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... 

He wasn't hunting at the time of his death however he may be the only pilot in N.Z. who could fly a D model at night holding a spotlight AND shoot the deer with the Colt. My mate was in the machine when he did this and was petrified. Anyone who knew him would say he was a brilliant pilot.

Theres some farkin funny yarns about Dave Saxton..... if you forget about the greenstone thing he is a legend!!

I got one of Rex's books out from the school library. A year later i haven't returned it.. certainly taught me a lot!

Once the romance wore off, say after an hour or so, you would find that it wasn't so glamorous as you might think.
And there were some bloody good American pilots as well,just as there were good and not so good Kiwi ones.

Sikahill wrote on Mar 25^th, 2010 at 11:03pm:



I was born a few years to late. I would have been in to that like a pig in to shit.

Sikahill wrote on Mar 25^th, 2010 at 11:03pm:


As BON and ALAN said it was bloody hard work,you looked forward to days off,(rough weather,machine on check,etc) it was extra hard when live capture started and before netguns cime in, bull doging,especially if you were a smaller person, and knowing that each time you when out you mite not be coming back.

Sikahill wrote on Mar 25^th, 2010 at 11:03pm:

Ring Bill Roydhouse 06 8742895 and he will give you some insight into Joe as his shooter [the unromantic version]

Shame those books weren't written about the guys who did thousands of hours...had no accidents..didn't hurt or kill anyone...but I guess those legends don't make a good yarn.

REX once told me that the YANKS that came to NZ to do deer recovery whent home "coz ya cant fly choppas in this bloody cantry" trouble was they forgot to tell us KIWIS

Did the first pickup of a deer from the air that Joe did in the head of Waihaha in Mountain Helicopters Hillar. Joe hovered about 2 metres above the tree I had my deer hanging in then said to get out.
"Not bloody likely get this thing down a bit lower"
We used to hang deer by neck with a rope which we tied to the top of a tree then tied a white rag up the tree so you could spot it from a distance. Just had to fly into top of tree get out on skid and put the spliced  rope onto hook. The deer would be hung with baling twine and that would break as lifted the deer out.

Joe was a .223 man gave me shit about my .308. He was good to us ground shooters and did everything he could to pick up our deer as he knew how much trouble we went to to get our animals cos he'd spent an apprenticeship on the ground before he learnt to fly. All bush pilots should have to do that first to get a better perspective.
Ask any pilot how far it is to so and so and its always "not far" when it takes half a days walk or more. I always reckoned on flat going a minute in the air takes an hour on foot.

is that Tascoe your dad?

I know Jim he does monitoring work in pest control

just north of Taupo

.223 wrote on Dec 5^th, 2010 at 11:43am:

PG Tips was an extension of his arm. Enuff said.

Sadly many young hunters do not even know about the venison era or the players. Some hunted with blades. Some performed aerial ballet. Then there was Joe Keeley. "hold the cyclic for me. How do I do that. Cradle it like a woman's breast" PG Tips going hard out over Taupo airport into the Kaimanawas.

Flying solo and shooting from the machine singled out the men from the grass hoppers.Lin Wilson was also a very good exponent of it and so was my mate. He got 4 pigs on his first  try. Went back there on Friday nite. My son was coming down the hill and saw 3 big pigs in the same paddock. This after 16 years.