|
 The grand slam was over, I almost did't shoot that Florida bird because I did not want it to end. Every turkey hunter loves to plan trips and find new turkey land. Once the grand slam or the royal slam is over you say what is next, I say New Zealand.
My trip to New Zealand started in late October to early November. This is New Zealand's spring time. I left Denver and headed to Los Angeles to catch the over night flight out of L.A to Auckland, New Zealand. From there I had to board a small twelve-seat plain to the town of Gisborne. Gisborne is a small town located on the North Island on the eastern seaboard. That is where I met my Guide John Wolf with Paradise Hunters. John and I took a three-hour ride down to Hawks Bay and headed in land to a sheep ranch where we would be hunting.
The next morning we arose to an overcast and rainy day. As we all know, spring time means turkey hunting in the rain. We loaded up the quads and headed out to a spot where John knew some birds were. As it became light out I could not believe my eyes at the beautiful mountain green, so green terrain. As I was taking in the beauty John was trying to get my attention. I finally came back to reality from admiring the green hillside and John was saying to me we need to move on to another location. As we move on, it's morning now, we need to look in other areas for birds because our morning set up did not pay off. As we move on we heard a tom gobbling off in the distance and saw a hen moving in a draw below us. We move in on the tom and tried a few set ups, with no luck the tom had been pulled away by some hens.
Later in the mid morning we spotted two toms feeding and gobbling down this hill along a fencerow looking for hens. John and I moved in to get a good calling position on the toms. As we move in we bumped the toms and split them up. I thought the game was up with these toms but one bird put himself in a good spot for us to put a good set up on him. We worked ourselves into a good location and started calling. After several calls and several gobbles from the tom he was fifteen yards in front of me and I had a nice New Zealand Merriam. After taking a few photos and admiring this nice tom, John and I decided to head back to the farmhouse to dry out and have some tea.
Later that day we headed back out in search of more toms. We drove around on the quads in this unbelievable green mountainside looking for more toms. This sheep ranch was huge with thousands of sheep. As we looked for turkeys we saw some nice red stags, a lot of feral goats and lots of sheep. We stopped the quads and hiked to the top of this hillside so we could do some glassing. Living in Colorado you have some great views but this was unbelievable this countryside. As we glassed we spotted several turkeys, everywhere I looked I saw mobs of turkeys. One other time in my life I saw mobs of turkeys like this and it was in South Dakota but not as many as this. John and I spotted some nice toms and I want to go after them. After some time we hiked in to the spot we felt was a good set up and did some calling. We were just a little too far away for the birds to hear us.
John and I split up and did some calling. The toms work their way right toward me and after some time the birds were so close. I had a long beard in front of me. I squeezed the trigger, put a nice long beard down and had a second shot at another tom. Wow, I had shot three toms in one day. New Zealand was my new favorite place to hunt Merriam's. John came over to see the toms and congratulated me. We loaded up the toms and headed back to the farmhouse to have some dinner and reflect on the days hunt.
The next day we took in some sights on the ranch checking out some other game in the a.m. I had a flight out that night so we headed back to Gisborne for some late lunch and some more sights. I was due to meet some friends in Auckland and take in some more countryside of this great country of New Zealand. I would recommend New Zealand turkey hunting to someone who is looking for something exhilarating after the grand slam or just looking for an unbelievable place to hunt Merriam's.
Jim Myers.
Back to Newsletter main page |
