Palmerston North day trip recommendations

Hey fellas, I've been hunting for a year now, started out with just me and a mate with no hunting experience and after 6 months of trying to figure it all out we finally got our first deer, since then we have managed to get another 5, all on public land. Based in Palmerston North we have mostly been to No.1 Line, Takapari Rd (rip) and Tamaki West Rd on the eastern side. We've not been having much luck for a couple months and are looking to perhaps try some new areas, obviously there's a few we haven't done, just wondering if anyone would recommend any particular area to try at this time of year? Cheers

Winter is always harder hunting, the deer tend to camp in one spot and not eat or move much. Spring is just around the corner and the deer will be out and about feeding

Nice bro just keep smashing those creek heads and some days you get more lucky then others, Love days, Kumati fairbrother are all good too

There are heaps of deer the Ruahines. As Cigar said, winter is always the most difficult time of year, esp for the new hunter.
No1 line isnt much fun up in that leatherwood belt.
Ive never hunted Takapari rd, cant speak for that.
Have you tried Alice Nash up to Iron Gate. Heaps of excellent hunting in there.
Same to be said up at Rangi - Deadmans.

Hate to repeat the old mantra, but, you need to learn the area and behaviors of the local population. More often than not, stop watch and listen. Watch the faces that get the first and last sun light of the day.
Patients is your friend.

i spent a good chunk of my youth hunting the tararuas, go and look in the places you already know and find where those deer like to spend winters. they'll camp up in places that get a good dose of sun and feed like broadleaf or grass on a slip. you'll see what they're eating when you walk through these places. once you find those spots every time you look there will likely be something will be poking around. i get this all sounds pretty vague but if you see it in action you will get to understand it more. i love winter hunting because once you know where the deer hold you just head there and find them.

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Originally Posted by Cigar

Winter is always harder hunting, the deer tend to camp in one spot and not eat or move much. Spring is just around the corner and the deer will be out and about feeding

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True that I've spoken to farmers either side of where I hunt and one said stuff they've seen a mob of 42 hinds feeding on their grass, and the other has a mob of 11 stags doing the same. Ages away from the public access, so I guess they've found their safe space for winter there. Looking forward to spring

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Originally Posted by 199p

Nice bro just keep smashing those creek heads and some days you get more lucky then others, Love days, Kumati fairbrother are all good too

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Cheers bro, I've had my eye on those for a while will put them on the list

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Originally Posted by Reindeer

There are heaps of deer the Ruahines. As Cigar said, winter is always the most difficult time of year, esp for the new hunter.
No1 line isnt much fun up in that leatherwood belt.
Ive never hunted Takapari rd, cant speak for that.
Have you tried Alice Nash up to Iron Gate. Heaps of excellent hunting in there.
Same to be said up at Rangi - Deadmans.

Hate to repeat the old mantra, but, you need to learn the area and behaviors of the local population. More often than not, stop watch and listen. Watch the faces that get the first and last sun light of the day.
Patients is your friend.

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Definitely a hell of a lot of deer in the ruahines, so frustrating not being able to even see a deer when you know they're out there lol
Agree no 1 line is pretty rough, I ran into a guy during the roar who said all the good spots were full of people so he came to the "shittest spot he could think of" haha still 9 cars there.
Cheers have heard Alice Nash and Iron gate mentioned in a few videos and threads, have yet to check it out so can add that to the list as well

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Originally Posted by silentscope

i spent a good chunk of my youth hunting the tararuas, go and look in the places you already know and find where those deer like to spend winters. they'll camp up in places that get a good dose of sun and feed like broadleaf or grass on a slip. you'll see what they're eating when you walk through these places. once you find those spots every time you look there will likely be something will be poking around. i get this all sounds pretty vague but if you see it in action you will get to understand it more. i love winter hunting because once you know where the deer hold you just head there and find them.

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That's been my goal since winter started but I really have had no luck, I have some trail cams in the bush and the activity has definitely dropped off but they're still around all the areas I hunt, just not when I'm there. So they've probably mobbed up for the winter, the farmers are saying they've got huge mobs coming out into their farm a couple kilometres away from the public access so I'm guessing they've gone over there, putting them out of reach of a day trip.

The way you describe it was what I was hoping would happen, come across an area and then that's all you need all winter. Might have to wait until next winter at this point. It's funny though you either see people say "winter hunting sucks" or "winter hunting is awesome", I'm guessing the only difference between the two is that the latter has found one of these holding grounds for deer in winter