Duck shoot trumps dining with Queen

Nothing stops Basil Morrison from missing the opening of the duck shooting season – not even a private dinner with the Queen.

A few years ago, the former Hauraki District Council mayor was chairman of the Commonwealth Local Government Board when he received the Queen’s invite to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the modern Commonwealth at Buckingham Palace.

He was keen to go, but when he realised the dinner clashed with the opening of duck shooting, he turned the invite down.

Morrison, 70, hasn’t missed an opening since his first duck shoot on the banks of the Waihou River when he was 6 years old. Generations of the Morrison family have been duck shooting on the same stretch of the river in Hikutaia, near Paeroa, since the 1940s.

He was not keen to let the Queen break the family tradition.

‘‘Part of the folklore of the family now is that the old fella turned down a private dinner with the Queen to go duck shooting,’’ he said, laughing.

’’[Duck shooting] means lots of things to me. It means family first of all and seeing the young ones coming on, shooting with [son] Craig.

‘‘It’s very much part of a family tradition. It’s very important.’’

Basil’s father, grandfather, son Craig and extended family have all been duck shooting in various maimai on the same stretch of the Waihou.

This year will be Craig’s 40th shoot and his son Cooper, 9, will have his first opening shoot on May 6, under the guidance of his dad and granddad. Cooper’s two younger brothers Jye, 7, and Hunter, 5, can’t wait to be old enough to join in.

There’s plenty of room for everyone in the maimai. It has never been swept away when the river floods, but a brand new tractor was nearly swept away once, while trying to make a slipway for the decoy boat.

The family is busy the weekend before the opening shoot, preparing the maimai, cleaning decoys, getting everything ready. They shoot most nights during the season.

Each year, a tally of birds shot is scratched into the paintwork of one of the rafters when the season ends.

Craig said duck shooting was important to keep the birds under control.

‘‘They get botulism and other diseases because there’s too many. What we’re actually doing is harvesting the ducks so there’s not a plague of them,’’ he said.

Basil said there were a lot of emotions around duck shooting, which was a traditional family gettogether.

‘‘We have a whiskey for absent friends that have been with us that have passed away and all those sort of things.

‘‘I guess it’s pretty much rural provincial New Zealand.’’