Thread: Good Books?

I have seen a few posts on here lately by newbies (of which I am one) looking for information on hunting. People often recommend starting out by reading a good book to start out. This begs the question, what are these good books?

To get the ball rolling I recently purchased the following:

Red Deer in New Zealand: A Complete Hunting Manual by Roger Lentle and Frank Saxton; and
Stalking the Seasons Round by the same two guys.

These seem to be the most commonly recommended, but it would be great to hear of any others.

2 dogs and a rifle - Real life NZ during/after the war when wild pigs had the run of the backblocks, killed lambs and wrecked havoc

The Best of Philip Holden is my latest.

$10 from Paper Plus.

American hunting rifles
Shots at big game.
Both by Craig Boddington. Very practicle advise about rifles and field shooting. Still relevant to NZ.

I found the above books good. The Bruce D. Banwell series on Individual species in NZ are supposed to be great too, I am yet to read these.

Hunting smarter by Hans Williems @Fluff has my copy at the mo find it to be a very in depth book worthy of its place on any hunters book shelf

Does anyone know of any good books dedicated to scopes? I have recently purchased a Millett 4-14x50 scope with a mildot reticle and .1 MRAD clicks. I know that it is a base-ten system, but have no real idea how it works properly. It would be good to read up on it before I receive it.

Originally Posted by moonhunt

2 dogs and a rifle - Real life NZ during/after the war when wild pigs had the run of the backblocks, killed lambs and wrecked havoc

Awesome!! I bloody love that book i read it about 3 times when i was about 16-17 and still have it. Its the reason i started hunting. Funnily enough i have never been pig hunting?


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Originally Posted by I_shoot_freely

Does anyone know of any good books dedicated to scopes? I have recently purchased a Millett 4-14x50 scope with a mildot reticle and .1 MRAD clicks. I know that it is a base-ten system, but have no real idea how it works properly. It would be good to read up on it before I receive it.

Google it


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Originally Posted by username

Awesome!! I bloody love that book i read it about 3 times when i was about 16-17 and still have it. Its the reason i started hunting. Funnily enough i have never been pig hunting?


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At school we had a whanau class and also compulsory reading after lunch
In whanau I listened to storys of a friend who was put up trees most weekends by large boars
In compulsory reading we were lucky to have the library for our room, I read that book for 2 years cover to cover and dreamed of going hunting, it was always back in the same place everyday, although I made sure no one would find it

It really is a book to recommend to anyone that likes a hunting related read

Im gunna go find it and read it again, he had some great stories. After that book i read a barry crump book and tried to get into a Philip holden book but they were rubbish comparatively and i have only read 1 other book cover to cover since, Bravo Two Zero (not hunting)


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I found Sika Hunter by Neil Philpot helpful.

If you have a rainy day then get your hands on a copy of Hunting for Trouble or Call of the Moose both excellent reads (although not a lot of help)

I’m building a collection of hunting books and just picked up a good copy of Two dogs and a rifle and Call of the Wapiti so looking forward to getting into them when I get back.

Originally Posted by moonhunt

2 dogs and a rifle - Real life NZ during/after the war when wild pigs had the run of the backblocks, killed lambs and wrecked havoc

Any idea where I could find a copy of this?

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Originally Posted by LifeLust

Any idea where I could find a copy of this?

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They pop up on trade me from time to time or try second hand book stores. However a lot of older titles are becoming a bit of a collector’s item now.

I was lucky to get a copy from a guy downsizing his collection.

Keep an eye on trade me, 1st ed forget , they are getting 50 odd bucks , 2nd ed 10-15 bucks