Te Puke Fallow - worth chasing or not?

Hi All,

First post and new to the site. Getting back into hunting lately cause its tasty and more fun than a trip to the supermarket.
Shot my first deer in over 20 years in the Ureweras this month. There were plenty around. Cant wait to go back but its a bit of a goat track from Papamoa. Guess that's why there are a few around!
Trying to chase these elusive Te Puke fallow last couple of weeks. Seen a bit of older sign around while out in Otawa Reserve but the buggers are hard to find.
Cant really blame them for being elusive, seems like there is more sign of hunters than deer. Am I wasting my time or has anyone on here had any luck getting a few?

Might have to do a trip up to Wairere Falls and have a snoop around, see what is about.
Also keen to bowl a few bunnies for the pot so if anyone needs some eradicated please PM me. Have a silencer on the 22 and respectful of farms and stock.

Welcome to the forum.
I know nothing of your area but there is a few forum members from around there who will no doubt be along soon.

Welcome.

I'm also from Papamoa and getting back into shooting after spending some time away. Roll on duck shooting season!

Also keen to find some land to carry out pest control on with a silenced .22 [emoji6]

Sent from my SM-N975F using Tapatalk

keep looking. :thumbsup:

Welcome to the forum. @Gibo will tell you there are not any deer in the kaimais, the Papamoa hills or up behind Te Puke.

There’s a few deer around the otawa trig hard to hunt gets a lot of pressure all the time kiwi are there now so good chance you could hear one

They are there, prick of a bush to hunt and even more so over summer. Impossible to sneak about on the corn flakes. Id be sticking close to water at this time of year. Sit and wait is a good ploy

? No idea what you mean there sorry mate

Thanks Gibbo, yes I thought close to water was the thing being so dry at the mo. Also tried the sit and wait last time out.
Have read the Te Puke Fallow threads more than once and seen your comments and others. They were pretty helpful.
Talked to an avid tramper who walks there a lot and said she had seen a few so they are there.
Anyway, back over the Ureweras this coming weekend with the young fella to see if he can get his first deer. Hopefully have a pic to post after the weekend.

Thank you to everyone else with constructive and humorous replies. This forum has a wealth of info on it if you dig far enough.

Well the trip to the Ureweras was interesting. Plenty of sign as well as a head and gut sitting in my fav clearing from the day before. Had our creep on and came around a corner in the track to see a nice fallow spiker about 50 metres away max unaware that we were there.
I cocked my gun and got ready to shoot in case the young fella missed. He thought I was going to shoot it so after about a minute of us standing there I turned to him and whisper for him to shoot. That was mistake number 1 lol. A hand signal would have been a wiser choice in hindsight.
When I turned back around it was looking at us so I raised my gun and waited a little bit longer for him to shoot, it was looking like bolting so decided to shoot it then rushed my shot and somehow missed the bloody thing from 50 metres.
Searched the area for ages looking in case of a blood trail. Definitely missed and it wasn't the gun. Still kicking myself and its Monday.
So our first trip out resulted in a "one that got away" story. Disappointing but still a nice father and son weekend away in some of our country's best unspoiled bush.
So a lot learned over the weekend. He learned to stalk and I learned what its like to miss and not to rush it.