Thread: New to hunting

Hello, I am a fairly new hunter in the Canterbury region. I have gone a few times to Mount Grey with no luck, I'm not sure what I should be doing or where I should be going. I mostly walk around hoping I spot something. Any advice is greatly appreciated.

Lots of foot traffic up mt grey, like most areas in Canterbury you’ll have more luck the further you get from popular walking tracks

Find sign, overnite camp, lots of glassing and then get in close, once you're close halves the distance, you'll be a great hunter in no time

Originally Posted by Mike2457

Hello, I am a fairly new hunter in the Canterbury region. I have gone a few times to Mount Grey with no luck, I'm not sure what I should be doing or where I should be going. I mostly walk around hoping I spot something. Any advice is greatly appreciated.

Most people who don't have family/friends showing them the way, basically start as above, so don't loose heart if you're not spotting anything, that is more normal than not.

My 2c worth:
Deer are actually quite hard to see, if you haven't seen any, they are much harder to see, you have to get used to knowing what to look for, even today, I can be looking directly at a deer and not be able to see it for short periods as it blends in and out of the cover. It can take time to get one on the deck, even if you have access to a private block with plenty of deer, you still have to play your cards right, hunting into the wind and going very quietly. It takes a lot of calm and patience, and most of the time, you have about a 1-2 second window to take the shot once they see you, if you are hunting anywhere where the shooting is less than 100m, they will usually see you or will have already seen you (or they will know you are there) by the time you see one of them.
If you get out during the spring growth, there will be more out feeding.

Join your local NZDA and you will be slaying them in no time .

Dam u sound just like me back 22 years ago when I started to get into hunting . No one wanted to know me or show me how let alone take me out, so used to hunt there most weekends with never no luck not having a clue what to do. Then u pick it up and learn fast when u kbow an area. Pigs pigs pigs used to flood in back in the day wasn't too many deer there back then but better numbers now. If I was you I would now go on doc websites and look at all new country stuff with open ares and you will have way more success. That mt grey to this day is still hard to hunt. Its poached during the week, poached during the weekend, hunted ovr the weekend via clubs and foresty workers, then on top all the trappers. So much traffic there ive not been there in over 10 years for a hunt so many more better and easy places to go... good luck

Yes, that was my story too a few years ago. It was about 4 trips before I started spotting deer, and another couple before I bagged my first. Now it's unusual to come home empty-handed.

Is there sign where you are going? If not, change things up - elevation, orientation of faces, etc. If there is sign and it's not too old, they're there - you just have to spot them. In that case spend less time moving and more time glassing. Chances are you're pushing them out by crashing around aimlessly.

Going back to the same area again & again may seem like a lost cause but you're building up familiarity with the terrain and raising the odds for every subsequent trip.

Find a good looking point where you have a lot of view of likely deer habitat, sit down about two hours before dark and keep glassing with binos until dark. If you don’t see anything that night try another spot the next night.
In the mornings get to your vantage spot before light, have a good look for 10min and the. Move to the next spot, 10min glassing then move.

I'm also quite new to the hunting game and I can tell you that experience matters a lot. The only way to gain that experience is by getting out there and learning the hard way. You'll have a massive advantage if you can find someone to teach you, NZDA would be a good start.

My biggest learning curve right now is to learn deer behaviors in the winter weather. I found things fairly straightforward in spring/summer and during the roar, but since getting into the knitty gritty winter weather I'm starting to blank. Conditions change quickly and making decisions on where the deer are likely to be has been my biggest shortcomings recently.

Good luck!

All really great advice there. Keep exploring.

As Stug said let your eyes do the walking from a good vantage point. Deer see movement way faster than we do, so getting to a good spot and staying still is key to picking them up.

I'm a fairly new hunter too, started getting into it properly last year. It took me a good 6 months to get my first deer... then I got 6 within 4 months!

In saying that though, I found that goats were the best way to start. They're out during the day, they're noisey and they often have patches of white hair making them easier to see. The only problem is, that there aren't any (that I know of) close to Christchurch. So one option for you is to head further afield for a few days and target goats. For example, head over to the West Coast when there's a good weather window and spend a few days in the bush targeting them. I've found that goat meat is pretty damn good, especially nannys and younger billys. They make great curries and mince up well too.

Also shooting a few goats can help build confidence that you're able to take a good clean shot on a deer. 100% the worst thing is after all that effort to finally get in range of deer and then miss... or worse wound it and have it run off. That's no fun!

Keep at it and good luck.

Learning to see deer is a skill that is really underrated and not understood well by some. When they are moving in the open it’s pretty simple, the trick is spotting them in some cover when they have their heads down feeding, or sitting down. Once you are able to do that things get way easier. When glassing a face cut it up into areas, and methodically cover each part so you search the whole area, not just the open easy bits. Deer avoid open exposed pieces of ground, remember they don’t want to die so they are not going to make it easy for you. And probably most important, don’t look at the scrubby bits, look between the bushes. Sounds really simple and it is, but it takes practice. Take it from someone who is red/green color deficient.

Hunt really early morning and late evening, to do this you really have to camp overnight to get the best chance of seeing something. Be very aware of the wind, deer smell you on the wind easily so always try and travel upwind so they cant smell you. Be very careful creeping over ridges etc, the amount of deer I have spooked being careless when travelling over a ridge! Be careful and very quiet when coming around a corner or something. Scan around with the naked eye for a while before getting the binos out and having a good close look around at likely areas. Ive seen guys get the binos out straight away while there is a deer trotting past in the foreground that they would have seen if they had looked first. Lewis pass area is infested with deer. This time of year is a bit harder to hunt as deer dont move around so much. Might be ok if you have experience with winter hunting but I find its much easier to bump into deer spring, summer, autumn. The first deer is always the hardest and it takes most a lot of frustrating trips before getting on to something unless you have someone experienced showing you how to do it. Once you get that first one, the pressure is off and there seems to be deer everywhere after that. There is a very detailed book called Red Deer in New Zealand by Lentle and Saxon that I found quite helpful. Look for hoof prints and poos for evidence that deer have been through. If you see no sign at all it might not be a very frequented area.