Thread: Bush Stalking Advice

Been thinking on this a bit - when I started hunting I had no one to show me the ropes and there weren't no internet, so I spent a good couple or three years stumbling around for not a lot of result. Then I got taken out by a family my mum knew and they took me to a place where there were deer - a lot of them. We got a pig and three deer that trip and it opened my eyes a bit to the type of country I should ought to be hunting.
So I got some maps and looked in the Tararua's and found that bringing a deer home on a motorbike was a bit uncomfortable, so I cadged the old family car off my dad and tried all different places until I found a few spots I just kept going back too.

Doing all that taught you what was useful to carry in the way of food and gear - and what wasn't. I was never a fan of carrying more than I needed as I had to carry it all back out with what I shot. A thirty pound pack with a 140 pound deer and 9 pound rifle is a load you don't look forward to, so I carried a poxing great plastic drum with a sealable lid in and buried it in my favourite spot - and I kept wet weather gear, fly and non spoilable foods in there. That was a three hour walk in and having that drum there saved me a lot of carrying - be still there too, haven't been back to that place for over forty years.

One thing I will not go without is a survival blanket - they will keep you alive.
And another thing is beware of rivers, I got stuck behind a river for two days before I could cross it - and I really, really should have waited three days. That was the Waiohine, but smaller rivers can come up too. I fished my brother in law out of one of them - it was in flood and I'd already found the spot and crossed and It took me a while to realise he was drowning. Frightened us both a bit that one, so be aware lots of things can happen in the bush - so sometimes it just pays to think before you do as you could be down for a few days before someone comes looking.
Unless of course you have a phone or something ....

Anyway - I've been hunting sixty years and I'm still here.

I mostly hunted on my own and it was all bush hunting - you get to know where to look, where you're likely to find them.
The most useful tools you have are your fitness, eyes, ears and nose - and that last isn't something you hear about much, but I've often smelled deer - stag, hind in milk.

Others have talked about moving in on a noise .......... do you, don't you - or should you wait for it to reveal itself.
If I hear it, it's close - I'm deaf in one ear. For me, it's sometimes not too easy to locate just where that noise is coming from, but once I have - I'll always move in. Don't always get that animal, often they'll hear me and are full alert or they move off, but I've got so close to a couple I was tempted to just grab them. One was a sika I didn't see until I got to four feet from and another was a red stag hard in behind a tree I walked around. Didn't get either of those - I knew they were close, but not that close.

Another tool I always carry is binoculars - my current pair are 6X Nikon Travelites that weigh bugger all and live around my neck on a short cord. They're usually tucked under my bush shirt and it's just a one handed grab to fish them out for a quick look, then shove them back.
Usually all you're gonna seen is a flash of movement, an ear flick or a hoof movement I though was a blackbird and turned out to be the best sika stag I ever saw - let him go too, dunno why ?
So that's what you're looking for - bit's of a deer as its not often you're gonna see the whole thing, and binos help you identify what you're looking at.

And another thing I learned is white hair sticks out like ducks balls. I watched a white goose floating along an airfield in the Kaimanawa's - and thought that's odd. Was still watching when it turned into my brother in laws head. So if you have white hair - cover it up.