Thread: Hunting in the Snow

Originally Posted by Tahr

Someone asked a question about this so I looked back at some old pics.

I hunted the Ruahines a lot over the winters during the meat hunting era. By myself and with a mate. 45-50 odd years ago.

Mainly in this area: https://www.wildernessmag.co.nz/whanahuia-range/
Up the Mangoira/Mangawairiki and Pari mainly.

The Whanahuia sub range is lower than the main Ruahine range and the fringe around the tussock holds deer right through the winter and even better the warmer faces in the creek head waters and down into the Orua. We would sometimes battle our way through the snow and camp at the Triangle hut junction and hunt those creek heads or head down to the hut. On the better days we would strike deer out in the tussock during the winter. I would in particular hunt the clear weather eye in behind a southerly.

We had tracks cut that gave us good winter access - a couple of them are still there and kept open by people -Ive seen pics of Philipo on one of them.

Winter hunting can be good and I really enjoyed it. And dangerous I guess if you aren't careful. Some of our gear was pretty basic but we seemed to get by. I can remember my swanny often being frozen stiff while wearing it.

Its worth noting that for some of the winter you wont get past the Rangi hut, but can hunt around the tops on the more southern end of the range above the Mangoira.

These old and not so old pics will give an idea of what it was like (and likely still is).

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Well Bruce , reading your post brought back memories of my time in that area , hunted there from age 16, walk in Friday night ,sleep on the floor of the original ski hut ,up before daybreak walk back to the tarns other side of Mania Ridge camp there Sat night , mate shot a deer above us on one of the slips in his torch beam , that was a close call , almost took us out as it came cartwheeling down the slip , the old wooden swing bridge was always interesting to cross .

We also had our tracks down into the Oroua , spent a lot of time at Triangle , stayed at the old tent camp until the hut was build , we took a log book into Triangle Hut , wrote on the inside ( rest and be both respectful and thankful ) Hunted High Ridge a lot via left branch , climbed out onto Pourangaki - Oroua dividing ridge we had a great access creek at head of Oroua , which we called the staircase , around to Te Hekenga and back down High Ridge to Triangle , a good day trip , the bush hunting was good , especially the feed belt , our best weekend tally at Triangle was 10 .

One Labour weekend we struck a mean sou wester on the Monday coming out must have been around 71 , we came across another 2 hunters and urged them to come with us as they did not know the area , they chose not to , it was 4 days before they where rescued .

Spent a winter cutting dead mans track , carried a few out of there before DOC found it , the ridges Mania & Dirty Spur always produced , i am now 74 and love my hunting as much as ever , one trip we decided to walk in to Triangle up river from Alice Nash , as we walked past the rifle range there were 2 deer at the far end , which was dam inconsiderate of them as it meant a quick trip back to the Apiti Chiller .

Like all the other members Bruce ,we really enjoy your Write ups