Southland > Hunting News May 2007

Southland Opening Weekend Report

Once again the weather for the opening weekend of Southland’s duck hunting would have been much better suited to the opening of the fishing season, with fine, sunny and calm conditions over most of the province, despite a forecast of winds in excess of 80km per hour!

While most hunters accept the influence the weather has on our duck hunting success, most don’t realize that another natural phenomenon can be as significant, the full moon. A moon that is full, or close to, provides enough light that ducks are able to fly during the night. This can change a number of their behaviors, including where they feed, where they choose to loaf, and how far they are prepared to fly when disturbed.

With a full moon and fine weather, quite a number of hunters found that despite having a lot of ducks on their ponds the day before, or early on the morning of opening day, once disturbed the ducks just didn’t return! I talked with one hunter last night during the duck hunter survey who didn’t shoot a single duck, despite having well over 100 on his pond early on Saturday morning. Despite that he remained jovial and enjoyed his weekend, vowing that the ducks will be back at some stage and that he’ll just have to shoot them during the season!

Overall the preliminary results for the harvest look higher than we might have anticipated from our interviews over the weekend, with an average harvest per hunter of around 14 mallards for the weekend, which is slightly higher than the long term average for Southland.

Staff were particularly disappointed with compliance of those hunters checked, with more people apprehended without licences than for the whole of last season and some using lead shot. If you do hear of hunters not behaving themselves please contact your local Fish & Game office with details. Obviously you can remain anonymous and if the information is acted on offenders will not become aware that they have been reported. Hunters that hunt without purchasing a licence do not support the work that Fish & Game does to maintain our sport, and therefore make the costs of management more expensive for law abiding people.

I had roast duck with rosemary stuffing last night, from birds I shot on Sunday night. It reminded me why it’s well worth the effort to properly process and then slowly roast these delicious birds. Like all game meats, you do have to be careful you don’t dry them out. I find cooking them breast down in an oven bag on a low heat gives me the best results. Good roast duck leaves a fatty, tasteless, battery fed chicken for dead in my book! In fact, writing this I think I’ve talked myself into duck again tonight!

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