Just got back from my best friend's opening of his new mount room. His mounts from his last New Zeland hunt were just back, gold medal red stag & thar as well as a mid 300" Elk. The elk had a "crown" of 4 points at the end of each antler not a whale tail like our mountain elk. Was this elk a cross breed or a different type than we have in New Mexico?

More than likely it is a red stag X wapiti hybrid so often sold to visitors as "untypicals"

Gidday Tom,

I reckon its a case of what Gryphon said is right on the button, a red /wap cross.

There is a general feeling here that there are no purebred elk left here in the wild as the cross with reds almost in preference to their own.

While it may not be pure they sure do make a pretty trophy don't they.

Happy Hunting

Hamish

and generally speaking NZ elk, called wapiti over here. are smaller than the elk from the northern hemisphere. more than likely due to the cross breeding.

Is 360" a good size bull, it would be great here but a 6x6 is the norm here rather than a 12x12 that Bill got. The head is lovely, I'm just thinking about going down to NZ & courious.. thanks

it wont be a wild bull from fiordland

it will be a specially farm breed bull for someone to buy and shoot behind the wire

a lot of these set up will have some big farm breed waps, reds, fallow, sika, sambar etc...

just depends on how much money you want to spend to buy one as to how big it will be

madness I wouldnt count out what you said, but i think its very possible that a wild bull from fiordland can get pretty big on good tucker and be around 7 years of age. just look at the size of the one that guy got last year and greg duley thought it was only 4 years old. it was in the rod n rifle i think.

i would have thought if it had a "cupped" 4 at the top it would have been a 7X7?

I miscounted it's a 9x9, It along with the Red Stag were killed on an island off the main land..He was told the property had not been hunted in 5 years..I have no idea what it cost.

Island off the main land that has not been hunted for 5 years he means Australia,nice place very odd people

quote:

Originally posted by tom ga hunter:
I miscounted it's a 9x9, It along with the Red Stag were killed on an island off the main land..He was told the property had not been hunted in 5 years..I have no idea what it cost.

sorry bro but what your saying just doesn't add up

Gidday Madness,

There are a number of hunting outfits that are run on off shore islands D'urville being one that springs to mind and yes the animals are all wild but they have had farm stock added to the gene pool to improve the trophies.

They are true wild animals though who have never been handled by the farmer. Its kind of like me, although I do have civilised ancestors does not mean I am civilised. I just carry their superior genes.

Because the person running this has invested a lot of money he is therefore entitled to charge more for his superior product. It doesn't mean that those who take advantage of this hunting are any less a hunter than those who hunt the public domain or vice versa. The barren hind that you take can be just as hard won and enjoyable in the memory as an 18 pointer.

Cherish the hunts you do have and allow others to do so as well. We are all brother hunters together.

Happy Hunting

Hamish

I think here behind wire the Elk/Red crosses are called "super reds"

the island off the main island? hes probably talking about the south island at a guess. since most of the population is in the north island i guess some would call it the main island.

dont know if many of the smaller islands surrounding us have deer on them?

hamish, sometimes that barren hind is the lead hind and has several tricks up her sleeve, she is usually extra cunning, and that of course is why she is the lead hind. but in saying that the lead hind should be getting the best feed so has no excuse not to get in-fawn, therefore must be culled for bad performance.



it doesnt matter if the deer are on private property or public land. ive been to places where getting a deer on private land has been harder than the public, due to all the extra hunting they were getting. if the deer have never had human contact they are normally easily to come across, but if people are always in there chasing them around thye soon figure it out that we are nothing but trouble. just because they have had superiour genetics for antler growth put over them, doesnt make them easier to hunt

The best thing here is to get a photo of the animal.Very likely is a Red/Wap cross.There are plenty of pure Waps on the game estates.
The odds of it being a Foirdland wild wap are very slim.
Like to see a photo as it sounds like a very nice trophy.