Recently, my dad and I got to fulfill some long-term dreams taking a trip to New Zealand. Many decades ago my dad thought long (as a young and single man) and hard about relocating to New Zealand and tramp about the Southern Alps. Luckily for me he didn't do it but he never got to see the Southern Island. I've wanted to stalk red stag and shoot Paradise ducks there for many a year. With both of us having a little more income and my dad still being spry we didn't we should put of the trip any longer.

I am a free-range hunter, so I was not interested in helicopters or high-wire fences so I decided to go with James Gray. We didn't have much time for the trip so we went with a couple of days of late summer pest-control waterfowl shooting and then a couple of days free-range red stag stalking on some local farms. We were in North Canterbury agricultural area. I brought my vintage guns, my post-war French Seytre 12 bore, and my Alex Henry 500bpe for the stags.

It was a compromise hunt, a little late for the birds, a little early for the stag. So the ducks were hard to find and so were the stag.

Out duck shooting in the paddocks:

Unfortunately, we didn't see the huge flights of Paras until after the season closed...