North Canterbury hunting comp

Last year the North Canterbury hunting comp set a new bench mark for hunting competitions being the biggest in New Zealand to date. This year looked to surpass last year with adult entries going up from 650 to over 1100.

A couple of the most important things about running a successful competition is having a good sponsorship on board and the competition organizers had business’s coming to them wanting to be a part of this competition. Also you need good advertising so that people know the competition is coming up and the organizers used Facebook well to get the competition out there. This competition also had the help of world media with the clever move by the organizers of adding a section for wild cats. This got the media right on board with the uproar of Townes thinking that every cat in town would be shot and hanging up at this competition. Another side effect of this was getting Paddy Gower on board as he could see this from a hunters perspective as cats do a lot of damage to some of our wild life but mainly birds.

This is the first competition that I’ve judged where we had protesters at the gate. Having the protesters actually helped promote this competition even more as it made it onto TV 1 news that night. I almost felt sorry for the protesters but life would be boring if we all thought the same, it’s just a pity that some people just don’t understand a hunters lifestyle but if someone lives in town they soon lose touch with where their food comes from.

Also this competition had a lot of the locals on board helping out across every part of the competition. Last year’s competition was at the Rotherham pub but this year the venue had changed to a bigger place at the Amuri show grounds. A lot of thought had gone into the weigh in day. As my wife Janice and I followed the sign posts in, there was a big sign stating that all animals had to have all offal, asses and throats removed. Even with this sign and the two people giving out tags for the animals reminding them that animals that where not prepared properly at the weigh station will not be weighed in, but still hunters pulled up with animals that still had to be prepared properly. The reason we expect animals to be clean of offal is to keep the meat from going off and when it comes to a competition all animals have to be prepared the same.

The weighing area was very impressive with 4 sets of digital cattle scales on the ground. Two sets for deer and two for the boars.

At each set of scales their were 4 guys moving the animals with two woman at the recording tables. Even though the animals were coming in fast at times with the four weigh stations things moved along quickly. Any smaller boars and deer were put straight back onto the hunters trucks as the racks could only hold so many animals.

When hunters were weighing their animals they were asked if they would like to donate their deer to charity. Steve Hill and his team skinned and boned all of those deer out and donated 870kg of mince and 50kg of back steaks to the Hope community trust to be distributed free of charge to the more vulnerable in our community.

At the end of the weigh in Straty and myself went through the boars to find out which one had the best tusks. There were two that we had to measure, one belonged to Humphrey Bullen that measured 20 3/8 and the other one belonged to Ryan Nisbit that Measured 20 4/8

While we were busy with our jobs their was also another check in area for the Possums, 🐇, hares, geese, ducks and cats.

Billy Hails flew his helicopter around throwing out lollies for the kids and there was also a pig carrying competition going on.

While I was weighing Pigs I did not get to notice the crowd untill the weigh-in stopped, that was when I got to see just how many people had arrived, the place was packed with a large crowd. At the end of weigh in the tally of animals was 1 weasel 7 ferrets 13 rats 69 rabbits 128 hares 145 possums 243 cats 7 geese 41 paradise ducks 30 mallard ducks 23 goats 6 chamois 142 deer 231 pigs During the prize giving Paddy Gower and Matt Bailey entertained the crowd while handing out so many prizes. There were a lot of prizes with the total value of over $40000 worth. The major prize was a 2008 double cab hilux going to Jackie Stanley.

Results Heaviest boar

1st James Martin 106kg

2nd Mark Rain. 88.5kg

3rd Brad Watson. 85.5kg

Heaviest sow 1st Stacy Cunningham 61kg 2nd Mick Lang. 57.5kg

Average weight pig 1st Hayden Rae. 45.5kg Above Josh Hickey. 45.5kg

Below Ryan Campbell 45.5kg

Best tusks Ryan Nisbit 20 4/8

Heaviest Stag 1st Donald Leech 145kg

2nd Luke Shank. 140kg

3rd Zane Sloss 139.5kg

Heaviest hind 1st Liam Hydes. 98kg

2nd Blake Christie 96kg

3rd Sam Pilet. 80.5kg

Average deer Ed Rapley. 78.5kg

Above Bernardus Keon 79.5kg

Below Daniel Cockery 77.5kg

Ugliest stag head Sam Pilet

Best Stag head Luke Stewart

Best Chamoi head Jimmy Petri

Junior

Most ferrets, stoats, Weasels, Fergus Maxwell 5 Ferrets

HeaviHeaviest rat 1st Grace CamerCameron 0.375kg

2nd Harper Pemberton 0.345kg

Heaviest Possum 1st Tane Collins 5.5kg

2nd Travis Creswell 4.56kg

3rd Allanah Schroeder 4.52kg

Heaviest mallard 1st Oscar Dingle 2.3kg

2nd Quinn Brown 1.498kg

3rd Gus Usmar 1.44kg

Heaviest Hare 1st Hunter Columbus 4.435kg 2nd Charlie Pirini 4.355kg

3rd Will Butters 4.182kg

Heaviest Rabbit 1st Charlie Pirini 2.22kg

2nd Hunter Pirini 2.16kg

3rd Aslyn Abernethy 2.13kg

Heaviest Goose Ted Sheppard 5.51kg Heaviest paradise duck 1st Nellie Hough 1.502kg

2nd Charlie Hough 1.432kg

3rd Violet Hough 1.402kg

Average weight goat Arther Redfern 23.5kg Average weight pig Harper Pemberton 34kg Average weight deer Archie Thomas 76kg