Southland > Hunting News April 2008

Don’t forget the basics

A number of aspects of duck hunting have changed quite rapidly over the last decade for many hunters. Ten years ago there was no such thing as a robo duck, or mallard machine or spinning wing decoy, or electronic call. In fact, while writing this article I was rung by a keen duck hunter who admitted that a mate has so many electronic gizmos on his pond that he has twelve different batteries to operate everything! This probably gives you some indication of the prevalence of this gear on ponds across the country.

I hunted with a guy who imported a spinning wing decoy probably around six or seven years ago now. It was amazingly effective, as ducks had never seen one before and they weren’t able to resist it. However, in the years since the effectiveness of electronic decoys has steadily declined. You may notice this opening weekend that some early ducks will decoy very well with the spinning wing decoy going, but as the morning progresses ducks that show up will be increasingly weary of the spinner. This isn’t too surprising, as ducks won’t have to fly past many ponds before they encounter a spinner, and if they’ve been shot at previously, they’re understandably a bit cagey when they see another one! Be prepared to turn your spinner off altogether if ducks just won’t come within range. 

While many technologies are an advantage, they are no substitute for ignoring the basic skills of duck hunting. Most hunters will be aware of the basic skills when they think about it but despite that many overlook them, so I’ll outline them briefly.

It’s certainly debateable which facet is most important, but I’ll start with Camouflage.  Ducks are not colour blind, so it is critical to wear natural coloured clothing and camouflage your face with either a face net and hat, or camo face paint. You may think that you can get away without camo if you’re in a well scrubbed maimai. However, far too often maimai are over tightly scrubbed, so that while hunters remain hidden from ducks, ducks also remain hidden from hunters! Last season I was in a maimai with some very keen guys, who I know had looked forward to the season for months, with pond feeding and many hundreds of dollars worth of decoys and all the new gear. But their maimai was so tightly scrubbed that quite a number of ducks flew through their pond while I was with them, and either they didn’t see them in time, or they couldn’t swing their gun to shoot!

Ducks love company, particularly if they’ve already been shot at, because if you land where other ducks are it’s safe to assume that someone isn’t shooting at them! So, decoys are critical to convincing ducks that your pond, patch of river, or open paddock is a safe place for them to land. For this your decoys need to be realistically painted, with flat non-shiny paint and ideally have some movement. Movement on a pond is particularly critical, because Southland almost always experiences calm weather over opening weekend, so you need to have something that will generate ripples on your pond.

Despite popular opinion, duck calling is not very hard to learn but don’t leave it to opening morning to get your call out again. For those who want to learn Fish & Game has a DVD available with a very good section on how to call. Two important points to remember, don’t overcall your ducks when they are close and take note of what seems to work and what doesn’t!

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