Thread: World Record Red Deer!!!!......according to an American

It must be very difficult to take a client on the hill and guarantee a free range trophy size deer head , no matter how well the property is managed , size would decrease unless new genetic stock is introduced , maybe in the shape of pregnant hinds . It must be a constant worry trying to keep red deer from wandering into neighboring properties , All those farm tracks must help tho.

welcome to the world of bullshit guiding.
thats why I dont guide for red deer.

I am ashamed to say I have been involved in two 'canned' hunts.
its bullshit. Ile never do it again. I have lost alot of respect for gus after watching a vid of him involved in a heli hunt.

The rule with these stags(my understanding) is most properties like this have deer behind wire(a couple of thousand acres) which are truly huge.
Then they have the rest of the farm(50 000+ acres) which has varying grades of deer on it. These are usually wild stock deer but every year they release a few big stags and cull the small ones. from what I have seen the big guys usually stay around the front of the blocks as the real wild stags beat the shit out of them come the roar.
they are "free range" as in there is no fence but it is no way hunting as we see it.
I can tell you after 2 months of guiding a wild stag on DOC land looks tiny. Stags in the 350+ range are very common on these properties

Anyone thought it might be an sci record for a woman?

It was on their Facebook page a while back. I don't understand how every yank that comes over thinks they're going to shoot a world record. I wonder how many world record heads are on walls in North America with a duped bloke who's paid thousands of dollars for thinking he/she's it and a bit.

Wirehunt - No, it was number one wild red stag of all time.

I guess if you have a few world record heads pre measured in the crush you advertise and sell them in order so each successive one is the new world record.
Be silly to sell the biggest of the season first if you had others that would also beat the current record.

Originally Posted by veitnamcam

I guess if you have a few world record heads pre measured in the crush you advertise and sell them in order so each successive one is the new world record.
Be silly to sell the biggest of the season first if you had others that would also beat the current record.

Thats how it is at spey creek haha

. Spey Creek is the place to go if you are after world records! Our hunters have shot three of the four largest stags in the world (#1, #3, and #4). They currently hold the #2 and #3 for rifle, the #1 and #2 for archery, and the #1 for cross bow!

Spey Creek Trophy Hunting New Zealand Red Stag Elk Hunts Kaikoura Lodge Deer Hunt Trophies Bow Rifle

Originally Posted by JP100

Thats how it is at spey creek haha



Spey Creek Trophy Hunting New Zealand Red Stag Elk Hunts Kaikoura Lodge Deer Hunt Trophies Bow Rifle

Those things are vile!

Originally Posted by JP100

Thats how it is at spey creek haha



Spey Creek Trophy Hunting New Zealand Red Stag Elk Hunts Kaikoura Lodge Deer Hunt Trophies Bow Rifle

God damn. At what point does it become animal cruelty making the things walk around with fucking trees on their heads?

I'm not against anyone making a buck or ripping some yanks off, but anyone ever worn even an older style (heavier) headlamp all night? Can be amazingly tough on the neck just a little bit more weight.

Pretty new to hunting and no trophy inclination. Any trophy I ever take will be something I did all on my own. Don't understand paying tens of thousands and having your hand held the whole way. Mind you, I guess it's not too different from feeders and tree stands so maybe that's where it stems from.

Originally Posted by MattyP

God damn. At what point does it become animal cruelty making the things walk around with fucking trees on their heads?

I'm not against anyone making a buck or ripping some yanks off, but anyone ever worn even an older style (heavier) headlamp all night? Can be amazingly tough on the neck just a little bit more weight.

Pretty new to hunting and no trophy inclination. Any trophy I ever take will be something I did all on my own. Don't understand paying tens of thousands and having your hand held the whole way. Mind you, I guess it's not too different from feeders and tree stands so maybe that's where it stems from.

MattyP, you write you have no trophy inclination but you are ok with people 'ripping yanks off' as you put it...

Well guys, I just happened on your thread and thought I ought to put to rest all of these questions and misunderstandings I've read here! I'm Jessica Brooks-Stevens, the hunter who took the "world record reed deer" you're all discussing. I do not own Barnes Bullets, rather, my parents (Randy & Coni Brooks) purchased Barnes Bullets in 1974. They built the business from the ground up. I began working at Barnes when I was 4 years old stuffing lead cores into copper jackets, and have worked in just about every department here. I am currently the Marketing & Product Manager. I went on my first hunt when I was 4 years old - an elk hunt in the mountains of Colorado with my dad - and have been hooked ever since. I am both a trophy and subsistence hunter. I eat what I kill here in the states, and I love the adventures I've had hunting all over the world. I very much enjoyed hunting the South Island last April, and plan to come back this year. I prefer to hunt free range, although I do not castigate those who hunt high fence areas with reputable operations. The stag is a bona-fide true free range stag and I assure you as an American western hunter, this hunt was no hand-holding exercise. It was comparable to hunting mule deer and elk in our high Utah Rocky Mountains.

To clarify, this stag is currently the SCI FREE RANGE WORLD RECORD RED STAG, scoring 359 6/8 SCI points. SCI, and FREE RANGE. We are all well aware that this is by no means the ALL-AROUND WORLD RECORD RED STAG. This is only for SCI, and only for FREE RANGE. That said, when I saw this brute from afar, I couldn't have given a damn if he was a world record or not. He was absolutely beautiful on the hoof - a very majestic site to see him roaring and gathering his HINDS (yes, I realize I originally spelled it Heinz in my story, but I can hardly understand you damned Kiwi's sometimes! HAHA). The hunt was incredible - I was full of adrenaline and exhausted at the end. I can't wait to go back.

Now, I'm going to pontificate here based on discussions with Gus Bisset, who is a great personal friend, a solid business associate, a phenomenal PH who made this all happen, and works for New Zealand Trophy Hunting. NZTH has a 3000 acre high country game ranch near Kurow in the lower South Island where they hunt for a number of species including massive red stag. All of their hunters who choose to hunt in that area are well aware that this is a high fence situation and are very happy to hunt there as it is brush covered hill country and provides excellent and challenging hunting for several species.

Gus also has access to more than 250,000 acres of privately owned sheep and cattle ranch country in the Northern end of the South Island where he conducts TRUE free range hunting for many species including some of NZ’s largest wild, free ranging red stags.
There are no game ranches within hundreds of Kilometres of the remote , mountainous areas where he hunts, and it is more than 500 Kilometres from their game ranch. In fact, up until 6 years ago, trophy hunting was not allowed on the sheep and cattle ranches for more than three decades prior to this time. Gus put in a lot of hard work and selective culling to manage the numbers and quality of the animals. There is an abundance of red deer in the region and on these properties they get to grow old and some grow very big.

I understand there is some misleading information out there surrounding free range hunting in New Zealand, and that it is very difficult to find a true free range red stag much bigger than 300 SCI. However, as per Gus, I have it that small numbers of very big free range stags do exist on a few large expanses of privately owned land where there is careful culling, very low hunting pressure and good quality sheep and cattle pasture for good nutrition. This is the case on the free range areas where we hunted last year with Gus. We plan to hunt other areas with him this year for free range Tahr, Chamois and Fallow buck. So, maybe you ornery ol' Kiwis will be a bit welcome and keen to welcome a Yankee Girl to your land down under???

Originally Posted by MattyP

God damn. At what point does it become animal cruelty making the things walk around with fucking trees on their heads?

I'm not against anyone making a buck or ripping some yanks off, but anyone ever worn even an older style (heavier) headlamp all night? Can be amazingly tough on the neck just a little bit more weight.

Pretty new to hunting and no trophy inclination. Any trophy I ever take will be something I did all on my own. Don't understand paying tens of thousands and having your hand held the whole way. Mind you, I guess it's not too different from feeders and tree stands so maybe that's where it stems from.

That's not a very well thought out post.

I may be wrong but...

....the largest free range truly wild red stag shot in NZ was taken in 1924. Douglas score 394 3/4, easily found on Google.

Given Douglas score is measurement of smallest tine doubled, and SCI is adding up of length of every tine, one would imagine the SCI score of this head would be over 400 easily.

World record for a lady makes sense, overall world record I'd find hard to believe (not a dig at you BH).

Absolute rubbish heads. If anything they should be culled out of exsistance imo.

In saying that I bet the guys who shot them are pretty stoked

Originally Posted by Toby

Absolute rubbish heads. If anything they should be culled out of assistance imo.

Toby don't think of them as deer. Think of them as product units that a business has developed to meet a growing demand. One of the primary tenets of good business is to give customers what they want. The safari parks through selective breeding and good stock feed management have continued to produce animals that meet the demand of global trophy hunters to achieve higher and higher scoring heads to set new world records. As grotesque as they may look to the hunting purest that covets the perfect twelve or fourteen point red stag, these forty plus point animals make big money for their breeders/owners. There is a stag on a neighbours property here that had forty eight points as a spiker and there are at least three adult stags over the fence that are worth at least fifty grand each where they are standing. Think of my neighbour as a wholesaler and the safari parks as a retailer and you will get the picture that is a far better business to be in than my selling a run of the mill spiker to the meat works for five or six hundred dollars.