Don't know how the roar has gone for anyone in this part of the world, my son spotted this one on the deck of a ute in a supermarket car park in our city yesterday.

Looks to be a 16 pointer, red stag of course from around our neck of the woods, not a bad trophy from a wild deer these days.

I'm away from home at the moment looking after my 7yo granddaughter on my sons little block in mid-Canterbury, few sheep, cows and chickens to care for too, all while mum and dad are up in Auckland with 9yo grandson who has just had successful open heart surgery to correct a problem he has had since birth.

Red stags and wapiti bulls roaring and bugling all round on neighbouring farms.

Fine rack

Best wishes for the boy.

George

I think I'm giong to miss ours. To much coming up with work.

Not completely roar related, but have just got back from 10 days chasing white tail on Stewart island. 5 of us saw 30 and shot 7, plus one red stag.

I seldom hunt the "Roar" nowadays. Prefer to be out and about when the hills are a bit quieter. Gost a post-roar trip coming up in early May, timed with leave taken by my son. We are going to helicopter into a block with a couple of old friends. Mainly hunting meat to top up the freezer but always looking for decent stags that survived the roar pressure. Will be the first time in several year I've been transported by helicopter too. Looking forward to this trip.
Sounds like you had a great trip Shanks. Well done. That Whitetail venison is actually pretty good stuff.

quote:

Originally posted by shankspony:
Not completely roar related, but have just got back from 10 days chasing white tail on Stewart island. 5 of us saw 30 and shot 7, plus one red stag.

Pictures or it didn't happen

Yep, will get it done. Am having internet issues at moment. wont let me upload photos for some reason.

Best of luck with the surgery. I have a friend who's son had a similar operation when the boy was 10 years old. It was successful and the lad is now a strapping 28 year old.
Nice stag! We are still 5 months away from the elk rut but I am counting off the days.

Went into Poronui Station for a hunt during the roar. I used to scrabble around it's boundaries in dense bush 40 years ago occasionally dropping a slow Sika. Never had to pay to use a guide in NZ before but if you want to hunt the original place where Sika were introduced to NZ you pay up and smile and look happy! I haven't ever taken many Sika, the last one was stag that turned up on our place in England ten years ago, and I had never taken an 8 point typical stag.
9 of us middle-aged to geriatric blokes went in for 4 days last week. 5 star accommodation and my guide (3 of us shared one guide) was a delightful 26 year old young lady named Kate. Never had a female guide or PH before but she proved to be competent, tough and effective besides being more decorative than the average African PH. Also quite immune to gross sexist remarks!
First evening we just drove around in convoy behind the head guide to learn about the place. Sika roaring everywhere, even in the open. They also have a high fenced "game park" of 4,000 acres where Red deer, Fallow, and Rusa have been released. The Red stags and Fallow bucks were hard at it and the quality was typical of farmed deer. Some of the Red stags had ridiculous sized antlers. I walked up to one and photographed him from 30m and he never got to his feet. If you shook a bucket of maize at him I think he would come and eat out of your hand. Not that one would try that during the rut!
The Sika stags were a different proposition and most headed for cover as soon as they saw a vehicle.
The next morning the rain was persistent but I followed Kate on a long walk up a valley where Eucalypt plantations had been cleared. I was having great difficulty in seeing anything through my dripping glasses and my binos and scope became soaked within seconds every time you tried to use them. Kate rejected several roaring stags that I would have been thrilled to get in the adjoining public land and eventually we found an older 8 point stag she approved of. I couldn't find him through my water-covered scope so we had to stalk up to 160m before I could make out a black smudge. The 7mm Rem mag flattened him conveniently close to a logging track. He was unusual for a Sika with turned in tops and he had broken off one trey tine and a bit off one the tops.
Over the next few days everyone took a nice 8 point sika stag and some guys went onto the "park" and took big Fallow bucks. I shot the first stag so everyone after that wanted a bigger one than mine and most of them were. The weather cleared and it was much easier to evaluate and pick and choose. I also took a 6 point "management" stag after an easy short stalk.
Poronui is an easy place to hunt Sika with relatively open country.
On one hillside I saw more Sika than I have seen in my life. An ideal place for the over seventies who no longer fancy carrying even a little Sika out of the bush!

quote:

I walked up to one and photographed him from 30m and he never got to his feet. If you shook a bucket of maize at him I think he would come and eat out of your hand.

Pleasing to read that you didnt sugar coat your stag unlike so many reports on here of hunting stags in NZ.