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 153 The Hunting Stories Podcast: Aaron Jennings
Aaron Jennings transports us to the rugged landscapes of New Zealand's North Island, where hunting isn't just a recreational pursuit but a way of life woven into the cultural fabric of communities. From his earliest memories of sitting in the truck with his father and grandfather (koro) to his present-day adventures pursuing wild boars through blackberry-choked gullies, Aaron shares stories that reveal the unique hunting traditions of his homeland.
Perhaps most compelling is Aaron's description of hunting's role in community support. He and his brother harvested approximately 250 deer in a single year, distributing the meat to families facing food insecurity. This practice transforms hunting from recreation into service, embodying the Māori saying "kai moti te pu" (food for the table) that guides their ethical approach.
Want to see more of Aaron's hunting adventures? Follow him on Instagram at _ajdventures and experience the passion that drives New Zealand hunters to venture out every weekend in pursuit of wild game and community connection.
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Howdy folks and welcome to the hunting stories podcast. I'm your host, Michael, and we got another great episode for you today. Today we're actually connecting with Aaron Jennings. Aaron is from New Zealand so obviously we had some technical issues, we had some scheduling issues, but we got it recorded and it does not disappoint. Aaron has some amazing stories about hunting stag in New Zealand and hogs taking his wife out going with his granddad just all sorts of just amazing stories about hunting stag in New Zealand and hogs taking his wife out going with his granddad just all sorts of just amazing stories.
Michael:So, Aaron, thank you so much for reaching out and asking to be on the podcast and, of course, for sharing your stories. Really do appreciate it. I hope you guys enjoy it as well. Please give us a like and a follow and subscribe and share the podcast with one person or whatever else we're supposed to ask you guys to do. But that's it, guys. Let's go ahead and kick this thing off and let Aaron tell you some of his stories. Thank you All right, Aaron, welcome to the Hunting Stories podcast. Man, how are you? Yeah?
Aaron:not too bad, man Yourself.
Michael:I'm doing well, brother. I'm doing well. I'm super excited to talk to you. You're officially the second person on the podcast that I've talked to. That is technically in the future, because it is tomorrow where you are, sir, which probably explains why we're having all of these technical issues. But hopefully we can get through this thing right.
Aaron:Fingers crossed.
Michael:Yeah, all right, man. Well, let's do this. Aaron, why don't you introduce yourself to the listeners so they know, uh, who they're hearing some stories from today, man so, hey guys, um, I'm aaron jennings.
Aaron:I'm obviously from new zealand in the future, as you fellas will probably think. Um, and I've been an avid king pig hunter, deer hunter, waterfowler. Oh, since before I could walk, I can remember my father taking me out hunting, putting me in the back of the truck and off we went.
Michael:That's super cool, man. So you're the second New Zealander we've had on the podcast. The other guy, he did not start like you did for his entire life. He kind of picked it up late. But I'm super interested to hear, because he didn't have any pig stories. I feel like you guys are in entirely different parts of the country. So the other thing I want to mention is that you are a listener and you reached out saying, hey, I've got some killer stories and I'd love to come on. So a question I have for you, man, is did you just randomly stumble across the podcast or did someone recommend it?
Aaron:I actually stumbled across it. I was bored at work one day and thought, oh, I need something else to listen to. And I stumbled upon yours and got hooked from the very first episode.
Michael:Oh man Cool. I appreciate that. I appreciate that Cool. Well, so you've been hunting your whole life hunting hogs, deer.
Aaron:Where do you want to start this thing off, man? Why don't you set the stage for the first story? Let's just jump right into it. I'll take us back to when me and my partner decided to go on our very first hunt together. Okay, so we had only been seeing each other for a couple of months, and one day I asked her if she'd be keen to tag along on a pig hunt.
Michael:All right.
Aaron:Yeah, I knew then I should have never asked, but, um, we went anyway and we decided to go for a pig hunt in the moonlight, because that's when, over here, our pigs are most active okay.
Michael:So question for you on the pigs over there are they just like in texas, in the in the south of, uh, in this, the us south? Um, they're just domestic pigs that got loose and then became feral. Is that the same species that you got there? They just basically farm pigs that are free oh, yes and no, um.
Aaron:So all of ours was introduced and released, um, okay, back I don't know when, years and years ago, and um, so I know we have the Russian Blues in some places of New Zealand and then we also have Captain Hookers, and I'm sure along the line too there's been a lot of tame ones escape, and in our case a lot of people do release them too. To get the numbers up, because we don't actually have a great pig population in the area that I'm in.
Michael:Oh, interesting, huh. So they're not necessarily a nuisance. They're more of like a game and more sporting, because where they are in the United States they are a nuisance and people want to get rid of them and we'll kill them any way they possibly can.
Aaron:See, I wish we had that problem.
Michael:I would absolutely love to come over there and that's interesting.
Michael:Yeah, so hogs are one of the few things, um, that basically have no rules right. So, like elk and white-tailed deer, mule deer and all these other wild game species, you got the seasons, you have to have a tag. You need all of that. Hogs, you don't need anything and you can go out at any time of the day and with any weapon you want people. Uh, maybe you've seen videos of people in texas with, uh, automatic rifles in a helicopter just chasing hordes of hogs. That's how much where they want to get rid of them.
Aaron:They're like, use whatever you can yeah, I've seen stacks of those videos and this sort of will make me jealous. But at the same time we're sort of um, we were brought up dog and knife. Okay, you know, use our dogs to catch the pig and then sneak in and um, how do you say, put the pig down as quickly and ethical as possible that's awesome.
Michael:I have a friend who's done that in hawaii, but I don't know anyone else that has done that method. So you say you were raised doing that. When was the first time you stuck a pig?
Aaron:Very first pig I stuck would have been I just started primary school. I was about five years old.
Michael:No way, I'm assuming it wasn't too big. Your dad was probably like let's get a little one for him.
Aaron:Yeah, yeah, exactly one for him. Yeah, yeah, it's exactly that, is exactly that. Yeah, we had walked into a mall, the pigs and, um, the dogs caught a couple and, yeah, dad grabbed the first one for me at the dog's head and he flipped it and I stuck it and we were all happy after that. And then that's amazing, just never stopped that's amazing.
Michael:I have a six-year-old. I cannot imagine him sticking a pig right now but okay I took us way off course, because I just had some questions. But okay, back to you with your partner and hog hunting for the first time.
Aaron:Yeah. So one late afternoon I decided to ask her if she wanted to come for a ride and we'll go chase some pigs around, and she agreed, which I know now that she regretted. She agreed which I know now that she regretted and, yeah, just happened to be one of those very lucky and it was a big fluke on the way the night ended up. So we got there, the river was in flood and we had to walk across the river to get into the area where this certain pig that I'd been after for a while had been hanging out. So we finally made it across and got all the dogs across and we started walking in through the native and pulled up to a bit of a what would you call it like a terrace, almost where you can look out across the gully.
Michael:All right.
Aaron:And we had my thermal handheld, so we were thermaling around looking for deer too, because you can shoot deer at nighttime over here if you're on private land but not on public.
Michael:Okay.
Aaron:And looked across the gully and spotted a morbid deer. And I said to my partner, nell, I said, oh, would you like to have a crack? And she said no, because she had never been around the firearm in her life. And so we left them and I thought, oh well, what we'll do is we'll drop down off this little terrace and get onto this old forestry road and walk up the road. And just as we got down onto the road, I said to her I was like, oh, have you seen my, um, my dogs? And she looked at me and said, oh, I thought they were behind me, but they weren't. They had snuck off from when we were sitting on the terrace. And then, in about 30 seconds of saying that, um, I heard the dogs up above me, about 400 meters up on top of this ridge. They opened up and they started bailing and of course but at this point it is 1130 at night.
Aaron:Okay, um and the moonlight with. I had a head torch. She had no phone. She had her phone light.
Michael:Oh, no yeah.
Aaron:Um so, uh, yeah, from then on it was it was fun for me because I finally got the pig that I'd been after for so long, and anyway, um yeah, the dogs opened up, it broke, it, got away from the dogs, it ran straight down past me and her, probably at two meters away no way.
Michael:Okay. A couple quick questions. Um how many dogs do you do you hunt with?
Aaron:so typically we've always ran between three and five pig dogs okay um, and they do both. So I don't know what you fellas call it over there. I know you just call them cur dogs and all of that, okay, but, um, we call them finder holders or finder balers, so they'll find the pig and hold it, or find the pig and bark at it and keep it contained.
Michael:Got it, Got it, Okay, cool. And then this particular hog. You say you've been after it for a while. Is that because it was just a toad, just a big old hog, or was there something about it like albino or who knows?
Aaron:It was exactly that just a cunning old pig Over here. If a pig gets of a significant size, he didn't get to that size without being cunning and smart.
Michael:Yeah, okay. And that's exactly what he was. Got it Okay cool, so he sprints by you, sorry.
Aaron:Yeah, he cut across the old forestry road just behind us at about, yeah, two, two meters, and I'd just seen a flash in my headlight. And then I had two young puppies with me at the time and they were about eight months old and this was the second or third pig they'd ever seen and they ran in and they managed to stop the pig and keep him contained long enough which would have only been 10, 15 seconds for the rest of my more experienced dogs to show up and finally sink a tooth. And anyway, I looked at my partner and I said, oh well, it's all on now, you know, follow me. And of course most forests over here have blackberry and it is the worst fucking plant existed. I wish it never existed.
Michael:That's so funny like I told you, I lived in seattle, washington, and they have that everywhere and it I've never even thought about trying to go through a blackberry bush because it is so nasty. Um, and here, at least in washington, filled with spiders. Is that the same in New Zealand? Is it just like a bug haven?
Aaron:No see, we don't have any dangerous spiders per se. Obviously there are spiders and whatnot, but then there's nothing that should be scary like you see on TV in other countries. But it is just a hell of a plant and, yeah, the pigs love it because they can tunnel in underneath it and they create runs and they that's how they get away from the dogs. They get into these runs and they run away from the dogs and because they've lived in the black, they know how to use it to their advantage. Yeah and um, yeah. So, yeah, the worst blackberry I've ever probably been in, to the point that it was, oh, seven, eight foot above my head.
Aaron:Oh, wow, and from tree to tree and it's a pine forest, so it was growing from tree to tree like a Tarzan vine.
Michael:God and for the listeners, just so, because I know you and I know this. But blackberry bush not as just like a bad vine. It is covered in thorns, like nasty thorns, and it will cut you up. So I just want to make sure that people know that, as they're picturing what you're telling us here. Uh, but keep going.
Aaron:Yeah, it's awful and so anyway, yeah, um, after about five minutes of trying to push over the top of this blackberry we, I thought to myself, I was like I'm not going to get there in time, and the dogs had. I could already have heard the dogs get punched a few times.
Aaron:They gave a few yodels and a few yelps yeah and in the back of my head straight away I thought no, I've got to get there to get this pig under control and put it down before it either hurts my dogs or gets away. So I just happened to look to my left and I seen this hole in the blackberry, almost like a tunnel. So I stood in it and I went through it and I ended up actually in the pig tunnel itself. So I managed to get my partner down in there with me and I was on my hands and knees and we crawled through this pig tunnel for about 80 meters.
Michael:Good, gracious and remembering too.
Aaron:This is my partner's first ever pig hunt and I'm dragging her through prickles.
Michael:Yeah, and she doesn't have a headlamp or a torch, she's just got her phone light.
Aaron:That's awful man, she's just got her phone light and she's just holding on to me for dear life phone light and she's just holding on to me for dear life and she gets afraid of the dark sometimes because she's quite spiritually so.
Aaron:She was following me, sticking to me like glue and um, sneaking along this pig tunnel getting closer and closer and closer. Then it goes quiet and I sort of on my hands and knees, look back past me and I looked at her and I was like this isn't good. And then about 10, 15 seconds later the dog started bailing again and I thought sweet, we're away, they've got him again. He obviously just broke to try to make that last ditch effort to get away and at that exact moment I heard my dog start yelping and yodeling and I thought, oh no, I've got, got to get there. So I looked back at my missus while we're still in the pig tunnel and I said to her sorry, babe, I've got to go.
Michael:And I just and I left her in the blackberry I can't believe she's still with you, man. It's like my wife. I would never every day. Oh my goodness, she would never talk to me again if I did that to my wife.
Aaron:Good geez that part's coming. I'll fill you in on that, right. So anyway, um, I take off from her and um, I break out on the edge of the swamp and there's, um, there's only, I'd say, about 40 meters by 60 meters, and it's a real shallow swamp, you know, just between ankle and knee depth, but real muddy and yuck. So yeah, we keep punching, I keep punching through the swamp and there's one little mound in the middle of the swamp and the dogs had him just on the other side of the mound. So I was like, okay, if I can get onto this mound I'll be able to look down on him. And this mound would have only been a metre high, but it was enough to keep me hidden from him. And so he didn't know I was there.
Aaron:So I turned my head torch off, because the moon was that bright, crawled on top of this mound and I had my rifle and my spotlight and I just looked over and I could see a black figure. So I flicked the spotlight on and as soon as he turned to look at me, I just popped one straight in behind the ear and dropped them and I was like, sweet, got him right. So first thing I've got to do is check my dogs over, make sure there's no rips, that there's no damage. So I checked them over and everything was sweet and I was like cool. And then I remembered my missus is still in the blackberry. So I yelled out woohoo, I got him, babe. Yep, I've got him, I've got him. And then I get back excuse the swearing, fuck you, I'm never coming again that seems like a pretty reasonable answer from her yeah, and I don't blame her.
Aaron:I don't do not blame her one bit. But um, yeah, so I walk back through the swamp, get to the blackberry tunnel. I help her through, help her back out. We get to the edge of the swamp, I chuck her on my back and go to carry her across, but, um, I ended up sinking in a bit of mud and so she hopped off and that went straight over her boots and filled her boots with water mud. She was dirty and wet up to her knees this keeps getting worse yeah.
Aaron:And so I finally get um, we finally get over to the mound you know that little knob in the swamp and I take her up on top and I say, right, you ready, look at this. And she said the same thing fuck off, don't talk to me. So I turn the spotlight on and show her this ball and straight away her mood changed. She was over the moon. She was wrapped, like okay, we came, was over the moon. She was wrapped, like okay, we came, we saw and we conquered sort of thing, like yeah, we've got it. And I thought, okay, I might be out of the bad books here.
Michael:Yeah, you're lucky yeah.
Aaron:If I'm lucky. So anyway, what had happened is when I had put my partner on my back to go across the swamp, she didn't know where she put her phone because she obviously wanted to hold on for piggyback and she put her phone somewhere. So she was like I want to take a photo of this pig. And then she starts feeling a pockus and she goes I can't find my phone and I thought, okay, if I was out of the bloody woods then I'm definitely going straight back in now.
Aaron:So we're standing there and she's feeling her pockets, feeling her pockets and pulling out the insides of her pockets, and then I looked down at the side of her leg and, because she was wearing tights, you could see the phone was down by her knee. They were side pockets down real low and that got me out of the woods. So I was like, oh, that's bloody awesome, cool. So we got stacks of photos, heaps of photos of her with it, because it's the first ever pig she had seen. Um check the dogs over, and by this point it was 1 am in the morning. So we were oh yeah, this is cool, we'll start carrying it out, because over here we hunt pork for the table, for food? Yeah, absolutely, we have a Maori saying called kai moti te pu which means food for the table.
Aaron:It's in our native language, maori. That's awesome. Yeah, so we carry this pig out, and it probably took me. It was a couple of Ks. I know you, fellas, go a mile, so this will probably annoy a few of you, fellas, we'll figure it out.
Michael:You do, you, man? We want to hear your story, so don't worry about it.
Aaron:It was probably about six, seven Ks from the truck.
Aaron:Okay, and still had to cross that river, your story, so don't worry about it. It was probably about six, seven k's from the truck, okay, and um, still had to cross that river. How big was the hog? How big was the hog? Oh so, over here, if a pig sort of depending on the which area of the country you're in like I'm in the bay of plenty region, which you know, you do get pigs over here uh, monster pig is something that would be anywhere from 170 pound to 200 pound. 200 pound was like you're a legend if you can catch one of those sort of things yeah, okay and um, this, this hog.
Aaron:He was an old pig who had gone backwards, so he started losing weight and then he'd. Then his days had finally become numbered, and I just managed to fluke him out that night when he was trying to get a good feed on the grubs and the moonlight.
Michael:Yeah, so do you take him out whole, or do you quarter him up, or how do you get that food out?
Aaron:Oh, we carry everything whole. Okay Damn, we strap the legs together like a backpack.
Michael:Okay.
Aaron:And so what we'll do is we'll bring the left side of the body, bring its legs together, and we'll tie the hocks together with a cable tie or just string, obviously gutted. We take the offal out guts, heart, lungs, hang the heart in a tree for our Maori gods as like a thank you, and then, yeah, put it on our back like a backpack and carry out the whole thing. Same with the deer too that's amazing.
Michael:Was that tough to get that thing out with? Uh, through like the the blackberry tunnels with that thing on your back, or did you put it down and drag it through the tunnels?
Aaron:well, the funny thing is, when I put it on my back, what had happened is that when the pig ran into the blackberry, he ran off the road about 30 meters and then ran parallel with the road and then darted into the swamp. So when I put the pig on my back I grabbed my spotlight and flicked it out across the swamp and I could see the side of the road. So there was no blackberry. If I had to just walk back up the road to the swamp and walk straight in, I could have come in from behind him and got him, maybe before he had broken and you also wouldn't have had to leave your your partner in the tunnel.
Aaron:So that's pretty funny the whole ordeal and come in with me to see me. You know, shoot the pig in the bale and all that sort of stuff, but no, that's funny man.
Michael:So that old hog, was he tasty, or do you feel like maybe he was a little past his prime?
Aaron:Oh, way past his prime, but we'll get them done and sent away into sausages, salamis, patties Okay, you know the boars anyway.
Aaron:The male pigs, the balls, um okay, they're typically not as nice eating as what we call a sow, which is a female pig yeah, okay, um interesting yeah, so we'd rather eat a nice fat sow that's, you know, been on good tucker, or maybe even one that because pigs are a pest in new zealand Like if you catch one you're supposed to kill it, because if you get caught releasing you can actually get a big fine and get sent to jail.
Michael:Huh, interesting. Okay, a couple of questions about your dogs. What's a typical injury, just like cuts and bruises and scratches, and then what's the worst injury from hunting with dogs, cause I imagine occasionally the hogs get the better for the day.
Aaron:Oh, they sure do, mate. Um. So the typical injury. Depending on a smart dog, we'll know where the danger area is and where to avoid and stay clear of.
Michael:Okay. But um if my dog's anything like me, they're not too clever, right and um, yeah, so my dogs?
Aaron:I have finder holders but they do bail. They'll bail on a better pig but, um, on a bigger pig, but on anything sort of you know. 120 pound down they'll hold and the typical injury is a tusk to the ribs, the shoulder, the ass, the neck, the ear. We've had dog hair ripped everywhere, gotcha so like a tusk is.
Aaron:It's kind of like a stab wound kind of right, exactly like a stab wound, but it's not a stab and pull out, it's a stab and drag. They'll typically whack their head to the side until they feel a connect with the dog, and then they'll lift their head up at the same time. So you can imagine it's like a big slice.
Michael:Okay, jeez, okay. Well, that's all the questions I have. I'm sorry if I interrupted.
Aaron:Is that where the story wraps up, or is there more to it? Not much more, but that night Mrs did come around. She was happy in the end and she even carried it the last kilometer back to the truck.
Michael:Oh, that's amazing. That's amazing. So she found enjoyment in the misery, which is what hunting is all about, I think.
Aaron:Exactly At the time she hated me. Possibly the next day or two after two, when she was trying to have a shower and all the blackberry cuts on her legs, you know, and the hot water don't mix too well, but yeah, no, she did love it.
Michael:I mean yeah and has she gone back out and has she harvested anything on her own?
Aaron:nah, so she doesn't really hunt on her own. She'll only come with me if I don't have a mate with me, sort of thing okay, but has she ever uh, has ever shot at an animal?
Michael:or is it always you with that are putting the animals?
Aaron:down. Um, so four days after we got that ball, we got another ball that went 150 pound and um, we were actually driving to head out to go for a pig hunt and come around the corner on the main road and there was a big boar standing on the side of the road. So, me being the keen pig hunter I am, I huffed my dogs out of the truck and sent them straight in, because it was a main highway but through a native gorge gully.
Michael:Okay.
Aaron:And so the pig obviously had been coming back or going somewhere and just happened to cross the road at the wrong time. And yeah, so I seen the pig cross the road, so I let my dogs out, ran them up to where I seen the pig go into the blackberries again and, yeah, the dogs took off, and then I remembered I hadn't put my tracking collars on them, so for the next five to ten minutes I had no clue on where my dogs were.
Michael:Okay.
Aaron:And the only thing that I could do to think about where could my dogs be is listen for the bark or head in the general direction that I've seen them going. So I walked back to the truck, grabbed my gun out, grabbed my knife, and my knife pouch out and started walking up the road. And we just look up the road and out pops this big bull, jumped onto the road with the dogs hot on his ass and where he went in to get away from me is where he popped back out. And he jumped out onto the road and my dogs followed it straight out and just whacked him on the nuts and that makes a pig stop pretty much in its tracks and sit down to protect his nuts, because everyone knows what a nut shot's like.
Michael:Yeah, and that's what I would do, so that makes sense.
Aaron:Yeah, exactly, and sat him right on the main road and the dogs bailed him and I managed to sneak in. You're not allowed to just charge a firearm on a public road around here, so I had to wait for the dogs and then I had to suck them into it. You know I'd walk up and grab them. And they grabbed him. And then I grabbed his back leg, flipped him over and then, yeah, stuck him.
Michael:That's awesome. That's amazing. It's nice that after the, the hard fought one, they had to like crawl through those brush. The next one just was like right next to the road oh, my missus was like okay.
Aaron:So how often is it like this part? You know, how often do you catch them on the road? I said probably once in a blue moon it it's very rare.
Michael:Yeah. Yeah, that makes sense. They're not trying to sit on roads.
Aaron:No.
Michael:Cool man. Well, that was a great story. I appreciate you telling me that it was fun to picture you crawling through the blackberry bush and honestly, I don't know how you are still talking to that woman, your partner because my wife would just absolutely say no and I bet most of the guys listening would be like, yeah, my wife wouldn't handle that. Sure, there's some out there that have that kind of lady, but not me.
Aaron:Oh, I'm very lucky in May, though I count my chickens every day. She's a blessing. And we actually got her her first couple of deer this year under her belt. She'd shot and she stuck. Oh yeah, she stuck her first, her first ball, probably about a year after those two. So she sort of stopped coming for a bit because I had heaps of mates wanting to come along, stuff.
Aaron:So yeah finally organized the hunt with her and we went out and, yeah, she managed to stick her her first ever ball and it was a bloody good pig too nice.
Michael:How did? How did she feel? Because I know that, like I've always heard that stabbing something it just takes a little bit more like effort mentally than to just shoot something. It seems a little bit more personal. How did she handle that portion of it? Seems like she loved everything up to that point, so I don't imagine it was a problem, but I'm curious yeah, she, um, she didn't show any emotion, but she is very.
Aaron:What is it? She has a very strong face, like. She doesn't let off her emotions. You can't tell what she's feeling at the time. She's a a real straight face. But when we flipped this pig she was standing next to me and I said, oh, do you want to stick it? And she was like yeah, so I passed her the knife, flipped it over and I held the leg up and we typically go in to stick them just at the start of pretty much the sternum area, right up at the start of pretty much the sternum area, right up at the base of the throat and angled the knife back in towards the heart. And yeah, I obviously hadn't told her how to stick a pig and never shown her, and in my head I just thought she'd know, but she didn't. So I flipped the pig, she grabbed the knife, she went to stick it and she stuck it in the wrong spot was it close at least, or did she stab in the guts or the ass or something?
Aaron:it was in the throat, but it was like what you see in a movie a movie stab, you know, in and out yeah and I said to her I was like no, no, come back here, we've got a, you know.
Aaron:I grabbed her hand while she was holding the knife and I showed her the proper angle and direction on how to hit the heart. Okay, huh, interesting. And then she stuck it and she was wrapped. After that she was actually very happy, and I'd say it was more so. After seeing me going out hunting the whole time because we hunt every weekend over here um, after seeing me going out so many times bringing pigs home, bringing deer home, you know, maybe it was a thing that she felt like she was included because she actually had done it herself okay, very cool, man.
Michael:I love it. I love that she's going out with you still, especially after the first story. Um, but cool. Well, what are the stories you got for us man? Uh, more hog or deer. Well, I know, in new zealand you guys have all sorts of different species. So what are the stories you got?
Aaron:um, I've got my red stegosho in the last rule.
Michael:Let's do it.
Aaron:Here's a big 14-pointer. I think I sent you a photo.
Michael:You may have. I'll be honest with you and I'll tell this to anyone else that wants to come on the show. I typically don't look at most of the things until after the fact, because I often feel like I'll want to ask questions in the moment and I'll ruin the stories for myself when I actually get you on to record. So I I have everything you sent me, but I don't always look at everything okay, well, until we're done it's yeah. As soon as we're done here, I'll be clicking through all of it.
Aaron:Guarantee that well, yeah, I'll, um, I'll kick off the raw, although I don't know if you call it the rut mating season, yeah, so over here we call it the raw. That's when our red stags, you know, mating season. They get all territorial, get all pissed up and fight for ladies, I guess.
Michael:What month is that and what season does that fall into? Because it'll be the opposite for us.
Aaron:So end of march, okay, so two, two weeks towards the end of march and two weeks into the start of april. Mainly that first week to second week of april is when they're really cranked and they're really firing and they really want to give it all they've got okay, and so is that your fall, like right before winter, autumn, okay.
Michael:Okay, that's kind of the same rut for us, except ours is september, um, or september, through november, really. So like deer are more towards november, but elk are fall in september, um, and I think antelope, antelope, like october, uh, but still it does fall into our fall or our autumn.
Aaron:Oh, okay.
Michael:Yeah.
Aaron:Oh, that's cool.
Michael:Yeah.
Aaron:But so yeah. So I had a mate ring me up and he was working on a big dry stock station over in the Gisborne District. Over in I'm in the North Island. Okay, that other fellow you had on, I think he was in the south island okay um yeah.
Aaron:So I had a mate rigby up and he asked me if I wanted to come down for the raw and if anyone over here knows what station hunting like. If, if you get an opportunity to hunt a station, you take it, that's going to be some of the best hunting you've probably ever had. So what?
Michael:uh, I mean, I guess I'm not sure what is that like private land or?
Aaron:is it military land or what does? Station mean exactly station is a um big private land owned farm. You know like um one guy owns a massive farm, got it huge. You know the ranch or something over in your fellow's place of the world.
Michael:Yep Ranch or farm or whatever, but yeah.
Aaron:Yeah. So, um, yeah, rang me up and asked me if I wanted to go down for the war and I jumped straight at it and said I'll be down there this weekend. And um, so I grabbed all my gear and jumped in the truck and kissed the kids and the partner and said see you later, I see yous in a couple of days, and off I went and I arrived in gisborne and it's about a three and a half hour drive from my house, and, um, first thing I did when we get there is make a jump in the bike. That's us. We'll go for a. And the first look we went out, for we'd probably seen close to 50 to 60 different deer, wow, and there were stags and hinds. You know they were all grouped up, they were all roaring there, but it was just nothing that we wanted to take. You know it was nothing. If we're going down there, we're going to shoot something.
Michael:That's worth it and easiest recovery okay question for you, aaron, do you so? With a lot of our species? You can call or rattle or you can do something when they're all rutted up to try and bring them in. Is that a method that you guys use out there, or no?
Aaron:yep, no. So we um, we just roll like a red stag.
Michael:Okay, and do you use calls or do you just yell with your mouth?
Aaron:So typically we like to use a sort of tubing that's ribbed, and it gives it the same throat effect as the throat out of a red stag and just yell into it.
Michael:Okay, I'm going to ask something of you. So that's the same thing we do with elk. Right, we got a big bugle tube, I get one sitting right next to me and then we do the the bugle call. But it's hard to do that without a read because they hit these high notes, kid. But could you, for the people that don't know what a red stag sounds like, could you, and I do so. I'm hoping you do this for me, but would you do a call for us.
Aaron:Yeah, I can, but no one better clip this and send it to me.
Michael:Um, so I don't have, obviously, a tube or anything handy, so it'll just be with my hand, so I won't have that deep throaty effect okay, step back from the phone just a little bit before you do it, so you don't blow us out. But yeah, let's do it. Do it so you don't blow us out. But yeah, let's do it, that's pretty good. That's pretty good. I like that. Thank, you.
Aaron:Thank you for for putting up with me, aaron. Oh, my way to I'm being a way to embarrass myself, I guess that was awesome.
Michael:No, that was great, and I'm sure a lot of people have never heard a red stag roar before, so that was really cool.
Aaron:Uh, but continue obviously they do get a lot more aggressive and they do have that real throaty rumbly effect to it. Yeah, but uh, I'm not a big hearty stag, not yet. There's still time well, yeah, um, so yeah, we went out, we've seen all these deer and we decided to take a couple of meat animals, you know just something. So we're on the board and can take something home okay, and is there any kind of licensing or tags?
Michael:or is it similar to, I think, my friend on the south island where it's just kind of fair game because they're all invasive or non-native?
Aaron:all invasive, just honestly. Um, we normally go by the motto if it's brown, it's down, unless we're in the raw where we can actually target better stags.
Michael:Okay.
Aaron:So you can shoot as many as you want with any caliber you want. Okay, the caliber thing is on. Oh, no, you can shoot any caliber, as long as it's ethical, obviously, yeah can you use archery equipment? I thought maybe australia you couldn't oh, I'm not sure about aussie, but um over here yeah a lot of people here that um archery everything okay, cool, all right, continue.
Michael:Sorry, I keep asking so many questions.
Aaron:It's so interesting so, yeah, um, we decided to take us a couple of meat animals. So we shot a couple of hinds, you know, because they're in good nick, they're feeding up, because they're getting ready to be, or what do you say? Um, breed, breed, almost, and um, yeah, so we shot a couple of hinds. I think we ended up shooting two or three hinds and we were wrapped. So we, that was the end of that afternoon, so we went home and had a few beers and a bit of a catch-up, as you do.
Aaron:I think you, fellas call it at the camp, but we're at the mate's house okay and um, he said, oh, first thing in the morning we'll shoot out and we'll have a look for the stag that I've been seeing, because he wanted to shoot the stag that he had been seeing.
Michael:Okay. Do you guys use game cameras out there at all like we do here in the United States?
Aaron:I know people that do. Personally I don't. But, I know a lot of people that do to scout the areas that they're hunting pre-rut or pre-raw and throughout the rest of the year just to locate animals.
Michael:Okay.
Aaron:But personally myself, nah don't use game cameras.
Michael:Okay.
Aaron:But yeah. So we made a plan get up nice and early, jump in the Polaris and shoot down to the back of the farm and have a bit of a look around. Virus and shoot down to the back of the farm and have a bit of a look around and, um, yeah, we went down there. We saw. What do we see? 10, 15 different deer and all in range, all shootable.
Aaron:But they just weren't what we were after okay so we pulled out, went home, had breakfast and thought we'll go back to the same spot this afternoon, but we'll punch past those deer that we saw and get into uncharted territory that we haven't spooked yet. So we stalked our way through and got up onto this little um same thing, an old forestry road, okay, and we're sitting there and, um, I said to my mate I was like give us, give us a roar and we'll see if anything replies. And then, if they reply, that's when you sneak in and go for a look. And he gave out a roar and I just happened to look up to my left and I looked on this big slip and I'd just seen this big 12-point stag standing there staring at us. And my mate hadn't spotted it at this point.
Aaron:So I grabbed his chest and pulled him in behind me and we slowly walked backwards and hugged the bank and I said to him I was like, look, bro, our stag's just up there on that slip. And he's like oh, yeah, okay, we'll back up, we'll climb up onto the spur just to the left of us. So we've got a bit of height and we can look down. So if he does come down for a look, we can shoot him down the bottom or we can get a good shot at him on the slip. So we get on the spur and we look up there and of course the stag's not there and we're sort of humming and harring, scratching our heads, and I just happened to look down below us and here's the stag walking straight straight towards us, straight from where he heard us roar from, and I said to my mate I was like mate, fuck, he's right there, he's coming, he's coming. And, yeah, he, he started shaking a little bit. And I started shaking because it was a nice stag, real nice stag yeah was it the?
Michael:one that he had been eyeballing, the one he had been hoping for it was the big boy that he'd been after nice.
Aaron:And, yeah, he just carried on coming, keep walking straight towards us, and then just walked onto the same forestry road that we were standing on, probably 20 meters from where we had backed away from okay and I said to my mate I was like I'm gonna give a little roar to stop him so he'll listen, and then you drill him.
Aaron:And he's like yep. So I just started roaring and he stopped straight away and my mate boom shot him straight in the neck, dropped him on the spot and he was. If he hadn't dropped on that track, we would have spent the next probably hour or two trying to find ways to strop him out of the gully, because he was a big boy, body wise he would have been. Oh no, we got us. We got his whole body out and we took him to a hunting competition and he weighed in at 160 kilos.
Michael:Oh, so I know stags are smaller than like an elk, but how does that Like what is an average stag?
Aaron:Average stag on public land away from the farms and the stations. You'd be lucky to get something that pushes around 120 kilo mark, but majority of everything will be between 60 to 80 kilos max sort of thing okay and um, yeah, now they on these private blocks or farms. I should say there's obviously a lot more tucker because they're living around on farmland where there's grass and everything else you can imagine.
Michael:Less pressure, probably less hunters coming after them and stuff like that.
Aaron:Exactly, it's only the hunters that work on these stations, or if they let their mates on to go and try to put their over for themselves.
Michael:Okay.
Aaron:And yeah. So we smoked him and we were wrecked and we thought, oh well, and he goes to me. Oh well, next one you can shoot, mate, because that was the plan. We wanted to get his one and then we were going to go after and get one for myself.
Michael:Okay.
Aaron:So we made a plan for the next day we'll go out first thing on daylight.
Aaron:But um, that afternoon, the same day, we shot a stag. We decided to go out for another look and I shot another eight pointer, uh, another two or three hinds two hinds I think it was and um, same thing, just for meat animals. So we thought, alright, tomorrow morning bright and early we'll go up to the back blocks and we'll have a good look around and see what we can find. So at the ass cracker dawn we're already sitting up on top of this big ridge, up the back of this fellow's farm, and it's all been planted in pine trees for carbon credits. So the pine trees would only have been waist high, if not a little bit taller, but with grass between it. So it's good living conditions for a red deer. And we gave out a roar and looked straight down the hill and here was a stag and he had 10 hinds and we watched him for a couple of minutes but we decided nah, too far, too hard to get to leave him, okay, he would only be 350 meters from us, easily shootable.
Aaron:Just it wasn't worth going after sort of thing. He would only been a 10 pointer, okay. So, um, we carried on along the top of this ridge and got out to this next little spur or lookout, lookout point, gave out a bit of a bit of a roar, and, um, we had two replies straight away and we managed to pinpoint them and had a look and we're watching them through the binos, and same thing. There was another 10 pointer and another 12 pointer or something, but wasn't that big old mature animal that we were watching them through the binos? And same thing. It was another 10-pointer and another 12-pointer or something, but it wasn't that big old mature animal that we were after. They were still quite young and probably had a bit more potential for the future. So we decided, nah, we'll leave those and we'll carry on.
Aaron:So we carried on along the ridge and then we checked another spot same thing. A couple more stags with heaps of hinds, and so they weren't even worth looking at either. And when we got to the end of the ridge with one last gully, and just as our hopes were starting to fall and fade, we were like, oh yep, no, you know, there's not going to be anything worth shooting down here. Yeah, we give out another roar and right down the bottom of the gully we hear this fucking meaty, hearty roar, deep rumble.
Aaron:And we thought to ourselves I think he is a better animal just by the way he roared and he's not moving. So that means he's got hinds with him and he doesn't have to leave. He's just got to fight off other stags. So we roared at him for 10, 15 minutes and we figured out nah, he's not moving. But from his response we could figure out the general area that he was in. So we decided, all right, we'll cut down the side ridge and we'll get down around below him and cut the wind and hopefully we'll be able to find him.
Michael:Yeah.
Aaron:So we did just that got to the bottom, looked across the gully and gave out a roar. And no response, of course, yep, that's typical. That's always our luck.
Michael:Yeah.
Aaron:And so I was like oh, I'll give a hind call, so I'll give a female deer's call and that might spark the stag, after thinking that there's a hind in heat coming in for him. So we gave one of those and a separate stag to the one we were going after would have only been 15, 20 metres out to our left and roared and bellowed at us. So that created another obstacle for us because we had to punch our way around this there because we knew it wasn't the one we were after. Get around him without him spooking the other ones that we were going for.
Michael:Do they have an alarm call? An elk can chirp and a white tail can huff and do all sorts of stuff. What do they do?
Aaron:A hind will bark like a dog. Just one single bark Like just one lonely bark, but she'll do it repetitively until the danger's clear.
Michael:Okay.
Aaron:And a stag. He'll sort of do the same thing and at times I have heard them do the odd bark. It's their defence mechanism and the other ones in the area nah, get out of here, something's not right, and yeah. So we sat there for 15 to 20 minutes with the stag just screaming his head off, just them beside us, and I started thinking to myself. I was like we're gonna have to shoot him because otherwise we're not going to be able to get around him without spooking him and potentially spooking the one we were going after yeah, and you guys use silencers.
Michael:I, I assume you do. I know that my other friend in new zealand, he does, do you as well?
Aaron:yep, okay yeah, so we run um suppressors on most of our most of our rifles and whatnot. So, um oh, but he would have been this stag that was next to me if I had a shot him. Little did I know. The stag that we were after was actually just over the other side of this creek, at 290 meters. So if I had a shot him he would have heard the gunshot and yeah off. So yeah, we decided not, we're not going to shoot him, we're going to try cut around him okay so we backtracked our way out, climbed up the ridge a little bit and then sidled around above him.
Aaron:So we went back up and then, yeah, parallel to him, but at a higher level, to the point where he couldn't smell us if the wind was to swell.
Michael:Okay.
Aaron:While still heading in on the same direction that the stag was, and we were just sneaking along, sneaking along, and by then these two stags so the one that we were next to and the one that we were trying to get they had sparked each other up and started roaring at each other, so we didn't need to make any noise. And, yeah, we just walked along this, sidled along this ridge a little bit and then looked out through the trees and there just happened to be one gap that I looked through and there was a stag where I was just standing there broadside on this little plateau at the bottom of a slip, and he was side on, looking straight down the gully, but we were sort of just a little bit above him, so he was looking down below him for potential threats, but where we were he didn't know we were there.
Michael:Okay.
Aaron:And he was still roaring and everything. And when he turned his head and looked straight at us, I thought straight away nah, I'm having him. He was probably the best stag I'll ever shoot in my life and I've still got a lot of years left in me, okay.
Michael:Well, how was he compared to your buddy's stag?
Aaron:Oh, smashed it Double, double.
Michael:Double. No way. That's amazing about. How'd your buddy feel about that?
Aaron:oh, he was stoked okay, yeah no, we over here, we, um, we don't really get jealous or envy of people. We more encourage each other, you know and that's amazing gas each other up. So if someone goes out, catches a good pig, all the boys will go around to his house and have a beer with him. We want the whole story, we want the full rundown and we encourage and keep trying to encourage each other, I guess because, that's what the culture is about over here.
Michael:Absolutely. I love that. I love that I had a question but I spaced it, so keep going and I'll try and remember my question.
Aaron:So, yeah, I seen him, he turned, he looked straight at me and I thought to myself, nah, I've got to have him. So I laid down and I was just using a 308, and swung over into just behind his shoulder, center around bang whack does a big jump up in the air like a horse and sort of walked a couple of steps and then turned around. So his other side was exposed. So I thought, ah, bugger it, I'll give him another one, you know, just to ensure he's not going to go anywhere. Boom whack rears up again, drops. I was like sweet. And then I looked back over at him.
Aaron:after you know giving the boys a high five and a handshake like yeah, we got him and we all happened to look back and he's standing back up. No, and because they're that full of adrenaline, they did that right yeah they're that amped that they're, they're just living on adrenaline, so, and testosterone, so they, they didn't.
Aaron:They don't know what's hit them yeah and um, and so I thought, oh, I'll give him another one. So I put another one in the same shoulder and that dropped him and I was like cool, sweet Boy, a little handshake, high five, yep, that's us, we'll go and get him. We dropped down there, dropped into the creek, and that stag that was from beside us, he had run down past the stag that we had just shot and ran up above us and taken the stag that we had shot, stole all his hinds in the process and taken all his hinds and his dead mate's hinds up the hill and over the ridge all right, an opportunist oh yeah, they bloody are and um, that's crazy we got over there and I walked up to it and I just seen it through a couple of gaps in the trees and I was like, oh, he's not moving.
Aaron:I get a bit closer and he picks his head up and looks at me and I thought, bloody hell, you know he's had three rounds on him. They should go down you. He should be down.
Michael:Yeah, were they all good shots? When you finally got up to him, where were those shots located? Were they all decent?
Aaron:first one on the on the side. Where I shot him once was just in behind the shoulder, so double lung.
Michael:Okay.
Aaron:The other side was through the other side of the lungs. And then the one in the center of the shoulder. I found in the other shoulder, but he just missed his heart by a couple of mil. So, he was just, he was living on borrowed time. He was just trying to try out, you know.
Michael:Yeah, that's crazy man. Animals can win. They're in the middle of the rut, they can take some damage. I remember my brother-in-law shot an elk with a .50 caliber muzzleloader and that thing was on its feet for like 30 minutes after it was shot twice. So they're just tough man. All of them are tough. And here's a question I have for you about the meat Was it decent after he was that rutted up, or was he a little?
Aaron:meh, a little meh. So typically with a rutting stag, if we can't carry them out we will bone them out, but we'll only take the back straps, or back stakes, we call them, and the back legs if they're in good nick. And we might bone out the front legs for mints and all that sort of stuff. He would have been probably pushing 170, 180 kilos so there would have been no way from where he was to get him out at all unless we had a helicopter have you ever done that with a helicopter?
Michael:I know that some people do, but is that something that's like common?
Aaron:over here. No, um, but my old man, the fellow who taught me everything I know, okay, he he's actually does pest control for a living, so he's a full-time hunter. Pigs, deer and goats oh, wow.
Michael:That's an amazing job and it's something I think that we all wish we could do. Right, like, just be a professional hunter, do that kind of stuff. Does he get to, um, keep the meat that he hunts?
Aaron:yep, so obviously, with it being a job, he, um, his job is to eradicate from the areas that he has hunted and been hired to hunt him. So he will take out meat if it's easy to get to and accessible, if you know what I mean, cause sometimes he might be miles or kilometers from a buggy or bike or truck or whatever and he's there to eradicate. So it's shoot and leave on the side of the Hills. Fertilizer, okay, but, um, yeah, anything handy he will bring out, because it is against our morals on how we hunt over here.
Michael:Yeah.
Aaron:We hunt for kai, which is food Okay cool.
Michael:Who typically hires your dad? Sorry, continue.
Aaron:The regional councils. So he works for the councils throughout the areas in new zealand. So each district has a district council. They might have an area that's got a deer problem. So, yeah, got a. Got another one about when pretty much the first hunt. I can remember vividly, um hunting with my father and my koro, which is my grandfather. Um, oh, I don't even know how old I was. All I all I can remember clearly is the hunt, but nothing prior or after.
Aaron:So that's cool what I remember, I must have been young. But um, yeah, one day or one night, late afternoon, um, my koro come around and my old man. They asked if you know I wanted to go for a hunt with them. I don't even think they asked, I think they just took me because you don't really get to ask over here, you just go yeah and, yeah, I remember we were driving.
Aaron:There was a farm not far from our house that had a bit of a pig problem. You know, there was a few pigs on there that were doing damage to his maize paddocks, crop paddocks and so forth. And yeah, I remember we were driving through the raceways or the road through the raceways, or the the, the farms, through the road, uh, the road through the farm, and we were driving along and, um, we decided, yep, sweet, we'll let the dogs out and we'll go from here and we'll, and we'll start running the dogs and see what we can do. And I remember sitting in the back with a blanket, probably a teddy too I don't know what is that um, a teddy oh teddy, okay, I could have sworn.
Michael:You said a titty and I'm like, okay, he doesn't mean a titty, it's got to be something else so a teddy makes total sense, okay.
Aaron:A teddy bear, yeah, yeah, yeah, okay um yeah, and I was sitting in the back and I just remember looking out the window and seeing the old spotlights waving around and as we were cruising, along with the dogs running beside the back. And I just remember looking out the window and seeing the old spotlights waving around as we were cruising, along with the dogs running beside the truck and a couple because we hunt the dogs, if we can hunt somewhere where we can drive over here, we'll put the dogs on the bonnet of the truck. It saves them having to run, it saves their energy and they can just wind from the front of the truck, if you know what I mean. Yeah, absolutely, we're bonneting the dogs and a few dogs are running alongside the truck and we thought we'll check out this first paddock. And it's a big paddock, it's huge, and we've seen all the dogs get keen and winded and they jumped into the paddock and they started going through this long. It must have been an oats paddock or something. It started going through this long must have been an oats paddock or something. It was a crop paddock and it was long, but we had permission to drive through them and, um, we hear the dogs open up across the paddock and I remember sitting in the back seat and then just hearing the, the truck that we were in at the time just pick up and start speeding across the paddock. And I remember dad saying, yeah, we got a pig, we got a pig, sweet. So we're flying across this paddock. And I remember Dad saying, yeah, we've got a pig, we've got a pig, sweet. So we're flying across this paddock. I don't know how fast we were going.
Aaron:Like I said, I was very, very young and we're coming along and then all of a sudden we feel a big like. We had a jump in the truck, bang Throws the truck up to the side, big jump. Then again, I was young too, so it was probably just like a speed bump and we carried on across the paddock and got to this pig and we the old man in the corner jumped out, ran over, grabbed the pig and pulled it back through, flipped it over and stuck it and dealt with it, and that stayed in my head and I always remember that, as that's the you know, that's what hooked me into this hunting was seeing. When I think back now, I remember how the dogs worked, how they contained the pig, how my uh, my koro and my dad dealt with the pigs when they got there and it was just something that stuck in my head till this very day. And so, anyway, they dealt with the pig, they gutted it, which is, take the offal out and put it on the back of the truck and we're off to go get another one.
Aaron:And anyway, we sort of drove back through our same tyre ruts that were going through this paddock because we didn't want to damage too much of the farmer's crop paddock, and we were following our tyre tracks through this oats paddock because we didn't want to damage too much of the farmer's crop paddock. And, um, we were following our our tire tracks through this, this oats paddock, and that big speed bump we felt was another pig that was hiding in the grass trying to sneak away from the dogs and we had hit it with the truck without even knowing. Oh, okay, yeah, well, that's, that's what the speed bump was. So, yeah, I was just a shock. Still to this day I'm shocked because I couldn't have thought of a.
Aaron:if he had just drove, you know, a half a meter to the right or half a meter to the left, we probably never would have touched it yeah but it just happened to be on their right track and, yeah, we the olds, jumped out, grabbed the pig and it was a nice pig too so we dealt with that and chucked it on the back of the truck and took that one home and I think we ended up with a couple more pigs for that night and I if I remember correctly my koro shot three deer, and so it was sort of like the.
Aaron:What I think back is the introduction and to how I fell in love with hunting and yeah what we do over here, because it was not only the catching, the killing, it's the clean up afterwards, if you've got a couple of mates around having a few beers, butchering your meat, cutting it up, and the stories and the yarns that come from that. And then not only that, it's the family time that you get while you're doing it. Yeah, it's a. It's a whole array of things that made me fall in love with the sport, and the biggest thing was watching those dogs work that night. At the time I didn't know they were working, but I remember that clearly that now that I think back how I remember they were working, they were doing it, you know, and it's just something that sort of stuck with me for a very long time yeah, understandably, man understand.
Michael:That's such a cool story and it's amazing that you have this story and it's so important to you. And it has three generations of hunters. Yeah, um, I love it. I'm I'm jealous, I, you probably know, I'm a, I'm a newer hunter, so I don't, I don't, I have never even hunted with my dad and probably never will. So it's cool and it's really amazing and impressive that you have all that. And a question I have for you, because you say the food is really important, and I think it is to a lot of hunters, but you also say you go every weekend. Is there a sense of community with the or you? I just have to assume that, like, you're going out and you're putting things down, you're bringing the, the food, back and then you're giving it to people that can't necessarily still get out there and do the hunting. Is that, is that accurate, or am I just making stuff up?
Aaron:oh, that's very accurate. So me and my brother, um, my younger brother two, just three years ago we sort of had a bit of a break from pig hunting and wanted to focus on shooting a few deer for the sole purpose of helping people that in our area we're struggling to put food on their table okay so between me and my brother in that one year we probably shot close to 250 deer okay, and um 99% of it we gave away, so we'd just jump on.
Aaron:Facebook. Go on to our local community groups, put a post up and say is anyone out there struggling for kai food? And anybody who's struggling, get in contact with us and we'll sort something out. And the amount of people over here that message like if we'd done one post, we'd be lucky to probably get 50-60 messages of people asking is there any left or can I have some or something.
Michael:So I was assuming as much and I think that's really cool that you're doing that and that the community is so into it and that you're getting so much response when you're going out there yeah, well, like all my mates, they hunt.
Aaron:All my family hunt, so that's something that we've been brought up amongst, and when we can help other people, that's that's all we like to do, and it gives us another reason to go out the next weekend too, you know yeah, absolutely, man.
Michael:That's amazing. Do the people typically like throw you like ammunition, like money for ammunition or anything like that, or is it just all you know you saying you know on me?
Aaron:uh, so it's actually illegal to sell wild game over here. Okay, um, and you're not supposed to accept donations, or we call it koha. It's like you know, a gift for of a gift, so sort of receiving of a gift that you've given to someone and, um, you're not supposed to, but, um, the old person that isn't struggling as much, they'll offer, you know, yeah, 20 bucks, 50 bucks for a whole deer, um, it can go towards gas for your next trip and yeah 99 of the time we say no, but you get the odd persistent person that'll say I'll throw it in your truck if you don't take it.
Michael:Okay.
Aaron:We get more of a kick out of watching those people that are actually struggling, knowing that they can go home, feed their kids, feed their family, and they have a sense of this. Meat is clean, if you know what I mean. It hasn't been through a plant, it's not processed, it's come off the grass or out of the bush and it's gone straight into their freezer and it'll be some of the purest, cleanest meat they've ever eaten I love it, man, I love it.
Michael:I love it. That's cool. I, I love I. Was just sort of like man. He kills a lot of stuff. I'm wondering where it all goes, and so I'm glad that that's what happens, because I think that is perfect and I think it fits kind of what you've been telling me about the ethics that your community has, with all the hunting that goes on there in New Zealand.
Aaron:No, we love it, we live for it, we breathe it. We do it every weekend. We might lose friendships over it, but at the end of the day we'd rather probably be with our dogs and have our lovely missus and kids with us while we're doing it.
Michael:Yeah, that's cool man, that's very cool, that's a way to life over here yeah.
Michael:Awesome man. Well, aaron, this was fun, man. We had some technical issues but we persevered, and thank you for sticking with me as I kept dropping out of the thing here. Hopefully I can edit this into something that's reasonable. But, man, why don't you share with the folks We'll wrap it here because, who knows, my computer might explode. But yeah, why don't you share with the folks how they can get in touch with you if they want to, or where they can follow you and see some of your hunting adventures and take some pictures of this amazing stag that you got?
Aaron:So if you want to follow me, I'm on Instagram, underscore AJ Adventures no space, just underscore AJ Adventures and I am on Facebook, but all of my hunting stuff goes onto my Instagram.
Michael:Okay, cool, man. Well, aaron, I appreciate you reaching out, man. I really do, um and again putting up with my technical issues that we've had on on this particular recording. But, uh, I want to stay in touch and I want to have you back on. I have a feeling that you do enough hunting that you have. You'll have a whole bunch of new stories for us pretty regularly, so, um, we'll have you back on, man and uh, yeah, man, if you're ever in the states, let me know.
Aaron:I mean if, specifically colorado I'd love to, I'd love to buy you a beer oh man, I'll buddy love that and I have stories from last weekend if you want to hear them.
Michael:We'll save them for next time. We'll save him for next time, aaron. But thanks again, brother, I appreciate you great, thank you thank you, sir.
Michael:All right, guys, that's it. Another couple stories in the books. Again, I want to thank Aaron for coming on the podcast. I want to thank Aaron for putting up with the scheduling and we did have quite a bit of technical issues, and so I want to say thank you to Aaron, of course, for putting up with me while we're trying to get actually connected, while we were sitting there in the middle of my night and middle of his day. So thank you, aaron. I appreciate you and your stories were wonderful man For you listeners. Thank you guys so much for tuning in. I really, really do appreciate it.
Michael:I would love to hear from all of you. If you guys have stories, that would be wonderful. Go ahead and share them with me. If you have someone else that you'd like to recommend, reach out to me. I'll reach out to them and we'll try and get them on the podcast. But that's it, guys. Please share the podcast. Like the podcast, it's actually pretty important. If you give me five stars for the podcast, let's get out there and make some stories. Thank you.
