Author(s): Hans Willems

Hunting

Percy Lyes is a legend in hunting circles, his exploits and adventures have been the subject of campfire stories in hunting camps for the last fifty years. He was the last New Zealand hunter to officially shoot a moose in Fiordland in 1952. His 1951 wapiti hunting trip gave him a trophy which still ranks as one of the best ever shot in New Zealand. As a trophy hunter and sportsman, his record as one of the leading hunters of the late 1940s and early 1950s was without equal, his 1949 red deer from the Whitcombe Valley to this day remains a record for length of antler for wild red deer. Hans Willems is the author of "North Island Back Country Huts" and "Hunting Smarter" and has put together with the help of the Lyes family a record of some of the most successful trips, and with the help of family albums is able to provide an insight into the background that made Percy Lyes 'an original good keen man'.