'Gun Smoke and Deer Tails' Offers Look at New Zealand's Back Country

Author Bernie Wilkinson reveals a collection of true to life short stories about the hunting escapades in the rugged bush country of New Zealand. "Gun Smoke and Deer Tails" lets the readers catch a glimpse of a hunter's life. It is mostly a lonely road to travel with lots of difficulties and danger that it entails. However, it also shows the resilience and sense of survival of a man who can strive amidst the untamed land.

Around the late 1870s, red deer from the Scottish Highlands were transported to New Zealand and released into both Islands for the purpose of the odd bit of sport, and no doubt, for a bit of variety to the pot. Those deer have been under protection for 18 years, prompting their numbers to increase. By the 1930s, the population had become beyond the ability of the Acclimatisation Society to contain the rapid expansion. During the war, with no hunting pressure, the deer in the bush and high country began to grow into enormous herds, beginning to do some serious damage to bush and high country.

That was when the internal affairs department sent off hunters into the back country with pack-horses, ex-army 303 Lee-Endfields and endless supplies of 303 ammunition. The hunters were required to take the deer skins and were paid an expense of ten bob per skin. This book lets readers catch a glimpse into the lives of the people during that era, when society was not yet hampered by the constraints of modernization and people are responsible for their own safety.

Set in the remote back country of New Zealand, "Gun Smoke and Deer Tails" tells more about the hunters than the hunting.

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About the Author
Bernie Wilkinson began his working life as a professional hunter culling deer and pigs for seven years in some of New Zealand's most rugged bush country then turning to meat hunting and possum trapping, then from hunting deer for meat to working from helicopters for live deer capture. He then set up a small deer farm in the Bay of Plenty which he ran for a few years before returning to the bush trapping possums in the rugged Fiordland area of the South Island. Finally, he retired to a small town in the deep South close enough to the bush to be able to catch the odd possum or shoot the occasional deer.

Gun Smoke and Deer Tails * by Bernie Wilkinson
Publication Date: August 21, 2013
Trade Paperback; NZ$34.99; 119 pages; 978-1-4836-7495-7
Trade Hardback; NZ$54.99; 119 pages; 978-1-4836-7496-4
E Book; NZ$3.99; 978-1-4836-7497-1

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For more information, contact Xlibris at 0800-443-678 or on the web at http://www.Xlibris.co.nz.