Nailing the Southland Quad

Before lockdown, Rowan Hook and two good mates Nick Herbert and Ant Buddle decided to try and achieve every Southerner’s perfect weekend: the Southland quad. This includes bagging a red deer, monster cray, blue cod and lastly the white gold that is bluff oysters. With the days long and the weather settled, they set out to achieve their mission! Rowan, who runs the dive shop Wettie Southland, tells the story…

First up was the cray, and there’s no better place to target a monster red than Southland’s own version of Jurassic Park, Ruapuke Island. A special place to anyone that dives it, Ruapuke sits 30 mins directly south from Bluff, Invercargill. It’s a large island that is forbidden to land on, and is renowned for 17-19cm paua and amazing fishing. We set out early in the morning and had a calm ride across the notoriously rough Foveaux Strait. There are only a few isolated places to find crays at Ruapuke and due to the ever-looming threat of great whites, we don’t tend to dive open water. We pulled up to the cray holes, and found a casual 12m of deep blue water visibility.

A quick scout around indicated that today was going to be a good day. Crays were plentiful and with the lads quickly gaining confidence in the water, it wasn’t long before we were only trying to find big trophy crays amongst the plenty to choose from. A friend new to Southland, Ant, had yet to snag a truly big red cray. I dived down on a hole known to hold decent crays and came face to face with a monster. I slowly backed off so as not to spook the cray and yelled at Ant to come over. He replied that he had found a monster of his own, holding up a nice sized buck.

I replied, “That is a baby compared to this one I have for you!” Sure enough, a quick survey dive for Ant revealed a grim face.

“Ohhh I think I will let you tackle this one mate; I don’t want to mess this one up.”

“Get down there and don’t come up till you have him!” I replied.

Sure enough, with the grace of a cray whisperer, Ant snagged the monster buck. And boy what a cray; with it tipping at just over 4kg, we were off to a ripper start to the day.

Luckily, we didn’t have to go far for the next target. The bottom had been stirred up with all the cray activity, which enticed the blue cod to the area in good size and numbers. A few of these were quickly speared, giving us plenty of time to enjoy the rest of the dive in the amazingly clear water. Spearfishing for blue cod can be the easiest or most frustrating experience! They can do anything from just about nibbling the end of the shaft, to bolting as soon as you dive, so they are a good challenge for us in the deep South. With the boat full and the yarns flowing, we headed to our spot X to free dive for the white gold known as bluff oysters. A dredge is usually required to gather these delicacies, but with a closely guarded secret spot, we quickly had our limits and were on our way back to the ramp to begin the second part of the adventure.

Fresh fish was added to the day's haul.

With the boat cleaned and the fish processed, we began phase two to try and get a Southland Red Deer. With darkness fast approaching, we loaded up quickly and made our way to the second spot x of the day. Southland is renowned for its amazing hunting and self-sustaining lifestyle, and today was going to be no exception! With our legs weary and aching from the day’s diving, we powered up the hill to the chosen location. The darkness was slowly approaching and it was looking like our perfect weekend was vanishing in front of us. There was not a deer in sight.

Suddenly, a rush of hushed voices and excitement cut the air. Creeping out of the bush line were three beautiful animals. Not the stag we had hoped for, but great eating animals none the less. Trying to get three trigger happy lads to all hold and take a counted down shot is no small feat; however, it was a must to ensure we got the animals with nice clean kills. With the light almost gone and the deer looking like shadows on the bush line, the countdown began… 3… 2… 1... triple boom! Three from three – we had done it! We carried out three great eating animals, having completed the perfect Southland Weekend by nailing the Southland Quad in just one day.

Nick Herbert (left) and the writer with the results of the fourth leg of the Southland Quad - one of the three deer shot out of a triple.