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RoaRing StagS and RiSing tRout S P O R T I N G C L A S S I C S • 227 I n the late summer of 1769, the HMS Endeavour, commanded by the famed English navigator Captain James Cook, left Tahiti and, on orders from the British Admiralty, set forth on a southwesterly course in search of what many believed was a great continent that existed in the southernmost reaches of the world. After some two months at sea, it was Nicolas Young, a plucky 12-year- old cabin boy on the Endeavour, who, on October 7 of that year, made out a distant promontory off the ship's bow. For being the first of the crew to spot land, Captain Cook rewarded young Nicolas with five gallons of rum and the name of the headland he first spotted. It was not, however, the coast of the mythical southern continent. Instead, what Nicolas had glimpsed was a high bluff jutting from a bay on the east coast of New Zealand's North Island. Nick's Head, as it is still known today, can be seen from the town of Gisborne, which, incidentally, is the first city in the world to see the sun each day. It is easy to believe that the Sporting Gods chose to bring dawn's first light to this faraway locale for a good reason: to call attention to the fact that these distant islands are home to some of the best hunting and fishing on earth, bar none. Oddly enough, that wasn't always the case. Although it's blessed with a variety of great habitats, New Zealand was, with the exception of several species of bats, historically devoid of any land mammals. No indigenous critters of any kind, at all. From the sportsman's perspective, this created a true tabula rasa, the perfect blank sheet from which to introduce the best of the best for hunters and anglers. For example: red deer from Scotland in the 1850s and '60s, the Turkish fallow deer in the late 1800s, and the wily and elusive sika deer from eastern Asia in the early 1900s. Brown trout, from English stock in Tasmania, were released in New Zealand in the 1860s, with rainbow trout from the USA coming over in the late 1880s. And that's just a sampling. The first four-legged animals on the islands were a small flock of sheep dropped off by Captain Cook on the North Island when he made a return voyage in 1773. Almost 250 years later I shot a wild ram, what might have been a descendant of this original band. It was, however, just one slice of my hunting and fishing adventure at one of the world's great wilderness retreats, Poronui, nestled in the secluded Taharua Valley of New Zealand's North Island. Once a rustic fishing camp, Poronui has transformed itself into a world-class lodge without resorting to pomp or exaggerated décor. It retains its sporting ambience and a down-home, cozy feel, providing guests with a truly upscale experience in an atmosphere of understated elegance. With only seven guest cabins surrounding the main lodge, there is an intimate atmosphere to Poronui that simply can't be matched by larger lodges. W hen I arrived at the lodge—it was about ten in the morning—I noted the open kitchen and communal dining table. Almost without asking, the chef began whipping up a full English breakfast that I ate in the company of several of Poronui's guides and staff. By my second cup of coffee, I was seated among friends. Speaking of friends, my hunting guide, Mark, and I hit it off within the first five minutes as we left the lodge well before daylight the next morning on our way to the property's hill country in search of a suitable red stag. Dawn had us glassing a valley below, mostly high grass but interspersed with small groves of Guide to Outfitters & Lodges