Red Stag / ‘Cereus elaphus’

Imagine waking up in the early morning fog only to hear off in the distance a deep throaty lion like “roar” of a massive 400 – 500 pound Red Stag. No need to imagine, it’s a reality when hunting with Four Seasons Safaris.

New Zealand is world renown for producing the largest Red Stags in the world, and it’s here where you can hunt for the Kings large antlered stags. International hunters jump at the chance to visit the South Island of New Zealand to seek the impressive, multi- point, crown antlered Stags. This is one of the main deer species in this region.

All of our exciting and adventurous hunting safaris take place on private land where we offer Free Range and Game Estate Hunts. Excellent trophy quality are found throughout the herds and our private area management guarantees a long tradition of producing record book Red Stags for years to come. It is not uncommon to see 30+ trophy quality Stags of various size in a day while out hunting with us. Hunt 300,400,500 SCI class stags while basing yourself from our luxury resort or from our rustic cabin in the hunting area. Each day you will experience different terrain and see Stags that you haven’t seen before.

The Rut/Roar season starts in March and lasts until the end of April. We often call in these royal animals, imitating their lion like “Roar”. They will in turn roar back and can come in close for a fighting challenge. This is prime hunting for our archery hunters. You can only begin to imagine how exciting this can be, a stag roaring, thrashing his antlers while he’s running up to contest another male and then stops 20 yards in front of you. You have to see it to believe it! Red Stags are in hard antler in February and are hunted from February to September. They are one of, if not, the most popular South Pacific trophy animals!