Thread: Draft of a "New Zealand new hunters/visitors Guide" for consideration

Rivers pose a massive risk to hunters and especially visiting foreign hunters.

I've guided a fair few foreign hunters and most comment that we are a safe place because there are no poisonous snakes and spiders !
My reply is always " we have rivers which are always waiting to kill you "

Our rivers can rise at a truly alarming rate.
It doesn't even have to be raining where you are.
You can get caught on the opposite side of what was a small creek 2 hours before.
Your gear or camp is in view but you can't safely reach it.

This is when poor decisions kill or injure people.

Most of us kiwis have a scary story about river crossings.

I have two recent ones. @canross and I were hunting on the Westcoast and had packrafted across the big river where we were camped for an evening hunt.
It was warm and fine and the river was clear and easily paddled across.
We were successful and had a boned out red deer shared between us in out day packs.
We got back to the packrafts in the dark.
I loaded up and pushed off fairly quickly because I'm more ysed to the rafts.
Just with headlight beam I suddenly realized there was white water, a big pressure wave and the river had risen massively.
I yelled back for canross to wait for me to come back over.
I got my load and rifle to the camp and went back to carry the other bag of meat.
I put a stick on the rivers edge that night and it dropped 1m overnight.
It hadn't rained at all where we were but that morning it had rained 20km inland and we were caught out by that surge of water.
Safe in the end but quite sobering.

Another recent event.
Last winter I did some solo day hunts up the Rangitata just to see where it was worth doing some longer trips.
One day hunt I was wet to the thigh as soon as I left the truck.
After 20 river crossings, a decent walk, seeing plenty of tahr I turned back at 2pm.
As soon as the sun left the slope I was on everything froze.
But I was happy despite being damp.
After 8 solid hours walking I had lost the spring in my step, I would swear the river fordings were a little deeper from snow melt, the water felt colder.
I guess I was just tired, cold and keen to get out to the truck and change my Cloths.
Anyway I slipped mid stream on one crossing and fell in up to my armpits and still 2 hours from the truck just on dark.
Something that was easy in the morning was challenging when tired in the evening.
It was another good lesson.

I could write a book with similar lessons I have learned the hard way.
We mostly get away with it but don't underestimate our rivers.
They do bite and sting.