We had a deercullers reunion at the Wairake hotel, Taupo about 1979 give or take a year or two..

Myself and another were in a final roar off for the roar competition, we would stand on the back of the truck and roar and the judges were sitting in the cab of the truck. Rex Forrester and Alan Reiher and I cant remember the third were the judges.  Rex jumped up onto the back of the truck to announce the winner ( not me bugger),  I lost to one of the old-timers naturally!
Anyway Rex Forrester was on the back of truck with the microphone announcing the winner when we were all interrupted by a fast approaching helicopter bearing down on the back lawn of the hotel.  It landed right in front of us at the same time a vehicle drove up and out got a very old time deerculler. Rex reckoned they had just found him in the Ureweras as he had been lost on the job for 30 years. The old chap was about 90, long beard and woolly hair, crippled and using a stick to walk. He was carrying an old open sighted 303 boar war rifle and was helped into the chopper by the pilot Joe Keeley.  It took off and at the same time a car with a trailer started to drive across the grass. All the time Rex is winding the crowd up with his banter about how the old hunters could out shoot the young ones (just like they beat me in the roar).  The trailer was like a covered dog trailer and had some beer bottles sitting on the top. The chopper took off and climbed away into the distance and then suddenly it turned and dived down through the huge high poplar trees that framed the site and leaning out the door and half on the skid was the old culler, 30 year old beard and long hair flowing in the wind, who fired the 303 one handed. Pow one of the bottles shattered in a puff of smoke!  The crowd roared, Rex crowed some more about how good the old hunters were as the machine climbed high into the sky, did a barrel roll and dived down amongst us again and bang, another bottle shattered.
The crowd was in awe but trouble was looming as the manager of the hotel had ran from the front desk and was now screaming at Rex to shut it down or he would call the police. A brief short discussion was had and before he could do anything the chopper was back, firing again without missing. This time the chopper went up almost vertical like a jet aircraft and then rolled over slowly almost stalling in mid air  and virtually upside down.  Standing next to me was a chopper pilot instructor,  he muttered "I did not believe helicopters could do that! "  But Joe Keeley did.  The machine again dived and the old fella never missed a bottle but you could see he was struggling to hang on with the gravity and death defying feats the chopper was undertaking.
The crowd  were naturally ducking every which way when one person  broke from the crowd and ran across the lawn towards the trees, the machine chased him down and the old hunter in the chopper now had a net gun and he fired it rolling the runner up as neat as. Buggered if I would have liked those lead weights coming at me and if he had of been hit on the head they would have killed him.
Rex now told the audience that the civil aviation department were flying around looking for this chopper and on cue Joe started to lower the chopper into the tall poplar trees. I remember clearly the leaves and branches flying as the chopper disappeared out of our sight. Not even the blades were visible from the ground.
It was quite a show Joe Keeley put on, helped of course by the fact a lot of chopper pilots and shooters were in the crowd.

Often when we would sit around and chew the fat we would laugh about the incident with the hotel manager and Rex would say "Remember that bugger tried to get the police" and we would laugh some more, knowing how we stopped him....but then there have to be secrets between mates!

Alan, we need more...

I "aquired" a book off my Dad that is titled "Hunter for Hire" written by Rex forrester and Neil Illingworth now theres a F'in good read.

yes, I was wondering about that also?

'Deer World' is the place that used to be on the Taupo/Rotorua highway.

I think I remembered it pretty well...   hahahha I never did ask Rex but I just assume it was Mau dressed up as the old culler!   Anyway don't want to spill too much of the old culler tricks eh!

PG TIP'S is loaded up to the gunwales and roars off from Taupo . It get's over the pine forest. The pilot turns to the nervous passenger in the middle  who foolishly told the pilot about the taradale escapade. The pilot ask's the passenger" have you ever flown a chopper before". Passenger is petrified at this stage and is white with panic. Pilot thrusts cyclic into passenger's hand and says just caress it like a woman's breast. It was a long flight to the Mangamaire in sheer terror. The rollercoaster ends with a straight  90% climb stall and peel back. At that stage the heart was hurtling out of the bubble. This is mild to what happened to a mate of my who shot for  Joe looking for the lost boot on the Taupo Rd !!!!!!!!

Bloody awesome read Alan - have heard many a story over the years about the chopper boys and how the yanks still can't get their heads around what them buggers used to do in them...