Number 58.............17.5 hrs to go

orchidman

Its duck hunting time!!!!

This will be my 58th straight year. Still as exciting as ever.

Got the boat loaded, my gear packed, gun cleaned.

Will be posting up on monday with pics hopefully....

See Ya..........lol.

Jayhawker

Hope you have a great day....good luck...

CHIRO1989

Hope you have a camera mounted on your gun again, "take em!"

sakodude

Wishing you "fowl" weather. Best of luck.

Sako

Diver43

Have a BLAST Alec

NN

Waiting

Six-Gun

Man, I’m envious.  You have some great action out there and we’re a waaays off from shooting a duck around here.

orchidman

I am back.

Saturday was fine, cloudless and foggy.

Here is a pic of Mt Auckland I took at first light on saturday. See that ring of fog surrounding the base?

It slowly moved down the slopes and onto the harbour.........

Next pic shows it rolling in from the left............

Until I couldnt even see the decoys........

Visibility was down to 15m. I could hear ducks but ya cant shoot what ya cant see...........

I had promised Mark I would head back and pick him up when the tide came in so, once there was enough water to float the boat I headed  back the 3-4 miles of open water to the river to pick him up. Dont have a GPS on the boat but using the current lines and glancing backwards to ensure I was tracking straight put me in the ball park when I hit the mangroves and I was on;ly about 300m from the river entrance when it cleared enough to see......

Headed back out with Mark and as I came out of the river into the fog I set a course and was only about 75m from where I wanted to be when I came out of the fog.

Very few birds were flying and I only managed to decoy one close enough to invite him for dinner. Mark hitched a ride back with his son and I stayed. Called 5 more birds into range and ended up with 6 for the day.

Slept in the boat ( Fri and sat night) and today I woke to clear skies.......here is todays pic of Mt Auckland at dawn........NO FOG!

Picked up another 6 birds today before the dropping tide forced a withdrawal.......

Bird numbers were  down  on previous years and those I saw were cruising at about 10,000ft on oxygen. But that will change when the crappy weather hits us and I intend to chase them all season between charters...

People think BH and I are crazy spending 2 days and nights in our 12-13' open boats but they buy their meat from a supermarket so their viewpoint is invalid.

Bacon and eggs for breakfast, venison steak and cheese rolls for lunch, stew for dinner, entertainment was provided by the seabirds........and Crab fighting!

Where I was parked there were hundreds of crab holes in the mud. If you stay still they come out to feed right alongside the boat......and if you drop a sliver of chocolate on the mud between crab holes at low tide they come out and have epic battles with each other to win the prize..... Even better is when you carefully roll a ball of mud and surreptitiously drop it so it blocks one of their holes, and then wave your hand to frighten them. The crab who's entrance is blocked will run to the nearest open hole and then back out while its occupant fights to protect his property....But I digress.

Number 58 is in the bag and I am already planning for number 59..........

Diver43

Sounds like a good time, even sleeping in a little boat 

NN

Good hunt then-----------I did not like trying to nav on the water in fog.

Six-Gun

Man, you guys do it right.  If you're going to live on a boat for 2 days straight, that's how you do it!

ojr

Great photo's Alex and enough birds for a good feed. it's wonderful stuff isn't it.