片头活动，咨询小助手微信【luluxjg】
Your first hunt or your first kill actually, how did you feel about it? Because I know for some people, they probably would feel a little bit strange or a little bit, I don't know, uneasy on their first hunt or first kill.
I remember my first hunt, first kill very well.
So I was staying at my friend's property. He has a cabin which is in the bush surrounded by forest. We would leave, get up in the morning around 4, 3:30 in the morning, 4 o'clock in the morning. We would go hunting early morning.
So got up, had some breakfast, made a cup of tea and then I went... and all the way through preparing. He was saying to me, Simon, don't get over excited. The chances are you will not see a deer. You probably won't even see a deer this morning. If you do, the chances are you'll probably miss it. This is the first time you're hunting. So please just moderate your expectations. Don't be disappointed.
Don't get overly excited.
He kept telling me this over and over again. Anyway, I had breakfast and I sat on the steps outside the cabin and I was putting on my boots. I had the rifle right next to me. And then suddenly this deer walked out of the bush directly opposite me, right in front of me. And it just sort of stood there right in front of me.
Ready to be shot.
Ready to be shot. And I pick up the rifle put in the bullet and I hit the bolt, aimed, and I pulled the trigger, BANG! The deer fell down, just straight down.
Anyway, my friend heard the gun go off and he came running outside wondering what was going on. And he saw me standing over the deer. And he, he was surprised but then he was also a little bit pissed off because it was one of the deers that he'd been taming for a while. So it was almost like a pet deer.
I think that's sad, because obviously that's why the deer came close to you because the deer probably thought friends. But you like, prey.
To answer your question, how did I feel afterwards? I felt pretty depressed, really, I felt pretty sad. I killed this animal. I knew academically, I knew these are pests. They destroy New Zealand plant life, they destroy habitats for birds and animals.
But they are also Bambi and Bambi's mom.
They are, but they create massive devastation, destroy the ecosystem. So there's two sides to it.
True.
The other thing is we don't hunt for fun, purely for fun if we are going hunting.
Yeah, exactly. That's the question I'm gonna ask you if you're not hunting for fun or just for blowing off some steams. Then what do you do with the animals? Do you actually eat the animals that you hunt like a real sort of hunter?
Different animals are obviously slightly different in use. Possums, they would have their fur plucked, so you would kill the possum and you take its fur.
Pelt.
It could be the pelt which could then be used and for example, leather jacket or some other clothing or it could just be the fur which you pluck out the fur. And then that can be then made into clothing fur. Possum fur is quite expensive now. There's a lot of clothing which they do possum fur and sheep wool blends which is really nice.
I see. What about deer?
For deer for goats, it's usually the meat. So after hunting we would then take the meat. One deer could feed myself and my wife for a couple of months. It's quite a bit of...
Yes, you have those big freezers, you mentioned last time that you can just put the deer in.
Correct, a chest freezer, big freezes. We've got one at the moment and it is filled with them, with meat.
You know, swinging between... a pendulum, between ‘Bambi, don't you shoot Bambi and Bambi's mom,’ but venison, deer meat is yummy.
It is good. And then of course, some people will take pelts and some people will take the antlers, deer antlers, quite popular.