Stina - Rod & Rifle

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The Stina Burn-Block 4 The Stina Burn block is located at the head of Bligh Sound on the Fiordland coast and offers great hunting with a mix of red deer and wapiti being present. This is a good bush hunting block with a small area of open tops above the seaward faces and is an easy block to get around on. The Stina block is part of the Glaisnock Wilderness Area so helicopter access is to the shoreline only. Access to the Stina is normally by helicopter from Te Anau or Milford Sound. If you are prepared to drive to Milford Sound the fl ight can be a lot cheaper and by fl ying down the coast the pilot can usually get you out if the weather is bad. For those with a good stomach a fi shing boat from Milford Sound is an option and the amount of gear you can take is unlimited. There is a very comfortable base campsite located at the mouth of the Stina Burn on the true left. The ridge immediately behind the main camp at the Stina Burn mouth offers good travel to the tops overlooking the coast and there is a good head basin at the top of it. During heavy rain the Stina Burn rises very quickly and becomes uncrossable at its mouth even after only a couple of hours rain however like all Fiordland rivers it also drops quickly. There is a gorge at the start of the Stina Burn which blocks access however there is a route past it on the true right that starts about fi fty metres upstream and follows deer trails at a height of about 50 metres above the gorge. After about two hours travel a small river fl at will be seen below, signalling the end of the gorge so you can now drop into the river bed. Once back in the main river it is easy travel until the forks are reached. Leave the river here and head up the centre spur towards point 681 and then sidle into the Stina head basin. There is a good dry campsite in the head basin on the true right in the beech trees which is a good place to be based to access the rest of the block. However, by camping here you will ruin the hunting in the head basin so hunt it fi rst before setting up camp. Some hunters do this by climbing up onto the ridge north of Bare Cone and travelling along it to look into the Stina head basin. Kiwi Above; A good 12 point rack taken by Brian Head on the Stina Burn in the 2008 season. It measures 41” in length and scores close to 300DS. Heads like this were very rare ten years ago but are now becoming more common. The head was taken at a range of 150 metres on the open tops. Photo Jon Wood Left; The author on the Tinsley Highway looking towards the mouth of the Wild Natives block in Bligh Sound on a beautiful Fiordland afternoon. ROD & RIFLE 15
HUNTING The collection of old antlers there can’t fail to get a hunter’s imagination running are present in the area and on a still night you will hear them calling. From here it is easy to access the Tinsley Highway which is a long easy going ridge that travels from the head basin along to Bare Cone and then to the end of the block at Wood Cutters Peak. This was a favourite route of Ray Tinsley’s back in the late 70’s and early 80’s and is described in his classic book ‘Call of the Wapiti’. A kilometre along from Bare Cone there is a slip that stretches from near the ridge top down to the sea in Bligh Sound and this is known as the Stair Way to Heaven in some of the old hunting books. The coastal faces of the Stina block offer excellent bush hunting for roaring stags and bugling bulls. Long ridges and faces go down to the sea and they have numerous wallows on them. There are some huge grassy slips on these faces however although I have seen them from a helicopter I have never been able to fi nd them while actually hunting the faces. Ray Tinsley and his hunting companion Bill Harris unoffi cially named the major catchment at the back of the block draining into George Sound the Catsarse Creek when they hunted this area extensively in the late seventies. There is an old meat hunters camp called Bernie’s Camp situated about 700 metres down the seaward ridge that leads from the top of the Stina head basin down to the mouth of Catsarse Creek. The collection of old antlers there can’t fail to get a hunters imagination running. This is a great spot to base your self as it also gives access into the head of the Catsarse Creek. There is enough room for a helicopter to drop a party off at the mouth of the Catsarse however I learnt the hard way that there is no area suitable for a campsite there. The leading ridges on both sides of the Catsarse offer very good hunting. The Catseye/Catsarse ridge has a very rough area just before it hits the Tinsley Highway however this can be by passed by dropping into the head basin of Catsarse Creek. The Stina Burn block offers great bush hunting and like all of the wapiti blocks it is now starting to show its potential again so is well worth a look. And don’t forget to pack your fi shing rod, as the cod fi shing near the mouth of the Stina Burn is excellent. 16 ROD & RIFLE A Hunt in the Stina by Simon Gibson I had been on the Stina Burn block several years earlier chasing bugling bulls for two weeks in fi ne weather so when Dave rang to say our group had been successful in the wapiti ballot for the Stina I was rapt as it is a great block. On our fi rst visit we had started the trip at the base camp by the mouth of the Stina Burn like most parties do but this year was to be different. At the last minute we changed our plans after meeting a couple of seasoned wapiti hunters in the local pub who told us of a campsite at the mouth of the Catsarse on the other side of the block. Our pilot confi rmed he had dropped some Aussies there once so we were all set. I was looking forward to visiting this little inlet, as it was the spot where many of Ray Tinsley’s trips started when the fi shing boat ‘The Alias’ dropped him there. With the usual mountain of gear stowed we set off from Milford Sound in Geoff Shanks’ squirrel and headed over the Fiordland tops towards the Stina Burn. As we came into land at the mouth of Catsarse Creek my alarm bells were ringing. It was a very tight little creek mouth with very steep hills and rocky bluffs surrounding it and my doubts about its suitability as a base camp were soon confi rmed. Within minutes the noise of the chopper was fading into the distance as we set about fi nding the campsite and setting up our base camp. As we all rounded the fi rst corner of the creek loaded down with gear a large waterfall greeted us and it was then that we realised there was no campsite and worse still nowhere to camp at all as the only fl at areas were absolute bogs. We were to fi nd the so called campsite later but it was 200 metres up the side of a very steep slope and a terrible spot to be based. For me it was a valuable lesson learned, you should only heed advice from those who have actually been to an area. Making the most of the situation camp was set up on the best of the bogs and gear sorted for the next few weeks hunting. Dave and I were heading up the Catsarse/Catseye ridge while Mike and Barraclough were heading for Bernie’s Camp on the seaward leading ridge that ends over looking the Stina head basin. By nightfall we had made the ridge top and pitched camp, well satisfi ed with the afternoon’s efforts. Away early the next morning it wasn’t long before I had several wapiti bulls
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