Found this. I think it was the last deer I ever sold. Ruahines out by the Pouranaki. Neck shot with a 22.250 I had. Fried the barrel in the end.
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Found this. I think it was the last deer I ever sold. Ruahines out by the Pouranaki. Neck shot with a 22.250 I had. Fried the barrel in the end.
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Great singlet [emoji106]
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100 percent NZ wool. :)Quote:
Originally Posted by kukuwai
Our neighbour is 97 now I think. Still very sharp. 30-40 years of hunting trips into Fiordland amongst it all. I love it when I bump into him and he's in a chatty mood and I get a story out of him. But the way he relates it is always matter of fact. No reminiscing about how things were. Makes me happy I can drop off some venison sometimes for him now.
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When men were men. Well..here's couple of hard case 1960 stories from the kids' perspective ...Even the little hunters were tough!
Tale 1:
Our farm backed onto huge bush area and in 1960s there wasn't much to do but hunt all the time. Occasionally old man would gather up half a dozen local farm boys, put em all on the trailer, and head off for couple of days way out in the bush hunting. Travel for hours on rough logging tracks with the tractor way out in the wop-wops to an old sawmill site called Opa. Had been milled in the 1930s-40s and the old bullring (clearing) still there, plus one old shack that we'd stay in. Great place.. Minus 4 star accomodation.
On this trip we got lucky, ran into some sows on way out, farmboys jumping off trailerr in all directions, and we ended up with 3 little wild pigs. Little fellas couple about a foot long and a bigger brown/black one about 3-4kg. Took them to the shack and kept them in a back 'room' - if you could call it that, with the doorway blocked off. We'd climb in and play toreadors, try to catch them, and the little brown boar would always go for you. Much fun..Then one of the older boys like 13 or so - has a brainwave. Says he's heard if you hold wild pigs over smoke it tames them!!. Next thing big fire in fireplace with scrub and fern piled on, smoking the hut out, and boys all clamber up on roof with the stroppy brown pig. They hold him over the chimney that is belching smoke, he wriggles like hell for a bit, then he does get tame goes all quiet floppy even. Farmboys not strong on science. So everyone else then clambers down or leaps off the roof leaving 7yr old me with no way to get down. Couldn't climb back down and 10 foot jump not appealing for a little fella. But .. nothing for it but to leap off landed bad and next thing excruciating pain in right hand. Really bad.. Very really bad! But you can't cry or talk about pain with the older boys, and you can't tell the old man as he'd clip you for climbing on the roof. So agonising pain for next day or so. Just had to tuck hand away and carry on. No doctors way out there in the bush. No medicines. Many hours on the tractor even to get back to farmhouse....When I got home still didn't tell mum and dad might get into trouble. Pain went away over the following weeks/months.
Fast forward 55 years now to about 2016. I'm having a health checkup and conversation with Doc goes something like this.. Doctor: When did you do that? Me: Do what? Doctor: 'Break that right wrist.. Me: What? Doctor: That wrist has been broken. Those bones in your hand should be flat, but yours stick up. Its had a bad break some time Me: Dead silence. Flashback. Memories. Pig Smoke Roof Pain.... Then Ahhhhhhh!! .. So that's .. what .. bloody .. happened...
1960 farmboys were tough little buggers.. :)
Tale 2: Got my own back on that stroppy wild pig...
We took the little pigs home to the farm. Not uncommon for kids to arrive home after hunting with a shirtful of wriggling baby bunnies from burrow, or little pigs etc - and we'd raise them. This little brown boar always caused trouble. Dairy cow took a shine to him and I'd come out in the morning to find he'd chewed on her teats, scratching them up and making them very sore to milk. So she'd kick like horse in the cowbail. Aaargh! Then when he was about 40lb he learned new party trick he'd put his nose under the gates and pop them up off hooks esp the smaller gates in the yards so he could walk through. One day dad does some drafting in the yards seperating lambs from ewes etc and pig goes for a stroll and pops off couple of gates. Old man has to go do all the drafting again. Comes back to house, sits on the porch, takes off his boots, gives pig a long look! I know that look.
Didn't see pig for a bit. Then couple of days later its a real treat. Heaps of crunchy crackling and roast pork for sunday lunch. Old man and I sitting there chuckling away.. Crunch crunch. Porky's latest trick. His last trick. Life's pretty tough on the farm, but revenge can taste bloody good..
If the Opa mill site is the one I think it is.
I shot my first deer very close to it.
Opa - well well!! Wondered if anyone would know of it.
Take the road from Whakamaru towards Turangi/Taupo, then turn right about 8ks up onto Arataki road. 3-4ks to our old farm. Another k on there used to be a sawmill there by the river back in the 50s-60s - Tutukau. Go across old logging bridge over Mangakino stream there and head left way off into hills - down a very steep forestry track known then as the zig-zag, and way back through the bush to Opa. From memory there was a river a few miles past Opa. Very few will know of that place - we hunted there often for many years. Probably all farmland now?
Yep that is the place.
Tutukau Mill was still going into the 70s.
Not quite in farmland.
First deer no real skill.
Wandered in there with a mate no real idea what we were doing.
No consideration wind etc.
This stag walked across in front of me so plumped myself down on my arse and shot it.
It was a fairly big bugger and as we had seen photos of the great white hunter proudly watching the porters carrying little antelope on a stick
we thought we would give it a go.
What a prick of an idea, sore shoulders wobbled like buggery and to make it worse met some guys coming in so pretended it was brilliant.
Never again.
Was good hunting in there.
Then they 1080ed it and the grass took off, tripping over old logs in the long grass where there used to be closely cropped bowling greens.
Haven't really been out there since they milled all the douglas.
The bridge is long gone.
They destroyed it gradually.
We used to ride our bikes across on the main log flat surfaces after the deck had been removed.
Used use the ford but access limited by owners of old mill site.
Was all good fun.
I used to haunt that area during the early '70s we called the Bullring. Hauled a lot of deer out of there up the steep part of the track in, where only those with a winch would venture down. Winches were rare back then. I caught my first deer in there 20th Jan. 1973. Shot the hind and put my dog after the fawn which came back down the gut out of the bush and I jumped in front of it. It knocked it's self out on my rifle leaving me with a trigger guard scar under my knee cap I still have today. I had about a 2k carry back to the Landrover left him untied as I had to retrieve mum for the chiller.Quote:
Originally Posted by mudgripz
He, like all pet deer turned into a right asshole, but that was the start of my deer farming career.
Something I miss from those old meat hunting days is that flying feeling you get after you off load a heavy deer after a long carry.
Who remembers the $1 a pound months?
Was a real deal getting even the tractor up and down that steep zig-zag. Old man had metal extending grips on wheels on the tractor - and he needed them! Rugged!
ErnieC's PM mentions guys he knew back then - John Mann and Malcolm Gredig etc - and by chance they were farm boys in our shooting squad in those years. One or both on the pig-smoking trip above - likely their idea.
Mighty bush area back then and amazing hunting ... Wonder what Opa looks like today..
Ha,the flying feeling was actually a hard case thing alright,,twas bloody murder on the shoulders the next day though.Quote:
Originally Posted by Gamehunter
When veni hit the dollar a pound most chaps I knew went crazy, myself included, was full on madness .. good though.
The whole huge area from Tutukau mill way south past Opa site, and north to Titiraupenga and Pureora forest was still dense bush in 50s and early 60s. Sawmills took out the big trees in our area, Totara, Rimu etc, but left small/medium trees like konini, miro, five finger, and of course the northern ground cover like blackberry, supplejack, ferns grew back very quickly after big logs removed. Bit later they planted blocks there in exotics - pine/ fir etc? Unsure when.
There were two ways to get back to Opa from the hills above Tutukau. One was the notorious zigzag down a hillface, and the other was a long steep straight descent - both only possible in perfect conditions. This latter one was overgrown then so probably long gone now. These areas were teeming with pigs and deer when family farmed there from 1955-1966. We took untold numbers there but it was very hard going in that dense northern undergrowth at times. Nothing like southern forest. You'd hear the dogs bailing maybe 200m away but it might take an hour to get there. Slasher was essential equipment with all that supplejack and blackberry etc. There were also at the time wild cattle in that bush - had got free decades before and populated in some areas. One of the Mann boys met a huge bull in the bush behind their farm - scared the shite out of him. But he did come away with the head and horns - very big spread. Not a shot you'd want to miss...
And incidentally - a bit of history for the Waikato boys who know this zone. George Wilder the famous NZ prison escapee in the 60s was caught on our farm - the last one before tutukau sawmill. This was in 1962. Farm ran to the mill then off round to the right and George was caught there. I remember the farm crawling with hundreds of cops and army etc, and the old man showing them where to look. The policeman who caught him (Gyde or Hamilton) had borrowed dad's jungle carbine to go back and check a spot. George had been sleeping during the day on a big rock and had just climbed down when policeman saw him... Carbine won that conversation and he gave himself up. Later escaped again for 100 days. Very famous times in 60s NZ...old George was a national 'star'.
When men were men...
Here's "tough".
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As said,
I was a bit later to it. But we must have got less money @ $2 a kilo
Malc with one after we had been crutching all day.
We were always after the extra dollar.
They had to have the ears on to sell them. I still leave the ears on whole deer. They seem naked without them.
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He says that its light compared to a Bren :)Quote:
Originally Posted by Dusty Fog
Just had a catch up with John Mann and he remembers what you fellas got up to.Quote:
Originally Posted by mudgripz
I had a laugh to myself the thread title is "when men were men" in reality for a start we were just kids playing and learning a bit, some off it the hard way.
But it is good to reminisce now and again and some of the stories are pearlers.
This a photo I took years ago from one of the clearings in the Opa,Bullring area.
Pretty much what a lot of the area looked/looks like.
It was a neat spot and handy to home if you were prepared to hoof it a bit.
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Say hello to John from Mike and Paul next time you see him - he knows us well. Yes we did alot of hunting with the local farmboys in early years. Great to see pic of Opa area :)
When my dad died in 2016 at 95, five of the boys who came out with us shooting on the tractor-trailer trips 55 years ago were present at the funeral. A cool reunion - showed the depth of relationships forged as youngsters hunting together a long time ago. Ernie - John and Malcolm both there..
Meat hunting days relived. Me yesterday. I took 3 very slow trips to get these out in the morning - then the cocky said "seeming you are here I will get in a mob to dock this afternoon". Bloody hell.
Attachment 181850
I have never liked docking.
The old man used to time lambing so docking was the school holidays.
We used fight, squabble and moan in the hope we would get sent home.
Letting the scrim go at the right time might work or "loosing" control of a dog sometimes worked.
Liked fencing and using a handpiece more.
Docking, drafting, lambing beats, crutching, milking etc - all the farmboy jobs.
Old man was a dab hand at docking. Dock anything that moved. We had a farm tomcat that was getting a bit stroppy, so old man says 'come and help'. He managed to push Tom (very original name) head first into a gumboot. Back legs in too so only his tail and his nuts sticking out. He says 'hold that gumboot closed boy'. Whip, whip with his pocket knife and cat lets out a hell of a screech, legs in overdrive as he scrambles backwards, I drop the boot, and he clears the back fence at about 100 miles per hour. Never saw a cat move so fast. 2-3 days later he came back.. he was quieter after that. Not surprised really....
A last farm tale.... always makes me chuckle. We had an Auckland city boy Peter come to stay on the farm for a week. Had never been out of the city. Old man's doing some drafting in the yards, finishes, and me and 3-4 other local farmboys now sitting on the yard fence. Old man goes into one of the pens, leaning down checking the ewes.
Peter: "What are you doing Mr Anderson?"
Dad: "I'm checking the ewes for lumps in the udder"
Peter: " Can I help?"
Dad: "Yep - you go and check them in that pen"
Peter - keen as mustard, leaps off the fence into other pen. Grabs a big sheep and grapples its back end... "Mr Anderson ..Mr Anderson..this one's got great big lumps in the udder"..
Great hilarity ensues .. old man grinning, and 4 farmboys falling off the fence with laughter. The pen's full of rams..
Back to the hunting stories..
yes supplejack sure does hurt......very good at keeping young folks in line.
