For Nelson Tasman crackshots it’s a weekend when nothing else can be booked and labelled “like Christmas morning” by a hunter with nearly 40 years experience aiming upwards.
The opening of the game bird hunting season saw hundreds shrouded in camouflage flock to maimais on local farmland and near waterways with their decoys, duck callers and warm barrels for the Kiwi pastime.
According to Nelson Marlborough Fish & Game officer Jacob Lucas, success with mallards was hit‑and‑miss this year, but plenty of paradise shelducks were harvested.
Jacob visited hunters across the region for feedback and monitoring.
Cameron (Cam) Reid has participated in the sport for nearly four decades in Nelson Tasman, around 10 of those at a farm west of Tapawera for the opener, which was at 6:30am on Saturday.
He says the weather was a box of fluffy ducks for humans, but meant the duck numbers that came in the decoy zone were out of range due to an absence of low cloud or fog.
“Certainly we didn’t see the numbers of ducks flying around that we had seen maybe last year. We still saw a fair few that we could have attracted to our pond, flying past or flying very high,” he says.
“There’s all sorts of variables that can make or break a day. A lot of the ducks weren’t coming into us because they were flying across the river to where there was an easier food source.
“There were a few other shots going infrequently up and down the valley, so there were other hunters around as well to keep the birds moving.
“Sometimes you can shoot some ducks and two minutes later there’s more trying to come into your pond. Other times it was an hour in between.”
Cam and his two hunting mates downed 30 birds, mostly paradise shelducks, which he says was “better than some of the poorer weekends”.
Getting the ducks in a row beforehand, the social element and protein rewards of duck shooting keeps him on target for a rip-roaring season, which ends on 28 June.
“It's a bit like Christmas morning opening weekend, we anticipate it for a couple of months before it happens with feeding grain out at the ponds, we do repairs and maintenance to maimais, and we make sure our decoys are all ready,” he says.
“Probably one of the highlights too, is that not too many people nowadays seem to watch sunrises, some of them were spectacular, with the sun coming up through the fog casting rainbows, it's sometimes really nice to be alive and watch that.”
