MATAURA

Otago Witness, Issue 2805, 18 December 1907, Page 23 (Supplement)

MATAURA

7\o special wild fowl shooting is to be -obtained between Balclutha and the Mataura River. A few grey ducks, teal, and swamp hens may be shot in the rivers and streams in this stretch of country, but their numbers are not sufficient to justify the average gun sportsman in spending his holidays or leisure in this locality. The Mataura River, on the other hand, is probably the best duck-shooting river in •Otago. Go-id shooting is to be had all along thk waterway from almost its source to the coa«t. but the best shooting for years pa~t has been had in the timbered country through which the river passes on its journey to the coa^t below Gore and Mataura. On both sides of the river there are numerous back-wa-hes or lagoons, and in the I*1 '* places, where there is con venient shelter, some of the finest gre\ cluck -hooting m the colom was to be obtained a few u'nis. ago. Ducks, however are lo— > plentiful here than formerly owing to out-of-s-a-KDn shooting b> the pea rifle -hooter, who fioquonth follows the occupation of a flaxmill <r -awinill hand. One of the finest of these duck -hooting lagoons, and of which wo gi\e an illustration, is hor-.o— hoe m shanc. and is known as HanitTs Lagoon. The best wav to reach thi-> locality is t irher In coach or conveyance from Matauia. or from Invereargill ' J \ the Seaward Beach railwaj. S-'lendid bags of gre\ ducks were secured hero a few years ago. it being nothing uncommon for a. couple of good t-hots to get 40 50. or 60 ducks on the opening day of the shooting season. In the days of tho Maori this lagoon was used for canoe building, and the canoes were launched into the sea when the spring-tides were iavourable. Fresh-water mussels and eels

are plentiful. The surrounding distnct is swampj , and --vvamp hen-, an<l t.al arc abundant. Smaller lairoon.s in the locality also afford good shooting. '1 he Wainimnu Lagoon, near b\ a she^t of water s e^ o n or eight miles in length and about a mile wide— i< a favourite resort of ducks immedtatelv after the shooting season opens but as the birds locate themsehos midway in the lagoon. the\ are well out of harms way. The waters of the lagoon are sometime* black with ducks and swans.