Bow-hunter seeking game in Alps

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32524, 6 February 1971, Page 8

Bow-hunter seeking game in Alps

A visiting American bow-hunter, Mr M. L. Toponce, arrived in Christchurch yesterday to begin preparations for a three-week hunting excursion in the Southern Alps region. An experienced and accurate rifleman, Mr Toponce, who comes from the San Francisco Bay area, has travelled widely to hunt game. In Africa alone, he has bagged more than 30 trophies, mainly in Kenya; and he has met with success in Alaska and in Central America. However, 18 months ago, he sold all his rifles and bought a bow when he found that he could kill game from a distance of 700 yards. He considered this hardly a sporting challenge when the animal could not see, hear or smell its enemy at that distance.

“With a bow you have to penetrate all the defensive mechanisms of the game,” he said. His bow is an extremely powerful Jennings compound model—a new style of bow that has a steel cable and pulley arrangement. It enabled an arrow to go much further and travel faster than a comparable conventional bow, Mr Toponce said. Only mediocre as a target

shooter, Mr Toponce feels that to take game with a bow one must have some knowledge of the habits of the animal being stalked; beable to shoot a heavy hunting bow with reasonable accuracy; and have “a bit of luck.” This is Mr Toponce’s second visit to New Zealand, but his first to the South Island. Last year, while with an Auckland friend who is also keen on bow-hunting, he shot a Red stag. The main quarry that he and his three New Zealand companions will be seeking in the Alps bush is chamois and that.