Auckland / Waikato >Hunting News > May 2009

Opening weekend was generally slow for most hunters and people commented that they were seeing fewer birds than usual.

Bird numbers were affected by several factors including there was a bad drought last year and there was an exceptional, one in 50 years flood. The flood coincided with peak mallard nesting, meaning many birds lost their first nest and later renested (somewhat smaller clutch of eggs). There was a lot more grain about and many of the ducks were sitting in fields, gorging themselves, and had no reason to fly around near lakes, rivers and swamps.

In any season, there are exceptions to the rule, with one hunter saying it was the worst opening weekend in 30 years, while a few mai mais away, others  were saying they got their bag limit by 9am on both days. Typically, the difference is caused by the amount of preparation, the quality of decoy spreads, effort to camouflage the mai mai, firearms practice prior to the season opening, learning how to call properly and so on.

Moving out of opening weekend mai mais, fields full of ducks have been discovered and stirred up, with hunters finding ducks more evenly distributed and persistent hunters ultimately being the successful ones.

Hunters who “skyburst” at geese are simply educating the geese, while hunters who  show restraint, make proper preparations with good decoys and who have learned to proficiently call geese are enjoying good bags after others had already left the swamp to give up and go home. There is a message on that for all of us. Preparation, resistance and restraint. 

John Dyer, Northern Wildlife Manager, Fish & Game NZ (Auckland / Waikato)

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