The night before Christmas...

Its hard to explain what the Duck season means to me. In short, where others may describe something great in their lives as being ''like Christmas'', I would say something different.

Keeping all that in mind, it was very hard for me to accept that in just over a week, now that the season had finally arrived, I would be leaving New Zealand. With this mind, I packed up the 4WD with as much gear as I could fit in it, picked up Rich, and away we went!

Was I any less excited?

Of course not!

Packing the 4WD ready for a big opening weekend!

This years season was not shaping up well. A massive draught had drained a lot of not just my ponds, but everyone's. Our traditional opening morning pond, while having water, was very low. So low, that the hides were 50-60 meters from the waters edge.

There had been a good number of ducks around earlier in the year, but as the pond lost more water, it lost more ducks. Matt, who owns the farm the pond is on, and a good friend of mine, wasn't expecting great results, but as always, we would do our best.

Scott, another local landowner, friend and co-shooter, Matt and I had a brief chat beforehand. We all agreed that while the pond was low, it wasn't dry like so many other ponds in the region. We also knew that a good number of birds had called it home over the year to date. We decided that once the shooting started, and birds started being disturbed, maybe, just maybe, we would get lucky, and have some of our once resident birds, return home.

Duff with his make up on

Joining us for the hunt in our two hides, were Paul,  Bailie's dad - Terry (Duff), and Richard. Being that Bailie's old man had essentially been living with four woman for quite some time, and that I was about to head overseas, I thought it was time for Duff to join us on a lads weekend. He had some experience with firearms, but hadn't hunted duck before, so we all hoped he would enjoy the experience. I heard from Bailie that he was excited, but when she sent me a photo of him "practicing" to put on camo paint, I knew he would blend right in with us!


Rich on the other hand had hunted with me for years, since we first worked together while at university, for the New Zealand franchise store of Cabellas. Since then, no matter where he or I lived, we always found someway to meet up for a hunt or a fish.

A big crew of locals and other landowners made up the rest of the hides, many of whom had been shooting the area for years. Story's flowed the night before, some of which may have been true, before we tried to sleep, in preparation for what some people may say, was ''just like Christmas morning''.