Phooooaaarrrrr - what a cast

Check this out, Rene Vaz is a STANIC and FFF certified casting instructor. Check out this shot for a good wee biff.

Sweeeeeeeet

More work on The Booger

Got the transducer for the fish finder installed today. Drilling holes in your baby is pretty nerve wracking, but anyway it all came together fine. Not much to do now, just the blind to finish up and some rod holders to go in.

Tangahoe

Ok ok so I promised an epic, but if you're expecting piles of venison and hog ribs then its time to put that one to bed!

Tangahoe is a station west of Retaruke, run by a wild eyed ex horse trainer bloke, and pokes its bald head up out of a magnificent surrounding of heavy native bush. Its eastern edge is bordered by the Wanganui (no farkin H there) River. Given that grass actually "grows" there its no surprise that deer find the place quite appealing. Even though its a working farm (sheep & beef), I'd rate it as a pretty hard farming venture.

My adventure started at Whenuapai air base where I handed over my driver license in return for a pass to enter the base. I met Chris, my flying buddy (lucky he's a pilot huh?) and we packed our stuff into his plane and took off.

We took off and headed up to Nth Shore aerodrome to refuel.

After gassing up we headed south via Manukau Heads. Being quite a good wing shot, I felt qualified to hold the steering wheel and make brrmmm brrrmmm noises. I did quite a bit of that, from Port Waikato to past Te Kuiti. We arrived at Taumarunui and Chris brought us in. (can't embed the video - too big).

We unloaded Chris's plane, put the covers on and 10 minutes later our bush pilot arrived. We packed our gear into his Cessna 206 and were on our way. The flight was over some stunning countryside, and 18 minutes later we approached the station.

And we landed just like that on a strip more akin to a goat track on a 20 degree slope. Hairy, but not so bad on a fine day.

This is the sight that greeted us - taken from front deck of the homestead:

We got settled and went down to sight in the rifles. I put 3 bullets through the same hole at 80m - just one problem, I was aiming at a black target top right of the patterning sheet and the bullets were going through the top left! Right in the middle mind you...

We all set off for an afternoon hunt, Luke and Chris going down a big valley from the lip of which we'd seen 3 fallow grazing. Me and Si headed to a set of clearings, where Si put me onto the "Hinau Flat". Only a nanny and a mini goat were at home, so I got back up to Si and we moved slowly around some more clearings. Finally we spotted a fallow but he winded us immediately and was gone. We made our way back under a setting sun for a meal of some devilish concoction that Simon had made earlier. A blind beer tasting session and an introduction to Mexicali Dice (or something like that), a fantastic game. The beer tasting session went well. I recognised Lion red and scored it 100/100 - those long gone days as Shadows, the Ak Uni bar have stayed with me.

Friday dawned fine but foggy. Si and I hunted together for the morning, spending a heap of time covering the ground slowly in the fog. After a few hours and on the flat that we'd spotted our deer on the day before, I spied a fallow in the fog. I crawled closer and closer but even though I could see it with my bare eyes, I simply couldn't scope it. (Later I was shown that the scope was wound up to 12x... a bit of an amateur error). I decided to sidle round but spooked a mob of goats that I'd not seen earlier and the deer was gone.... We carried on and then a shot rolled out of the fog, then another. Si radioed up the boys and Chris had scored a nice spiker.

The boys made it into a back pack and lugged it back to base

Si and me parted ways and I headed back to Hinau for a look. A good billy was holding a mob. My shot hit him in the mind, quite nifty from 80m I thought! Given that wild-eyed Dave had said not to shoot goats, I dragged him way way back in the bush. Not sure why no goats allowed, since we'd seen at least 2 dozen dead ones around the place over the past couple of days. Luke helped Dave pump out a bunch of venison salamis in the afternoon, into the smoker they went.

We had a wee nana nap in the afternoon before Luke spotted 3 deer through the spotting scope, on a clearing that Si and I had hunted the day before. Me and Chris packed our stuff and headed down for a stalk. We had everything in our favour but the deer had fed on in the 40 minutes it took to get there. We decided to sit and wait at the clearing where I'd had my stalk interrupted by goats, but nothing showed. We got back to base on dusk. Another few games of Mexi Dice and then Dave took Chris spotlighting for a pig. Within 5 minutes we heard the boom of a rifle and a nice hog was in the bag. They continued on their way but despite spotting numerous pigs they only took the one.
Saturday dawned clear and fine. I got up and me and Luke headed down to check out some flats. We soon spotted a nice red hind grazing, and planned our stalk. 30 minutes later we were within 100m. The deer had fed towards cover but I could see her clearly enough. Luke wanted to stalk in closer so we did. We got wayyy closer but I couldn't see her at all when suddenly our wind hit her nose. She upped and ran and Luke told me to shoot. I got her in the scope, swung through and fired and a cloud of hair blew out. We moved down into her escape gully where Luke asked me if I'd seen the other deer with her.... umm nope. We searched for about 60 minutes but no blood at all, just that cloud of hair... so we came to the conclusion that I'd undercooked the shot and taken a patch off her bum. I genuinely wish that I'd not fired, but given the lack of blood I'm convinced that she's not wounded. Convinced maybe isn't the right word because there's a nagging doubt...

We covered quite a bit of ground before getting back to base where the cloud was rapidly closing in. We knew that we were not going to be able to fly out any time soon. Chris the bush pilot confirmed that Taupo was blanketed and he wasn't going to be able to get off the ground. Dave gave us a bit of news - if we got our gear together and ourselves down to the river, one of his rellies would give us a jet boat ride out. Si arranged a mini van to get us back to his car in Taupo. We quickly got our crap together and headed off down a precipitous track down to the river. It was quite a neat walk. Somehow Dave had years ago got a bulldozer up the track - with which he had created the "air strip" among other scrapings & tracks. We arrived at the bank in a gorge down the river.

It was cool down there. Cold more like it so we got extra layers of clothes on and waited for a jet boat. And waited. Set up eeling line. Waited some more. Luckily Luke was there to entertain us.

Finally our ride arrived. We had what I would rate as a "Must Do" ride down river to Pipiriki, stopping for a River Burger and milkshake before our hosts piled us into the mini van for a drive encompassing Raetihi, National Park, Turangi and then finally to Si's car in Taupo. Getting 4 bods and all our gear in was fun - especially since Luke's 10 pointer from a previous trip dominated the back seat. But manage we did. It was 6pm now. Now as Si's wife is Russian and given her taste in music, we had 90 minutes of sheer musical terror before finally, the rugby started. At about 9.50 we arrived at Simon's for a coffee, then Luke drove me to Whenuapi to get my car. I finally got home by 11.

Now that was what I call an adventure. I can't express enough thanks to Simon (Aunty), Luke (Cowboy) and Chris Patterson. May the hunting gods smile on their smelly socks forever.

Some video and photos are courtesy of Luke Robertson.

Flymage magazine

I do have a pretty solid epic story to come, about the trip to Tangahoe Station that Aunty took me on. But it takes time to post and I don't have much time.

Anyhow, check this out: Flymage magazine who are celebrating 1 year on online publishing. There's some magic work in this one.

Trout blamed for damaging water quality

http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/national/79188/trout-blamed-for-waterway-damage

More dredging of the bottom of the barrel by Lachlan McKenzie of Fed Farmers. Ok so the article is 3 weeks old, making me slow on the uptake. It is plain that Mr. McKenzie is barking mad, or evilly cunning. This sort of obfuscation must be the highlight of his year in that he has tried to draw attention away from what he obviously knew was coming - NPS

More later.

A day with Dickie

Last couple of weeks have been a bit silly work wise, so not much posting. Besides which, if you have nothing to say, why bother saying anything at all? That’s where the pollies fall down I reckon, so much yap, so little content. Anyway stepped off a plane from Sydney some stupid time Thursday morning. Barely seemed to have got to sleep when the alarm was buzzing. Some time in the past couple of days I’d arranged to pay Dickie back for his generous donation of turf from his business Rolawn, for our pheasant rearing pen. Had a chat with Mick, he’d had a good day the previous weekend, having taken his first pheasant limit, nice work! Wasn’t sure what the weather would be doing, so arranged with Craig to get there on Saturday morning gentleman’s hours for a walk. Arranged with Helen to pick up Dickie at an arranged time, and before I knew it, it was Friday evening. I packed up the gear and chucked in all the rain gear as well, as forecasters were predicting steady rain.

Rocked up to Dickie’s a tad earlier than the “6.30 to 7am” that I’d promised Helen, and helped Dickie load his gear into the wagon. He had a few brace of nice birds hanging, as he’d been beating at Matangerahi Station the day earlier. We set off and made good time on the trip down, arriving to find Shanks’s house spick and span, him clean shaven, and the whole deal looking a bit more civilised than usual! The Aussie farm stay girls had certainly stamped their mark on the place! We grabbed the gear, waited for the girls and then headed out. The day was fine and relatively warm, got a bit of a sweat going on the first couple of hills. The first gulley saw a couple of birds get up and way out of gun range and that’s how the hunt progressed. It was one of those days where I couldn’t put any birds in harm’s way. Craig scored first after he and Dickie had missed a chance or two. We walked the release pen bush and Max the dog busted out a good bird, again away from the guns. At least I was seeing a few! We split and covered some good looking ground, but for not much. Down through the cavern tunnel, up and around some nice gulley area, over the top and down to the water wheel where I saw a couple of birds run up the hill. Caught up with Dickie and Craig, Dickie had knocked down a good long bird and was quite chuffed. Told them about the birds that had run uphill and we set up a pincer move. Craig busted a good cock that almost beat him and then Max made a strong downhill retrieve, quite pleasing dog work. Down one gulley a cock bird got off and I fired and folded him, quickly realising that Craig had fired at the same time. Even though we spent 30 minutes looking around some rocky outcrops we just never found him. Lots of hidey holes up there, so we knocked it off and continued on our way. We walked the farm boundary past the old release pen, then crossed the river. By now we’d covered quite a bit of territory – the birds were just not home so we crossed the river to work some relatively new ground, but nothing home. So we wandered back to the car and headed back to the house for a coffee then we hit the road – but not before Max tore the bird I was taking home to bits! (Sorry Craig, had to tell the tale). 2 tired boys arrived at Dickie’s house, and after a coffee I got home in time to make dinner.

Didn’t take the camera along so no piccies - sorry. Tally from PPPP around 65 birds now, well up on the 45 odd from last year.

Boy's trip report

Well I got to Hinehopu at about lunch time on Friday. Strolled down to the pipe where Milo was sitting and had a quick catchup before unloading the gear. The wind was strengthening from steady to stiff and coming onshore at the pipe... so we said hi to Pete the Coro farmer who roves the district at this time of year, and set off for Ruato which seemed the only sheltered spot. We set up with arm chairs around the stream mouth and watched, waited and cast.

Milo at Ruato

Some fish moved close in, which gave us confidence. The boys arrived after dark at about 6, and we fished for a while fruitlessly. Milo, Bri and Al then went around to the hut to get the late arrivals settled in, while me and Andre kept up the vigil. The good news is that the wind wasn't directly from the south.. the bad news was that my waders had a leak... but we weren't wading so no big drama. The boys arrived back and we fished without so much as a touch. Then anglers began to wade out. This spells death to the fishing as the fish move out because of the disturbance and is just plain rude behaviour. So we packed up and headed back... 6 hours for me, no bites... Milo and me got up early on Saturday and claimed our spots near the pipe. Me, Milo & Pete. We fished from 5 to 9 with no bites....  running total 10 hours, no bites. Milo saw 2 fish move. We did witness an amazing sight though, some piece of space junk hit the atmosphere in the west and tore across the sky spraying burning debris... the sky lit up in a green display easily as light as daylight. Fantastic, probably scared the fish though!!! Andre wandered down with some bacon sandwiches for our brekkie. We returned to the hut, the weather getting worse by the minute. We all sat around and decided on a game plan. Bri, Al & Andrew headed off to Tarawera, while Milo and me decided on Okataina. It was a damn sight calmer than we expected, but now the ran was falling steadily. We set up glo bug rigs on shooting heads and waded out to fire our longest casts out... then 45 minutes later Pete arrived and ambled down. He then fired his longest casts out... lets just say that his longest casts made our longest casts look pretty amateur by comparison. It was actually quite a lovely morning, beautiful lake scene, rain, bush bird noises, not many tourists. I got my longest cast of the day out - I knew this because the whole integrated line was outside the tip by the time I has waded back to the deck chair. And then...n ibble nibble... after 3 hours of casting... but i seemed to have missed the fish. I quickly retrieved to get tight to the fly and the rod bucked - fish on! We were both glad to hook and land a fish, but this fellah would've been lucky to be more than 2lb, even though it was fat as a horse. We fished until 1.30 then headed back for a nana nap - no sign of the other lads. They turned up at 4, having fished Kaituna exit, The Orchard at Tarawera and a bit of Okataina. We sat around and had a feed, gave the change of light a miss, then headed off. We didn't fancy a long drive so it was back to Okataina. We lined up along the beach and then Milo gave us a lesson in fishing... I didn't even hear a splash all night, and while me, Andre, Bri & All caught zilch , Milo took 3 nice fish from 4lb to about 6lb. We were quite chuffed to have scored fish. We got back and watched the rugby until about 2am, then I packed my stuff and got ready for an early trip home. I slept in! Said bye to Brian, drove down to the pipe where Milo and Pete were putting in the hours. Wished them luck and drove home.

Milo later got another 2 at Okataina during daylight hours... looks like the place to be!

A good lad's weekend. Roll on next time.

Fly Fishers Inc.

Rene Vaz's online mag - Winter Fishing....

Catch Magazine is out

Catch Magazine is primo. Enjoy.

Winter lake fishing

this weekend has a boy's road/fishin trip penned in. Me, Al, Brian, Andre and Milo are going to dominate the winter spawning lake trout at Rotorua... which normally means:

1. Turn up feeling full of expectation about what's going to unfold this evening
2. Ignore biting wind, bitter frost and the fact that you're wrapped up like the Michelin man
3. Carefully tie knots while you still have feeling in your fingers
4. Cast gently into the inky blackness while marvelling at (a) the beautiful stars (means frost is gonna be super-heavy), or (b) adjusting your angles to ensure that the wind doesn't whip a hook into your back/side/waders/head/other angler
5. Cast again and again and again
6. Change fly - you never know, it may help! Surely the hoards of fish can see your fly, so why aren't they gobbling it down?
7. Cast/retrieve/cast/retrieve... tie on new leader, somehow wind knots have got in the old one
8. Strike at slight nibble, all the while knowing it was a koura
9. cast/retrieve
10. stamp feet to get some feeling back
11. Look at loose line you've just stamped on. Got any nicks?
12. New leader. and man, it's only 9pm. 3 hours to endure
13. Ignore whooping from lucky asshole next to you, hope his 11lb'er escapes. He can't fish, its all luck.
14. Torch running low
15. Change fly.
16. Hook swan.
17. Play swan
18. gently release swan in flurry of activity. Consider getting them on the fish schedule, man can they fight
19. It's 9.15, man that last 15 minutes flew by!
20. Stop saying 'just one more cast'
21. Some random jingle is stuck in your head
22. -- unfortunately it's a chick song from the early '90s
23. Hook freshwater mussel. Man they can't fight
24. ....

The most I ever caught in an evening lake shore fishing was 3, and they were comparative tiddlers at 3-6lb. Plenty of times I caught zilch, its just not a style of angling that I came close to mastering. I well remember casting for 9 hours in a biting southerly and finally landing a slab - to me it was a trophy, showing that perseverance can pay off! That fishing memory is forever burned into my psyche. It hurt bad.

Anyway, I rolled a few booby flies off the vice last night, Milo says they are what's needed....

Juicy morsels, hope the fish like them.

Mick's photos

Mick got away for a shoot on the PPPP on the weekend - some nice birds were harvested.

Photo credits: Mick Hutchinson

Another great hunt at PPPP by the sounds of it. Will catch up with Craig later to get the rundown. Harvest is definitely up on last year's.

Boat blind

Tim and I started work on the boat blind yesterday. We were on a short time allotment so didn't quite get finished, however its looking pretty good so far. Frame is all but complete, just need to install top doors and drill into the boat.... we could have started that yesterday but it would have been rushed which wouldn't have been a good idea. I'll stick up some photos later. Here's a schematic.

Doesn't look too hard huh? But The Booger is actually a lot beamier in the bum than at the pointy end, so a bit of pipe bending, cutting & what not was required.

Anyway, part 2 of the install promises to be more exciting...

Duckling Survival

Duckling Survival —John M. Coluccy, Ph.D., and Kurt A. Anderson

Closing day

High Tea at the Laingham on Saturday old bean... a small concession to pay for getting in a final duck hunt on Sunday. I launched The Booger at about 7.45 on Saturday night and headed down to the hut. There were a fair number of hunters out and about judging by the parked cars. Got to the hut and had a beer and a bacon wrapped pheasant breast - YUUMMMM. Discovered a hole in the floor where some assholes had attempted to break in. Ass wipes. After the lads had scoffed their dinner, me Tim & Andy headed out for a possum shoot with the.22, silenced and using sub sonics. We got up to the end pond and promptly disturbed quite a large pig. It got away as we tried to close the gap - would have needed to shoot it in the eye anyway, not an easy feat with a rifle with no sights! We got a fat buck possum at The Willow, after a small fusillade of shots including some interesting ricochets...

Next morning was the first real winter's morning of the year. Cool and clear. The ducks moved at about 7, and it really was half light. The Hollands and me were at Puru. We had a reasonable shoot, knocking down 5 birds. We retrieved 4 of them.

Then one of those special swamp moments. Bitterns are pretty rare, we see them from time to time but this morning we had a pair flying around...

And then another pair... dear reader, if you are sensitive to terrible language, please don't watch this.....

You were warned. We packed it in and set about cleaning up for another year. The weekend's bag was 14 birds, taking the total past 200 for the seaon off the ponds. Home by 3, cleaned up and stowed away by 4.

A mint closing day. Now for the pheasants and geese....

Where there's a Will...

Every post needs a heading. Will is Andy H's mate and we had arranged for him to grab a ride down to the ponds. By the time he arrived on Friday evening, The Booger was loaded and ready, and all he had to do was get changed and chuck his gear in the car. It rained most of the way down, but the trip was uneventful. Launching was easy, in fact everything was great. Visions of steaming down the river triumphantly soon turned to custard when I couldn't get the motor started. Aha! But I had packed the operating manual, so I was fine! I giggled smugly to myself that I had it sussed. But no, after re-tweaking my arm that Simon ripped off a month ago I had to pull out the cell, Call Andy, and ask for a tow. He arrived soon after (I was still cranking the motor) and then Will jumped into the Rocket, we got the boats tied off and away we went. I sat in the stern steering and making buddabuddabudda boat engine noises. Embarrassing. Anyway I gave the motor another pull and .. the motor started! Yelled to the boys, untied, and off we went. Anyway, enough boat stuff. The hunting party was dad, Andy, me, Will and a chap called Benno from Germany, and his dog Tana. Me and Andy headed out to the Willow Pond to set some dekes and came back in for a late dinner (10pm). Hit the hay and had a damn good sleep. Got up at 4.30 (Was wide awake) and got the kettle on. Made breakfast, then dad and me headed out to the Willow Pond to get set up. My Robo had tipped over in the wind overnight so was quite surprised that it came to life first flick of the switch. We had quite a wait until it was light enough to see ducks. The Thames boys were in their pond. The wind was howling up high, and the ducks were answering the call and diving in at us. Not a huge shoot, but our bag was pleasing, made up completely of Grey ducks.

Willow Pond

We headed in to the hut at 11.30 and had lunch, the went for a walk under the trees to check out some old hidey holes that used to be so good before DOC came along and poisoned the willow trees. Andy and I headed off to find a particular little spot and picked up a jumping Grey on the way. Andy did a blood hound impression to find the bird. Finally we turned around after we realised we must have missed the spot and then inadvertently found it, marks went into the GPS. It was getting on for 4pm, so we headed back down to the hut and got ready for a night hunt. Dad came with me and we went across to the night spot. The evening was great. We picked up another Grey, and had a few more shots. As it grew darker a huge thunderstorm approached. The lightning show was amazing, orange and purple blasts streaked across the sky. It was coming our way. i knew that as Will and me had to leave we were going to get some weather, and it unleashed as we got in the boat. The drive up to the ramp was like driving through a wall of water, we got soaked. We pulled the boat and no more than a minute into our car trip the rain stopped and the sky cleared.....

German Visitor

Whoop Whoop - Honking good duck weather



Report will follow.......

Some liquefaction

A bit of footage, not that impressive I suppose.

The shaken city

Ok so this post isn't about fish, pheasants, ducks, dogs or mates but because I experienced some weird shit I'm going to have to write about it. First of all, I say RESPECT to the people of christchurch, who have hung in there through the series of earthquakes that have cut their city and homes to the bone, these people deserve a medal for standing up and fighting. Yesterday me and another pair of amateur comedians flew into ChCh. Our travel was pre-booked on Air NZ; as it happens they were the only airline operating due to the volcanic dust cloud from Chile's exploding Puyehue volcano. Personally I long ago feel that I learned not to mock god, so when Amateur Comedian #1 (let's call him Malcolm) said as we drove to the airport "let's roll the camera forward, and not be able to get home because of a big earthquake..." I should have just claimed mild to serious sickness and gone home. But he was driving. I guess I'm AC#2. AC#3 we'll call Stella. Stella was quiet, eerily quiet. Well, we landed in ChCh no problems. We got to our conference venue. Being the organisers meant we got quite busy setting out info packs and what not. 1pm was kick off. Guests and delegates were arriving. I got settled in and was chatting to some old codger about this and that when I heard what I thought was a low flying plane approaching, sort of that low turboprop hum like a C-130 is coming over. Seconds later it was all on as a quake hit. Old codger yells "FUCK!!!!!!" and leaps up. It would have been amusing under normal circumstances but I actually thought he was rather restrained. We sheltered in a doorway through to the kitchen area, luckily at that point the conference hall wasn't very full. As always, the show must go on, but some of the guests were slightly fretful and a couple were full on basket cases. News came through that it was a 5 point something on the Richter Scale. Guests and delegates filed in. We kicked off. Our guest speaker, Sir michael Hill wasn't able to land as the airport had shut down while the runway was checked. The organiser kicked off the speeches. Then the National Bank bloke welcomed the crowd. Told us how Chch was resilient, the people proud and staunch, and how business was growing again. The Microsoft bloke gave his presso, and then Sir Michael arrived and started up his chat. 160 odd people began to warm to his life story. What happened next was totally unannounced.... The whole room just began to lurch sideways, up and down, the roar was not quite deafening but pretty loud, stuff was falling & breaking and people were genuinely panicking to get out. The human condition is interesting. Personally I could see 200 odd people running towards big glass windows and all I could think was "idiots you're about to be turned into mince", but that didn't happen. The building was oldish, build of timber and flexing like a crazy thing. I was looking at the ceiling, wooden beams and boards and it was twisting like a demented possessed building... I was in a service doorway through to the hotel kitchen area and it was getting the bash, glasses and crockery flying and something hit me in the head. Still don't know what that was.

And then the craziest things... I walked outside and people were running this way and that, getting in their cars and departing (some were laying down rubber, kid you not). Took me a while to figure that they were simply being smart and geeting home before the roads gridlocked. We stood around and watched the most bizarre thing ever - liquefaction. Unheard of 10 months ago, but now a common descriptor of this silt laden water that simply oozes aout of the ground.

Check this out.

I got sent some vid by a colleague but have lost it, when I get it back I'll post.

As I said, RESPECT to the people of Christchurch, I'm pretty sure the novelty has worn off for them.

Footage of that big kingi from last october

Freakin big kingfish on flyrod - 8kg tippet

Some colourful language in there.... rates as NZ's best fly rod capture of a kingi

Rain, wind, weather & timing

The weather coming up to the long weekend was looking good for a duck or 2. North to north east winds, gale strength, a bit of rain (just a bit) and almost no moon... it would be fair to say that I was looking forward to getting to the swamp just a teeny bit.

Metvuw made it look quite appealing, if you're into crappy weather.

Me, dad, Tom, Paul and Paul's mate Bryan were there, dad picking us up from the landing at about 8.30. We got our gear in and then set out decoys, my job wasn't that big as dad had put dekes in at Park. The wind was howling and spits of raim came blasting out of the darkness. Back to the hut for a few drinks and a bit of chit chat before settling in to listen to the rugby. Buggered if I could sleep, the bottle of V that I drank on the way down stayed with me. In between dad's snoring, the rats squealing at each other (a fairly playful pair) and whatnot, I only managed a couple of hours sleep. Up and at em at 5, I felt pretty seedy but we got out in time to turn the electric dekes on. At 6.25 a couple of ducks apperaed on set wings then hit the afterburners. 5 minutes later, they or another pair blasted out of the dark and set wings into the pond behind the Park maimai. I fumbled around for my headlamp - it was darker than the inside of a whale's intestine. I slid out of the maimai, hit the headlamp and scanned for the ducks... no burst of wings until I found them right at the back of the pond. They jumped, I fired where  thought they were jumping and  got a scotch double, then had to finish the hen which was not well hit. 2 ducks in the bag, a promising start! Dad cleaned up the next couple and my shooting just deteriorated. Paul Tom & Bryan had a couple of chances, but despite the promise of the weather (still the wind blasted and the rain fell) the ducks simply failed to materialise in any numbers. We stuck at it until midday, dad and I bagging 5, the others getting a single.

After lunch the boys set off for a walk with dad to see if they could drive any birds from the Western Front; tom and I elected to stay back for a nana nap. I couldn't sleep at all. So after a while I got ready and headed out to catch up with dad and see if anything was up. Not much doing, just hundreds of Grey Teal milling about. At 4pm I headed over to the night spot, and logged its position into the GPS... with no moon and incessant wind the usual navigation signs were absent. Ducks started moving at 5.15. Nothing would come to the call at all, so it was a matter of staying vigilant. At 5.55 out of the dark a pair pitched in just above the willow line. I hit the first and the second dived in and landed, putting a small willow between us. I stood and walked into the darkness and up it got, but no way could I see it until it got over tree height, and 3 shots followed it out. Headlamp on I picked up the dead bird and stashed it in a tree. 3 minutes later a pair raced over on set wings - I knew they would circle back and as they did I pulled on the lead bird - miss, miss, pulled on following bird, killed it and the killed the lead bird with the 4th shot.

I lamped around and found the birds and then resumed but at 6.15 knew the hunt was over - a couple of frantic minutes, pure gold. On the way back I tried self navigating but the GPS revealed that I was circling.. doh. Got back to the hut absolutely stuffed. The Kobuk neoprene jacket was great in the conditions but the walk back soaked me. At least I was warm. Fish pie for dinner -yummmm. Sleep came easily.

Sunday was quieter than Saturday. The weather was clearing but little (apart from teal) was flying. The boys down at Puru cleaned up a nice mallard drake but that was the finall tally for the morning.

Another sweet couple of days at the ponds... someone should have told the ducks they were supposed to be flying though.

No photos, a bit too wet to take out the camera.