Hat Hunter - The little hat that could

Carl, Paul, James and I after a great evening on Paradise Shelduck

James 'Monster' Pettley was first introduced to me via a hunting forum in New Zealand. He commented on a few of my posts and pictures, and we kept in contact for 12 months. It wasn't till he briefly moved down to the South Island and came came into the gun shop I worked at, did he introduce himself in person.
James asked if he could accompany me on my next hunt as a photographer, as he didn't want to invite himself as a shooter. I advised him to pack anything that could shoot - gun or camera and he was welcome to join me anytime and the rest, as they say is history.

James has a signature hat that he had been given by an Australian hunter and it went everywhere with him. At least it did until one day he left it behind. Knowing he wasn't going to be doing any hunting for a while, as he had a few months of work on, I thought the least I could do was take his hat on a few adventures and send him the photos - I thought he would love to see all the hunting his hat was doing while he was stuck on the Dairy farm! It was eventually returned to him, all be it with a bit more experience, before the Duck Season.

We had a great time with the Hat. It was always on time, I didn't have to feed it, I didn't have to keep picking it up from the airport, and it was very bright. All in all, it was a great substitute for James!

On a hunting trip not so long ago, a man travelled South to give it a go.

He stopped for a roast and missed his plane, begging jetstar - it was all in vain.

He travels the world, far and wide, shooting birds below, above and from the side.

The trip was grand and full of fun, but the way James shot, he needed a bofors gun.

The birds are history and the sun gone down, the hunt is over, save cleaning the gun

For James this started the depression, and then, he realised he'd left behind his most prized possession

His hat was alone, left in the blind, but we picked it up - you don't leave a man behind

Where it takes us and what it sees, will be noted here, for us all to see

Beautifully Ordinary.

I came across an old photo the other day.

It was just a picture of a battered, ordinary looking Browning A5, with some very ordinary decoys, and an ordinary pair of ducks.

But the story of the gun itself and how I came to have it, and indeed the story of its first owner is not so ordinary.

My grandfather moved to Mainland New Zealand from the Chatham Island's following World War Two. "The Chatham's" was, and still is one of the most isolated locations in all of New Zealand, separated from the mainland by 700 kilometres of some of the roughest seas in the world - the "roaring forties". On his arrival from isolation, Laurie was naive to a lot of things. When given his first ice cream, not knowing what it was, he bit into it like a piece of fruit, and was so surprised, he dropped it!. This, if anything showed just how much there was to learn on the mainland. Having lived on an island where wild cattle, Fowl and Boar were in constant need for management or to be put in the oven, where hunting and gathering weren't just sport, but for survival, one thing he did not need to learn, was how to shoot.

On arrival to the mainland, he took up clay target shooting, both as a sport, but also to win useful prizes to support his family. He went on to compete in the 1954 New Zealand Down The Line, Single Rise, National Championship. In the shoot off to see who would compete in the final, with his last cartridge of the day, he won the shoot off, but his trusty browning A5 broke down. A young gun smith called Ian Ballinger, who was present, told my grand father, "Laurie, give that gun to me and it'll be right as rain for the final tomorrow" - or words to that effect.

Bright and early, my grand father turned up to shoot for the title, and all ready there waiting, A5 in hand, was Mr I. Ballinger. My grandfather won the title, and sold the A5 when the family fell on hard times, and there you think, the story ends.
While at University, and following in my family's hunting footsteps, I ended up working part time as a gun salesman for one of New Zealand's longest running gun shops - none other than Ballingers of Christchurch, founded by I. Ballinger. While there I ran into the original man whom my grandfather had sold the A5 to, also a friend of my fathers. He recognised my last name, and introduced himself. I asked him "what ever happened to that A5?"?

 A few owners and a lot of phone calls later, I tracked the new owner down. He said he couldn't sell me the gun...but he did give it to me. I was very proud grand son when I told Laurie, his old Browning was back in Lanauze hand's once more.

Not long after this, I carried that A5 into my grand fathers funeral and placed it on his coffin, when his time with us was at an end. Afterwards,  I took out the A5 for the 2008 Duck opening weekend, and created my own history with the famed gun, making me the 3rd Lanauze (there may have been more!), after my father and grandfather, to have hunted with this workhorse. I spent opening weekend hunting with my brother in law - Rob, in our Maimai (hide) right next to my fathers on a family friends farm that we have shot for over two decades, I shot my first Duck and my first Goose on this farm. The fist day of the season was clear and calm - not perfect weather for open water mallards, but Rob and I had a good spread out, and called hard. We ended up with a good bag of Mallard and Paradise duck. Not a bad performance by Rob and I, and the over fifty year old Browning A5!

The following day was much better, with wind and rain, which made the Mallards trade more. We got a great mixed bag that second day, with 20 Mallard, some more Parries, and a brace of hard won Canada Goose.

It was eventually time to retire the old girl, so I took the A5, dads old cork decoys that I "touched up" and the V decoy spread he used so well.

This was the last pair of mallards it shot.

After serving three generations of my family, along with others in it's travels, it has been retired from service.

My father and grandfather are both shooting the big duck pond in the sky now, but when it's my time, I'll try to slip the A5 in past security and join them.

Beautifully Ordinary

Canada Goose Hunt - Video

Here is some amateur video taken on one of my Canada Goose Hunt's in New Zealand. Semi-automatics, extended magazines, and no limit, are in place to allow hunters to manage Canada Geese on farmland.

The perfectly timed Photo

When people think "perfectly timed photo" they think of wing cupped honkers captured with their paddles down, or the cartridge ejecting out of the breach, and a crumpled bird in the background.

While I agree that these are photos many of us love to capture, to me, the perfectly timed photo is of that magic moment, that you can't plan for. You can't set a time or a place to it, you cant pose, waiting for the opportunity. It happens when it happens. Its that special moment when you realise you have packed up too early!


Sometimes, you get a warning sign. The birds might arrive when you are just laying out your bag for the photo. But that's often harder to deal with. You may have waited for hours, seen nothing, now just when home, food and sleep are in sight, a mob turns up to tease you! Do you stay, or go?

First thing to take into account, is the weather. Trying to get the tri-pod to stay still in a howling wind and trying, and often failing at keeping rain off the lens - all of these are obstacles that have to be overcome, before the opportunity has even presented itself.

Next comes setting the timer. Is it 6 seconds, or 12 seconds? Again, you don't know. How do you set a timer for a photo opportunity, that you don't know is going to happen?! The difficulties in capturing yourself in a moment of hunting infamy are numerous! Then you need to sprint back to your bag of the day, only for.....it to happen..at that split second the camera goes "snap".

You hear that unmistakable sound that you'd recognise anywhere....
With a quack, quack here and a honk honk there, all of Old Macdonald's birds turn up, when you think you are done for the day - after waiting hours, and seeing no birds, anywhere at all.
Hunters react in different ways to this. Some hang their heads in despair, others look towards the source of their anguish, while some, are prepared for just this eventuality, and when its safe and practical to do so, they keep a cartridge in their pocket, and maybe get their own, unique "taking a bird, while taking photos of other birds", perfectly timed photo!

Can you share your little piece of Paradise?

The reality is, that doing what I do is not cheap. After selling the house back home, I've financially committed to this cause of mine.

I simply do not have the money to both travel the world, and pay for hunting while I do it. So rather than put all my eggs in one basket, and flown to Canada, the USA or UK for 2 months of paid, guided hunting, instead, I'm bouncing around the globe, hoping to meet like minded people who might share an opportunity with me, so I can experience "real" hunting and fishing from other hunters perspective, not just those on organised guided hunts, from around the world.

 Back home, I take out dozens of new hunters every year, from all over the world. I enjoy seeing people get into the sport, and I hope others around the world have the same attitude.

I also hope to meet other hunters on my travels, who may want to visit the Paradise of New Zealand, so I can show them what opportunities are back in my home country.

As someone who is as happy behind the trigger as the camera, or even if its just to observe, any opportunities that are available, anywhere in the world, id love to hear from you!

Currently I'm in the UK, but I am heading to the USA and Canada in 2016!

Can you help share your little piece of Paradise?

Hot Barrels

Buck's and Duck's

After a cracking day on wild fowl the day before, today would see Pete taking me out for an attempt at my first Roe Buck.

We were up well before dawn, Pete with his ever present hot drink in hand, as we headed out to the mornings hunting grounds.

We parked up, and slowly worked our way to the edge of a small bunch of trees. We used them for cover, and then began glassing the next, tree line, where we imagined the Roe would feed their way out from, as the sun came up.

Sitting there, glassing for Roe Deer, hearing Pheasants calling, and plenty of Pink footed geese trading off the nearby wetlands - it did feel like paradise.

We had been waiting quite some time for the Roe to show themselves, when Pete had a miniature coughing fit. Out the corner of eyes, from behind us, we see three Roe deer that have taken offense to the noise, and they are steering straight at us. They knew something was up, and were off. It looked like a Doe and two yearlings, and one of them looked like a young buck, but we weren't sure, and it wasn't the big boy we were after. No shot was taken.

"took wrong gun"

Those ended up being the only Roe Deer we saw, but when the pinks started pouring into the stubble paddock we were in, Pete did make the comment that we had brought the wrong gun. I did tell him that as I had no guns in the UK, this was not my doing! My good fortune continued, as on the way out, we caught up with farmer Andrew. Within minutes of meeting me, he had contacted a friend of his who was loading on a grouse hunt, and wanted to know if I wanted to go help and observe? Would I?! I've never seen a grouse, let alone been apart of hunting them. Looks like Bailie is on her own for a little longer, with two days of grousing to do, starting tomorrow!
With a short and sharp crack at a mallard flight pond that evening that saw us bag a couple of mallards, it was time to get back on the train, fresh pheasant to cook up for my dinner packed beside me. The hospitality showed to me by Pete and his wife Jan, the generosity of Bob and Eric in sharing their hunting with me, and from Andrew, in going out of his way to not only let me try for a Roe on his place, but then in arranging for me to go on a grouse hunt, what can I say.

Tomorrow, I was going grouse hunting, and the fact that all id have was a camera to shoot with, was fine by me!

A lovely spot, waiting for the duck flights to come.

Last pull of the trigger

My last hunt at the great lake wasn't my best, and it certainly wasn't my worst.

It was one of those days when the wind didn't blow and when it did, it came from an unexpected, and unpredicted direction. Our layout blinds kept getting flooded, and the birds were always just that little bit to far out.

In saying that, all was most certainly not lost. Carl, Paul, Rich and I did all we could to make the day work in our favour.

We called hard, changed what we could, and spent the hours that we needed to, to get a result. Not because it was my last shoot, but because that's just what we always do.

It was a true mixed bag day with us taking Mallard, Shoveler, Canada Goose and Shelduck. Managing to get a bag of almost all of New Zealand's waterfowl game birds on my last hunt with the boys - what could be better than that?

When will I get out hunting again? Who knows. But I am looking forward to the adventures, hunting or otherwise, that this trip will bring, and the experiences that Bailie and I will share, in our own search, for paradise.

First a drought, then too much Rain!

Having drought conditions for much of the summer left many of our normal likely spots none dry. We were lucky that our opening morning pond had any water in it what so ever.

Keeping this in mind, and with the end of my time in New Zealand in sight, I thought I would head to the mighty braided river of Rakaia, and see if I could find any duck camps to decoy the following day, and Rich came along for the ride.

After spending a good day on the river, a very likely spot was found, holding great numbers of birds, but what do you know? Rain in the high country caused the rivers to climb. After almost drowning the year before in the same river, this time we made the hard, but wise call, to leave them alone.

A pair of Cape Baron Geese

The day wasn't totally lost, however when I saw my first Cape Baron Geese, since I shot my first and only one a few years earlier.

We were gutted, but in the end, that's hunting. We maybe could have got to the camp by raft, or maybe, this time one of us might have drowned in the swift waters of the Rakaia River

As fun and exciting as hunting is, its not worth your life, even if your life is hunting.

Part of the Duck camp and roosting site that we just couldn't safely get to.

The longest day

Every hunt for me starts the same. With a pair of binoculars and a phone, and this started no different.

After watching these birds for a few days, I noticed once again that we were dealing with some early risers, and late finishers- it was going to be a long, long day in the field.

It was a lot longer for my mate Pete, who had to travel 4 hours to and from home, and he brought with him Ryan, the brother of a mate of mine, was only to happy to fill in, and come on his first hunt with us.

The local lads went down the night before, and we flushed out the remaining birds so as not to let them eat all night - we wanted them hungry for the next morning. We set out the Decoy spread, then headed home for what ever sleep we could get.

Not so bright, but very early the next day, we all met up at the property. We added Pete's decoys to the mix, then waited in our blinds foe the sun, and the birds to turn up.

 As the day went on, we had sporadic flights come in all day. We had the traditional rush in the morning, but all in all, the birds kept us buttoned up in our blinds. We found out first hand, that if you think tour in a "lull", as soon as you get out for a stretch, you will be caught with your ants down. Literally!

In a surprising turn, the late afternoon and evening provided us the most consistent shooting of the day. It was with droopy eyes, but happy faces, that we packed up after another successful day in the field., and so would end our summer Season. We now had an agonizing wait for the Duck Season to arrive, made even worse by knowing, I was only going to be in the country for one week of it!

Ryan, Myself, Carl, Pete, George and Paul with the results after a long day in the field!

To stay or not to stay, that is the question

Following on from the hunt on the stubble, we had a question to ask ourselves - do we hang around for another crack?

Both Dan and Paul had to return to work on the Monday, so for them it was easy. In the end, it was easy for Dave and I as well - why leave, when there's an opportunity at another hunt.

We said goodbye to the other lads, and headed back to the woolshed for another night. Fresh duck fried up for tea made a nice end to the evening, but we knew we had all ready shot both ends of this valley, and a lot of birds knew we were about, the mooring would bring what it would bring.

It brought fog.

Most people think a windless day is a goose hunters worst nightmare, not so. A foggy day means no wind, and no way for the birds to find your decoys. Sometimes you get the odd good shoot in the fog, but all in all, my experiences with it have been mostly negative.

It was quite late in the morning, the fog had cleared enough for the Paradise shelduck to fly, but nt the geese. Parries are  very dependable game bird - if your in the right place, you have a good chance of being able to call them over the decoys.
It was well past "goose o'clock" when the fog finally lifted. We waited around for another hour, nd were about to pack up, when a lone honk could be herd from up river - and it was coming closer.

One honk led to s few more, and it wasn't long before the geese were playing ball. Sadly, Dave and I who normally shoot very well together had an "off day at the office". Dave got caught with n rounds in his gun on one mob, and It felt like I was shooting blanks at another. We got our game together, anf all in all, we were pretty bloody happy to have stuck around for another morning - though the pack up job for two guys was immense!

When the fog lifted, it was a beautiful day in more ways than one. Myself and Dave with the bag.

When anticipation turns to excitement!

We were all ready in our blinds waiting for the sun to rise. We hoped that it would bring with it flights of geese, and it did...they were just all heading to the crop fields! After some great bags all ready this year, where everything went right, it was time to really hunt some birds! We had the flag working over time, and Dave and I really worked the callers hard on any birds that were close enough to hear it..and even on some that weren't, in that forlorn hope to swing birds off their natural flight path, and to stop following all their friends to the fields of crop.

We did manage to bring a few around after what felt like years on the callers. Every goose hunter knows how hard it is to turn birds away from where they want to go, but none the less, we were on the board, it wasn't easy, and it was great really working the birds into the spread. More importantly, it was Dan's first goose with me, so all in all, we were all pretty happy.

We got a lot happier when Mr Farmer came down to see us as we were packing up.


"I've heard from my neighbour, your good to go, he says to go hammer 'em".

We passed on our thanks, cleaned our birds, loaded the trailer, and we were gone. We knew the birds fed there in both the mornings and evenings, so we wanted to be set up well before they arrived that afternoon. With a dust cloud trailing fast behind us, we headed back east.

As always seems to be the case, no matter how early you set up for an afternoon hunt, one goose (if your lucky) always arrives early! we missed the one, but we were set up in plenty of time to get the mob of 7 that came in minutes later. With the majority of the early risers on the deck, we then had a wait of about an hour, before we reckoned the fun would start.

Two hours later, and the birds were late! We were kept entertained by good flights of Paradise Shelduck, but where were the geese?! We had watched them the evening before, and normally you can set your watch by them. Not today. We needn't have worried. It wasn't long before we had geese coming in from all directions, we didn't know where to look. A good number of birds were roosting quite close to us, and the shooting put them off, but thankfully, either they came back, or birds came in off another roost to give us a great evening shoot on the stubble.

Dave, Dan and Paul with a great mixed bag on the stubble

A day of anticipation

We were on a huge buzz.
The previous days hunt on Canada geese was one for the books, and now we were heading from the coastline of Canterbury, to the Canterbury High Country. Along for the trip were Dave and Paul from the previous day, and coming along on his first hunt with me, Dan, and old mate from Rugby.

Heading to the new farm is a journey, in every sense of the word.

Passing through flat fields, before the rolling foot hills, following raging braided rivers, before arriving in the Canterbury High Country - home to Himalayan Tahr, Chamoi, Red Deer and...Game Birds . Today, no rifles were packed in, but we had a trailer loaded with blinds, Goose and Parrie decoys, and a tonne of food - who new how long we were going to be up here! its such a huge place, who knows what you can find? It was time to start looking!

Before we had even arrived at the farm we were to shoot, we passed a field of crops on a neighbouring property that just screamed GEESE. I sat up in my seat a little stranger and asked Paul to stop. I scanned the paddock for birds...nothing. Jumping back in, we were almost passed the last of the crop paddocks when we glanced right and saw a paddock full of geese!

The small mob at the top of the valley

I quickly doubled back to the farm house and found no one home. I left a note, left a message, sent an email, I did everything but dispatch a carrier pigeon to find them, and if I had one I would have. Leaving that hunt to work itself out, we headed further into the hills. Arriving right on time, we did a quick scout,  but after seeing a good number of birds further down the valley, we weren't expecting to see much up here. Sure enough, we did find geese, by but Mr farmer told me they had "dropped in numbers" just the last day or two".

I told him what we had found down the valley, and he agreed to try and track his neighbours down for us while we had a go at what remained on his place. After that, we set the decoys up ready for a morning hunt, then went to our favourite scouting spot, had a cold beer and thought about the mornings hunt, and if we would be lucky enough to gain access to the other farm while we were there.

Possibly the best place to scout birds from...anywhere in the world. Paul, Dan, Myself and Dave enjoying a cold beer after a day on the road, and behind the binoculars and spotting scope

When it rains....

Mid February and March of 2015 saw a very strange period of weather, that all in all, wasn't great for anybody, including hunters.

Where farmers wanted days of sunshine to help get the crops off the fields, they got rain. Where farmers wanted rain to get clover and grass going, they got draught. As such, some birds were late arriving, and others were early.

And you guessed it, they all turned up at once...everywhere.

The next four days were to see us shoot an incredible amount of birds, spread over more than 100 kilometres, on three different farms, with 7 different Hunters.

But it had to begin somewhere, and it was the same fields that we shot our first lot of geese on for the year!

The sun rise of the first morning of our 4 day hunting trip really set the scene. Amazing!

By the time the magnificent sun rise was up, the 6 of us all ready had a decent bag of birds on the ground. They came in for most of the morning, flying off their roost on a nearby estuary as the tide pushed them off, and their belly's told them it was feeding time.

We had some much larger mobs come in on this day, and prior scouting had shown that we could expect birds wanting to feed in different areas of the property. For this reason, we ran two spreads of decoys. Running two teams of hunters is always a risk, but in our experience, once the birds in this area have been hunted once, its nice to give them two options to pick from. We have been doing it long enough that we don't compete with one an other too much...

This day showed again the value of two spreads, with smaller groups committing well to one spread, while the larger mobs preferred another.

Our crew of 6 and our great morning flight bag from both spreads

Experience and prior scouting had shown that the birds coming in for the evening flight preferred one particular field, so Decoys from one of the morning spots were picked up, and a photo of the mornings bag taken.

After packing away the mornings work, the 6 of us slid into our blinds, wondering what we might pick up in the evening. At the end of a solid day in the field, both spreads, with three hunters each had bagged over 100 geese that morning, and with the a good evening flight, the days total pushed 300. |It was a quick cleaning session, because tomorrow, we are heading somewhere totally different!

The end of a great evening flight and an amazing day on the geese.

The honkers are here.

After cleaning the ducks, guns and ourselves after a hot afternoon and evening chasing parries, we eventually made it to bed, but not before setting the iPhone alarm for 2:30am. Don't get me wrong, I love new technology, but there's something so depressing about being told, just as you've set your alarm, that it will be going off in 4 hours and 11 minutes.

After the nameless tune woke us up, it was a quick breakfast before we hit the road. At this point w were pretty happy we had taken the Full body goose decoys down two days previously. It was all ready quite warm at 4am, but the forecasted wind was blowing, all but a little less powerful than we would like.

The 100+ mix of Avery, Hard Core and Dakota full body and shell decoys were set up on their stands, and with just a hint of movement on the bases, we got our callers ready, tucked our selves into the blinds and waited.

I don't know if we were lucky, but what I do know for a fact, is we spent several days scouting the fields, then had the patience to wait for the right day, and our eyes were well and truly in after the duck shoot, just a few hours before.

The results for our first Goose hunt of the year were more than we had hoped. They glided in beautifully into the decoys, with just enough wind to give them something to push into. While some of the big mobs didn't commit, Carl and I still called  plenty of great sized mobs right onto the "X". The boys did the rest.

Paul, George, Myself, James, Carl and Dave with a great bag of honkers.

The Value of scouting.

I love February

It's my birthday month, which now that I'm turning 30, actually means I hate that aspect of it, but what I really love about it is that it's time to oil the Beretta, get the decoys out of the container, grass the layout blind, and hit the game birds!

This years first hunt turned out to be an absolute cracker. Luckily, Paul and I had been keeping an eye on some fields that had produced great numbers of geese for us in the past, and sure enough, things were looking good again this year. Large numbers of honkers were present, all feeding happily and being right at the start of the season, the juvenile birds were as silly as they were going to get. The farmer was more than happy for us to have a crack and he agreed to leave them undisturbed prior to our hunt. The last thing a good goose hunt needs is weary birds that have been shot at, chased by cars and dogs, or otherwise disturbed prior to the hunt.

Relentless scouting for birds pre-season is worth every second

Looking at the forecast, we picked a day that would give us the best chance at success, with a stiff wind forecast, then started the waiting game - would the geese still be there when the weather came good? Its the goose hunters dilemma, but after years hunting them its always a risk worth taking.

I jumped on the phone to James, a great mate of mine who lives in the North Island. He knows there is only one reason I would be calling him at this time of year - those magic words "I've got a few days hunting coming up, are you in?". He was on a plane 3 hours later.

Just after getting off the phone to James, Carl called. He had been keeping an eye on another of my property's, and he had seen enough that morning, to warrant giving the farmer a call. Access Granted.
No one was happier that James had booked an early flight, than James, as while the weather that day wasn't great for geese, it was perfect for the ducks!

Carl, Paul and I spend the next few hours shuffling decoys and gear around Canterbury, as it was going to be impossible to move all the gear needed for two hunts, against two different species of birds, in two locations, over two days, all at once. Goose decoys were taken by the trailer load down to the fields in preparation for the day after, then it was off to the airport to pick up James.

Reconnaissance, was now turning to hunting.

Unusually for ducks, the female paradise shelduck (Native to New Zealand) is more eye-catching than the male; females have a pure white head and chestnut-coloured body, while males have a dark grey body and black head.