Vanessa and I hunted the South Island of New Zealand in 2011 and really wanted to go back and experience the North Island and some of the unique deer species it offers. After much checking around, the name Gerald Fluerty at Wildside Hunting Safaris kept coming up so we decided to book with him. He runs primarily a bow-hunting operation but as we'd be coming well after his regular hunting season, he agreed to take us as rifle hunters.
We flew Calgary to Vancouver to Auckland to Taupo where Gerald picked us up and drove us the two hours back to his main ranch. The plan was to hunt stag and fallow buck there then move to three other properties for the other deer species. We were assigned a very comfortable cabin right on the property and we ate our meals at the main house which were prepared by Gerald's wife Brenda. The food was excellent!
The drive to the 4,000 acre hunting area was only a few minutes and the property was spectacular. It's a working dairy/sheep farm comprised of rolling hills with the perfect blend of grass opening and heavy stands of vegetation. The red deer and the fallow deer populations are totally self-sustaining and all run together on the entire farm.
Gerald had one stag on the place that had injured itself as a yearling and one antler grew at a funny angle out of its head. Several bow hunters had tried to harvest it throughout the season but had been unsuccessful so he asked Vanessa if she was interested. She definitely was so the hunt was on. It was late morning on Day one when our paths crossed with a huge fallow buck. We'd actually decided to head back to the truck and go for lunch and were just walking along when we caught a flash of antler behind a small hill. After finally getting a better look at the buck we were shocked at his size and Vanessa wasted no time putting him down. It was one of the best fallow bucks that Gerald had ever taken. That afternoon we got a brief glimpse of the big stag we were after but he offered no time for a shot.
We spent the entire next day pussy footing around the property and despite seeing many great stags and fallow bucks our path never crossed with the "funky" stag. The next day we elected to take a break from red deer hunting and drove to a nearby property to hunt sika deer. We saw numerous bucks first thing in the morning including one that looked magnificent to me but not long after sunrise they'd all melted back into the heavy stand of manuka and we never saw another. On a bit of a sad note, we did find two magnificent red stags in different locations that had become entangled in the vines and couldn't escape. Both were dead.
Early that afternoon, it was raining quite heavy so we thought the sika deer might be out early and they were. We saw many hinds and a few smaller stags and then as the afternoon wore on, we came across a very tall stag with great weight and deep forks. While impressive I liked the width on the one we'd seen in the morning better. I'm sure Gerald was questioning my sanity but on we pressed, hoping we'd made the right decision. An hour or so later we spotted a lone stag on the edge of the manuka and one look through the binos confirmed it was our boy. After a lengthy stalk, I put him down at 154 yards with the 270.
The following day was spent back in search of the red stag and despite walking in excess of 12 miles we couldn't find him. Gerald suggested we give it one more day on him and then go hunt sambar to give the big stag a rest. We were greeted with a heavy snowfall the next day and the conditions were perfect for sneaking silently through the rolling hills. It was near dark and we had just about given up when Gerald spotted him on a distant ridge. We carefully closed the gap to about 150 yards. Time was running out and several other stags in the vicinity were getting nervous so Vanessa was faced with taking a tough quartering away shot. At the report of the rifle the stag was obviously hit but he took off at a trot into the heavy cover.
Blood was sparse but in the fresh snow trailing the stag was relatively easy. Just before dark, we spotted a bedded stag in a heavy stand of trees but we couldn't tell if it was him or not. Gerald snuck in for a look and it was our boy but he was up and running and offered no opportunity for a follow up shot. It was a long night staring out the window at the heavily falling snow. We walked in circles for several hours the next morning and somehow managed to find a tiny speck of blood. It took several hours to unravel the trail but at the end of it, we found Vanessa's magnificent trophy. He was everything she dreamed of and more.
Highway closures due to the snow delayed our departure the following day so it was very late in the afternoon when we got to the area we were to hunt sambar in. This was a free-range hunt and just at dark we watched a nice stag and two hinds come out of the heavy kanuka about 400 yards below us. We had a plan for the following. The real trick in the morning was going to be getting by the paradise ducks without them putting the entire valley on alarm.
We tried to sneak in under cover of darkness but the ducks were on to us and flew noisily up and down the valley announcing our presence. We spent the entire morning glassing the deep valleys and spotted two hinds and a young stag but there was no sign of the big guy. It was early afternoon when the rain stopped and the sun came out and shortly afterward we noticed several hinds and a small stag on a ridge directly across from us. They came out to lounge in the warm sun. Finally we caught a glimpse of the big stag but he was bedded behind a tree and offered no shot. It was an hour later that one of the hinds caught a bit of our scent on the afternoon breeze and became extremely alarmed. The stag came to his feet and moved into the open. At 274 yards I placed the bullet perfectly in his shoulder but he never even flinched. I launched a second one that caught him a bit far back and down he went. It took well over an hour to reach him but I couldn't have been more pleased.
While packing the sambar out, we spotted a huge old goat that we'd seen the evening before and I decided I'd take him if the opportunity presented itself. A couple hours later we were right above him and I took him right in the spine. I really didn't want to have to chase him down into the bottom of the valley.
We ran out of time to hunt rusa so we elected to head back to the main ranch and try for a huge old arapowa ram we'd seen earlier in the week but we never did find him. It will be a great excuse to go back one day.
After having hunted both the North and South Islands now, I'd say you have to do both to do New Zealand justice. The topography and vegetation are so different and each Island offers its own unique species. I was amazed at the number of turkeys and peacocks we saw during the hunt. I'd love to go back and hunt them....and those noisy paradise ducks of course! Seeing the amount of animals we did was incredible. We figured we walked between 50-60 miles for Vanessa's stag and many more for the other animals. It was definitely an enjoyable style of hunting and the snow just made us Canadians feel right at home.
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Re: Back from the North Island
Originally Posted by hunter1947
Originally Posted by Ferenc
