Thread: Hunting Aotearoa Thursday 9:30

Originally Posted by Ruff

Because a trillion rabbits in an area holding five pheasants is not equivalent to a few hedgehogs and possums. The spaniel guys do well down there because rabbits are the primary quarry of a spaniel. The bird dogs do not hunt fur at all.

Having said that, i agree there is plenty of ground to hold trials on quail etc that is not over run with rabbits. It seems many modern day triallers who were not around in the formation days of live game trialling are unaware of how well we did on wild populations pre preserves and syndicates, there is another argument that could be made that high game areas are detrimental to producing better dogs for the average hunter...

Kawhia is correct, the only missing ingredient is people with the drive to make something happen. that's what started it up here. If we possessed the drive our dogs do the world would be our oyster.

...Fish and game have made an effort to bring pheasant numbers up in Canterbury . Some will argue not enough , but we now have two days hunting as opposed to the one we had for years . At a glance it may appear a lot of country to hold birds , but our braided river fringes are in decline because of the dairy conversions . What seems to be left is tiger country . I doubt you could trail in that , yes you can or will put out a bird but its not pretty. On the rabbits I've been told there is a parallel , high numbers rabbits = good numbers of quail .