Thread: Leatham River

Hi all. I'm heading up the Leatham River this weekend for the first time and looking for deer, and chamois if we have time. Can anyone give me any info on the place? We are hoping to stay at Caves Hut. I see there is a 4WD track up there but what is the track like? Does this area get a lot of hunting pressure? Any advice would be great. Cheers

Any where you can drive to hut gets alot of pressure. And spotlighters.

Saying that it's big area and still red skins and Chams up there

Heaps of hunting pressure, like tui man2 said still the odd animal around as big area. Put the effort in and get of the beaten track you see something

Thanks guys. Are there any major river crossings on the way to caves hut?

Can you PM me how you get on? I am coming down south to head in there for a week next month and I would be curious about numbers.
cheers.

Yeah mate. I'll let you know. Hopefully good for the both of us

Spotlighters a big problem up there and due to the tracks plenty of hunting pressure. However if you are prepare to put in the hard yards of the tracks, stuff for the freezer to be had. Be aware though DOC recently had a heli goat cull. Regardless of success, enjoy, its a beautiful part of the world, especially this time of year if yo climb high enough

Thanks Muzz. Heading in there tomorrow and thinking that a climb is the best thing to do as well. Cheers for the heads up on the goat cull. Will let you know how we get on! cheers

Originally Posted by muzz333

Spotlighters a big problem up there and due to the tracks plenty of hunting pressure. However if you are prepare to put in the hard yards of the tracks, stuff for the freezer to be had. Be aware though DOC recently had a heli goat cull. Regardless of success, enjoy, its a beautiful part of the world, especially this time of year if yo climb high enough

I was in there the day they did an aerial cull (mid January this year, I don't know if they've done one since) and flew with Willy Sage the next morning, they got 61 goats & left all chamois seen - which were plentiful. I saw a mob of 15+ goats the next day in an open tussock basin at about 1600m.

It's steep in places with lots of scree and shitty shitty contorta everywhere. I never saw any deer or chamois for no lack of looking

wow that place looks great, ill have to put it on the list.

Is this leathams in Southland along spitzers rd?

Originally Posted by kidmac42

Is this leathams in Southland along spitzers rd?

Off the Wairau Valley, Marlborough.

Oh right. I'll shut up now

Whats that in your Bottom photo @gimp? Is it a fancy track marker? i have never seen one like that before.

Its one of my favourite places. One trip on one day we got a Pig, a deer and a chamois. So we had roast pork over the fire, back steaks in the pan and a chamois stew bubbling away in the embers! Great memories.

Originally Posted by Kudu

Whats that in your Bottom photo @gimp? Is it a fancy track marker? i have never seen one like that before.

Its one of my favourite places. One trip on one day we got a Pig, a deer and a chamois. So we had roast pork over the fire, back steaks in the pan and a chamois stew bubbling away in the embers! Great memories.

It's a waxtag. Possum monitoring device, has a visual lure (glowtag), they chew the wax portion leaving identifiable bite marks to index densities of misc pest species