Thread: Hare Today, Gone Tomorrow

Originally Posted by yogi

I just read another Hare shooting article last weekend in a 1973(or there about) outdoor magazine. It was written by Phillip Holden and was a good well written article from a quite famous author/culler.

I didn't know about that Yogi. I knew Phil quite well. He was a NW Ruahine man and he left culling around the time I started, to write his first book Pack and Rifle. He was living in Mangaweka and doing a bit of meat hunting to keep the Wolf from the door so I would see him on the block at times.

A little known fact is his name was Philip Ducksbury (not sure of spelling) but he changed it. We used to call him Hollywood Holden
because he would write a story about a horse and have 14 pictures of himself and one of the horse and for other reasons.
I never hunted with him but the guys who did said he could hunt alright.

I am not slagging him off. He's dead now poor Phil, shot himself because he had a brain tumour. An option I would probably would not be brave enough to take, but it was right for him. Anyone that writes and has 22 books published has my respect.

He used some colourful descriptions in his books. One I remember went something like "The tui gorged itself on the nectar choked flowers" Takes a bit of getting ones head around.