Most of Friday morning in the office was spent frantically trying to get my ducks in a row so that I could nip out mid afternoon, race home, grab my layout, field duck dekes hit the road and meet Tony and Mark on a flooded cut-over maize paddock. I under-estimated the effect of torrential downpours on traffic, so had to cool my jets while trailing a rural school bus and then a series of pedestrian paced trucks. I met the farmer who grumbled about the rain and warned me to travel slowly on the farm race and avoid the potholes. The rain was seriously heavy and ducks were out in the paddocks. It took me a while to find Tony and Mark in the rain, and when I did we lugged my gear in… and the skies began to clear… and soon all the duck activity died. We laid back in our blinds, calling at the occasional passing bird and soon a pair of parries came by. I shot the drake and promptly missed the hen bird, but at least we were on the board. Over the next couple of hours until dark it was quiet until a pair of mallards swung around and landed well short of our spread. Tony released Nera and she chased them up – no chance of a shot. Large groups of grey heron flew overhead and out to sea, and we were buzzed by masses of pied oyster-catchers and pied stilts (It’s been over 30 years since I’ve seen them in such numbers). As the light dropped a duck buzzed us and swung up high overhead before dropping to the shot – a real highlight of the season. I’m not claiming it as both Tony and I fired simultaneously. I heard both reports but neither Tony nor Mark did – both had thought a single shot had been fired. As the sky gloomed over 3 ducks came in and I nabbed the bird on my side, the pair then clawed for height directly overhead and I was confident of nailing the others but… well nothing dropped at our shots. Soon we called it as it was too gloomy to continue, and with a healthy population of teal around it was not worth the risk. A quick beer back at the cars and then off home. I got there, ditched my gear, grabbed the long handle shears and a rubbish sack and headed off to cut some extra grass for the layout blind.
At 3.12 the next morning, some asshole in a hotted up car decided to lay some rubber down in my cul de sac. The only good news was that it saved the alarm from going off and waking SWMBO – at least she couldn’t blame me for her having a crappy sleep. Coffee in the thermos, goose calls and ammo in the bag, mandatory headlamp, gun (un-pinned) check, check, check things off the mental check list... and then on the road heading for paddock 2. While running around in the office on Friday morning, Rick had advised of a Waikato Goose Mafia gathering. Meeting place as normal at the normal 5am time. I was there early enough to have a coffee and soon the usual suspects rolled in. The predicted wind had died overnight, so we were left in a quandary about which direction to face. So we set up facing NE. It was eerily quiet on the reserve lake and the sky overhead was rain laden, heavy stuff too. I’d brought a brolly along this time as well as the Sitka rain gear (which incidentally has performed flawlessly) and we waited and waited as the sound of rain hitting our umbrellas drowned any other noise. While no one said anything, I think we had had a nagging feeling that with no birds in the air it could be a bust. I was on the verge of sleep when a quiet honk over our right shoulders had me bolt awake – 5 birds slid around our right flank from behind, turned and came in with feet down. We were all caught semi napping –personally I was frantically taking down my umbrella and managed to do so in their visual range when the shot was called and they all tumbled to the ground. Maybe a flight was on? Certainly the swan were moving, as flight after flight cruised past. Then it all got a bit hectic, suddenly geese were in the air approaching from multiple directions. We had some excellent action with birds landing all around us but with no wind the shortcomings of layouts were exposed. I broke the frame of my Finisher turning to take a bird that swung over my shoulder. We had birds on the ground belly up so had to make a call to collect the downed birds even though others were in air. We also turned our blinds 180 degrees – with the effect that the next flight alighted behind us… no wind isn’t ideal for goose hunting. Besides which geese were now joining the swan in a paddock a km away, leaving us having to compete against a growing number of live birds which is never ideal. Some birds still decided to join our spread and the tally grew. Then the sun poked through and with a local having arrived to push off the neighbouring birds (the local farmers hate the geese and swan) things quietened down. The dog was brought in to sweep up birds that had dropped out of sight, and we sorted out the decoys blinds guns and moved out in a small convoy. Back at George’s house we cleaned the birds in short order – looking at my watch I saw that I’d have some family time in the afternoon when I got home – phew… because on the morrow a shoot day at Tui Ridge was arranged.
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| Mafia crew and the bag |
I slept pretty damn well that night and got up at 6, made coffee and pottered around arranging my driven pheasant gear. Breeks, long socks, shirt, tie… the Justin Bieber Fan Club mocked me for “looking silly in tweed and checks and a tie”. The crew rolled into Rick’s on time and we had a good catch-up and chinwag before setting off to the first drive, consisting of an un-mown maize paddock. Given its close proximity to our release site, the birds were seeking it out and spending their time in the rows. I’d drawn peg number 8 so was on the very right hand end of the gun line. On my left was Tim, a very experienced game keeper and gun. Given the size of the paddock it took quite a while to drive it through – and from my position I could see birds run out of the maize on the flank into a recently harvested potato paddock, and then run back into cover. The occasional bird broke back over the beaters but soon I had my first flush, a cock bird that never got high enough for a shot under our shoot rules. Smart bird. Then Tim and I had a flurry and took a few birds before the major flush at the other end of the line. Then at my end, a crippled melanistic cross cock bird limped out into the paddock dragging his wing. I watched him for a while before walking across to dispatch him. A damn good first drive! As with any driven day, the luck of the peg draw plays a decent role so I was quite happy to finish the day with 5 birds bagged and 1 not picked and there were some truly classic shots taken. We retired to Rick’s place for a barbecue and had a great time regaling the day with the shooters and beaters. Huge thanks to Rex Murray who came as my beater, to Andrew Speed for just volunteering, to Rick, Malcolm, and Helen in particular and to all the others who gave up their day to push birds through some truly awful and gnarly crap. A fantastic day in a fantastic (slightly elongated) weekend.
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| There's no escaping it, the ring neck pheasant is a stunning bird |
I declare Tui Ridge a success.
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