Both Barrels June 2025

School holiday hunting

With the School holidays upon us, it’s a great time to get in some time with the kids and possibly their mates.

The team at Hawkes Bay Fish & Game recently hosted junior hunters from all over the country for the best junior hunting adventure in New Zealand.

They welcomed eight young hunters to the Wilson wetland in Central Hawkes Bay. All were winners of our Junior Duck Hunting Adventure.

The first afternoon took them through a session of gun safety & all young hunters had a go at simulated clay target shooting to prepare for their hunting adventure early Sunday morning.

A shout out to Patangata Clay Target Club and Dave Hern (Clay target champ) who provided one on one tuition and mentorship.

All junior hunters also received a goodie bag kindly provided by our sponsors Hamills Napier, Stoney Creek, Ridgeline, Killwell & Hunting & Fishing. Also a big thank you to Hunting & Fishing Palmerston North for sponsoring the ammunition for the weekend and providing all of the winners a head torch.

This amazing opportunity to support the next generation of hunters would not have been possible without the support of Ben & Gerald Wilson and their families for hosting us, and Dame Lynda Topp for her guidance.

Check out the regional articles above for events in your region, plus all of our regional pages offer some great hunting tips and tricks for all hunters. 

More than mallards

Even though the main mallard season may be over in some parts of the country, there are plenty of other game bird hunting opportunities to share with newcomers to hunting.

Day licences are available here, and there are plenty of delicious game birds hunters can target to introduce them to the benefits of game bird hunting.

Our upland game species are also pretty awesome, many dyed-in-the-wool waterfowlers ignore the challenging hunting of our wild quail and pheasants that are liberally spread around the country.

They like to hang out in our riverbeds among other places but offer some really challenging but totally rewarding hunting.

Recipes

If you have been out maximising your game bird hunting licence, why not also challenge yourself with some recipes from the award winning Fish & Game cookbook?

You can still order a copy from here.

Friends of Fish & Game caps

Canterbury’s Andrew Bakker is pictured above hunting on the West Coast. Andrew had his “Friends of Fish & Game” cap on while having a very successful weekend with mates, harvesting some great West Coast game birds.

While we can’t take any credit, I’m sure that the unique camo pattern made out of the silhouettes of all the species Fish & Game manages definitely helped their chances of success.

Order yours here.

Firearms news

The team at the Firearms Safety Authority would like us to pass on to hunters that purchasing ammunition from a retailer is now categorised as an activating circumstance for the Arms registry.

No that doesn’t mean you have to register your ammo, but it means you have to register all your firearms within 30 days of purchasing some ammo.

You can learn more here, plus they have some new handy tips and tricks for transport and storage of firearms.