Opening shots

A few of the guys had said that the week leading up to opening had not been all that tense or laden with excitement; not so for me. By the end of last week I was a wreck. The crew for opening had changed up a bit, with Larry and Dickie to be joining us; Dickie's dad however had suffered a stroke so Dickie was not able to hunt with us. Dad, Larry & my uncle Tom had arrived at the hut on Thursday to get set up and take it easy; as retirees they've done the hard yards already. My bro was across from Aussie, along with Daryl Snowdon; a shotgun & shooting nut from Mouth Island (mainland Au). By Friday afternoon, Andy and Rick had arrived, dekes were set and the hut packed out; we still had Coch, my bro Greg and Darryl to pick up, so a couple of trips up and down the river were needed. Finally with all aboard we kicked back for dinner and a few drinks. You can't beat the camaraderie of the old crew and relatively new; hunting brings all types together.

With ponds allocated, gear sorted and everything readied it was time to hit the hay. The sleep before opening is the worst in the whole year. I normally find myself lying listening to snores, dogs grunting... so I'm running on little sleep and lots of adrenaline by the time the alarm goes.

Andy and I were on brekkie rattled up endless plungers of coffee, a feed of bacon and scrambled eggs... and then it was time to ship out. Coch and I were on our south-westernmost pond. We'd agreed that for us we'd take mallard drakes only. Dad and Daryl were at the Willow Pond, Greg and Rick at The Park, Andy at McLennan's and Larry & Tom at Puru.

Coch and I had decided to start in the maimai, but with a Northerly forecast we'd taken along our layout blinds so we could take advantage of being able to setup correctly for the wind.

Wasp nest :)

Misted camera; view of Coch from the layout

Pond from layout

 Coch and I teamed up really well. We'd not hunted diucks much together in the past, with our joint efforts mainly being on geese. We'd decided that we'd shoot turn-about rather than lay into the birds arriving. This allowed us to precisely pick out drakes and by midday we were done. It'd been an awesome hunt and one for the memory banks.

We cruised back to the hut to find Dad, Daryl, Greg and Rick all in with limit bags, leaving Tom, Larry and Andy in the field. I'll hand it to Andy, he'd made a call to take mallard drakes only and had stuck to it, leaving the myriad of grey ducks and mallard hens that came in well alone. By midday he was on 3 birds, so when we went to drop his lunch off we suggested that he begin to widen his focus. later in the afternoon, I went up to his maimai to help him call in birds. As the light began to drop away he pulled off some amazing shots (by now it was shoot anything) and with 5 minutes to go filled out his bag. Super satisfying to make the most of the whole day!

Much hilarity was had that evening, with the swamp crew AGM held, resolutions passed and issues discussed. I was well stuffed by bedtime and knew that on this night I'd sleep like a baby.

Another opening day done.