Duck Shooting in New Zealand.

New Zealand Illustrated Magazine, Volume III, 1 October 1900, Page 56

Duck Shooting in New Zealand.

By Sportsman

uck Shooting in New Zealand is one of the most popular sports in the country. Thore is no other wild

fowl sq numerous or so widely

distributed, and there is certainly none other that gives such large bags, or such joy to the hunter. On lake and lagoon, on river or tidal estuary, there is excitement in bringing down in its rapid flight the whirring duck. The cautious shootist paddling slowly along the raupo thickets, the well-planted party hidden in scrub cover, or cylinder, the watcher by the mud flats, over which the tide is creeping slowly, all know the joy of the whistling wings and the skill that sends them flutter-ing helplessly on to land or water. New Zealand was never a good game country, or rather it is a good game countoy never properly stocked by Nature ; but there are places where the wild duck has always been plentiful, and where they are plentiful even to this day.

Lake Ellesmore in Canterbury, and Lake Waikare in the Waikato are the great centres of duck shooting, but there are scores of other places where sport can be had, Lake Waihola in Otago, the lakes in the Southern Alps, the estuaries and reaches of most of the great rivers and many of the harbours.

The commonest kinds of ducks are the grey duck, the black and brown teal, the spoon bill, the blue mountain duck and the paradise duck. The grey duck is by far the most numerous, and it is to be fouud in every part of New Zealand from Te Waewae Bay or the. inlets of Stewart's Island to Parengarenga in the far North. The black teal is found generally in the South Island,

the brown teal in the North Island. The Paradise duck and the Blue Mountain duck are rarely found in the North, their habitat being almost exclusively confined to the hilly country of the South. The Blue Mountain duck is scarcely worth mentioning to sportsmen. A boy with a handtul of river bed stones might easily kill a flock of these handsome foolish creatures, besides they are comparatively rare, and seek the seclusion of mountain gorges where sportsmen do not go. The Paradise Duck is quite a different bird. He is the largest of the duck tribe, and is frequently named the New Zealand wild goose. Wild he certainly is, but by no means a goose, for he is as cunning and wary a creature as flies, and a small flock will give amateurs sport for a season. They , are found generally in the broad shingle beds of the great snow rivers, and delight in wandering aimlessly on the edge of the largest stream always on the opposite side to the sportsman. He may crawl on his belly over the bumpy boulders, and wade through icy cold water, keeping his weather eye on the plump brown and white birds, but the Paradise ducks can gauge the range of a gun to a nicety, and they shew -fine judgment in* rising before a shot is fired. They do not fly far ; they enjoy tantalising the hunter, and generally settle in what seems a suitable place for stalking, and the amateur stalks, but the New Zealand wild goose winks the other eye, and moves on at exactly the right moment for his safety. But they can be had by men who know the game, who plant themselves in cover whilst somebody else drives them up the river bed ; and they can be had when they come down

to the lowlands in autumn to feed on the stubble fields of the farmer.

The Black teal of the South, one of the plumpest and most savoury of the whole duck tribe, is comparatively tame, and as he delights in creeks and small water holes, does not require much skill to approach, though he requires skill to shoot, for he is very swift. The spoonbill, though wild and wary, is never plentiful, so it is the last of the tribe, the grey duck, to which we look for sport, and he gives it.

Duck shooting on Lake Ellesmere is reduced to such mechanical and prosaic lines that it has lost some of its real sporting

charms. Nowadays one is reduced to sitting in a cylinder, a port of corrugated iron tank sunk in the bed of the lake and baled out ; or worse still, to crouching in a mud hole banked round like a coffer dam where, damp and cramped, the shootist waits until flights of ducks tempted by the numerous decoys come within range. This waiting in cover for game, especially when the waiting is done below the level of the water, is only enjoyed by those who think more of the number of wild fowl they kill than the manner of killing. It is worse than waiting in a drive for game to come to one, and holds no more of the real hunter's delight.

Half the joy gained by the true sportsmen lies in pursuing tho game, and in matching his skill and knowledge against tho ways of his quarry. For grey duck shooting! know no better place in Now Zealand than the Waikato Lakes, for there with Maori canoe or light punt, a man can hunt over hundreds of miles of lakes and river water.

I have had two big shooting expeditions in these lakes, and each time I. have voyaged in a light double boat or catamaran, on which a tent could be pitched, so that wherever the craft would float thero was my home. 1 do not care to say how many years ago 1 made my first expedition, but the sport I had then

made me long to repeat the cruise, and after a long spell in cities the time came. I had a light draught catamaran built consisting of two long finely shaped half boats connected with a raised deck. On the after part of this deck could be fixed a tent house. When rowing or sailing the house was stowed away, and when night came a few minutes' work gave me a snug shelter. I shot over the Waipa as far as Alexandra, then came down the Waikato to Waikare. Few sportsmen visited the lake even then, and the grey duck fed in the reedy shallows in thousands. Wild fowl move to varions feeding grounds according to the weather,

invariably chosing the weather shore, and I followed them up, sailing wherever I saw them fly. I got most of my shooting in the early morning. Many a time when I have looked out of the drill door of my floating house,, I have seen the water black with game, mobs of ducks swimming within a few yards of the craft. I never sought to make a really big bag, for I found it difficult to get rid of the game, but one afternoon I shot fifteen ducks with as little trouble as the laziest man could desire. It had been raining and blowing all night, but at noon the gale abated, and I set sail along the edge

of a great raupo. thicket. The clucks were sheltering in the reeds, and as I stamped on the deck they rose and flew lakewards. I sat on a deck chair, shifting the rudder with my foot, and had beautiful shooting. One little experience gave me a shock. I dropped a fine drake on what appeared to be a nice grassy flat. I drove the boat's stern against the bank, intending to jump ashore and secure the bird, when caution made me drop the. light auchor on the grass. The anchor sank in soft mud, and if I had jumped I should have landed in a veritable quagmire. The duck remained on the flat, and " I

contended myself with picking up those that fell in the water. Seventy-five ducks for an afternoon's shooting is by no means a record, bnt it contented me. Later I went down to the mouth of the Waikato, and shot on the waters that lie between the sand dunes and the sea, and then having the catamaran taken over the Awaroa portage to the Manakau Harbour, I bagged a few ducks on the great banks there. But Manukau ducks are as wild as the Manukau Bar, and it was only by cautious paddling or drifting with the tide in a little canvas canoe that I was able to get within range.

The best estuary shooting I have had was at Mercury Bay; but then it was only in stormy weather that I could get a bag. I noticed that towards evening the ducks flew from the great expanse of tidal flats inland to an impassible swamp, so I planted myself in a clump of manuka and had some real good sport for awhile, the ducks being as heavy and strong as any I have ever known. I have had good shooting in the beds of the big snow rivers in Canterbury, but there the absence of cover and the wariness of the birds render big bags difficult to. ■obtain. During a yachting cruise round Stewart

Island I had very easy shooting on some of the rarelyvisited inlets, simply following the ducks in a boat towards the

numerous fresh

water streams between the hills

where, endeavouring to get back to their haunts, they flew over the boat, and offered splendid marks. And I have had fair shooting on the small lakes

near the south coast of New Zealand where the forests come down

to the water's edge, and one can stalk the birds from side to side.

The real charm of ffrey duck shooting is found when one follows the wild birds into wild plains, the quiet river reaches, the secluded lake, the lagoon hidden in wastes of reeds, and one gets the best sport in stormy weather. The grey duck flies low when a wet gale drives fiercely over the land ; and to be out there with the wind in one's face, and cold rain hissing with the squalls is exhilarating. I remember in such weather pushing my way deep into that little-known fen country which lies to the east of Waikare in the Waikato. I followed an old track through a dense thicket of reeds while the ground under me quaked and quivered as if it would open and let me down to bottomless depths of mire. The brown dead leaves of the raupo strewn thickly seemed to be ray only support, and my dog, following close, whined as if in fear. I came to the edge of a nameless lake fringed with low marshy shores, and as far as eye could sco beyond the lake were stretches of reeds and rushes. The sou-west gale drove miniature waves against a floating mass of weeds that writhed with a horrible motion like wounded snakes. I squatted on a mass of dead raupo sheltered

from the wind by tall reeds, and then the ducks, making for their night camps, came whirring by within twenty yards of my cover. I banged away and shot about a dozen birds, then my ammunition was exhausted, but the flight of ducks seemed endless. They streamed past in hundreds— in thousands, making across the wind in the shelter of the shore. I never had such a chance of a record bag, and never shall have again, but I had started with less than a soore cartridges, and all were gone. Some of the birds came within a dozen yards, some flew just over my head, in twos and threes, in long strings, in great flocks. It was the sort of thing one dreams about but rarely realises, and one of the chances that happen when one goes out with very little ammunition. A Canterbury sportsman had a similar experience. He was crouched in a cylinder during a snow storm, and all the ducks on Lake Ellesmere started to fly past

whim ; he had oue shot, and the pin of his tun stuck fast in a cartridge and he could neither open the breech nor take his gun to pieces. He sat there for an hour, so he says, and the ducks drove past him hko snow flakes. He has had a grudge against the maker of that cartridge ever since.

After all there is consolation in missing such chances. There are more ducks alive for future sport, and the birds that tantalised us meet their fate, perhaps, when one is paddling silently up some narrow waterway. I can sympathise with the man who was sorry when he killed a duck, and wished it alive that he might kill it again. The joy of killing is not so much the lust of slaughter as the pride of skill. Our warrior forefathers really regretted slaying a worthy foeman, and always did him honour for the pleasure he gave them, and a grey duck coming down on the wind can only fall to the quick eye and the sure aim.