My wife and I took a trip to Fiji and New Zealand at the tail end of 2013. We left on Nov. 16, which was a bit of a bummer b/c it meant missing my favorite time to hunt whitetails at home but killing a big bull elk earlier on and the fact that the deer hunting was pretty bleak looking around here this year eased the pain a bit.
The trip was a total of 7 weeks and of course I incorporated a bit of hunting and fishing into it all. While I was off hunting my wife took a trans-alpine train trip and did some hiking....Men, keep this in mind. If you go to NZ and your wife is not a hunter, there are tons of things to see and do to keep wives/girlfriends occupied. It is also a very safe country. My wife has done a good bit of travelling on her own before so both her and I were completely comfortable with us parting ways to do our own thing for a bit.
The tahr hunt took place at the end of Nov. which is late spring in the Southern Alps on the South Island. Being a horned animal and no regulated season, they can be hunted year round. The one catch was that it may be difficult to find a good head with a good cape due to the animals starting to molt in preparation of warm weather coming.
My hunt was with an outfitter (PM me if you want details). I opted for a crown land hunt without the use of helicopters. I spoke with a few different outfits and booked with the one I ended up going with b/c he seemed to be the most willing to cater a hunt to what the client wants and he seemed like a good guy. A couple outfitters I spoke with were putting pressure on me to use a helicopter to access the high country and set-up camp or day hunt from the drop off point. I don't have a problem with people that want to do that...I just didn't want to. I've flown around in helicopters a lot so that part of it is of no interest to me and I just have better memories of a hunt when there's some blood and sweat involved.
Now that's out of the way. The hunt was an absolute blast. My guide (owner/operator of the business) was a great guy and a riot to hunt with. The country was every bit as (if not more) rugged than the Canadian Rockies. Beautiful scenery. The tahr were very plentiful and I shot a decent bull on the third day. His horns went 11.5" long and 8.5" bases. We did see some better bulls but the weather (rain and snow at high elevations) made things a bit tricky as there were some stream crossings to to do and the water kept getting higher and faster. With that, we opted to pursue a group of bulls that had a good mature bull in the bunch that were more accessible with the conditions we were facing.
I also used a loner rifle on the trip. It's not my preferred way to do things but the way our trip was happening - week in Fiji at the start, then road tripping around all of NZ for 5 1/2 weeks, bringing a rifle of my own would have just been a pain...although getting rifles into NZ is supposed to be pretty easy by all accounts. The rifle was a plain jane Remington 700 SPS .270 WSM with a VX3 2.5-8x36 on top. I shot a handful of rounds out of it laying over my pack before the hunt started to get a feel for the rifle and check the zero...all was well there. Ammo was factory Winchester grey box 150 power points (power points are good bullets as far as I'm concerned, whether factory loaded or used as a component bullet). Shot was a smidge over 200 yards on a pretty steep uphill angle. bullet entered low, tight behind the on-shoulder and angled up and stuck under the hid on the off-side. The bull went down and slid for about 300 yards downhill and proved to be tough to find in the tall tussock grass.
The pics!
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Once we got to the North Island we did some fishing out on the Pacific off the Coromandel. The target was yellowtail kingfish. Both my wife and I tied into a handful and had a blast doing that as well.
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I highly recommend NZ as a destination for outdoors enthusiasts. Hunting, fishing, hiking, exploring. It's all there. We did a couple of the big popular "tracks." Milford sound and Tongariro. We also did a number of smaller scenic hikes. Beautiful place and we'll definately be back.
The trip was a total of 7 weeks and of course I incorporated a bit of hunting and fishing into it all. While I was off hunting my wife took a trans-alpine train trip and did some hiking....Men, keep this in mind. If you go to NZ and your wife is not a hunter, there are tons of things to see and do to keep wives/girlfriends occupied. It is also a very safe country. My wife has done a good bit of travelling on her own before so both her and I were completely comfortable with us parting ways to do our own thing for a bit.
The tahr hunt took place at the end of Nov. which is late spring in the Southern Alps on the South Island. Being a horned animal and no regulated season, they can be hunted year round. The one catch was that it may be difficult to find a good head with a good cape due to the animals starting to molt in preparation of warm weather coming.
My hunt was with an outfitter (PM me if you want details). I opted for a crown land hunt without the use of helicopters. I spoke with a few different outfits and booked with the one I ended up going with b/c he seemed to be the most willing to cater a hunt to what the client wants and he seemed like a good guy. A couple outfitters I spoke with were putting pressure on me to use a helicopter to access the high country and set-up camp or day hunt from the drop off point. I don't have a problem with people that want to do that...I just didn't want to. I've flown around in helicopters a lot so that part of it is of no interest to me and I just have better memories of a hunt when there's some blood and sweat involved.
Now that's out of the way. The hunt was an absolute blast. My guide (owner/operator of the business) was a great guy and a riot to hunt with. The country was every bit as (if not more) rugged than the Canadian Rockies. Beautiful scenery. The tahr were very plentiful and I shot a decent bull on the third day. His horns went 11.5" long and 8.5" bases. We did see some better bulls but the weather (rain and snow at high elevations) made things a bit tricky as there were some stream crossings to to do and the water kept getting higher and faster. With that, we opted to pursue a group of bulls that had a good mature bull in the bunch that were more accessible with the conditions we were facing.
I also used a loner rifle on the trip. It's not my preferred way to do things but the way our trip was happening - week in Fiji at the start, then road tripping around all of NZ for 5 1/2 weeks, bringing a rifle of my own would have just been a pain...although getting rifles into NZ is supposed to be pretty easy by all accounts. The rifle was a plain jane Remington 700 SPS .270 WSM with a VX3 2.5-8x36 on top. I shot a handful of rounds out of it laying over my pack before the hunt started to get a feel for the rifle and check the zero...all was well there. Ammo was factory Winchester grey box 150 power points (power points are good bullets as far as I'm concerned, whether factory loaded or used as a component bullet). Shot was a smidge over 200 yards on a pretty steep uphill angle. bullet entered low, tight behind the on-shoulder and angled up and stuck under the hid on the off-side. The bull went down and slid for about 300 yards downhill and proved to be tough to find in the tall tussock grass.
The pics!
[URL=http://s149.photobucket.com/user/BigJon201/media/DSCN0321_zps87779e02.jpg.html]
[IMG]http://i149.photobucket.com/albums/s64/BigJon201/DSCN0321_zps87779e02.jpg[/URL][/IMG]
Once we got to the North Island we did some fishing out on the Pacific off the Coromandel. The target was yellowtail kingfish. Both my wife and I tied into a handful and had a blast doing that as well.
[URL=http://s149.photobucket.com/user/BigJon201/media/DSCN0603_zps582c13fc.jpg.html]
[IMG]http://i149.photobucket.com/albums/s64/BigJon201/DSCN0603_zps582c13fc.jpg[/URL][/IMG]
I highly recommend NZ as a destination for outdoors enthusiasts. Hunting, fishing, hiking, exploring. It's all there. We did a couple of the big popular "tracks." Milford sound and Tongariro. We also did a number of smaller scenic hikes. Beautiful place and we'll definately be back.
