Andrew Bishop – The Willow Pond

At the close of duck shooting in the Waikato, 2 mates and myself headed for South Canterbury where their game bird season continues until the end of July. We were targeting mallards due to their limit of 50 per person per day, opposed to Waikato’s 6!

Armed with Benelli, Beretta and Baikal Semi Automatic 12 gauge shotguns, 35 gram Falcon 3’s and enough warm clothes make a polar beer sweat, all we needed was a place to shoot!

Day 1 dawned as a frosty -3 degrees. Gloves, balaclavas, XTR Pacstealth Pants and XTR Jacket were essential. Tried and tested in wet weather I was interested to see how effective the outer-shells would be in winds cold enough to freeze the proverbial off a brass monkey!

Arriving to the shadows of The Willow Pond, I was pleased I wore my Hunters Element jacket, not just for the warmth but the generous pockets for ammo and hand warmers!  A great feature yet to see rivaled in other jackets would have to be the two lanyards connected to the inside of the chest pockets for my duck callers!

A bottle of beam as payment for the shooting on the pond ensured ducks were a plenty as we blazed away keeping the barrels hot and the ducks shot. Armed with enough duck callers, decoys and ammo to sink the titanic the tally soon passed 60.

As the sun broke through the cloud, the mallards had stopped decoying into our spread of flock head mallards to go and sit on the paddocks to fight the cows for the barley straw feed out by the dairy farmers.

So back to the farm house for lunch and a few beers to celebrate the 1^st day shooting it was! After hanging the ducks and adrenaline still flowing a reconnaissance mission to determine the next days shooting was called. As the dark set in, thoughts changed to the prospect of tomorrows hunt -The Coastal Lagoon…

Stay tuned for the next hunt and video highlights from the whole trip!