Thread: off to stewart island

right taking the gromets and the lovly wife to the island for trip no2, went to little glory last year going to big north glory this time. october school holidays. seen 2 last year had a shot at one but killed a tree instead. apart from sitting and waiting what can i do to increase my chances of tipping one of the wee grey beasties over?

Sitting and waiting worked for me. Slept in the sand dunes in my bivvie bag to get a deer that walked the beach daily, just on the crack of dawn. Also check the block over and figure out the major game trails, then work out a strategy to ambush them. Most deer live within 500m of the shoreline. I even ambushed two crossing a stream about 200m behind camp. Missed the first shot, but as they went into super slow sneaky mode instead of gone like the wind Sika, I managed one of them with a second shot out of my single shot.

Spend time at 223nuts cafe if its open. That must surely help

will have a bit of time waiting for the taxi to get to block . wheres his cafe ? shooting one would be awesome but getting the girls to see more kiwi is the mission this time had the eldest within a m of one last time but the toad is quite loud so that will be the challenge .

Take some powder wind indicator with you! Best stuff for stalking those headlands where the breeze is mucking you about.
Tops of the gullies can be productive. But again it all depends on how much pressure the block has had.
Spend the first couple of days finding out where they’re hanging out then stalk that slooooooooowly. Them grey ghosts are very much Creatures of habit and will know where all the trees that drop there fav leaves are. Study’s have found that they will come back around to hover up what’s dropped that day.

Yea, find some broadleaf with sign around and position yourself downwind. Trail cam is useful. Let them come to you.

Went down April this year to Christmas Village block and in nine days hunting I never saw a deer though my son told me we got 'bushed' in the same shitty spot with a hind who passed me at three feet while I was trying to poke a hole through the dense stuff .........
"Why didn't ya say something ?"
"Didn't you hear me going 'Pssst' ?"

We had turns carrying that snider and we 'still hunted'.
The others in our group were 'sitters' - and they're the ones who saw and shot deer.

Funny thing about that trip was they had a 'cat catching team' down there - they caught them in wire cages, tagged them and let them go - we weren't allowed to shoot any. They trapped thirty of them in about three days and will be trialling a bait to knock 'em off.
Back in the sixties and seventies S.I. had some of the biggest cats I ever seen, we'd knock 'em off at the 'scrap heap' where we'd throw the bones etc.
In between then and now (apart from hunters whacking the odd one) cats have enjoyed an uninterrupted 53 years of pleasure scoffing whatever they wanted - or did they have some other cat scheme ?

Think most of the hunters huts have a cat trap. At least the one at Abrahams bay did. Had it set the whole time we were there but no joy.