Duck Shooting

FINALLY!
The first weekend in May is very special!
It means it is opening weekend for duck shooting. This weekend is big here in New Zealand, there are a lot of hunters here and thousand of people travel to their secret locations for a fantastic weekend.

Every year on the first weekend in May I meet dear friends and we travel to the Ahuriri valley in the middle of the south island. It is an amazing valley, the scenery breath taking

and home to a lot of ducks and other flying things. I am going there since 8 years and had a lot of fun time there. But this year is very special, it is the first time I am taking one of the boys with me. Jacob is really excited to come.
We met in Wellington, an other first for Jacob, he was flying all by himself from New Plymouth to Wellington, and we got on a plane to Christchurch. After a night with friends, we stayed with Tom and Janelle, we tackled the 5 hour drive to the valley. After meeting the gang, Franz, Dion, Willy and the rest, we where 11 all together we went to our spots and prepared for the next day, erecting our mai mais - this are hide outs so the ducks can not see us, and put the decoys out. decoys are plastic ducks which are put into the water so any passing ducks think it is save to land :). After getting all the other gear ready and a good catch up with the others it is an early night. At 5 in the morning an excited crew gets up and after a good breakfast we make our way to the mai mai. Jacob and I are with Dion on a medium sized pond which over the years gave us fantastic results. Arriving at the pond it is still dark and we settle in for a long wait for daylight. We could hear the ducks, passing ands landing and this promised a great begin to the weekend. Legally the first shot can be fired at 6:45 in the morning but the light conditions where still quite poor at the time and at our pond the spectacle stated at 7:05. There where ducks everywhere and it was a busy first hour. Jacob did good spotting and he also called with a duck caller, he was quite successful in getting a few in.
After the first hour it is getting a little quiet so we settle in with a hot chocolate and a coffee to wait for further arrivals.


The mai mai is made out of tussock grass and blend in well with the surroundings, from a few meters away it is hard to spot. On top of that all of us are wearing camouflage to minimise the risk of getting spotted by the birds.




Here is Jacob and me waiting for more birds to come




A few out the front of the mai mai, it was perfect hunting weather. The pond is in front and a wonderful rainbow is visible.



The proof of success Jacob with one of the ducks!



To get to the mai mai we had to cross a Creek. The water was a little high, to high for Jacob to walk through without getting water in his gum boots, so I carried him as I was wearing chest waders, which are more or less gumboots all the way to the chest.. This was easy during daylight, a little trickier while it was dark, but we managed a dry crossing.
Here you can see us on the way back for lunch, on one side I am carrying Jacob on the other some ducks.


The afternoon saw Jacob sleeping, he was exhausted.
the next morning we went rabbit shooting, Jacob had a little shot gun and he almost got one! He placed the shot a few centimeters in front of the rabbit, I was the back up shooter and made sure we had this one in the bag.

After breaking everything down and repacking all the gear we went to pluck the ducks. Jacob helped and we all told us stories of how the last two days went.
It took a while to prepare all the birds, altogether we got 60 ducks and 3 swans. Yes swans are game birds and we are allowed to shoot them, they also taste nice in a curry!

After a night in Mount cook and another night in Christchurch we made our way back to Wellington, and after a night with me Jacob flew back to New Plymouth on Wednesday morning just in time for school.

It was an awesome weekend, a fantastic adventure and both of us, Jacob and I, are looking forward to the next hunting expedition.

Dominic was a little sad that he could not come, but a trip to Auckland will make up for it. This Friday we will meet in Auckland and I am sure we also will have a fantastic time, more about it with some pictures when we get back!