A sure shot sign of a great weekend
Duck hunting season occurs but three months a year, in the winter months of May, June and July. So keen hunters have to be highly motivated and mobile to take advantage of the full range of opportunities available to them.
Brother Scott, ‘‘Pom-in-law’’ Tom Canny, and nephew Lochy, 13, were all keen to go for a Queen’s Birthday hunt, and I was put in charge of arranging access and logistics. Accompanied by son Jake, 17, we headed over Takaka Hill on the Friday night to be in position for hunting early on Saturday morning.
Finding huntable populations of gamebirds these days is not easy and can take a lot of work. I had spent the week before on the phone, calling a number of landowners to work out where ducks were and what opportunities were open to us.
Fortunately, the landowners were extremely welcoming and receptive, but the universal consensus was that there were few, if any, ducks and pukekos around.
One thing I’ve learned over many decades of waterfowling is that you need to do your homework before you go hunting, either by phone or by scouting with binoculars. ‘‘Basically, you kill waterfowl by going where they are and hiding until they fly within range,’’ said master American waterfowler Zack Taylor in his classic 1974 book, Successful Waterfowling.
There is much wisdom hidden in these simple lines, and many New Zealand hunters routinely disobey these immutable laws of waterfowling to their own disadvantage.
Waterfowl, whether Canada geese, mallards, greys, shoveller, black swan or paradise ducks, are highly mobile creatures ruled by the need to eat, breed, socialise, shelter, and hide from predators. These birds are highly attuned to their environment, feeding opportunities and survival, and once the shooting starts on opening weekend each May, they get cunning real fast.
Today’s successful hunter is one who can locate birds and safely position himself or herself in shooting range throughout the season. There are opportunities everywhere: estuaries, lakes, braided riverbeds, swamps, ponds, willow thickets, paddocks, stubble fields – in fact, anywhere that birds feed or rest, day or night.
To take advantage of this hunting smorgasbord, though, modern hunters must be highly mobile and flexible in their approach. The ability to travel light, be in exactly the right position and be there early are the hallmarks of hunters who regularly take limit bags of birds on both public and private lands.
My phone calls led me to a maize stubble field regularly inhabited by paradise ducks, and it was to this hotspot we headed early on Saturday morning. Setting up our larger mobile blind and two layout blinds on the outer perimeter of the field to accommodate five hunters safely, we placed decoys, pulled on our camouflage face masks and readied ourselves for action.
Our paradise duck decoys were a mix of commercial and homemade decoys tried and tested after years of use. Our full body plastic decoys and shells were complemented by silhouette decoys cut out of real estate signs and painted black, white and brown to suit.
It was Lochy’s first duck hunt, and after an extensive safety briefing we settled in for the first ducks to arrive.
It didn’t take long, but these paradise ducks were wily birds that had been hunted in this location several times already this season. They flew high, circling above, reluctant to commit to the decoys and fly within effective shotgun range of 30-40m. The first few shots were unsuccessful.
An incoming drake glided in above my layout blind as I swung open the hatches, sat up and folded the high bird cleanly, and we were on the scoreboard.
It was a great day out, and everyone shot paradise ducks as we shared the opportunities between us. Highlights included calling in at Langford’s Store to purchase takeaway coffee from Will and Sukhita to deliver back to the maimais, and later, enjoying the marvellous caramel-centered muffins so kindly baked for us by Carolyn McLellan.
Back at base, we cooked and contemplated the next day, when we would head west to the wild coast, complete with nikau palms, sand dunes, and 4WD drive river crossings.
Never having hunted there before, we decided to hunt rough, with no blinds or decoys, and to spot and stalk waterfowl on riverbeds, fields and ponds.
Often, the edge of pasture and rough terrain is the interface with gamebird habitat. Green pasture adjoining tussock, swamp, manuka, barberry thickets, blackberry, gorse, willow and broom is always a grand place to patrol. Working along the edge of creeks, ditches and fencelines makes for easy walking, while birds like pukekos will flush from stands of totara and kahikatea.
On one small pond we completely surrounded, pukekos flew to every point of the compass, and everyone was able to get in on the action. On another pond, inhabited by Canada geese, we put in a good stalk but were thwarted by unseen cattle spooking, and the geese used the howling wind to their advantage, clawing for height against the far bank, largely out of range.
Jump shooting is always great fun, but learning the escape routes on each particular pond waterfowl use is part of the experience.
Later, we stalked river flats and high hill terraces in pursuit of paradise ducks, with success. It was a team effort and classic ‘‘spot and stalk’’ hunting as departing birds used the wind to their advantage.
Everyone, including the boys, pulled off some grand shots at high birds, and the day was a great success.
Hunting nearby Takaka on the Monday, we jump shot pukekos and mallards locally for a few short hours. One willow-lined pond exploded with the flapping wings of dozens of raucous mallards and hybrid grey ducks, both exciting and disappointing us as we got the stalk slightly wrong.
For the boys, though, it was a great Golden Bay experience, irrespective of how many ducks we shot, and on the long drive home we talked about other big trips yet to do together, like Ellesmere, West Coast and South Westland.
For a waterfowler, the call of wild birds silhouetted against wild skies is an intoxicating elixir and addictive experience. Hunting together as a family unit only made the experience sweeter.