Camps bring in new generation of hunters

"It's providing for your family, it's that primal instinct. It's also the challenge," says Maureen. Photo / Alison Smith, NZME

Maureen Coleman was "as green as grass" when she joined the Thames Valley Deerstalkers Association as the sole woman in the club.

"I'd never been in the bush until I was 30. The guys just treated me as someone that wanted to hunt."

She remembers seeing her first game animal in the wild.

"I was hunting in the Kaimanawas with an experienced hunter. He walked up to the crest of the hill and shook his head, so I looked.

"There was a deer standing there looking at us face on. He was walking towards us, about 30 metres away, and I kept my rifle down. I never regretted not shooting that animal. It was the best thing ever."

Maureen has shot plenty since, for food.

"I love it, I'd hunt every day of the week if I could do."

As a child growing up on a farm, she shot possums that she'd skin and sell for pocket money. But the beauty of the back-country bush was something she learnt later in life after joining the TVDA.

"It's providing for your family, it's that primal instinct. It's also the challenge. I can happily let an animal go if I can't get the meat out - I'll be selective, too. I've had to shoot a farm animal when it's injured, but a wild animal is quite a different scenario."

She says not all women members at the TVDA hunt, but she's seen an increase in female hunters over the past 30 years.

The association hosts hunt courses, and she says these attract women of all abilities and levels of knowledge of the bush. The club has its own clubrooms and 22 acres in the foothills of Paeroa. It has a growing membership that includes many women hunters and families.

Camps run by Paeroa's Mike Deane fill up within 24 hours of being promoted, and there are almost 100 junior members now within the TVDA's 500-person membership.

Maureen believes there's been a skip in generations of outdoor skills, and many are seeing the benefit of learning bushcraft and hunting from knowledgeable and patient teachers like Mike.

The benefits include fitness and mental wellbeing, but it's also to help feed families.

"I think there is a wonderful intergenerational connection with hunting. Forty years ago there were so many recreational opportunities, but the generation prior just had rugby, hunting and a few other things. For the ones now in their 20s and 30s, their dads didn't hunt but their granddad did, and he's getting too old now to go.

"It's sort of skipped a generation, but there's a whole new wave of people that want to be out there and learning to hunt."

These hunting clubs have new members from countries like South Africa, as well as immigrants who didn't have the opportunity to access hunting grounds in their home countries.

"Younger members are signing up too because of their mates," says Maureen.