Thread: DOC land - The real Hunters bragging rights?

Originally Posted by HILLBILLYHUNTERS

When I Started hunting at 16 it was 1969/70 , when heily hunting was in full swing in Southland/Fiordland and it was VERY hard to get a deer anywhere public or private .
I had just joined the NZDA as I thought that was my best chance , and it turned out it was . The NZDA was due to have it;s annual stag do , no mixed dine and dance back then lol .
Well it got to 2 weeks before the big do and no one has secured any venison it was so bad , so a group of us went up to Knobs Flat on the way to Milford for the weekend as a last chance .
Well who got the only deer ? yes me and I had to donate my first deer for the stag do . Attachment 274139Attachment 274140 So I think doing the hard yards back then
when deer where very hard to find helped make you into a more careful bush hunter .

Haha, same here but early 80s, headed to Knobs Flat to help with a working bee, overshot the Flat abit and had to stop in the bush there for a pee. Shot a hind still in my town shoes after having to back to the truck for a rifle. Meanwhile back at the camp the boys were fuming cause a chopper boys had a dump pile for the freezer truck on the other side of the road. One of the few deer I've shot in the bush!

Originally Posted by HILLBILLYHUNTERS

When I Started hunting at 16 it was 1969/70 , when heily hunting was in full swing in Southland/Fiordland and it was VERY hard to get a deer anywhere public or private .
I had just joined the NZDA as I thought that was my best chance , and it turned out it was . The NZDA was due to have it;s annual stag do , no mixed dine and dance back then lol .
Well it got to 2 weeks before the big do and no one has secured any venison it was so bad , so a group of us went up to Knobs Flat on the way to Milford for the weekend as a last chance .
Well who got the only deer ? yes me and I had to donate my first deer for the stag do . Attachment 274139Attachment 274140 So I think doing the hard yards back then
when deer where very hard to find helped make you into a more careful bush hunter .

I was building on the TeAnau water front 75/76.Use to watch the choppers racing down the lake,deer hanging under neath.Our crane operator was the local chopper machanic out there.Use to be some good piss ups out there at the chopper workshop on Sunday afternoons.

Hunting doc land is all good outside good weather and the roar. Can be a bit scary during the roar.

There’s another factor.
The good old 90 - 10 rule. 10% of blokes shoot 90% of the deer, or catch 90% of the fish.
They’re often labelled “lucky” or “tin arses”.


There will be a massive range of skills across the hunting community on here.
I would suggest less than 10% are typically in the top tier of “hunters”
Probably more like 2 or 3% of people are truely in an elite category, sporting or otherwise.

They will be hunters with years of experience, probably had a father or uncle who invested years teaching the tricks of the trade.
They almost certainly hunt very regularly, or did for a good period of their hunting lives.

I’ve been fortunate enough to have known 2 blokes like this over the years ( top 2 - 3% hunters)
We could hunt anywhere, they would always see - shoot deer. The rest of us would typically come back empty handed, and seen nothing.
They both had the same attributes, gone before it got light, back well after dark.
Fit and strong, they regularly hunted many days a month. Didn’t have all the gadgets, just a knife and rifle.
They thought like a deer, I noticed after a while when they were recounting encounters, or hunts to me, they had this way they explained what happened was almost like they were the deer.
Thinking about it now, I can’t think specifically explain what or how they said it, but I recall it was often like it was from the animals perspective.

So, yes having access to land where there are good numbers, and low pressure makes hunting easy.
But if you’ve got the wind up your arse, you’re wandering along ridge tops sky-lined in the middle of the day, or you hunt DOC tracks and roads, still in bed at 9am, and back at camp drinking beer at 5, you’ll struggle to find deer anywhere.

Disclaimer.
I’m definitely not in the top 10%, possibly for my love of hunting and the mountains, definitely not hunting prowess.
Probably in the top 10% for hunting gear & paraphernalia.

Moved along from this to a doc new to apply permit system, posted further down the page. Now this got me excited, they state that it's public conservation land, not doc land. It's how you hold your tongue, public conservation land, the new government is moving in the right direction. If they can shift some of the many slack ^%$# into the army I'd be doubly pleased.

Without giving the game away, if there are good numbers on private land (which there is from my experience in a lot of areas in Canterbury), there will probably be good numbers on the doc land that boarders it. Find these blocks on the map, have a look and you may be surprised

Originally Posted by IamHackmeat

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6gND5zlmJA0&t=771s might help

Epic ty.


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Originally Posted by Trout

Less walking,more glassing from a good vantage point. Especially the first and last hour of day light.Rest of the day,go home.Mountain river bed edges and grassy flats near water.That last or first hour of light is key time for when deer come out for a quick feed.They love green grass,you find that and watch.

Ok. I do see a lot of YouTube vids with local hunters out during the day getting deer. I’ve only ever been with other hunters and for deer and seen them mainly dawn and dusk. I guess sumner and winter make a big difference to animals being out and about?


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I don't know what makes a "true hunter" and not really interested either, but the OP makes a valid point. There is a gap between how hunting is portrayed on social media which is often relatively long range shooting on open farmland and bashing through the bush on DOC land. It can be disheartening for the beginner without access to the former.

For my own part, it takes me a day of travel by road to get anywhere near a good hunting area, then there's the walk in and out. I just don't have time to spend 3 days getting into a position where I might get a chance at an animal, so it's going to be a helicopter ride or paid access to private land a couple of times a year for me. That plus chasing goats around Northland bush (DOC) is just about enough. More would be good, but that's not the reality at the moment.

EDIT: I should add that we are fortunate in global terms. There's not many places in the world that you can go for a hunt on public land.

Originally Posted by Jaro

Without giving the game away, if there are good numbers on private land (which there is from my experience in a lot of areas in Canterbury), there will probably be good numbers on the doc land that boarders it. Find these blocks on the map, have a look and you may be surprised

I’ve tried that a couple times but poss wrong areas - the small strip of doc land eg riverbeds is often wedged in between private land, but good point


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@Mrfants

If you are considering whether paying for a block with some high likelyhood of success might be easier than putting in the miles, firstly it might be, but secondly it will give you some exposure to deer so that you can learn their habits, test how quiet you have to be to sneak up on them, how much you can move before they see you etc, what plants have been browsed.
Once you have some or most of that figured out, it is a lot easier to find them regardless if it's public or private land.

I am not in the top 10%, but I can say exposure to numbers helped me move from 'occasional lucky chance encounters' to 'occasionally predictable encounters'.

I started to hunt in the early 80"s when there were a lot of helicopters still working and deer were very scarce and hard to find. We would go for 4-5 days and spook a couple and were lucky if we shot one. I was lucky to have some very experienced hunters teach me how to read sign and what areas were more productive to hunt. Due to low deer numbers you learnt where and how to hunt.
I now hunt both public and private land. I will not hunt public in the roar and the North Island, not a dig but have had too many close calls.
I have never seen deer numbers on public land like I have in the past 2-3 years. I reflect back on the miles we did in the early days to now and I would never have believed the deer numbers would be as they now are. The other big change is that with the reduction in the venison export market, many landowners are far more likely to allow you on for a hunt as the perceived value of the deer no longer exists.
DOC or private, it's still magic to be out hunting in the environment we enjoy, the view there beats the view from the office any day.
I encourage anyone to get out and start hunting, it's something we in NZ are privileged with and often take for granted, be safe, be respectful and enjoy the unique opportunity we have here

Originally Posted by MB

I don't know what makes a "true hunter" and not really interested either, but the OP makes a valid point. There is a gap between how hunting is portrayed on social media which is often relatively long range shooting on open farmland and bashing through the bush on DOC land. It can be disheartening for the beginner without access to the former.

For my own part, it takes me a day of travel by road to get anywhere near a good hunting area, then there's the walk in and out. I just don't have time to spend 3 days getting into a position where I might get a chance at an ting animal, so it's going to be a helicopter ride or paid access to private land a couple of times a year for me. That plus chasing goats around Northland bush is just about enough. More would be good, but that's the reality at the moment.

I was just chatting to someone in nz and got told that wild dogs were running amock up in northland, there you go a new species of wolf to hunt.

@Mrfants forget the Minga, there are a heap of deer in the Sumner RHA but you will need to walk in and stay a night or two, Hope valley would be a good start, you should be seeing deer in St James. Locally you have Pinchgut, gets hunted a lot but not hunted well, grab water at the hut and go fly camp up the hill so your on the spot last/first light.

Its only a wrought if you are not evolved.
I too got envious of others success on private land and wonder how they would go on some more heavier hunted , poisoned, Arial shot DOC land but got over it around 35 years ago. Go out and learn the skills. No one became a top hunter in 18 months.
I congratulate every hunter that shoots a monster sika stag on private land but know my hard earned stags from Clements road ( probably the most hunted place around ) mean more in my eyes