Last weekend saw young American visitor Richard C. , aka Cutman , tag along for his first NZ goat hunt . It was a fairly big cull operation in steep Taranaki hill country , off farm tracks using quads for transport .

We had a bunch of 8 keen hunters , lots of ammo and a whole house to use as a base - talk about roughing it , we even had a dishwasher....


Here is a bunch of us about to depart from base into the fog - first morning was a bit slow due to the fog cover - it lifted fairly soon but still slowe the morning a little. Cutman is on the front right looking like a trained killer with his borrowed 223


Heres Richard with a couple of his first victims - large bodies billies with small horns - typical of this country . Nothing much over about 16 inch horns - just dont have big heads here .

Sneaking up on mobs of thirty goats in this steep open farmland is pretty tough - specially when they have been hunted before.


Heres the guys stopping to have a break , and scan the hillside for more targets. This is tough country , definately not for flatlanders with limited atv experience. Falling off a ridgetop on your quad is not recommended....


A few of the lads , including Richard , went possum shooting at night - spotlighting off the quads .Yet another new species for the visitor to harvest. Got about 100 possums for the two nights , big bodied critturs , some weighed better than 5 kgs ( 12 pounds for non-metric folk ) and had pretty good skins . And there didnt seem to be a shortage of them...

No doubt we will be back to have another clean up , goats are a major pest in farmland , they eat a lot of grass and spread intestinal worms to the sheep , costing lots of money for the farmer . Did I mention the fallow deer reputed to live here too .....Also omitted that we killed nearly 300 goats in a day and a half too......

300 my best is 170 in a weekend.Did you pluck the tree bears?? 75 dollars a KG for the fur.

I went hunting on that same property but years ago. As soon as I saw the pic's I recognised the place straight away.

That weekend was truely awesome. One of the guys brought his 300 Win Mag, that I used for a 700 yard shot. Someone else had a .375 H&H on the trip. Interesting to see those big calibres in action.

Great to see one of our American shooting brothers enjoying himself.

Michael.

First of all, thanks to Muzza for being a great host. He provided everything I needed (guns, ammo, food, etc), and I owe him (and his friends) big time. More importantly, he allowed me to escape from city life for a weekend and enjoy a great weekend outdoors.

Secondly, the hunt was amazing. Goats and possums everywhere. It would take me about 5 years in the U.S. to fire as many rounds as I did last weekend.

You guys are lucky to live in such a beautiful country.

Doesnt drink , doesnt smoke , we know he isnt gay cos of his comments about kiwi girls having well developed pectoral muscles , but man can he shoot . Doesnt say a lot either , but he is good company and killed most everything he aimed at - although we did have to have a wee talk about firearms safety in a group situation early on in the day , but then he hasnt hunted in a group like this before .

Pleasure to have you along , and no doubt we will see more of you Richard , theres fallow deer to hunt yet as well .

I'm not usually quiet, I just couldn't understand what the hell you guys were saying half the time! I've been here for about 7 months now and still don't have a complete handle on the kiwi accent...what can I say, we South Carolinians are thick headed.

And I take firearm/hunting safety very seriously. Being safe is more important to me than getting an animal...always has been, always will be.

What load where you using in 223 to drop the goats? Thanks!

No offence there Richard.Safety is the first consideration for all of us , we just needed to ensure our safe was the same as your safe , which it was .

We are using commercial budget ammo loaded with 55 grain Hornady softpoints - work just fine for most situations. The lonh range - over 250 metre- shots are not as reliable but in a cull situation you take the shots as they present, and we had guys with larger calibres there for those long range targets too.

quote:

No offence there Richard.Safety is the first consideration for all of us , we just needed to ensure our safe was the same as your safe , which it was .

No offense taken (obviously ). I just didn't want these guys thinking I was some reckless Yank.

Top Predator took me goat culling last year when I was working there in New Zealand. As much as I enjoy Dorkland it was great to get out of the city and get muddy.

just a bit of mud only got the 4 wheeler stuck a few times.

Thanks for the ammo info muzza, I recently acquired a Handi-Rifle in .223 for the express purpose of popping goats. I used to own a Mini-14 and loaded 70 grain softpoints which worked fine on boar at close range but not sure how they would group from a 1 in 12 twist barrel. I was thinking a compromise in 62 to 64 grains. I'll post pics as soon as I meet success with this new rifle. My 30-06 just seems like too much gun, and my 357 has been sucessful but the range is limited. I love hearing how others hunt their goats, thanks again for great report.

No worries man. you might want to give your handi-Rifle chamber a polish - 223's are notorious for bad extraction due to rough finish in the chamber . A Trigger job might not go amiss either if its a bad as mine....

I bowled a couple of goats with my handi in 219 Donaldson Wasp - 40 grain projectiles. It needs some serious range time to sort out best loads and get sighted in properly but it was near enough for a couple of moderate range targets .

Good luck