Capturing Your Next Great Adventure
A rather rare beast in New Zealand. I was lucky enough to encounter a group of White Tail deer in the bush.
Unfortunately poaching is a constant problem and has been one reason this herd has not flourished.
A bit of game management would go a long way to helping this small population grow. We are very fortunate to have this species in New Zealand.
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+ Read more…We spent a few days camping out in the Fiordland bush with high expectations that we would have a great Red Stag ROAR. If you are a hunter these few weeks hunting stags are not be be missed.
The mornings were crisp and it felt just right. The first few days were great and we had vocal stags to keep us enthusiastic late into the morning.
We managed a couple of animals this being the best of them. Both shot within 20 metres. It made great footage.
The rain moved, we changed our location, and that was to be the last good stag activity we heard. It rained and got warm, and that seemed to stop them pretty much. Our next fly camping location deep in the bush proved fruitless with only one distant stag heard. So now it’s over for another year and it’s time to reflect on the few good days we had and to start planning for next years RED STAG ROAR.
+ Read more…It has been three months since I placed SPYPOINT trail cameras in Fiordland. I picked them up during the middle of the Red Stag ROAR and eagerly downloaded the cards.
The results were very disappointing from a red deer numbers point of view. I thought it was a good area judging by the amount of activity there last red stag roar. It was revealed that there were very few mature animals in the area and only one half decent stag turned up just before the roar.
The cameras operated faultlessly in all the conditions Fiordland had to throw at them. Great quality red deer pictures night and day. Three months running on 6 AA batteries – remarkable – and still taking video when we picked them up.
What a great tool to identify good hunting areas.
Thanks to Allen from A.J. Productions for supplying us with the cameras.
Click here for the video
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It’s all go in New Zealand at the moment if you are a hunter. The Elk bugle in Fiordland will just be finishing and the Red Stag roar is gaining momentum. A great time to be out in the hills on a red stag hunt.
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Up early and climbing in the dark to try and catch out some early morning Chamois or Tahr. A beautiful morning even at 7,000 ft, sunny with no wind, but still a chill in the air.
Click here to see the video – TOP LEFT
I took some HD video on the trip where I placed Trial Cameras in the Fiordland bush in preparation for the Red Stag roar. The video quality is outstanding from the Canon 5D. Tricky to use but the results are great. Click here to view the video.
There were plenty of red deer around. All hinds with their fawns and the odd spiker. The big stags are all elsewhere at the moment feeding up for the roar. Lets hope they can avoid the helicopters working the area and turn up on the trail cameras before mid March when I plan to check the footage. Thanks again to Allan from A.J Productions for generously supplying the Spypoint Trail Cameras.
+ Read more…I have finally been able to get some TRAIL CAMERAS into the bush. Allan from A.J. Productions has very generously supplied me with some of the best cameras on the market – the Spypoint HD – 10.
I am able to record high quality HD video and audio on these units. They have been placed deep in the bush in an area that we hunted stags last roar. There was plenty of red stag activity then, but we never managed to get an animal – one of those hunts – we’ve all had them!!
I will go in again and check them mid March to see if any decent stags have turned up. If so we can target that animal in the roar a few weeks later.
More on this story coming soon.
+ Read more…Having traveled to Fiordland I hooked up again with Sarita Eliasson for another days dry fly fishing in a stream. Once again the weather was difficult and severely limited our options. This time expert fly fishing guide Dean Bell of deanbellflyfishing guided us and found some fishable water. The trout fishing proved to be excellent with brown trout landed on nymphs and dry fly. The resulting fishing video will be a great personal record of Sarita’s fishing in south island New Zealand. To date this has been her best fly fishing trip and she is already planning another fly fishing for trout trip to NZ. Well done Sarita and many thanks to Dean Bell.
I have been out filming fly fishing with Sarita Eliasson from Sweden over the last few days. She is here in New Zealand trout fishing the South Island for a few weeks. We were in the very capable hands of fly fishing guide Mike Kirkpatrick from Latitude Guiding in Nelson.
The weather was quite simply awful with clear water difficult to find. There were major road closures and the fly fishing rivers were all running chocolate. Local knowledge proved invaluable and Mike’s experience saved the day and we fished clear water while everyone else stayed home. Thanks Mike!
We are travelling to Fiordland now for a few more days fly fishing on small back country rivers. Look forward to future battles with the local Rainbows and Brown Trout on dry flies and nymphs.
Filmed a TV commerciali n the mountains around Queenstown. Stunning locations on a perfect day. We flew past some great looking hunting locations. Will have to get back for a look some day soon.
The latest video from Cardrona Safaris and Stealth Films. Always impressive animals.
To view the video go to - Cardrona Safaris Video
New Spearfishing DVD Released !!
We can finally announce that we have taken possession of the much anticipated new spearfishing DVD - Work, Spear, Play – and that we can now offer it for sale. Just in time for Christmas ….. whew !!
Go to this link for more info or to make your purchase :
We took off for a bit of a diving, fishing, hunting mission to the remote south west corner of New Zealand. All the targeted species were plentiful and we did pretty well. This area must be one of the best in the country if you like seafood and venison. The reason it is so good is that it is hard to get to – you need a good boat, and the weather has to be perfect as it is a very exposed coastline. it only opens up like this occasionally. The crayfish were large, in shallow water and walking about in the open !!
I wont show you the picture of the deer we shot as it was in pretty poor condition and seemed lucky to have survived the winter – it still tasted great, although it took a bit of convincing to eat it! We shot it on the slips you see in one of the photos – 50 metres from the surf. I also missed filming it with my video camera as I happened to be looking the other way – that’s a first for me !!
Took time out from my usual hunting and fly fishing filming to work on an TV advertisement with David Walker from Elevation Films for ‘The North Face’ clothing company.
The latest in aerial camera mounts from Shotover Camera Systems was used to shoot the Queenstown back counrty. Several Chamois spotted during the filming in this spectacular area.
Will have to make a point of doing a Chamois hunt in the area when the snow disappears.
+ Read more…Took a few days out to explore the West Coast of New Zealand, capturing HDR images with the new Canon 5D MKIII DSLR camera.
Spectacular New Zealand landscapes everywhere.
The Tahr Show 2012
I shared a booth with Halcyon Press at this years Tahr Show in Christchurch.
Ken Tustin was there to launch his new book.
CHOPPER CHATTER
The Adventures and Misadventures of a New Zealand Helicopter Pilot.
A busy time with plenty of people calling in for a chat. My Himalayan Tahr film was the big mover along with my NEW 2013 Tahr and Chamois Calendar.
Recent TV Commercial in Chamois Country Queenstown. We filmed some snowboarders in the Branches area of Queenstown. Kept my eye out for Chamois tracks in the snow but only saw Hare tracks – they really get around !
I have been wanting to film and take still images of Chamois for a few years and I was lucky enough to spend a few days with James Gray from James Gray Hunting. James is an expert on Chamois and this was highlighted as were able to watch groups from close quarters every day. Chamois Bucks came and went all day. It was the middle of the Chamois rut and the Bucks were pretty active.
See PHOTO GALLERY for more images.
The best Chamois images are now available to purchase at great prices - SHOP ONLINE
I recently completed my annual pilgrimage to Ben McLeod Station to film Tahr in the rut.
This year I took a stills camera instead of the usual video camera. Spectacular images of rutting Bulls resulted with the new Canon 5D MKIII and a 700mm lens. Unbelievable image quality !!
See PHOTO GALLERY for more images.
The best Tahr images are now available to purchase at great prices – SHOP ONLINE
Spook Spann from Spook Nation – US Hunting TV Show – recently spent a week hunting in New Zealand with Cardrona Safaris. Stealth Films shot film and video of the entire hunt and it will air on US TV next season. Spook hunted with bow, rifle and muzzle loader and handled all very well pulling off some great shots. Spook was joined by Bill Farley from Farleys International Adventures. Bill aslo hunted and took some great trophies himself. John and Ann Scurr did a great job of hosting the hunters and their wives during their stay.
Here are some of the trophies they secured during their week. Check out the PHOTO GALLERY for all the images from the hunt.
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I spent a very entertaining week filming hunting with Colin Rayner & James Mitchell of Kiwi Safaris. We hunted with a wonderful group from Iran that were a pleasure to be with.
They took Red Stags, Elk, Fallow, Tahr and a variety of birds. A great week had by all. They left with their hunting DVD in their hands after a full weeks editing. Their hunting video was great.
+ Read more…We spent a few days in the Queenstown area looking for a good Buck Chamois. Saw a few Chamois but the Buck with the group was not quite big enough so we left him to mature into that trophy buck we all dream of. Fabulous scenery hunting & filming in the snow all day.
Managed to stalk in on a Red Deer on the way out – great shot by Grant @ 350 metres with the new Strasser rifle!!
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We are testing the range of Sitka clothing in our new hunting film to see how well it performs in the New Zealand bush !
After a few days out during the Red Deer roar Grant thought the gear had performed exceedingly well. He particularly liked the freedom of movement the braces provided for the pants. Very easy for climbing around in the bush. It is well constructed and the most comfortable he has ever used !! See how it goes when it gets really tested with some good old fashioned New Zealand weather. Nice to video hunting clothing of great quality.
I hunted and filmed with the owners of the Strasser rifle company last season and they were generous enough to supply us with a new rifle for our hunting and filming trips. A beautiful weapon with many great features.
A long awaited box of goodies arrived from Germany recently. Zeiss are now supporting Stealth Films and provided a great package incorporating range finding binoculars, rifle scope and spotting scope.
It didn’t take us long to get it into action – SPECTACULAR OPTICS ! No excuses now.
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I filmed with Tim Buma all over New Zealand for some exceptional trophies.
I spent a few days filming with Tim Buma from Trackers NZ. Tims client was a Dutchman who had come to New Zealand to chase a good ‘Trophy’ red stag – and that’s exactly what he got.
Captured the hunt on video for Tim and he will be using the hunting footage later this year in his hunting Promo.
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At long last we were off to film our next Fishing video. The team consisted of myself behind the camera, Dean Bell again as the expert fly fisher and Grant Banhidi – the hunter in my hunting films – as the not quite so expert fly fisherman.
This has been a long time coming so we made the most of the good weather window and headed to the fishing locations that best suited our needs. We spent the next few days filming the various fly fishing techniques Dean was wanting to highlight and the resulting trout fishing film will be another fly fisherman’s delight packed with great messages on fishing techniques- how to fly fish, how to catch fish, fishing in a stream, fly patterns, great water and of course wonderful fly fishing for trout. Now down to the editing !!
Hunting Red Stags – George Sound, Fiordland.
We headed off to Fiordland in great anticipation to film a hunting sequence for my next film. Travelling down the coast we saw red deer – stags and hinds – out on the slips late in the day but the swell would not allow us to land so we just admired animals from the boat and made George Sound late in the day.
Early the next morning we took the small inflatable to a beach to access a slip above us. On getting out of the boat I managed to slip and tear my hamstring ! That was the end of the trip and we had no alternative but to head for home.
This highlighted several things.
Having slept in the boat overnight with no exercise before I jumped out of the inflatable my legs were not warmed up or stretched at all. Over extension resulted, and my trip was over. The only good thing about this injury was that it occurred at sea level and we had the ability to get back to the big boat and get out of there relatively easily. Had an injury like this occurred on the tops it would have been a very different story and I doubt I could have walked out. We would then have been in real trouble.
So I look back at all the other trips we have been on over the years and consider ourselves fortunate that nothing of consequence has occurred over that time.
The lesson – keep fit & try not to take undue risk when you are in an isolated location as you may not always get away with it.
Consolation prize – managed a few nice fish on the way home. A month on the couch followed allowing plenty of time to plan the next trip.
