A fallow meat trip

An old work Mate from Auckland and I decided a trip down fallow country was overdue - we needed a few fallow for the freezer
We met up in Te Awamutu and he dragged my quad and tandem trailer behind his Mitsubishi Outlander – what an amazing performance from that 2.4 SUV – the load would have been 1500kg and through some steep hill country roads it never missed a beat
We set off on Saturday morning to travel about 7km to the back of the farm to see if we could find some bucks that were in bush blocks back there - so we drove past a hundred or so does with fawns – only to find the bucks were still back in the bush - we passed a block of bush on a neighbor's farm and found a good numbers of bucks were croaking their heads off when they heard us going past – the noise was amazing.
So we had to change our plans and select some easy meat animals accessible to the quad – I couldn’t bring myself to take adult does so I just shot a handbag yearling. My mate shot three good size does during the day – two of them were well back past where I could get the quad so he put two hindquarters in my mountain mule and suffered the pain for about half an hour going up a good slope to the quad – I told him not to go back there. Ironically – when I went back to get the Quad – the doe groups were back where we had shot at them earlier.
We tried a different valley on Sunday morning – I shot another handbag yearling while my Mate shot another good size doe – sad to see the fawn running off with its mates from the group and crying out for Mum in the distance.
Despite seeing close to two hundred does with fawns – the bucks were still not interested and staying out in their buck clubs – just the odd wee spiker with the does.
I spend much of my life killing pests but I have lost the urge to kill lovely does with fawns – but sadly many will be culled with a chopper soon.
So six deer for the trip and some nice meat for the freezer - back steaks in the pic

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You could always organise a forum meat hunt for people yet to shoot a deer

Thanks for the write up @time out looks like a good healthy mob of fallow and a prime hunting spot, good when you pick and choose what you shoot.
Good game trail under that fence

isn't the farmer keen to sell meat hunts?

Good on you for taking does if enough people did that and took the meat there wouldn't be the numbers and the need to heli shoot to waste.

Those numbers are a worry and you’ve just showed your mates farm. It’s a shame it’s got to this but with no active game management in New Zealand this is what you get. Helicopters at dawn... :-)

It’ll be interesting to see what Regional Councils and DOC do about this issue.

Yep definitely a shame that it's got to that stage but good for your freezer @time out. For most of us that would be a wet dream to have the opportunity. When the choppers come in how much meat gets salvaged?

And you wonder why hunting reports are a thing of the past on here. with some of the comments above why would you bother

The farms I know of there that use the "chopper" sell to petfood company, wasn't unusual to meet a convoy of trailer loads of dead fallow heading north thru the Parapara's.

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Originally Posted by sometimes1

You could always organise a forum meat hunt for people yet to shoot a deer

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Know a farmer down there who let on " a few people who hadn't shot a deer before" to hunt, spent the next week tracking down the wounded ones. High population areas aren't ideal for the inexperienced hunter.

yes and have had the same with so called more experienced ones too.....hard either way unless you are supervising it and on rifle to back up if shots go skewif.... personally would love access to place like the one shown....

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Originally Posted by tetawa

The farms I know of there that use the "chopper" sell to petfood company, wasn't unusual to meet a convoy of trailer loads of dead fallow heading north thru the Parapara's.

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Flag him down with a couple of boxes:thumbsup:

Good on ya. Dont worry about the keyboard warriors. I'm looking to buy a Mitsubishi Outlander so good to hear it's got a bit of grunt for these types of missions.

Great spot to get your venison, love the pictures, there sure are plenty of animals there.

Yip spotted 150 for the morning yesterday