Vernon Thompson has been hunting wild deer since boyhood. A rapid rise in deer numbers in the south by the late 1950s meant he and his brothers, Bill and Nelson, were able to turn a weekend interest into a commercial enterprise. At first, using boats built in their fathers woolshed, the Thompson boys kept within the Lake Monowai and southem coastal areas. But increasing competition pushed Vernon to move to Te Anau where he was able to work as a groundhunter on the lake shores as well as those of Lake Manapouri. He continued to hunt below the bushline following the introduction of helicopter-assisted deer recovery in the mid-to-late 1960s. By the early 1970s he was employed as a shooter for Derek Cook while his brothers formed an independent deer recovery crew working areas south and east of the Fiordland National Park until permits were opened up to all helicopter operators. The focus of this interview has been the early groundhunting and later deer recovery work by Vernon and his brothers. While it includes some references to other experiences during those years, this is not a full oral history recording of Vernon's life.