across tundra and learning how to cross the stream.
The first time we crossed we took our boots off. The water was painfully cold
and caused our feet to go numb almost instantly. A few hours later we hit a
fork coming in from the right, and decided to cross with our boots on and learn
to live with wet feet.
We made one mistake on this part of the trip, and it was a pretty big one: we
did not allow enough time to enjoy the hunting, fishing, and camping. We should
have allowed 3 days for this portion of the trip, but instead we had 2, and
because of that, we had to keep up a good pace. Toward the end of the first day
we met a young couple from California who had been in the country for a month.
They had walked in from town and had been on the trail for 5 days. An hour
later we hit the grassy flat and set up camp. Catherine started to cook dinner
while I grabbed my fishing rod to see if I might catch some dinner.
As dusk began to settle I switched rod for gun and took up a position to watch
for any red deer that might come out. An hour later, I unloaded the rifle and
headed to camp, where Catherine had a Mountain House dinner of turkey tetrazini
waiting for me.
I repeated my efforts the next morning while Catherine slept in, but drew a
blank. We ate some oatmeal for breakfast, and then struck our camp and
continued our journey. Around 2 pm we came to the confluence of our stream and
a major river. A jetboat was there picking up some fishermen, and told us
another boat would be by at 4 pm. At $50 kiwi apiece, the ride beat what looked
to us to be 15 hour hike.
Two hours after the boat picked us up, after we had taken showers at a local
campground, we were back at the pilot’s house, on his deck, enjoying a bottle of
wine, grilled lamb chops, and soaking in the stunning New Zealand scenery. We
continued the next day by renting a car and further exploring the island. We
ended the trip by flying back to the North Island to visit one of Catherine’s
friends who had moved to New Zealand from Australia. The two went shopping
while I wrote, and Catherine surprised me with a fabulous custom fly rod. I
used that rod two nights ago to catch a dozen trout, but that is a different
story…
If you want to try hunting New Zealand, drop me a line at
antanies@envoydevelopment.com.
I can help arrange the same trip I took, or even book a float trip for you with
Southy, were you can fish and shoot feral goats and chamois as you drift a
wilderness stream.
