About Us at Trophy Hunt and Fish
Dave Ratcliffe first started as a professional hunter in 1965 when he was employed by the NZ Forest Service in the Ruahine Ranges. In 1969 he ventured to the South Island’s remote Fiordland and South Westland. Here jet boat was the form of transport used to recover animals to remote hand-made airstrips, where the animals were flown out by plane to a waiting truck to be taken to venison processing plants.
The winter months were spent back in the central North Island, either catching opossums for the fur trade or shooting wild goats for the export meat industry. Dave also has experience in logging native bush for the timber industry.
In 1973 Dave became a helicopter shooter, covering various areas of the South Island’s mountains, including Fiordland’s Wapiti country where a cull of the herd took place in 1974.
Dave then married in 1976, and since then he has had numerous lifestyle changes, becoming a butcher, bushman, fencer, and opossum trapper for the fur trade until live capture for deer started. Building deer traps was another work experience.
In 1985 Dave took over 10,000 acres of private Maori land, which had been logged from 1962 to 1972. The focus here was on developing a Tourist hunting and fishing venture. Over the next 23 years extensive roading was put in place and an accommodation lodge and cabins were built. The Game Estate had an animal management plan implemented, and many kilometres of quad tracks in the rugged wilderness terrain were designed to make the country more accessible. Animal numbers were lifted as well as Trophy Quality.
From 1985, Dave became a passionate fly and nymph fisherman and from that time he has fished most of the rivers in the region, as well as various lakes and rivers of the South Island.
Following a double knee replacement, Dave changed his lifestyle but remained involved in the wilderness environment by working with clients as an Outfitter/Trophy Hunting Agent/companion organising their hunting or fishing trips, making them not only successful but memorable at the best possible price.
YOUR PLEASURE IS MY PROFESSION
Dave published a book, AN ERA GONE covering his early years as a hunter including his time as a deer culler, meat hunter, helicopter shooter, goat shooter, bushman , opossum skin hunter right up to his marriage.
It was reprinted two months after the book launch. There is another book in the wind – covering his last 23 years of experience, as well as the characters he has met during his hunting and fishing tourism venture .
The book is available at a number of book stores and you can buy it online at a number of online bookstores and New Zealand Hunting Books.
ISBN 978-1-877256-70-7