Thread: Venison meat hunting in NZ in the past

Originally Posted by doinit

Ha,ha the only ones that lost out on occasions were like I mentioned,,the big companies.
The ariel shooters themselves were pretty close mates,,not all of them but a few we were living with along with a coupla pilots.
We had a thing goin on and no one was jumping up and down about it either.
There was bugger all poaching on each others blocks..that was a no. The poaching I mentioned was around areas where joe cocky boundried
the bush etc, not where we were in South Westland..other areas in the South Island.
Sounds like you were a tad more civil Barry the hunter than us lot were back then...lol good fi you.

nah some of those Matawai meat hunters one did not muck around with bloody loose cannons - called themselves the bush rats

An old Tokoroa mate of mine who was a very capable hunter, and accomplished poacher, put some through the chillers/system, and some cash.
He had a restaurant in Auckland that took meat. He would drive up, and return with cash, not sure what state he provided them in? Whole animals, skinned or not.

I also remember him complaining about all the tax, so he split the sales up between his two kids to stay in the lowest tax bracket.
Hard, strong men who did it for a crust, he worked full time at Kinleith, and hunted his days off, and nights if on day shift.
He had a legendary reputation for his ability to carry large animals whole for hours.

Originally Posted by Barry the hunter

nah some of those Matawai meat hunters one did not muck around with bloody loose cannons - called themselves the bush rats

Neville Tohill wrote 2 books based around Matawai on the ground based venison era; Out Spotlighting and Bushrats. An index in Spotlighting has a number of explanations for various terms.