Thread: Deer in Strange Places.

Originally Posted by Barry the hunter

I just remember the young fella I think it was out from the coast Waipukerau had head disqaulfied some years ago big multi pont thing judged to be to much of a farmed escappee

Greetings,
That was pretty harsh from the judges, perhaps born of envy. Even scruffy animals can grow decent heads should they get decent feed and plenty of it. This happened with the Otago herd, introduced from Scotland where the heads were average, the early heads in NZ were stupendous.
GPM.

Originally Posted by grandpamac

Greetings,
That was pretty harsh from the judges, perhaps born of envy. Even scruffy animals can grow decent heads should they get decent feed and plenty of it. This happened with the Otago herd, introduced from Scotland where the heads were average, the early heads in NZ were stupendous.
GPM.

you are right I remember seeing a photo taken in Scotland at a hunting lodge 30 at least red heads on the wall all just skull and antlers most damn poor heads left a lot better lying in the scrub

Originally Posted by Bushwalker

Thought there were some Sika released/fell out of a trail on the top of the Kopu Hikuai road years ago, DoC sent hunters and dogs in after them. Yes i agree there would have been a lot of fun on the Paninsula

We live in Whitianga, one of our lads at works dad's used to bowl the odd red up the 309 back in the 90's, long since been clear of them though. There's been a few escapees from our local deer farms but as soon as DOC get a wiff of deer around here its all on with contractors in the hills. The poor goats don't even stand a chance up here with contractors and green rain scheduled for later in the year, the scrub bull's on the other hand are fairly common

Originally Posted by Liquidasset

We live in Whitianga, one of our lads at works dad's used to bowl the odd red up the 309 back in the 90's, long since been clear of them though. There's been a few escapees from our local deer farms but as soon as DOC get a wiff of deer around here its all on with contractors in the hills. The poor goats don't even stand a chance up here with contractors and green rain scheduled for later in the year, the scrub bull's on the other hand are fairly common

some hunting for the young buggers perhaps - have chased scrub stuff south Taranaki for many years and target the yearlings and the fat looking younger ones - good hunting and great eating - leave the old stuff to breed the heads are crap jersey sort of cross so we just target good eating

Greetings O Wise Ones,
I was doing a little testing this morning and walking back from setting up my target I spotted these.

There was a track of these prints leading along an old sheep track towards my water trough. There has been no stock in the paddock for around two months and we had over 100 mm of rain less than a week ago so these prints were fresh so together with my sighting reported in the OP and comments in the replies I believe that we have deer. What do you think?
I reported these findings to my dearly beloved and was informed in no uncertain terms that these animals, whatever they are, have honorary cow status. My thoughts exactly.
Regards Grandpamac.

Nice find gpm.

HONOURARY cow status is great.....we eat beef dont we??? seems you already got permission to shoot there,now to set up ambush and fill freezer with honourary beef... should taste good.

Once they find your dearly beloved's vege patch or flower garden their status might change somewhat.

'Cow status' on our farm lasted about 6 hours, till beloved saw what the stag did to our trees. With a small to mid sized farm (350 acres) the deer don't seem to stay, just passing through, or staying for a week then buggering off (intel via trail cams), so having oood and ahhhhd over a white fallow stag, a red hind, several very tasty stags, a bunch of yearlings via trail cameras, the next ones we see with our own eyes will be headed for the freezer. Unless you have significant bush/steep crappy land for them to hide in, they will just be passing through and most probably be snotted and stuck in someone else's freezer.