Southland & Otago Duck Tour: Day 2 - An eye for detail

On this morning, Tim had his "doh" moment. We were to drive from Gore to Invercargill to meet and hunt with Paul Stenning. This involved getting out of bed at 4.45am, but somehow he had set his alarm for 5.15am. Luckily Gore has a church bell that dings on the hour and the 5am bell woke him. We scrambled our gear into the car, scarfed down a coffee and piece of toasted crumpet and hit the road.

Having a GPS unit proved worth its weight in gold and we were soon through Mataura, Edendale and then onto the outskirts of Invercargill. Paul was waiting patiently when we arrived, and after greetings and kissing the ground just outside of his garage (my god, what a waterfowler's paradise) we hopped in his truck and set off.

We drove out into the countryside, discussing anything and everything duck hunting. Paul was quite forthcoming with descriptions of when where and how the local ducks interact with the environment and food sources and giving a quick rundown of how the day's hunt would progress. We would start on a pond that he'd developed in conjunction with a local land owner, then depending on time and the size of the bag we could look at some farm settling ponds a little later.

Soon we were opening a farm gate off a quiet stretch of road, and crossing the paddock with headlights on low beam. We approached a berm and pulled up. We unloaded the car and walked over the berm to the pond's edge, in the headlamps it appeared to be a long narrow waterway with shallow banks for ducks to rest on. The mud at the water's edge gave away that the ducks had been using the pond. We took several bags of Paul's fully flocked decoys over and set them up in 2 groups of floaters, with full body resters and feeders on the pond's edge.

The maimai itself was a comfortable dug out with room for 3 and our gear, surrounded by high grass. We were fully concealed from behind and and front and had a good breeze from directly behind us. Paul briefed us that the first visitors were most likely to be spoonies and to take them before they got below the hills in front or they would be lost to view. We waited as the darkness lifted - the ducks we wanted would be moving after first light and right on cue a pair of spoonies wooshed in, alighting before we saw them. As we stood they took to the air and I dropped one of the pair on the far bank. Over the next few hours we enjoyed one of the most interesting hunts that I for one had enjoyed; with ducks appearing in singles and pairs the tally grew nicely.

Paul told us that the morning's ducks had fed in a range of spots and showed us the crop contents of one bird that had fed on oats.

He was quite insistent that there was no need to over call these birds, they'd respond to low balls, greetings and feed chuckles. So it proved, only once were we reduced to high ball and hails (which brought in a pair from quite some way off).

We had a few misses amongst the hits but by 11.00 we had 20 mallards and a spoonie down.

The mai mai

At one stage a large hare came into range, and with Tim and Paul both firing, he was added to the growing bag. 

Paul called the morning at 11.30, and he let out Brook, his Lab bitch to retrieve while we picked up the (individually wrapped and packed) decoys. Brook picked up all but 2 birds, one a lively drake that made his escape downstream, the other a hen which took to the air as Brook approached. Then we broke out the cameras for some shots of the bag. It had been a brilliant hunt.

Happy tourists

Tim & Paul - happiness is a bunch of mallards

When we got back into Paul's truck, I immediately noticed how tidy it was. Everything was in its place, no dust had settled on any surface and it was really well appointed.

He asked if we felt like jump-shooting a settling pond, and if we did well maybe we could round out our limits. "Yup" was the answer, so we set off. Arriving at a farm we drove down the race and as we approached the pond, ducks jumped off the bank and swam out into the middle. There were maybe 15 ducks on the water as we went past and parked 200m away. We discussed the best approach to the pond and as we did, another 20 or so ducks simply set their wings and dropped in. "Remember, we need a dozen, so 4 birds each" said Paul. At the designated point, we split up with Tim and I going upwind and staying low, while Paul moved downwind to put the birds up. When he'd made his point of attack he jumped up and ducks simply filled the air. All I remember is dropping ducks in slow motion, point, pull, point, pull, point, pull... until my mag was empty and I had 5 down. I had time to load another shell as a single got up and both Paul and I put it down. A quick count up revealed exactly 12 birds! Perfect. 3 limits, 3 happy hunters.

Settling pond ducks

As we picked up our birds, we noticed maybe a hundred or so ducks circling and then dropping into... what?  A quick drive revealed some sort of flooded pit on the neighbour's property, and the ducks were simply piling in their. You could see the cogs ticking in Paul's head as he worked out a new hunting location.

Driving back to Invercargill, Paul discussed how many of the local ponds were developed in conjunction with Fish & Game, and how F&G interacted with the community. I asked about some of the local identities such as Mike Hartstone, and Paul gave us a run down. As we entered Invercargill, Paul mentioned that he'd show us his estuary setup. And man, what an estuary it was, simply mind blowing. Although not many ducks were in residence (it was calm) the potential was obvious.

Back at Paul's we sat down for a coffee and then Mike Hartstone came around, soon we had talked through game regs, poachers, F&G politics, steel Vs. lead.... no topic was spared. Then it was time to clean the bag, and as we breasted the ducks in Paul's spotless garage talk turned to the flocking and painting of decoys. Paul showed us his early prototypes, right through to his impressive field decoys. Everything had its place and was in place.

Before we said our farewells, Paul invited us to shoot with him and his mate Murray the next day, but we already had plans so sadly we passed on the opportunity. And that ended our fantastic day with Paul, a man with an eye for detail.

Fridge full of duck....

Photos courtesy of Tim Holland