For a lot of people wanting to hunt in New Zealand it may seem too daunting a task to even comtemplate and a seemingly endless list of questions pop up.  Visiting New Zealand to enjoy a New Zealand Hunting Safari is simple and hopefully this article will help eliminate some of the fairs and questions associated with planning.

To help some of you out the next two blog posts will cover the basics to visiting and hunting New Zealand from a tourist perspective.

The topics I’m going to cover include:

1. Deciding on a New Zealand Outfitter  and Guide.
2. Deciding on the New Zealand hunting package.
3. Booking your flights to New Zealand and accommodation.
4. Booking Travel tips and facts.
5. Common facts about New Zealand.
6. What to do for non-hunters and once your New Zealand hunt is finished.We’ll only deal with the 1-3 during this blog.

Deciding on a New Zealand Hunting Outfitter / Guide

A great opportunity for me to blow my own trumpet and say I’m the best in everything I do and you should book your New Zealand hunt with us.  They would be great for us and I ensure you that you wouldn’t be disappointed.  All joking aside there are a lot of New Zealand hunting guides offering the same guiding service as we do.  Some a little cheaper and others a lot dearer and overall there are very few New Zealand hunting outfits that will rip you off or provide a less than satisfactory hunting service.

Your choice of outfitter will come down to a number of factors one of the most important being the trophy animal you want to hunt; are you going to hunt free range or on a hunting estate; 0n public land or on private land where land owners manage the trophy herds to ensure that a certain number and quality of trophy game is available for the traveling sportsman to view and harvest.

Deciding on a New Zealand hunting package

Robert D, USA shot this red stag in February. The velvet isn't quite stripped off.

All of New Zealand’s trophy game were introduced to New Zealand in the late 1800′s or early 1900′s.  The red deer was liberated at several sites on both the North and South Islands and hence accounts for the largest class of trophy animal available to hunt in New Zealand.  Other  trophy animals are localised to either the North or South Island.  For example, the New Zealand Sika deer was released near Poronui Station in the centre of the North Island not far from Taupo.  The himalayan tahr and chamois were released near Mt Cook / Aoraki, the Roosevelt Elk in Fiordland, Sambar in the lower west coast of the North Island, Rusa in the eastern Bay of Plenty on the North Island, White Tail on Stewart Island and pockets around South Westland.

Fallow deer are the second largest herd of wild game in New Zealand with pockets of the fallow deer dotted all over both islands of New Zealand.  The biggest population of the fallow deer being in the Wanganui region of the North Island.  Unfortunately the trophy quality isn’t great in that area but there are certainly large animal numbers.

So if you intend to hunt Tahr and Chamois you will need to visit the South Island and likewise if you hope to hunt the Sika, Sambar or Rusa deer you will need to be on the North Island.  Popular combination hunts including the Red Stag, Tahr and Chamois are common and a lot of North Island outfits will hunt the red stag on the North Island and then relocate their hunters to the South Island to shoot the tahr and chamois.

Some outfitters have their own personal small aircraft for this purpose others rely on internal flights with local air travel companies like Air New Zealand.  This means traveling by motor vehicle to the nearest airport and then another flight to a centre near to where you are going to hunt and another trip by road to where you’re going to hunt the tahr and chamois.  If you don’t have the luxury of time or prefer not to spend too much time traveling between locations choosing an New Zealand Outfitter or guide that can provide all the trophy animals you want to hunt within close proximity to each other will eliminate a lot of NZ hunting guides off your list.

Estate versus Free range hunting is another big consideration.  Like us most outfitters will offer trophy hunters the options of both free range or estate hunting.  Free range is defined as animals that are not restricted to an area by fence or man made structure and are free to roam and escape the hunter.  Estate hunts are normally in a fenced area, the size of  the area varies between outfitter and properties from a few hundred acres to several thousand. The better estate blocks that I’ve hunted in over the trophy animals plenty of cover and places to hide from the hunter whether it be the terrain, native bush or stands of forestry.

There is always going to be the debate over whether hunting in estates is ethical or not.  In my opinion I have hunted animals mainly in a free range environment and have shot animals that have behaved in the same manor as those displayed by the game on an estate hunting block.  Reality is that a visiting hunter with 3-10 days to shoot their trophy is less likely to be successful on a free range hunt especially on public land.  If your guide is good you should see animals but successfully shooting a “big” trophy is unlikely.  When I say big, for example, I mean harvesting a large red stag scoring over SCI300+.  This can take local New Zealand hunters years to achieve.

For the record we hunt on a 25,000 acre sheep and cattle ranch that offers free ranch hunting for red stags over SCI300 to SCI350+ with tahr, chamois and fallow trophies also available.  We also provide estate hunts within a 2000 acre fenced area for Red Stags in excess of SCI500+, tahr, chamois, elk (wapiti), fallow, goats and rams.  Another trophy animals are available to hunt on other blocks we have access to.

Timing is also important.  If your visiting from the Northern Hemisphere remember our seasons are opposite to yours.  Sorry for stating the obvious but this is sometimes overlooked.  Like most trophy animals hunted the best time is during the “rut” or mating season of the animal.  Hunting red stag is best during the “roar” when the trophy can be easily located by either stalking in on the roaring stag or “roaring” the stag in.  The “roaring” ‘is done by using a roaring horn or similar device and imitating the stag roar similar to calling in an elk.  My previous blog about my “first red stag roar hunt” highlights just how exciting this can be.

Unfortunately the trophy animals don’t all combined their mating seasons.  The red stag roar runs from mid-March till late May with early April being the prime time.  Tahr and Chamois start late April early May and the bulls and bucks remaining with the nannies through most of the winter.  Sika deer are early April and last for about a month.

So if you have chosen the New Zealand trophy animal you are going to target try to book you hunt for it’s mating season.  For example, a free range red stag hunt would be best from late March to mid April. A bull tahr hunt from late April till June.

Budget is a factor for most, especially with the economic turmoil the world is experiencing at the moment. The cheapest option for anyone is to self-guide and their are plenty of opportunities for anyone to hunt free of charge in New Zealand.  There are pretty much no restrictions on the time of year you can hunt and the number of animals you can shoot.  There are some restrictions of water fowl and game birds and some areas are balloted for hunting elk in the Fiordland National  Park.  Other than this all you need is a Department of Conservation (DOC) hunting permit which can be obtained on line or by visiting any DOC visitor centre.

You will need the right equipment, some knowledge of the area you going to hunt and a reasonable level of fitness.  There are plenty of animals to be hunted on Public (DOC) land to the extent that DOC spends thousands of dollars each year carrying out “shoot and destroy” missions on deer and tahr on both the North and South Island.  More information can be obtained from the DOC website

Take note though, tree stands and hunting over crops isn’t allow on DOC land and it took me several trips before I saw let alone shot my first deer.  Most North American hunters find the hunting on private land challenging at times and public land hunting is harder again.  It’s no work in the park.

Hunting in pairs or a group will often lower the cost of the hunt per hunter as the administration and guiding expenses are spread over more hunters.  Visit our packages and specials page to get an idea.  Management hunts on private land are also available often during the off-peak times.  Wilderness hunts are often cheaper but involve camping out and roughing it.  Hunters need to be aware that the terrain and lack of luxuries may not suit your style of hunting.

Take a look at our “Packages” and “Specials” pages for a list of the New Zealand hunting packages we offer the visiting hunters.

New Zealand Red Stags in February

Booking flights to New Zealand

As mentioned earlier several international Airline companies have regular flights to and from New Zealand weekly.  Our national airline company Air New Zealand has several daily flights to Australia and the US.  Air New Zealand runs an alliance with several international air line companies offering connecting internal flights from small centres to major terminals where the international flights depart from.

Visit the Air New Zealand website and take a look at their special deals.  The website also offers deals on accommodation and car rental.

Booking accommodation for your New Zealand hunting vacation

During your time with us while hunting your accommodation is taken care off.  The standard of accommodation will vary from New Zealand Hunting Lodge / Bed & Breakfast luxury with all meals and laundry service provided to camping in a bivvy or tent while out on a Wilderness hunt.  The level of your New Zealand accommodation is determined by you, whether hunting by yourself or traveling with wife, partner and or family, budget and the animals hunted.

If you intend to combine the your New Zealand hunt with a family vacation accommodation can be viewed and booked online or through a travel agent.  Although a small country there are plenty of places to visit during your New Zealand hunting vacation.  You should determine what it is you’d like to see and book your accommodation accordingly.  Whether it’s whale watching at Kaikoura or buggy jumping at Queenstown, Auckland or Taupo.  There are some very good websites to offer you ideas on what to do and where to stay.  Some of these New Zealand websites will allow you to book accommodation through them online.

If after all this you still find all this a bit confusing you can simply drop us an email with your questions and I would be pleased to help as best I can.

For more answers to frequently asked questions view our “Frequently Asked Questions” page.

Till next time.

John Woolf – Guide / Outfitter

Hunters Paradise NZ Ltd

New Zealand

The red stag hunt out their hinds in mid February.  The red stag’s throat swells to twice its’ normal size and the velvet strips off to expose harden calcified antler.  As the last of the velvet strips the red stag rubs the remaining velvet on trees and bush.  This has two purposes, to strip the stag’s antler and mark their rutting patch.  The vegetation that the red stag rubs on gives the red stag antler the brown stained look.

Any time from late February onwards the stag will begin to roar with early to mid-April being the most vocal period.  The Red Stag roar or rut will go till as late May early June.  On one trip two days hiking into the back of the Te Urewera National Park,  in mid-May we had two occasions where a red stag roared at us and marched into see what we were.

I remember my first New Zealand red stag hunting experience.  It was the first weekend in April and I was hunting in the Te Urewera National Park on the North Island of New Zealand.  I was hunting with a dear old friend, Trevor

The late Trevor Hughes – New Zealand meat hunter and possum trapper

Hughes, who is no longer with us.  He had spent many of his younger years living it rough trapping opossums for their fur and shooting red deer for the meat market, both of which were very lucrative and financially rewarding in the late 70′s early 80′s.  Trappers were averaging $15 a skin and their was no tax and a trap line would average between 40-100 skins.

Together with his working colleague Roger Damm, the pair would travel in from Gisborne for their 7-10 tour of duty, living under tent fly laying trap lines one day and skinning out the next.  No plucking fur in those days, it was a sharp knife and technique that saw the marsupial stripped in less that two minutes.

Trevor knew this land like the back of his hand, where the hot spots were, where not to waste time, what to listen for, smell and habits of the deer.  All the traits of an experienced New Zealand hunter.  Some of the stories he would tell me from those early days were very interesting and worth recalling, but that’s for another day.

On this particular hunt we had just reached the hunting area after walking 45 minutes along farm land and only 10 minutes in from the Forest Park boundary.  Showing my inexperience and thinking that it would be some time before we had any encounter I was surprised to hear a low moan come from a nearby red stag.  Trevor replied with a quiet moan. Almost spontaneously, the worked up Red Stag let out a blood curdling roar that sounded like he was right behind me in the corridor of our house.

All the hairs on the back of my neck stood up on end as we heard the challenger crash through the thick vegetation making a b-line towards us.  Trevor gave me an excited quick glance and we froze waiting for our visitor to turn up.  We didn’t have to wait long till the red stag stopped within 10 metres of us, head down with the white tips of his polished dark stained antlers poised ready to engage. Confusion struck both Trevor and I as we both waited for the other to shoot the red stag.

Trevor was slightly in front of me so being safety aware I thought it was his shot.   Trevor wanted this young hunter to shoot his first stag so he waited.  So there we were two politely confused hunters and an even more confused red stag standing there waiting for one of the hunters to make a move.  Trevor couldn’t handle this and up with his Remington 308 semi-auto and fired.

Why he missed is still a mystery to me today.  Trevor had shot literally hundreds of red deer with that rifle and was no novice by any stretch of your imagination.  The red stag promptly decided that standing there any further was likely to be bad for his health and decamped crashing through the bush like a bulldozer.  That missed shot was to turn out to be a blessing!

After a few puzzled looks and debrief we carried on with our hunt.  It was still early and a light misty rain was falling.  Despite missing an easy stag, the encounter just heightened my excitement for the hunt.

We continued our stalk up the valley following a small creek inland.  This is New Zealand bush hunting with visibility limited at times to only a few metres.  Every sound or movement detected was followed by a pause, look and listen approach.  Trevor would put up the occasional roar followed by another pause and listen.

If Trevor had bagged the stag we would have been back home for lunch.  It was another 2 hours into the hunt before we had our next encounter.  As we had done so many times earlier, Trevor cupped his hands and imitated a red stag roar.  Standing still for a few minutes at last the noise of a red stag roaring reply.  It was some distance off up on a ridge above us and we had to strain our ears to hear but it was definitely a stag.

Trevor put up another roar. Again waiting listening, straining to hear anything that possibly resembled a red stag roaring.  What seemed like a few minutes passed until the stag replied and this time closer.  The red stag was hunting us.  How dare another stag come into my pad.

The next few minutes had the valley silence broken by a volley of red stag roars.  Each response from the stag had him coming closer, and fast.  Eventually Trevor signaled me to go ahead and get into a position to shoot the stag.  By moving some distance from Trevor it meant that the stag was more focused on Trevor as he roared and allowing me to get closer using Trevor as a distraction.

Alone some 20 metres ahead of Trevor I waited as roar and moan was responded and replied to as the stag came in closer.  I could hear the stag now moving in the dense bush above me, knocking of antler on timber and then a flash of brown as his carcass passed by an opening in the vegetation.  And then, there he was.  A large bodied red stag cutting down the ridge directly towards me pausing briefly by a dead ponga tree to take out his aggression and sharpen his antlers on it in a frenzy of thrashing antlers.

Now if you can imagine my first red stag roar hunt, away from my hunting buddy with an aggressive wound up roaring red stag only  15-20 metres away.  Was I nervous?  You bet I was.  Aware that I didn’t have much cover should the red stag decide to charge I moved slightly to cover and a rest to take the shot.  The stag spotted the movement and stood motionless looking directly at me.

I slowly raised my 6.5×55 and placed the cross hairs on the stag s shoulder and squeezed.  Well I thought it was a squeeze, but in hindsight, more like a jerk.  As the sound of my shot broke the silence I watched in despair as the red stag wheeled around and fled, but not with the haste I would have expected.

I defended my poor shooting to Trevor believing that I couldn’t have missed.  Trevor had taught me on previous hunts not to tear off after a shot animal as this can cause  the wounded red stag to run more.  So I  waited staying put and listening.  While waiting patiently I could hear the distinctive noise of red deer walking over loose forest floor leaf and litter.  As I examined where the red stag had stood I was relieved to find blood, not much, but enough to restore this young hunters confidence.

My first New Zealand red stag shot during the roar.

By this time Trevor had joined me and together we started tracking looking for any sign.  My suspicions were confirmed of hearing the red stag move off, as not far away we discovered a small pool of blood where the stag had stood, waiting, listening and then moving on.

What followed was 5 hours of tracking following the red stag’s hoof marks, broken vegetation and droplets of blood.  The red stag was shot but not mortally and if left would survive.  During our stalk we jumped the red stag on two occasions.  On both occasions the red stag was no more than 20 metres away.  The difficulty of hunting red stag in the New Zealand bush.  On one of the occasions the red stag had led us to his harem of red deer hinds.  When we stumbled on him this time the bush just erupted with animals running in all directions.

After spooking the red stag a second time we realized that we were chasing the red stag and that our best option was to rest and hopefully the red stag would bleed out a little and get weaker.  Our plan worked.   After an hour-long snooze we continued for 10 minutes coming onto the red stag sitting down.  The red stag startled by the hunters stag geared to his feet.  I quickly closed the bolt, raised the rifle, cross hairs on shoulder and “squeezed”.  A hit, but still standing.  Reloaded and another to the shoulder, this time causing the red stag to fall to the forest floor.

As I walked up to the trophy lying motionless on the ground I was delighted to count 14 points.  My second New Zealand red stag and a real trophy red stag. Upon examination I discovered that I had severely pulled my first shot missing the animals shoulder and glancing the red stags right hind leg just above the knee joint.  There was a reasonably wound but one that would have healed over time.

Being the young dumb bullet proof hunter I “had to” carry this animal out whole, that is the whole carcass.  After gutting it and removing the head I put the 70+ kilogram stag onto my shoulders.  With the help of Trevor I staggered to my feet, managed a few wobbly steps, lost my balance on some loose sticks and head dived down hill.  It didn’t take much for Trevor to convince me that we take off the hind legs and back straps and head home.  The last two hours were spent walking by torch-light in darkness arriving home at midnight.

Now Te Urewera has a large red deer population but is not known for its’ trophy potential.  My trophy by New Zealand or world standards wouldn’t make any record books.  It’s a “pencil head”.  I european mounted it, placed it above the fire in the lounge, used it to dry washing on and I still have it today.  I’ve shot far bigger New Zealand red stags since, but it’s still a trophy and a great memory of my first “New Zealand Red Stag Roar Hunt”.

Nothing beats hunting red stag in New Zealand during the roar!

We have some of the best Red Stag hunting in the world to offer.  Hunt New Zealand Red Stag on our private ranch of over 25,000 acres located in the Southern Alps on the South Island of New Zealand.

New Zealand Red Stag Hunts starting from as low as $NZ 4,750 (approximately$US3,800 or $AU3,700) – Click here to view our packages page.

New Zealand Red Stag Hunting 2012 – Hunting Package specials still available – click HERE for more information.

Video – View a New Zealand Red Stag roaring on one of our hunters Red Stag hunt – click HERE to watch the YouTube video.

Air New Zealand Specials – Air New Zealand are running more specials on airfares to New Zealand in May and June.  A great time for combining a New Zealand red stag and tahr hunt. – click HERE for more information on these specials.