Goose roar

The other day I received the Auckland Waikato Fish and Game special game bird season newsletter; the tone of a couple of articles was (again) so much like "you're a naughty child, now do as I say because I know best.." these guys keep missing the best opportunities to encourage and bring along for the journey rather than berate. One of the notes was kind of pertinent, in that goose hunters were asked to refrain from hunting geese near prime duck hunting spots in order not to drive ducks away, so when Matt sent me a text to say that a farmer wanted a couple of hundred geese moved along I immediately told him that it was too close to the duck season and it would be rude to ruin Adam's duck spot. Matt then told me that Adam was keen as mustard so it was game on.

I got home from the swamp (tagging & scrubbing the maimais) and even though I was mildly exhausted I put on a brave face in front of Mrs Snuffit and loaded the dekes and layout into the car. Luckily a part I'd needed to get my gun functional had arrived mid week so everything was set! Daylight savings hours were to end on Saturday night (hunt was Sunday morning) so even managed an extra hour's sleep. Up at 04.45, on the road and met up with Tony, Grant, Adam and Dave; Matt was still in transit. Off down the farm race to set up. Just before dawn we were ready. The boys reckoned I looked like a Tele-tubby with my Drift camera perched atop my hat, but I was keen to add to the footage so sucked up the abuse...

As the sun rose we were greeted with the sight of a "duck tornado" as thousands of paradise ducks wheeled around us and the recently harvested maize crop. They zoomed overhead, dived into our decoys, ignored us and the dogs and then to top it several hundred mallards joined the scene.

The first flight of geese appeared over the horizon so we hunkered down, called and flagged. In the group of 7 was a hybrid goose and every eye in the blinds was drawn to it, so that when the birds passed acroos from right to left I wasn't the tiniest bit surprised to see it fold and drop like the proverbial sack of poo.

Grant with the marker bird (snow goose?)

The action was pretty slow as the weather conditions were not conducive to getting the birds up off the harbour. So in the lull when Dave said "hey, is that a couple of deer over there??" we thought he was joiking. But no, a pair of fallow stags and a hind were feeding towards us in the scrub a couple of hundred metres away. Matt had a couple of OO buckshot 3.5" loads on him, so Adam grabbed them and keeping low made his way around to cover and set off to stalk the deer. 15 minutes later a shot boomed out and then another - he'd dropped both of the stags! We set about photographing them and then left Adam to gut the animals. Back in the blinds the action was non-existant until finally a flock appeared and approached. Unfortunately Adam had chosen this moment to return and was caught in the open, the geese flared off and headed to another location.... but over the next couple of hours birds showed up in good mobs and we dropped 30 odd in short order.

 

A goose pile

A truly memorable hunt, if somewhat impromptu and perhaps marriage wrecking :) - yup, a few brownie points are now owed.

I'll try and work on some video coverage in the next few days. My camera's battery went flat mid morning so I missed quite a bit of the shooting action.

So now, to the duck season with still quite some preparation needing doing.