Thread: peacock hunting

Originally Posted by Jhon

Yeah, its the crickets I think that foul the flesh. Months with R in them equate pretty much with cricket season. Maybe other insects tho as well.

Not quite right. Those are the months when there are stuff all crickets as hopefully the rain has drowned them all. The whole point of havesting them in May, June, July is that it's after the crickets have gone but before the breeding season.
ie if it is a very dry year with a long indian summer it might be best to wait until June to grab a turkey or peafowl.

They can also live to be 20 + so can be an old chewy bird if you manage to get the big one with the long talons.

Only thing harder to hunt with a shotgun are those Guinea fowl up North around Ruawai.

Originally Posted by Got-ya

Only thing harder to hunt with a shotgun are those Guinea fowl up North around Ruawai.

haha I have those too
they looks like idiots that I could catch with my hands how could they be hard to shoot?
the hard part is stalking something else past them and trying to keep out of their sight

If you want to know how old the male peacocks are just base it on the tail, the stumpy little ones are babies and the awesome fan ones are the old boys
they get more tail the older the get
hens are a little harder to judge but if you stick with the teen age as in not fully grown ones you will have the best eating

the nabour has loads of kids and likes to cut the breast meat into nuggets and use "coat and cook" on them
quick fry in the pan and they disappear like chicken nuggets only healthier

If you can get them to flush there good sport! Both the peas and the G fowl!

I used to get a lot more tail as I got older too, but then that stopped as i became decrepit.

Yeah Mate of my old man had a small dairy farm on the flats up there with a run-of up in the hills. Spent a fair amount of time chasing both up there. Those G-fowl are a real challenge and very under rated as a sport bird IMO.

Originally Posted by Got-ya

Yeah Mate of my old man had a small dairy farm on the flats up there with a run-of up in the hills. Spent a fair amount of time chasing both up there. Those G-fowl are a real challenge and very under rated as a sport bird IMO.

I have between one and two dozen here
they have never come across as smart
worst mothers ever, lay eggs in terrible spots and if they sit on them its a miracle

mine would be deemed as feral as they were released here like a pheasant but honestly Id say my dog would be able to catch them they are so stupid
iv had to call her off many times and shes a decrepit old springer spaniel
they often sit and squark when disturbed and run only short distances. before she went deaf the g-foul squark was like sirens calling her like sailors to the rocks

peacocks are pretty impressive with their lookout ability and the communication between them once one spots you

The previous owner of the property I am on had a couple of peacocks and during an easterly blow they ended up down on the flat land below us, that was over 30 years ago and I have been led to believe there is quite a mob of them now, me being deaf I cant hear them but others attest to them being around. In all those years they have not ventured far from where they started out from but it has only been in the last couple of years that I have actually seen them back on what was their home ground. The occasional shot I have heard from the neighbors direction could well be peacock harvesting.

Never harvested them, but shot plenty out of tall native trees, they are big birds and make a hell of a thud when they hit ground.
Sometimes you don’t need to even spot them in trees, you hear them shitting and it sounds like apples hitting the ground..aim up but stand back..

Originally Posted by Survy

Never harvested them, but shot plenty out of tall native trees, they are big birds and make a hell of a thud when they hit ground.
Sometimes you don’t need to even spot them in trees, you hear them shitting and it sounds like apples hitting the ground..aim up but stand back..

Wow,

I've learned so much about these animals.

When we see them we tend to like them as they are only there on display. One property I visited regularly as a kid had one Peacock. I'm not sure if it was maybe there to keep an eye out for snakes.

Peacock Nuggets, Peacock �� Salamis, wow.

And all this talk of Peacock shit.

I tried an Alpaca Salami but even then that's only because a hobbyist had excess so went through the right channels to produce and retail some.

I reckon the old Bunji would be the expert we need here, he’s probably got a private spot and shoots them from a chopper on sundays?
I’ve seen pictures of Peacocks being herded/ driven into fishing nets, there were 100s of them, many years ago, down Kawerau way.

I have tried the odd day time stalk on them with no success, they keep a bird on watch that will call out to keep the rest of the flock in the next valley over so each time you come up a ridge they will already be over the next one. At night is a different story, they roost hard and will not leave, eyes will return torch light, or use a thermal.

I've hunted peafowl in pine blocks and they are a hell of a lot of fun, especially if you already have your bag limit of pheasant! The dog used to go crazy for them, always putting them up instead of pheasant. But on a quiet day for pheasant, I could just about always come home with some meat.

I've only ever breasted them out, and used the breast exactly like chicken. one of my favorites is Schnitzel with cranberry sauce.

Peacocks……..

As you already know I do like hunting a wily old peacock... The ones here are intelligent and very wary birds, extremely cautious and far more inclined to bolt for cover at distant human movement than any of the other bigger birds we have here - turkeys, pheasants, etc. The mob in the valley here is now much diminished due to my efforts, but I do admit to a bit of a sneaky population management in that I am very reluctant to get rid of the whole lot because they do provide exceptional sport in early summer. Trying to get close enough for a rimfire shot is a genuine hunting challenge with these birds.

Last season there was a big cock bird that needed to go whilst he still had his train, after several failed attempts to get him from close up I had to resort to the .223 Rem.

@Bill999 I think the intelligence of a particular flock comes from years of wild experience versus introduced birds that come from domesticated stock. The ones we have here are seriously onto it, cunning as fuck. When we moved here something I was unaware of was how a hen can pass down trade secrets and educate a flock, specifically I’m thinking of how they learn to scratch open haylage bales in search of grubs. This was almost certainly an evolved, learned behaviour from farmers leaving old open bales in the back paddocks and the birds realising that they were a rich source of food; at some point they made the leap between foraging around in open bales, to opening sealed bales. That is not good. So anyway they are public enemy number one here as they have caused quite a lot of damage in the past.