.png)
The Hunting Stories Podcast
Elk. Bear. Hog. Turkey. Deer and More. Hunting Stories that will make you laugh or maybe cry; real life chronicles from the field.
The Hunting Stories Podcast
Ep 119 The Hunting Stories Podcast: Ray Singer
Ray Singer from New Zealand shares his remarkable journey into hunting on our podcast. Ray, a self-taught hunter, developed his passion while growing up on a small farm, armed only with air rifles and slingshots. Through our conversation, we explore New Zealand's unique hunting landscape, which lacks native big game but is rich with introduced deer species.
Ray's stories are a testament to the excitement and challenges of practical hunting. He details his transition from water sports to hunting, a shift motivated by the desire for a sustainable source of quality meat. From the exhilaration of his first successful goat hunt to the trials of his first solo expedition in the alpine wilderness, Ray's accounts are rich with personal growth and adventure. He navigates the ethical considerations of hunting, comparing the environmental impact of goats versus the emotional weight of hunting deer, offering listeners a nuanced perspective on the moral dilemmas faced by hunters.
Ray's Instagram
🔭 Upgrade Your View with Vortex Optics! Experience unparalleled clarity and precision with our top-of-the-line binoculars, scopes, and more. Check out our full range at VortexOptics.com
Visit SummitBowstrings.com or call 210-701-7399 to gear up with the best. Summit Bowstrings – where excellence and innovation meet in every string.
USE CODE: HSP10
Christensen Arms
Christensen Arms makes the best hunting and long-range rifles in the world. Made in the USA.
Howdy folks and welcome to the hunting stories podcast. I'm your host, michael, and we got another good one for you today. Today we're actually connecting with a listener Ray Singer is his name and he is based out of New Zealand. Interviewed him in the future due to time zones, but Ray is out there doing it himself, he's teaching himself and he's going on some pretty crazy adventures. I know that New Zealand is high on the list for a lot of American hunters, so it's super cool to hear his stories. We actually had a little battery issue, so the episode was even cut a little bit short, but I'm sure we'll have Ray back on in the future. So, ray, thank you very much, one for reaching out to listeners. If you have a good story, be like Ray, reach out to me. I'd love to hear them. And then Ray, of course, for your time for sharing with us. I really do appreciate it. It was great hearing your stories and I'm excited to have you back on again in the future For you listeners, check out the show notes, check out Ray, check out what he's doing.
Speaker 1:He's Beyond that. Guys, make sure you follow us, subscribe to the channel or show or whatever this is. And, yeah, let's kick this thing off. Let's let Ray tell you some of his stories. Thank you All. Right, ray. Welcome to the Hunting Stories podcast, sir, how are you? Thanks, michael, yeah, good thanks, yep, good man. Good, you know, ray, we were chatting a little bit before this. I'm super excited to have you here. You are a couple. First, you're the first person technically in the future that I've had on my podcast, because you are tomorrow. For me, it's still today because you were coming from New Zealand, right? So you're 16 hours ahead of me right now.
Speaker 2:Yep, that's right. Well, it's still going.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and you're actually a listener, so I love that the podcast is getting all the way out to you and you kind of piqued my interest because you're like, hey, I'd love to tell you some stories and you're a newer hunter but I think that you've been going after it harder than most people have. So why don't we do this, ray? Why don't we let you introduce yourself, so the folks know kind of who they're going to hear stories from today and go a little bit into. I guess your background is like you know what got you started hunting.
Speaker 2:Cool, sounds good. Hey, so I'm Ray and I'm from New Zealand, as you said, in New Zealand, south Island. I yeah, I'm a newer hunter, I guess. I grew up on a small farm and about when I was about eight years old I got my first air rifle. I spent a bit of time shooting slingshots and then air rifles and I was just so obsessed. I spent so much time just roaming around in the paddocks looking for rabbits unsuccessfully and I was just so obsessed with it Spent years doing that. But I had a pretty low power to air rifle and I didn't have the skills, so I was pretty unsuccessful, but I just loved being out there and getting into that kind of thing, but I didn't really have anyone in my family or around to take it any further, if you know what I mean.
Speaker 1:Yeah, sounds like my upbringing I was into the same stuff, had a little air rifle, but I didn't start hunting until I was 30. So I just never had that person to push me along.
Speaker 2:Totally, and I think in New Zealand as well, in the sort of 80s and 90s there wasn't a lot of deer because there was, kind of from the 70s and 80s there was a lot of aerial culling. They just went absolutely super hard on the deer and then it went into the live animal recovery. So I guess for your listeners who don't know, new zealand has quite a few different, uh, game animals and they're all introduced. Um, so they're all.
Speaker 2:I guess a lot of them are termed as pests and other ones are like sort of there's a grey area, whether are they pests, or are they resources for people and for hunting recreation?
Speaker 1:yeah, so let me ask you this, ray is there nothing that's native to New Zealand that you guys hunt, or are they all sort of non-native species?
Speaker 2:that's right, yeah, so that's crazy of the native animals, which are mainly birds so we have a bass as well are protected, I think the only one that's. I think there's a couple that aren't. I don't know a lot about birds and bird hunting. Okay, um, but people no big game ducks no big game no, interesting, I had no idea, but we do have a lot of introduced ones, so I've actually got a list here that I can read out to you.
Speaker 1:For, yeah, I'd love to hear what are the options I know that like new zealand's one of those like big eyed for, like the american hunter, it's like, oh, you get to hunt africa or you get to go to like new zealand, like those are the two places that people get super excited about.
Speaker 2:Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 1:I know some things. I obviously didn't know that they were not native. But what all can you hunt in New Zealand?
Speaker 2:So we've got a whole bunch of different deer Across the whole country. We've got red deer they're everywhere and they've been introduced from different sort of I guess bloodlines from europe. Some of them have got some pretty good genetics, some of them have got some pretty lousy genetics in terms of like uh, you know heads if you're a trophy hunter.
Speaker 2:We've got seeker deer which are in the north island, fallow deer which are in sort of pockets around the country. We've got rusa deer, which are again North Island, and samba deer, which are those massive big tropical deer I think. Okay, they're also on the North Island. Then we've got wapiti or elk I can't remember what sort they are, I think they're Roosevelt, but don't quote me on it Okay, they're down in sort of Fiordland, some really intense country down in southwestern Moose were introduced down there as well. Whether or not they're still there, no one really knows.
Speaker 2:Interesting there's been some random sightings and that sort of thing.
Speaker 1:Is it predators that maybe took them out, or is it just the habitat didn't work for moose.
Speaker 2:I think it was competition from red deer for the habitat for the plants and stuff like that maybe out competed them. We don't have any predators here, so gotcha yeah lucky you yeah we also have white-tailed deer in stewart island, we have feral goats. We have feral goats, we have feral sheep pigs. We've got Himalayan tar in the South Island and we've got chamois, which is like a mountain antelope from Europe. Okay, yeah, in the South Island as well, I'm going to have to Google half of these.
Speaker 1:I had no idea.
Speaker 2:And we've got wallaby in the North and South Island and they're actually a bit of a, I guess in terms of hunting they're a bit of a problem because they spread. They're pretty invasive and I recently went to an area where wallaby are and there are no deer there and there was no food. They just eat everything. So if they get into some of the native bush they're going to cause some serious problem and it's not good for deer hunters, I guess. Yeah, going to cause some serious problem and it's not good for deer hunters?
Speaker 1:I guess yeah, because it interesting. I had no idea that all these things I had heard about people just culling animals in new zealand and, like you know, helicopters and just mowing things down and all that, but I didn't realize that they were all non-invasive. I just thought this the populations were just out of hand.
Speaker 2:So out of hand. We don't have predators, so it's basically up to people to be those predators you know yeah. And I guess if the recreational hunters aren't there doing it, then the I guess government or colors have to step in and fly around and shoot them or poison or whatever.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, that's interesting. It's good if people are out there doing it themselves.
Speaker 2:You know, yeah, I went to.
Speaker 1:Molokai recently, which is one of the Hawaiian islands, and they have axis deer there. In fact, I got my axis deer hide back.
Speaker 2:I listened to their podcast Minutes ago. It was a good one, yeah, literally when I got home to come call with you.
Speaker 1:this was on the front patio, but yeah, so it's interesting there because, same thing, the axis deer have taken over everything. No predators, they, they've eaten everything up to about like five feet high that they could possibly eat. And one of the more interesting things, and I'm curious if it's the same in New Zealand, when we were there, people, I mean, we stood out cause we're a bunch of tall white guys on a Hawaiian Island and they're like, what are you doing here, howley? And we're like, oh, we're hunting, oh, kill them all. And then we're like, yeah, we're trying. You know it's hard with a bow. And then they all went with a bow, what are you doing? Use a rifle?
Speaker 1:shoot as many as you can because they all just want them all gone. So is it similar there, where you know just the people are like, yeah, no, get rid of, get rid of everything if you can I'd say it's a bit of a mix.
Speaker 2:Okay, we've got some people who are, you know, really on board with that, but then you've got other people who are very staunchly anti-guns and that kind of thing and would rather that not be happening. But I don't know what the alternative is, you know.
Speaker 1:Yeah the government with bigger guns. Yeah, government with bigger guns.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think it's good if people are out there doing it themselves. You know contributing, yeah, and you get how you're more invested in the environment when you're part of it, you know 100, 100.
Speaker 1:How do you do you guys have like tags, or is it just kind of like like in texas? You just go out and kill whatever you want as far as like hogs and axis, deer and things?
Speaker 2:that are invasive, yeah, basically.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:Some of the. So we've got, I guess, like you guys have with public land. We've got public land here. It's called people call it dock land or dock blocks which is Department of Conservation. Some of those blocks are open access and some of them are balloted. So with the wapiti in Fiordland there's a ballot sort of system because they've got a. There's a pretty cool group down there that are sort of working towards managing the herd down there as opposed to just trying to wipe them out. They're actually trying to keep them in good shape and I think they do a bunch of stuff where they cull a bunch of the red deer and take them out for meat but leave the whoppity interesting and only harvest the ones that need to come out.
Speaker 1:So maybe I don't have the best genetics or whatever yeah, I wonder if that has anything to do with like there's some hardcore elk hunters that are like I need to kill every species all over the world and there's guys that like have they have to kill their roosevelt, they have to kill their tule, they have to kill their rocky mountain, and then they go to. I think they have elk in um mongolia and they have elk in new zealand, so like these guys just got to go do it.
Speaker 2:I'm wondering if that's the reason why they're keeping that herd so strong comparative to other species yeah, I'm not sure, probably partly because it's in a specific environment, like um geographic area, so they can actually manage that they haven't spread it like the red deer which are everywhere. Okay, and yeah, we'll be um for that as well, to try and like preserve that heritage of that um of those deer that were brought here and that kind of thing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, okay.
Speaker 2:There's a lot of crossbreeding here with the red deer and the wapiti. So there's a lot of hybrid animals in the West Coast. And again it's the bloodlines getting… yeah, they're smaller, aren't they?
Speaker 1:Red deer are a fair amount smaller than the wapiti.
Speaker 2:Yeah, apparently I've never seen a wapiti, um, but yeah, I mean, to me red deer are massive, but wapiti must be huge.
Speaker 1:okay, I've never seen a red deer so maybe that's where I'm wrong here, so okay, yeah well, either way. Okay, that was very interesting, ray, but let's go back to uh, to your history a little bit so you obviously have a ton of species to hunt. You didn't Yep what kind of spurred it.
Speaker 2:I guess in the 80s and 90s recreational hunting for deer was. I mean, there were people doing it, but I think it was a lot harder going because there weren't as many of them around. So you didn't really meet a lot of. I'd never met many deer hunters, even though I lived, you know, in farmland in sort of rural Canterbury. So I just got into other stuff surfing, music, lots of ocean, sort of sports and that sort of thing. Started a clothing business with my wife which we were very focused on for quite a long time, and then we had the Christchurch earthquakes came along and sort of ended up, closed the business down and went back to studying.
Speaker 2:And when I was studying I was actually. I moved to another city and lived with my mum to reduce costs and her partner was you know. He was brought into hunting when he was younger and he had a bunch of like old hunting magazines.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah.
Speaker 2:Cool and I was just like I just couldn't believe it, like the adventures and stories and so that kind of rekindled that uh flame again and I went out were those magazines, new zealand magazines, or were they like american magazines? New zealand magazines yeah, that's cool.
Speaker 1:What are the names of some of those magazines? I'd love to google it and I don't know what those ones were back then.
Speaker 2:But we've got a couple now. We've got one called rod and rifle. Okay, we've got another one called New Zealand Hunter.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:Yeah, cool, let's check those out, okay.
Speaker 1:Sorry, I keep asking questions. It's very interesting, oh, all good.
Speaker 2:Yeah, there's some great adventures in there and I guess I'd spent all my life up to that point kind of based around the ocean and doing heaps of adventures on the coast surfing, wakeboarding and all sorts of stuff like that. So the mountains were kind of a different thing. I'd done some snowboarding, but never really like overnight in the mountains and longer missions, so that kind of really appealed. So I went through the process of getting firearms license in new zealand, which is it's pretty intensive really, I guess, compared to what I've, what I've heard about getting it in some places overseas.
Speaker 2:Okay, um, you do a bunch of night courses that was at like the city police station and then you do a sort of like a written test or a multi-choice test. You have to have a space to lock up your firearms and that has to be checked by the police. Oh, interesting, they also have to come and they interview you, your partner or someone in your family, your partner or someone in your family as well as, like another, I guess, acquaintance or friend or I think in my case, the neighbors as well.
Speaker 1:Okay, To make sure you're, make sure you're not too crazy. Not too crazy, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and make sure that you've got a safe, secure area for the firearm. Yeah, okay, so I went through all that, but still I safe, secure area for the firearm yeah, okay, so I went through all that, but still I didn't really know anyone that was into hunting.
Speaker 1:Most of my friends were how long ago did you go through all that?
Speaker 2:That was like 15 years ago oh okay, I was really keen, but then again, finished studying new career, had a child. Like finished studying new career, had a child, traveled overseas, all that sort of stuff. And it was always there but I didn't know anyone that was into hunting because most people I knew were through music, surfing, et cetera, gotcha, but it's cool that it stuck with you so when I guess I might be jumping ahead in the story.
Speaker 1:But when did you actually go on your first hunt, like how long ago?
Speaker 2:was that. So I shot rabbits and stuff as a kid and then I met this awesome dude called Trev I guess he was close to retirement as a farmer and he worked on or managed a huge big station that was like a big sort of high country sheep farm.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:I actually met him at a dance party and yeah, got yawning about hunting and hunting and he said, well, why don't you come over? And, um, I'll take you out. So I was like, sweet, yeah, we came over with our family, um, after a music event and we went and we spent like a week with him on the farm and it was great. And then, yeah, one sort of afternoon before dark, we went out on the quad bikes and went way up the top of this mountain and he kind of was I guess I'd never really done like search for big game before, so it was a new thing like sitting on ridge lines and trying to spot animals and that sort of thing.
Speaker 1:So was he the kind of uh like mentor that was like just taking you up and saying just sit here, we'll figure it out, or was he like walking you through why he's doing everything that he was doing?
Speaker 2:yeah, he was walking me through the wind, okay, um, where to look like that sort of thing? I just it was strange, even just seeing the animals when we did start coming across them and sort of the size of them. It's hard to pick how big they are. When you see them from a few hundred meters away, you know like yeah, yeah. And then he had a rifle, was a remington 7 mil 08 and I hadn't actually fired it before but he said it's a super nice rifle to use. He knew that I had done a lot of shooting with the air rifle when I was younger and we spotted some goats and we snuck up underneath them and they were kind of running along a farm track above us and he gave me the rifle and it was like you know you can have a, have a go if you want.
Speaker 2:And they, they kind of stopped. And then, when he said that, and then they started running again and I just lined up on the first one, swung through it and and I'd used air rifles when I was a kid and they were always so stiff to pull the trigger and take the shot, whereas this was like it felt like I just had to think about it and then the goat was falling down the hill.
Speaker 1:That's a good thing. If you don't expect the boom, then you're less likely to flinch, so that's awesome.
Speaker 2:No flinch or anything. It just fell over and rolled down the hill. And I was like whoa, I couldn't believe it. And Trev was like what are you doing? Don't stop, because they're a real problem, the goats on their farm. That's awesome. I was like, oh okay, so I shot three goats and he was like you're a good shot All right, you're ready to get a deer.
Speaker 1:What distance were they?
Speaker 2:They were about 70, 80 meters away, not too crazy long, okay. And how long ago was this first time they were running?
Speaker 1:full blast. Oh, they were running and you hit them. That is a good shot. Most people would not hit one, let alone three.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I didn't even think anything of it. I was like, oh, because I come from trying to shoot birds with the air rifle, I was like, well, this is easy, this thing just shoots, you don't even have to like, the trigger just goes, yeah. So yeah, it was kind of like a magic first sort of experience and we got the goats and pulled them down to the quad bike and, uh, hung them in the chiller and prepped them and had some to eat and got some for the dogs, for the farm dogs. So yeah, it's cool.
Speaker 1:Yeah, experience I gotta ask just as like someone who didn't do any hunting kind of similar to me, right? Um, when you like, what were your thoughts on being able to pull a trigger before you pulled the trigger? And then, how did you feel once you had actually put an animal down? Because, like for me, I was like I don't, I'm not really interested in hunting. When I first started hunting, I was like I'm not even sure if I have the fortitude to pull the trigger. It ended up being very easy for me to pull and then I obviously have a moment afterwards every time I kill anything, anything but like. What was it for? Like for you? And I ask you because I know that this is a relatively fresh memory, right?
Speaker 2:yep. So this first time it happened so fast and so cleanly, um, and the, I guess in terms of pulling the trigger, like it felt like all I had to do was think about it and it was done. Yeah, I guess, morally, I kind of knew that it was a good thing to do here, because the goats are a problem, they're nailing the bush. There's no kind of ethical dilemma there, I guess, apart from willing to make a clean ethical kill, and I just had the confidence that I would, and trev did have that in me as well. So, yeah, um, yeah, I guess that was, that was all good. Yeah, I think deer has been a bigger hurdle to overcome than goats oh yeah, that makes sense yeah, yeah, some something about, I don't know.
Speaker 1:in america it's like everyone's like oh, bambi know, like we always have that heartfelt thing versus like, if your first hunt is, I don't know, wild hogs and you know they're destroying the landscape, it's a pretty easy thing to go after. But the deer do, I don't know. They just fall closer to human hearts, I don't know.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so, but cool. So when was this hunt? So 15 years ago you got your registration. How?
Speaker 2:long ago was this hunt? This was probably six or seven years ago.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:Yep, and so this was just like a one-off kind of thing. And then the next morning Trev was like I'm going to drop you off at the top of this farm and you just walk along the edge. There's some dock land that runs along the edge of the farm. It's just take your time, sneak down there and I'll come and pick you up in about three or four hours and see if you can find a deer.
Speaker 2:He was like if you find one, shoot it behind the crease of the shelter. I was like okay, and I think he was thinking he's never going to get a deer. So he drove up and dropped me off and I walked 200 meters up the hill and then started coming down. I heard the quad bike disappear back to the farm and turn off. I came around the corner and there was like a deer standing there like 10 meters away, beside this bush, with his head behind a tree, and I was like oh my God, that was pretty. It's a big animal. I'd never seen one. I'd never seen a wild deer before in my life.
Speaker 2:And there was one so close and I was like, well, I better not stuff this up and my family's pretty keen for some venison. So I kind of was like in disbelief and just did what I thought I needed to do, which was be very quiet, try not to make too much noise with the bolt and that kind of thing. And then yeah, took the shot and then the rifle, I guess, kicked back. I was standing, much noise with the bolt and that kind of thing. And then yeah, took the shot and then, you know, the rifle, I guess, kicked back. I was standing and there was the flash of um smoke and the deer wasn't there.
Speaker 2:I was like, oh, okay you're a liquefier so I, um and yeah, and because I was out there by myself, I was just like far out okay. Why were they there? So I, yeah, and because I was out there by myself, I was just like far out okay. I came, walked over to the sort of edge of the farm track where the deer was on and looked down into the bush. I couldn't see it, so I crept down there and then found the deer. It was dead and stuck in between some trees.
Speaker 1:So it just kind of fell off a ledge. It didn't run off or anything.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it fell off a ledge like just down this drop and probably fell like 10 meters or so and wedged itself in these trees.
Speaker 1:I was a little worried that you were too close and missed high, especially with that flinch, and then it just ran off. I know plenty of people that have done exactly that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that flinch, and then it just ran off. Plenty of people that have done exactly that, yeah, yeah. So it just fell into these trees and I was standing there and I didn't have a knife or anything I like, oh no, nothing, because I think trev was like he's never gonna, you know, find a deer, gotta like it's gonna be a low percentage, that's one thing, but deer are just so switched on to people?
Speaker 1:Was it a doe or a buck? And do you use different terms on that deer, I guess?
Speaker 2:red deer are usually called hinds and stags. Okay, I guess a young stag is a spiker when it's just got the single points. Yep, so it was a hind, okay, and I just couldn't believe how big it was. I tried to move it right massive massive.
Speaker 2:I was just in disbelief, really, like that's mainly what I was feeling, yeah, and it was an absolutely beautiful animal, you know, um, but I was also like far out, okay, what am I going to do with this? I'm going to try and get it out, and I started trying to because I was like I better pull it up onto the track so Trev can come and help me with it. And I tried for like an hour trying to move this thing and I got it out from the trees and I started pulling it towards the track and it started rolling down the hill, because the hill's so steep and I was just like far out.
Speaker 2:This is intense, and I waited, and waited, and waited, because I'm like miles away from the farmhouse and then I hear the quad bike coming up the track from the other direction.
Speaker 1:He's expecting you at the bottom, because you were supposed to work your way down.
Speaker 2:He's expecting me at the bottom and he just keeps coming and he comes almost back to where he dropped me off. That's amazing and I was sitting there on the side of the track and he's like how'd you go? I'm like I've got a deer. He was like what? I was like I've been waiting for like three hours. Yeah, we didn't have a radio or anything. So yeah, um, that was kind of that was my first sort of, you know, hunting experience. Was those two?
Speaker 2:two days, that's a pretty good, and then it was years again, until you know life worked out that I got into it again, Okay. So it was like, it was almost like, and I felt it at the time. I was like this seems like it was too easy, Like I'm sure it's not that easy when you're doing it yourself public land, et cetera.
Speaker 2:But it was a great sort of introduction to it and it was great that Trev had the, I guess, trust in me to do a good job and, yeah, it allowed me to go and do that. That's amazing, man.
Speaker 1:I wish I was that lucky when I started hunting to put down four animals in two days.
Speaker 2:That's like everybody's dream.
Speaker 1:It took me, I mean three years to be a part of my first elk harvest and then really like eight or nine before I did one myself. It took a long time and that's a lot of days.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah. Well, we can go into the public land side of it. There's a whole nother story.
Speaker 1:Perfect, let's do that. But, ray, I'm going to take a quick pause. I was expecting a package and of course it just arrived so let's talk about your, your, I mean, if you got another story in mind, I've got.
Speaker 2:You can just jump to it or, if you want, to talk about your public land hunting. Whatever you know, whatever the flow of of you know, yeah hunting life so I guess after that hunt I got continued with the water sports theme and got right into wakeboarding and kite surfing Pretty hardcore and I ended up hitting my head a few times and having concussion and that kind of put everything into a bit of a spin. You know life and everything. Did you hit your?
Speaker 1:head on the board.
Speaker 2:Or is it like the impact of the water On it, like impact with water water? Yeah, because it was like I guess you get to certain levels with sports where you've got to push through to learn the next level of tricks, and with wakeboarding and kite surfing, the sort of level I wanted to break through into which was the more advanced stuff. You know, you, you're going fast and you're going high, you're spinning really fast and when you hit the water it's I mean, I broke a bunch of ribs. They're all splayed out in funny directions and uh, yeah, you, you know you're learning your new trick. So it's like you're just going, you're trying to land it, you crash and you get back up and you do it again because that's what everyone says you've got to do. And then you do that over and over for a while and, yeah, you don't realize that those concussions are stacking up because you're not getting knocked out. Yeah, you're just feeling loopy for a bit. Yeah, that's interesting.
Speaker 1:I've always thought about like I mean, my specific example would be gymnasts right, they do that crazy stuff. And I'm like the learning curve on that, right, like how do you get to do it where you don't make mistakes? How many mistakes? How many times you're smashing into something? Um, so, and, and it's same with your uh same with water sports?
Speaker 1:yeah, yeah, just how many times are you going up and trying it and failing before you get it one time and then you got to go up and fail it another 50 times to get it the second time?
Speaker 2:Yeah, there's a lot of hard on the bodies Totally. There were some tricks where I'd maybe make one in 30 attempts. And the time that you make it it feels insane. It just feels so effortless and perfect. But then the other times where you catch an edge and eat it, they're not good just going way too fast.
Speaker 1:Well, I get that.
Speaker 2:So water sports took you back to hunting so that was partly like I need to find some other pursuits that are fun, exciting, are in the outdoors, but aren't punishing my body.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:But it's still a physical challenge. And at the same sort of time we, I guess as a family. The cost of living has been increasing. Cost of meat is crazy. It's actually hard to get really good cuts of meat and the shops they just don't sell the stuff like they used to over here. I don't know why that's interesting.
Speaker 1:So here's a quick question. Uh, do you guys have like the standard stuff that america has, like the beef and the pork and the chicken, or do you guys? I talked to someone in South Africa when they have all of these exotic animals, they harvest the animals and then that's what's in their grocery stores because they don't have, you know, the standard American meats, or I guess you know first world country meats.
Speaker 2:We're pretty much the same as America in that regard. So pretty much all of our meat is, how would you say, uh, growing, not in feedlots, it's just grass-fed like the idea of grass was strange to us. It's like, of course they're grass-fed.
Speaker 1:We've got so much grass how else are you doing it exactly?
Speaker 2:it's like yeah. So yeah, I kind of had the and also my daughter was getting a bit older and came to be in the outdoors and we wanted to show her some stuff which you know. Take her hiking and that sort of thing, and kind of my wife was like you should get into hunting yeah and that's kind of.
Speaker 1:That was all I needed really yeah, just needed that fire to be relit. That's awesome. And how long ago was that?
Speaker 2:Sorry, I'm trying to time all this out. Yeah, this was like basically a year and a bit ago A year and a half ago say Got it. Yep. So then it was like, okay, I need to get the gear, so rifle boots, all this sort of outdoor stuff that I didn't have because I spent all my time in the water okay yep.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, that was a cool process, but we were on a tight budget. So, um, I borrowed a bunch of stuff, I got given a bunch of like secondhand hand-me-downs from friends who were, you know, into tramping and hiking and that sort of thing, okay. Um, yeah, and I contacted a friend from high school whose dad sorted me out with his the rifle that he taught his kids with. Okay, so it's an old 308. Over here suppressors are pretty normal. I think they're maybe a bit harder to get in the states, but over here suppressors are pretty normal.
Speaker 1:I think they're maybe a bit harder to get in the states, but over here suppressors are like everyone has a suppressor, basically yeah, I thought that they were hard to get, and I think they used to be, but for some reason the government has, uh, expedited things. I actually just had a gentleman on from silencer central and he says it used to be six months to a year to get a silencer.
Speaker 1:Um, now they're turning them around in three days apparently. So it's, um, there's still paperwork and there's fees and all that stuff, but that's pretty normal for, you know, even guns. So, um, but apparently the the turnaround has gotten a lot quicker. But, yeah, most people don't have them. Um, yeah, if I can, if I can get a little extra cash, I'll hopefully get one to add to my rifle, which I just showed you there a bit ago yep, yeah, I mean over here they're pretty normal.
Speaker 2:I just love them because they reduce the sound so much yeah which makes it so much better, especially when you're shooting with friends and they like, see an animal would take a shot and you're not going. Oh, my ears like it's like, yeah, you don't have to worry about that so much. Which?
Speaker 1:is, or you need to take a follow shot, right, if you miss a little bit.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I guess it stops that recoil being so bad. Over here a lot of people shoot over like a dog use, like a big game indicating dog and dog's hearing gets nailed by gunshots. Interesting, Okay, yeah, that makes a lot of sense.
Speaker 1:I was curious what you meant when you said shoot over a dog, and you mean literally shooting over a dog.
Speaker 2:Yeah, okay, cool.
Speaker 1:So your wife says, get back into it, you get all the gear.
Speaker 2:Get your .308.
Speaker 1:What happened next? What was your first adventure? What was your first?
Speaker 2:I feel this one's not success, but I want to hear what the first one is. It was a success. I actually thought it was a success, um, for the sort of the my goals of the trip um okay, I basically listened to like every uh, remy warren episode.
Speaker 2:Yeah, okay, because I was like I didn't really know, like you know, trev's back working on the farm, um, and I didn't really know anyone else who was hard out into hunting. My friend sam gave me a few tips, um, and then, yeah, then I just listened to those episodes and I was like, okay, so I'm gonna have to like walk for freaking ages I'm gonna have to go really high and I'm gonna have to come down above the deer, try and find some deer and some valleys.
Speaker 2:I'd never, I'd only seen that deer. The one deer that I'd seen in the wild was the one that I shot on that farm, you know, and they come out of the native bush, okay, the dock land, um. So I was like my goal was just to see some deer. So I woke up really early in the morning, drove out a couple of hours. This was in the middle of winter, so it was dark till, you know, it didn't start getting light till 7 30 in the morning or so okay and I stopped at the base of a mountain, parked up and walked up this track.
Speaker 2:My goal was to walk up this track to the top of this mountain and then continue on.
Speaker 2:I'd never even been off a trail in the public land before, so, okay, that's a new thing. And I got to the track and I was like, oh, there's a lot more snow than I thought there was going to be. I was like, okay, that's all right, I've got a walking stick, an old stick that I found in the garden, and I had a bunch of warm clothes and went on up this hill and the snow got deeper and deeper until I was walking through about sort of thigh deep snow at the top, walking through about sort of thigh-deep snow at the top. So I like hiked up, just absolutely pinning it to get to the top of this hill before it got too light, because everyone was saying, you know, the deer start disappearing off in the mornings. Once the sun's up, they might be basking somewhere in the sun to keep warm out of the snow or whatever. Yeah, um, yeah, and I hiked about 1200 vertical meters, it's like four thousand. I checked it out it's like four thousand feet, that's crazy.
Speaker 1:That's a.
Speaker 2:That's a good first start hope you know what you're gonna do if you you've got an animal up there, exactly. So I got out there and I had to stop a few times on the way, because it's like hoofing it to get to the top. So I was either too hot, too cold, sweaty, freezing in the wind, or overheating. So that was like working out that layering kind of thing is something that I really needed to work on. Plus, I guess newly had glasses after the few concussions that I had. Yeah, so my glasses are like fogging up.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's a mission oh, I can see this, I can see it all okay I keep going through the snow and we've got these horrible plants over here called spaniard grass and this you look like, it's like you're stepping over snow. It's fine, it's fine. And then you break through and then your feet go down and then you your thighs get like jabbed by these, like razor sharp spikes, and they're like, yeah, these spaniard grasses are just so nasty. So, anyways, I got it. I keep getting spiked by them, but I just keep going.
Speaker 2:Then I worked out that I could actually jump from one to the other on the grass tops sometimes and not get spiked by them, which was good. Then I sort of thought, okay, I'm going to creep around some rocks and I'm going to start looking for some deer. This is like big open tussock country, not bush and I started seeing tracks in the snow and I was like if I could, if I can follow the tracks, I might be able to see where the deer are going. And I found a bunch of tracks. It was like heaps of them going up this valley. It was probably like 800 meters away, I don't know how many yards, that is, a thousand yards or something, maybe.
Speaker 2:Yeah, sure, I'll look it up real quick, but keep going somewhere between that um yeah and I kept following these tracks until I got to the point where I was like oh my, that's where the track is coming from. There's a herd of eight deer just walking up through the snow.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:So I was like, wow, that's cool. So I just watched them for a bit and then I thought well, what am I going to do? I guess I'm going to try and get over to the deer. So I started walking. Just continue jumping across your grass and as I came around, I came into the north facing slope, which is, I guess, like your south facing slope. You know, because we're on the other side of the world, so it makes sense more the barren side no snow there, just big, steep shingle screes.
Speaker 2:Mountains are up high in the alps and there's just shingle scree. So I just started tracking across sideways, across that, and then the deer. I kept stopping to have a look. Deer haven't seen me, they're still going. And then at some point, because I'm out in the open, the deer see me and they all group together. They run to the top of the saddle and all the smaller deer go over the saddle and down the other side and disappear. And this one big deer, like this big hind female deer, just stays right on the top of the saddle just staring at me yeah yeah that's awesome.
Speaker 2:It's probably like the um, they have a lead cow elk with.
Speaker 1:They have a lead cow. Elk Wapiti have a lead cow that will sometimes do stuff like that where it's kind of like get the whole herd to safety and then hang out and watch for a second. So that's cool that the stags are doing the same thing.
Speaker 2:The hinds sorry, the hinds sorry, the female ones, yeah, yeah, and they did the same thing. She just stood there staring at me for a minute or so, and then, once that all disappeared, she disappeared, and I went over to try and find where they went. No idea Like it was when I got over the other side. It was just all sorts of crazy um valleys, ravines like scrub and Spaniard grass everywhere. It's like wow yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and the wind was all just swirling all over the place and I was like I don't think I'm going to have any luck down there. So I went back a couple more times, still with no luck in there, and then I started looking for other spots after that. But it was a huge success just to see Deon that first trip.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. So you climbed up 4,000 feet or however far, 1200 meters, and you went back multiple times. Yeah well, I didn't know. I was like nobody better.
Speaker 2:I didn't know any better. I was like I've seen deer there, there's deer there, so I'll just try and learn that area a bit more. I still haven't figured that place out and I still, what do they say?
Speaker 1:ignorance is bliss right.
Speaker 2:So yeah, I just thought that's what you did. You walked 4 000 vertical feet. In the morning after that I found out. I talked to a few hunters and stuff. They're like nah, nah yeah.
Speaker 1:Did any of them ask you like, what were you gonna do if you killed something that far away? Like, did you bring a knife with you? This time At least? Yes, I did.
Speaker 2:I had all the, all the stuff. I'd watched a bunch of videos on, like the different butchering techniques and stuff. Okay, yeah, I'll probably do the gutless method for how far I'd walked and I'd probably, because it was cold, I'd probably look at doing a couple of trips if I needed to. Then it was like six months of missions Pretty much every Thursday afternoon that I could. I'd start work early, finish work early and then hit the hills and go out for an evening scouting mission, drive for an hour or so, hike for a few hours, walk back in the dark, look for sign, look for animals. I saw plenty of sign. I didn't see any. I think I saw one deer in like six months.
Speaker 1:There we go. That sounds like hunting. Okay, now we're on the right track here, all right.
Speaker 2:So it was like a bit of a fluke that I saw them in the first time. You know we're on the right track here all right. So it was like a bit of a fluke that I saw them in the first time, you know, and that probably that kind of like gave me a lot of like drive to just keep pushing. But yeah I guess a lot of the the remy warren episodes and stuff were all about never giving up and going after it and stuff. It's like cool.
Speaker 1:So yeah, that's a big part to winning the the hunting equation right. It's just being in the woods, like as long as you're out there trying, eventually. Eventually you'll figure something out, you'll learn a little bit or make less mistakes, who knows, but it's about being out there, so that's awesome that you're out there so how many days do you think you went out? It's been a year and a half. How many days hunting have you done in the last year and a half? You think ballpark you don't have to be. This isn't a test.
Speaker 2:I'm guessing. I had a look at my map at where I'd been and I worked out that I've been to 30 different blocks in that time, and some of them I've been to multiple times. Okay, and some of them I've been to for multiple days, so Maybe 50 days in the field, 50 plus 50 plus, we'll see 50 plus 50 plus a lot. Basically I've been like because once I got into it and you know, I started getting into it doing it myself I was just like what have I been doing all my life?
Speaker 1:yeah, I know that feeling. That's 100 percent. Like I started hunting, I was like I don't know this is for me and only did it because of relatives doing it and they invited me and now, like I'm completely addicted to it and it's my personality, right. So people started reaching out to me asking me hunting tips and I'm like you don't want to take tips from me, but I'm happy to tell you whatever I think is the right answer. So that's awesome, man.
Speaker 2:People ask to come out with me and I'm like I still haven't quite figured out how to not go so hard and so far, so I'm like I don't really want to put you through the punishment that I put myself through.
Speaker 1:I have a couple of friends like you that I'm like slow down.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm big and slow. I'm learning to slow down with the glasses and stopping them fogging up.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's too funny. Well, okay, so you've got a lot of days in, have you? I mean, I don't know if you have another story you want to tell or if I'm just driving this here, but do you have success? Have you seen outside of just like progress as far as your hunting and your skills? Have you seen success actually harvesting something?
Speaker 2:yeah. So I kind of switched tact and went back to goats. Okay, went on a bunch of like goat hunting missions and the goats live in some pretty steep, gnarly terrain and I had a bunch of, I guess, failures in that regard, like yeah, scary country and poor shots, realized that I wasn't as good as shooting as I thought I was.
Speaker 1:You just can't hit something standing still.
Speaker 2:You need them to run yeah, and so I did a bit of time at the at a rifle range and getting some ammo that I that shot accurately through the rifle and just learning to take my time and put earplugs in so I wasn't flinching. Yeah, um, that kind of thing, that sort of process. And I eventually found success with um some goats and it was like they're, I guess, a good beginners um big game animal in new zealand because they're out and about all day, as opposed to deer, which you know we can hunt deer all year round. So deer are pretty um stealthy in a lot of places because they get a lot of hunting pressure. Okay, um, they disappear pretty pretty quickly after first light in a lot of places, whereas goats are out and about, they're making noise and that sort of thing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's smart.
Speaker 2:But when I got those first goats, I actually got four goats. When I did eventually find success, I got four of them At one time, at one time.
Speaker 1:You're like well, I did three. Last time I got to do better than three I'll do four this time.
Speaker 2:Well, I did four because my um magazine holds four, four rounds.
Speaker 1:Okay hopefully you weren't far from the truck. How'd you get all that meat back?
Speaker 2:or hopefully it was cold at least it was actually um summer, so oh no months of hunting.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Summertime relatively early in the morning, but it started getting warm. I wasn't close to the track. I was like a good couple of hours up this very gnarly riverbed. That's a pretty horrible country, yeah, but I think that's why I did get the goat that I did. I got like three young ones that were good for eating and this one billy goat, who's an absolute monster. Um, it's like 29 and a half inch horns, so okay, that seems really big half an inch under trophy size okay, which was pretty good for my first public land goat yeah, what?
Speaker 1:what species are these? These aren't like domesticated goats that just got loose, or are these?
Speaker 2:essentially yeah of. Essentially yeah, okay, all the goats are in New Zealand. Essentially yeah, as big Angora goat, I think.
Speaker 1:That's awesome. That's really cool. So you did pack out all of it, or did you have to leave some behind?
Speaker 2:I did actually pack out all of it. Gotcha, I'm just going to close one of my programs on my computer so I don't run out of battery. Yeah, so I packed out all of it. I did two trips. I ended up getting a hand from a friend who came in and also packed some out. Yeah, it was hard work and it was very steep and I was really grateful to have that help. That's awesome.
Speaker 1:How many, how many days out on your own outside of that farm did you put in before you had that goat success? Oh, it was like six months yeah, so of every every thursday to sunday basically every thursday and every and almost every weekend yeah, yeah, gosh, that's that's.
Speaker 1:That's awesome, man. I'm glad you were able to go after it that hard. That's one of the best ways to like sharpen that curve is just getting out a bunch and that's problem with, like western hunting here. I'm in Colorado, right, we have our seasons, and you say you go rifle hunting, they give you six days, seven days, and like that's that's what you get for the year, right? So I I've always wanted to hunt more and more and more, but I have limited seasons and that's partly besides. I just hated the cold weather. Uh, why I switched to archery? Because I was like, oh, now I have a month a little bit more time, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:And I guess outside of that time can you still get out there in that public land and go scout and just try and get close to animals and that sort of thing yep, absolutely as long as the wife gives me the time.
Speaker 1:I got two littles, so that's yeah I gotta yeah, I gotta balance all that stuff, but yeah, you definitely can, um, and then there's even like the shed hunting seasons, um, and then turkey and you know all that.
Speaker 2:So there's plenty of time to get out there, but it's not like it sounds like in new zealand like, yeah, we're just going open season, yeah, for sure, and I was pretty, I've been pretty lucky in that. My daughter, who's? She? Just turned nine. She's, um, she just loves being outdoors, so it's really easy to go um. We have a few friends that are like sort of based close to some of the dock, land or borders bordering on it, so we can go stay there for the weekend. I can go out hunting. It's not a big um yeah, time away from the family, which is cool and yeah, and as my daughter's gotten more um more into it, she's um just gotten better and better at being out there. She's kind of almost my good luck charm going hunting with. We always seem to get something when she comes out.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's awesome. So let me ask you this so you've shot a lot of goats, or at least you've had success with goats what's your favorite way to cook them? Because I just shot a pronghorn antelope, which is called a pronghorn antelope, but it's actually a pronghorn goat. It's not related to antelopes, it's related to goats, and so I'm curious, like how should I go about trying to cook that meat up?
Speaker 2:I don't know about pronghorn antelope but how do you cook goats?
Speaker 1:I mean the same species, right? Yeah, so what?
Speaker 2:I found, and is that um the nanny goats? Female goats taste way better than the billy goats. The billy goats over here have got like the older ones. I just actually can't eat them um. They're too strong tasting for me yeah. But the younger billies and the nannies taste great.
Speaker 2:We've done a few different ways of doing it, just like a slow-cooked goat curry. Okay, always good Mincing them and making some goat meatballs. Do you want to? One real crazy thing is yeah, I had like some goat in the fridge that went minced or I don't know ground like yeah okay, yeah, and I had a few other ingredients, just random bits and pieces and some stuff in the garden.
Speaker 2:I didn't know what, how I was going to cook them. I typed into chat gpt because we use chat gpt, but it worked. Because I do software stuff, I was like I'm just gonna try, like see what it can do with the recipe and I was like here's the ingredients I've got. Give me five recipes that I can make with this and then just like churned out five recipes.
Speaker 2:One of them was this goat meatball recipe yeah, and like a sauce and I just followed what it said and it was like amazing. My wife was like where did you get this recipe from? I was like wow that's too funny.
Speaker 1:I've used chat gpt to like meal plan but never to like build a recipe. I'm gonna now ask my analog question to chat gpt. I guess yeah, see what?
Speaker 2:it says say this is what I've got. Yeah, yeah, show me what you can do yeah, that's too funny, man, that's too funny okay well, okay, I took us off topic with, uh, the culinary stuff.
Speaker 1:But, ray, what you got any other stories, any like important ones for you, that you want to share? Um, I know that your computer's about to die, so I want to so I want to end on a good note here and not you just disappearing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I got 26%. We'll keep an eye on it. Yeah, I guess I can skim through a couple and go deep into some of them, if we want that. First, public land deer this was a real brutal one. I'd been into this spot. I hadn't had any light with deer by sort of like late summer. I had started seeing them more, started getting a bit more honed into that, but I still hadn't found success. They were pretty stealthy animals and so I thought, right, I'm going to push further than I've been before. And I found a place where I could, where it looked promising, and I did sort of a.
Speaker 2:I did essentially a scouting trip one weekend and I went in for a few days because we were running out of meat with the goats and we really wanted to get a deer. So I went in one weekend I actually it was 24 kilometer hike, in which is 14 miles I went in after work and hiked in in the dark. After work. I took an extra day off work, went in and then the next day the wind was howling and I headed further up this valley, came over this ridge and I thought this looks like a sweet spot where there might be a deer sheltering out of the wind.
Speaker 2:I'd spotted a deer further back in the block on some private land in a similar spot, tucked in this little gut out of the wind sitting in the sun eating some grass. This little gut out of the wind sitting in the sun eating some grass, and I thought, well, if there was a stag over there in that one, then this one looks like it's going to be similar. I came and looked over the edge, didn't see anything. Then I thought I'll go one more time and I peered over through the grass and looked down and there's this little like um excavated gut where water had been going down and I looked down, literally like right below me was this massive stag, you know, and I was like looking on top of him.
Speaker 2:I was probably like three meters away no way.
Speaker 2:I was just like no way. So I was like, okay, snuck back to my pack that I'd dropped, got my rifle, got it all ready. Snuck back over the edge, came over and I was like, ah, where has he gone by? Then he'd moved over about 20 metres away and he was like feeding across. And he was behind this bush and I was like, okay, when he comes out, I'm gonna, you know, pull the trigger. Yeah, and he started stepping forwards, his head started coming out, and then I felt the wind, just no, no direction, just blew that direction he didn't even.
Speaker 2:He didn't even hesitate one second, he just ran. He's gone. I just saw the tail of him just disappearing into the bush. What a cool encounter. I was just totally.
Speaker 1:Especially being three meters, that's like nine feet. That's so close to a red stag or an elk, that's awesome.
Speaker 2:It was so insane.
Speaker 1:I couldn't believe it really bad was your heart pounding.
Speaker 2:Hey, it was amazing. It was such a buzz and, yeah, I went back home, told my wife about it and I was like, all right, next weekend I'm going after it again and we're gonna. I'm gonna go try and see if I can find one. If I, if there's deer there, then there's gonna be more. So, yeah, I went back the next weekend, hiked in the 24ks. Um, it was really in similar weather hot, windy um. I hiked in. I got a terrible night's sleep because I was so excited.
Speaker 2:Woke up, at like 3 in the morning or something, sweating because it was like warm nor'west wind. It was probably like 20 degrees Celsius. I don't know what that is. Fahrenheit, that's warm. That's warm, I want to say it's like 70 or 80.
Speaker 2:Yeah, 70 maybe. Yeah, yeah, it was pretty hot. And then, yeah, got up that morning and was like right, I still don't know what I'm doing, but I was like I'm going to hike to the top of that range, which is 1,200 vertical meters, which is like 4,000 feet. I was like I'm going to try and find a stag on the tops. So I came up this hill and I'm like it's so steep and it's like it's starting to get light I'm just using my red head torch and I come over the. I thought then I see this ridge, these like sort of island of beach trees which are like these green, uh, evergreen trees, with these little leaves and tussocks and stuff. It's just amazing deer country.
Speaker 2:And I thought yeah I'm just gonna take it really slow over the edge and hopefully there's something up country. And I thought, yeah, I'm just gonna take it really slow over the edge and hopefully there's something up here. And I'm, as luck would have it, I peeked over the edge and the stag is coming down. Oh, he's a spiker, he comes down. I'm just like, oh, my god, am I? I remember had my friend sam's voice in my head just don't hesitate, don't muck around like I did with the last deer, the last stag, with my gear and all that stuff yeah so I just slunk down under the ridge line, put my rifle up with the bipod that my friend sam had given me and he stepped out.
Speaker 2:I just pulled the trigger and he did a big kick, fell over down into this shingle scree and I just couldn't believe it that's amazing that's so great man.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you reminded me of something that I've always told myself, which I didn't think about until you said the second story with the with the deer. It was like anytime you leave your weapon somewhere, that's when you're going to see a deer. So no wonder you saw the biggest deer you know, when your weapon wasn't on you and you had to go back and get it.
Speaker 2:That's just how hunting works yeah totally, that's awesome yeah, it was amazing, it was, I was. It was such a um mix of emotions, you know yeah, that's awesome, did it.
Speaker 1:Now, how was that pack out? Do you regret going that deep after you shot that red stag all?
Speaker 2:the way in there. Dude, it was just I like, and also because it was my first one and I put in so much work, I was like I'm gonna pack out every piece of meat I can, so my pack was just maxed out.
Speaker 1:Did you have a good pack with like a frame on it, or are you wearing like a pack with no frame, weight entirely on your shoulders?
Speaker 2:uh, it was like a really flimsy frame. So again, at that point we had like one hiking pack and it was my wife's one from like 20 years ago and it was like dog it was. It was crap.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but there's nothing with a meat shelf on it.
Speaker 2:Nothing to make that okay this was like a lightweight hiking pack kind of thing and so yeah once I, oh.
Speaker 2:The other thing is I started butchering this deer up on the top and such a beautiful animal, um. But then what? As soon as I cut into it, flies just come out of nowhere. Oh no, hundreds of flies. And then, after the flies, wasps, like thousands of wasps, and they were all in there, just like. And people in new zealand said, like you don't get wasps like thousands of wasps, and they were all in there, just like. And people in new zealand said, like you don't get wasps right up in the high alpine stuff, but maybe because it was warm enough, they were right up there like 1400 meters sort of thing, the wasps were eating the they were like right as I was cutting.
Speaker 2:I would be like pushing wasps out of the way wow, we're just like right, and they're just like feeding on every bit of meat, and they're like the stinging wasps out of the way. Wow, they were just like right and they're just like feeding on every bit of meat.
Speaker 1:And they're like the stinging wasps, right, the same kind you have here in America. Yeah, yeah, yeah, like the European stinging wasp nasty things.
Speaker 2:I had no idea that they did that.
Speaker 1:I've experienced a lot of flies and stuff like that, particularly in, like Hawaii. There were a lot of flies because it was nice and warm. In Colorado, like hawaii, there were a lot of flies because it was nice and warm. Uh, in colorado, most of my hunts it's been cold enough in the mornings and evenings that you don't have to worry too much about that stuff. But yeah, I've never heard about wasps coming in.
Speaker 2:Did you get stung? No, no, they were just there doing that. Like I was like well, they're not going after me, they're just like here because of this food, and so I was like I'm just gonna take it carefully and not like annoy them. And they're here, they're just doing their thing feeding. I mean, they're terrible pests in new zealand, but okay sound like I can't do anything about that um, yeah, so I just tried to just stay focused.
Speaker 2:I was like I was like I'm not giving this meet up just because there's a few. Was I worked so hard to get to this point? Yeah, yeah, and then the pack out. I can probably send you some videos of me recording myself. It was just brutal, just vulgarity swear words the whole way.
Speaker 1:It got up to like 80 degrees Fahrenheit.
Speaker 2:Yeah, got up to like 80 degrees Fahrenheit, like 27 degrees. I did jot that down because I was going to mention that I ran out of water. Oh no, it to jot that down because I was gonna mention that, um, I ran out of water. Oh no, it was just, it was gnarly. I'm quickly running out of power on my laptop okay, uh so we'll see. Well, we can wrap things up, unless you got another crazy story you want to mention.
Speaker 1:We can wrap things up now and then, ray, we'll have you back on six more months.
Speaker 2:You'll have two more episodes worth of stories yeah, we didn't get to the hunt with my daughter that I really wanted to get to, but that's all right, okay we can leave if you're plugged in.
Speaker 1:I can tell it real quick no, I'm not plugged in.
Speaker 2:I should have been more prepared with that. But yeah, um so. Yeah, the packout was intense, but when I got home it was like a celebration station. We were just so pumped that's amazing so much meat and we actually stayed up till like three o'clock in the morning because it like I hiked out all day got it at sunrise. Got home at like 9 pm that night and then then we were.
Speaker 1:How many trips did you have to go back and forth?
Speaker 2:I just just did one. I was going to do two but I was like, by the time I got down to my tent I was like I'm not going to get out of here, I'm not going to be coming back in here. It's just too gnarly.
Speaker 1:How many pounds or kilograms do you think you had of meat?
Speaker 2:Well, I got out 20 kgs of meat boned out Okay, so pounds that's like times by 2.2, so 40 something pounds plus. I also took the head, okay, which was ridiculous, I bet, and then all my, then all my, um camping stuff and my horribly uh heavy weatherbyby Vanguard 308. Okay, yeah, okay.
Speaker 1:So yeah, an elk must be a fair amount larger, because 45 pounds is the weight of one front quarter on an elk.
Speaker 2:Yes, yeah, yeah, they're like.
Speaker 1:I guess a big elk.
Speaker 2:Oh, my battery's running low. I'm going to go just head to my desk and plug in. Okay, all right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, ray, this was a lot of fun. I really appreciate you taking the time, waking up early, um, starting your day telling some hunting stories, which is a pretty good way to start the day, if you ask me. But, uh, thank you for for reaching out and listening in all these things. Man, I want to have you back on again in the future because, one, I want to hear the story with your daughter and then, two, I want to hear what other adventures you have.
Speaker 2:Man, sound good yeah, man so keen perfect, perfect.
Speaker 1:Um. Well then, let's do one final thing. Do you want to share where the people can find you, your instagram or do you just want to walk off into the sunset?
Speaker 2:up to you uh, I guess you can go find me on instagram. Um, maybe go to spoonhead. What? What is it? I actually just changed it.
Speaker 1:I'll link it. I don't know what it is on my head either, but it'll be in the show notes Link it to my music one Perfect.
Speaker 2:I think I have that one Great man.
Speaker 1:Thank you, ray, I really do appreciate you. Sorry, we killed your battery, but we'll have you back on, I guarantee. Thank you very much for reaching out to me.
Speaker 2:Man, appreciate it have you back on, I guarantee. So thank you very much for for for reaching out to me. Man appreciate it.
Speaker 1:Thank you, cheers. All right guys, that's it. Another couple stories in the books. Again, ray, thank you so much for coming on the podcast man. I really do appreciate it. It is a shame that we had a little of those battery problems, but that's okay, we'll have you back on and I know you've actually been on some adventures and had some success, even since we've last recorded, so that's amazing. So thank you again, ray, I do appreciate you. To you listeners, if you have a story or if you know someone who's got a crazy story, connect me to them. You can reach out to me. You can have them reach out to me. Either way, the other listeners want to hear those stories. Also, make sure you go out there and subscribe. Thank you Now. Get out there and make some stories of your own. Oh, also, don't forget to vote and take a friend with you on November 4th. Thank you.
