Thread: the OFF TOPIC to Stags shot 21 (discussion of wild animal management)

Originally Posted by Chur Bay

Correct. It's harder to be selective when you are bush hunting as you don't have that luxury of time. For a lot of NI hunters it's mostly bush hunting.

Completely understand. Grew up in Rotorua and learnt to hunt up in the Kaimais and Paeroa range.

I get it but in the roar its definitely alot easier to be selective even in the roar as we hunt bush here too this time of year and usually your relatively close and even a few seconds gives you a pretty good indication of mass. No ones expected to get it right shit I've made bad calls in the tops with way more time and expensive glass. I think this is the most important time to be trying to assess age as your way less likely to mistake one of the heap of other hunters if your looking closer than just it's a stag.
And yeah meat it meat mate and 40kgs of it is no joke when you see what it costs at the supermarket. n

I'm not condemning any meat hunting but there's a difference between a stag or two for meat and guys trying to hit Tallys of like 50 stags in one roar. Or shooting multiple young stags in a trip where they can't utilise the meat anyway

The assessment can be done in the bush and in close. when guiding moose in BC and assessing bulls were atleast 48 inchs wide or have 3 points on the brow etc could be down most of the time even in heavy cover. And the guys that elk hunt count points fine in the bugle.

Hunting and guiding in North America opened my eyes up a bit to what's just considered the norm. While their system wouldnt work here some parts could do and do in places like Fiordland. When you can only pick one animal you become far more selective and their compulsory utilisation is nice although not practical here if we want to control numbers. A kill there usually looks like this when your done.

Originally Posted by chindit

Someone should put up the youtube link from the Sika Foundation game management our why. Too stupid to do it myself, but all hunters should watch it and think about it.

i did make a thread about it an ask why it only had 60 or so little views.. perhaps it was 700, but it needed to be seen by every hunter in nz and aus for that matter

Good call RE the bush hunting, it can be argued too because some guys are calm as an seen plenty up close, others, it is a complete buzz, everythin goes out the windows when ya see those gold sticks move thru the opening of the leaves or bushes etc......... i think we do need to encourage a bit more Camera work or just watch an drum some basic fundamentals in to the younger crew like "two x the head length or antlers" sorta thing (aussie sambar say) Reds in kiwi as mentioned, lots get passed off as scrubbers, with its 2nd head lol, sit that 2nd head next to a 7th head and you can tell the difference in the dark.........

yes its exciting as fuck but the Deer will do that Same shit next year, an hopefully 5 more years, film an boast about it on social media, so easy to do now days the "proof of the pudding/Photo" is now long gone, Trophy photos are skewed these days that 25 inch reds look like 45 inchers from Otago.. 24 inch sambar, 33 inchers, etc.........but hung up in the shed no pride cos only 24, not 30..etc. because its younger. etc.


Touching on the American thing with the meat, i just talked about that shit before to some Canadians , in which i explained a situation i put myself in recently and how different it is to the Canadian culture etc and explained that its stemmed from an also poor culture in Australia!

anywwhooo..... bloody rip snorter Convo! nice to see some cool headed open minded fellas chipping in... discuss dont get distrort.

A comment some where about "look at the wapiti" and how that's been managed. The deer side of things is been managed well with culling of hinds and poor genetic stags.
The people side of things is shit if you ask me. There needs tighter rules put in place around foreign hunters on public land ballot blocks in NZ and in fact all public land.
that's why we started game parks in NZ for was for foreign hunters??

Originally Posted by chindit

Someone should put up the youtube link from the Sika Foundation game management our why. Too stupid to do it myself, but all hunters should watch it and think about it.

Yea that's epic il try dig it out

Originally Posted by Kelton

Yea that's epic il try dig it out

https://sikafoundation.co.nz/hind-sight/

I for one , and have also drilled into the kids , shoot only what I can recover.... regardless of the target species , from goats to deer. In fact the only thing we shoot without abiding that rule is possums , but even then we still take the meat whenever possible for the dog . Same with rabbits , always take the meat .
I don't believe in knocking over all and sundry just because I can , including goats .
All my hunting is on foot so , unless it's goats which I can generally manage two animals worth of meat , it's one animal only .
There was a private block we used to hunt goat and fallow that changed hands and we were still allowed to hunt during the changeover . The new owner wanted to plant trees so instigated a goat cull .
I went in after with my family and the carnage was truly heartbreaking . Rotting carcasses all over the hill , hundreds of them .
Both the kids and Mrs FTX wept at the sight .
I understand why it was done but I couldn't do that job .
All that life wasted and so much meat left to rot on the hill . Call me a pussy but that goes against everything I believe in . I was also pleased my kids had that reaction as it showed that they have taken to heart all I have tried to instill in them about respecting life and compassion and why I hunt by my rules .

This three year old was never going to make a trophy. Looking at the lower head - short tines, tines missing and poorer head than the rest of his peer group. I always look at the lower tines and framing of the head to judge a young stag, tops come with age. Was very heavy though and photos dont do the weight justice

I have not been able to find any good information on year-on-year antler development of an individual stag. Is anyone aware of any resources that show this? It might be interesting.

Kill all goats to improve deer habitat.


Shoot hinds if there are more than minimal numbers of deer.


Shoot old stags.


Take as much meat as possible but sometimes shoot to waste is necessary for management in NZ or when hunting difficult access back country walk in.

Originally Posted by bigbear

A comment some where about "look at the wapiti" and how that's been managed. The deer side of things is been managed well with culling of hinds and poor genetic stags.
The people side of things is shit if you ask me. There needs tighter rules put in place around foreign hunters on public land ballot blocks in NZ and in fact all public land.
that's why we started game parks in NZ for was for foreign hunters??

Definitely won't find an argument from me. It's happens in the states with non resident hunters. Montana for example make non residents pay 10x the amount to hunt the same things. They often also have quotas ie only a maximum of 10% of the tags got to non residents. This helps as it reduces non resident interest because of price but not by 10x the amount so you actually end up with fewer hunters funding more of the model. The issue is they need it to be open to a larger pool to fund management otherwise we as kiwis will have to pay more to apply to cover costs. Also the people going to fiordland are not the same foreigners going to game parks (which where not made to keep foreigners of public land the resulted as a byproduct of it not being possible to guarantee trophies of historic quality guiding public land and the velvet farming markets. I understand the sentiment as I get a bit pissed every year when I miss the ballots but all these aussies get in.

The thing with Wapiti is they are a small isolated population and realistically it has to be limited as people can't be trusted to do the right thing as shown by general areas with minimal mature males and over population issues. If it was open and eveyone could go in it would quickly degrade to the same as everywhere else. I don't think it's a good model for everywhere but could it cover a few key herds definitely.

Originally Posted by Ftx325

I for one , and have also drilled into the kids , shoot only what I can recover.... regardless of the target species , from goats to deer. In fact the only thing we shoot without abiding that rule is possums , but even then we still take the meat whenever possible for the dog . Same with rabbits , always take the meat .
I don't believe in knocking over all and sundry just because I can , including goats .
All my hunting is on foot so , unless it's goats which I can generally manage two animals worth of meat , it's one animal only .
There was a private block we used to hunt goat and fallow that changed hands and we were still allowed to hunt during the changeover . The new owner wanted to plant trees so instigated a goat cull .
I went in after with my family and the carnage was truly heartbreaking . Rotting carcasses all over the hill , hundreds of them .
Both the kids and Mrs FTX wept at the sight .
I understand why it was done but I couldn't do that job .
All that life wasted and so much meat left to rot on the hill . Call me a pussy but that goes against everything I believe in . I was also pleased my kids had that reaction as it showed that they have taken to heart all I have tried to instill in them about respecting life and compassion and why I hunt by my rules .

I like the idea but realistically it's we do in on foot to our own terms or helicopters do it. Also are you saying recover everything off the animal because I know I couldn't possibly carry a full stag that probably bones out damn near my total body weight if not more from some of the places I hunt. I see this point and it took me a bit to get over it myself. But it's either on a trip our and we have already shot an animals and we can fit another small amount of meat why not do some population control and shoot another hind and take whatever else we can fit even if just the backsteaks.

My moral compromise I made for myself was I take whatever I can carry without to high a risk of injury. If hunting the likes of the rakaia etc that's likely most of the animal if i can get it to the main river in a few trips and can stockpile it to get a 4wd to it. But when on the divide etc with a heap of up and down and 20-30kms to walk out solo Its usually a whole cham or most of a Tahr or most of a hind. In the case of a stag if it's mature reality is it's back steaks and maybe boned out hind quarters and heart if it's good.

Originally Posted by Moa Hunter

Attachment 164811Attachment 164813
This three year old was never going to make a trophy. Looking at the lower head - short tines, tines missing and poorer head than the rest of his peer group. I always look at the lower tines and framing of the head to judge a young stag, tops come with age. Was very heavy though and photos dont do the weight justice

In fairness Garth you do work with deer and velvet etc and watch them grow out yearly so these small much harder to assess nuances are a learned skill based on experience. Also you have a very specific idea of trophy hahahaha you've picked apart so stags most would consider trophies of a lifetime (300 plus animals).

Originally Posted by gimp

Kill all goats to improve deer habitat.


Shoot hinds if there are more than minimal numbers of deer.


Shoot old stags.


Take as much meat as possible but sometimes shoot to waste is necessary for management in NZ or when hunting difficult access back country walk in.

This is pretty much my mantra nowadays.

Yeh goats breed prolifically. Deer get out of hand at low hunting pressure but evnlen with moderate pressure goats grow in population. They also graze very aggressively. Hunting the coast shows some destroyed tussocks like I have never seen in any deer country.

Originally Posted by Stocky

I like the idea but realistically it's we do in on foot to our own terms or helicopters do it. Also are you saying recover everything off the animal because I know I couldn't possibly carry a full stag that probably bones out damn near my total body weight if not more from some of the places I hunt. I see this point and it took me a bit to get over it myself. But it's either on a trip our and we have already shot an animals and we can fit another small amount of meat why not do some population control and shoot another hind and take whatever else we can fit even if just the backsteaks.

My moral compromise I made for myself was I take whatever I can carry without to high a risk of injury. If hunting the likes of the rakaia etc that's likely most of the animal if i can get it to the main river in a few trips and can stockpile it to get a 4wd to it. But when on the divide etc with a heap of up and down and 20-30kms to walk out solo Its usually a whole cham or most of a Tahr or most of a hind. In the case of a stag if it's mature reality is it's back steaks and maybe boned out hind quarters and heart if it's good.

hey no problem with that . We all have our limits as to how much we can carry and I would not expect mere mortals as ourselves to carry out an entire stag . Obviously size and weight limits apply , as I mentioned with goats I can generally handle 2 animals but that would be my limit , maybe 3 small ones . I wouldn't shoot any more just because i could . I guess what I am trying to say is I personally would shoot one and take as much from that one animal as I could rather than bowl five and just take back steaks from each....