Scottish Duck Hunting

Hi Buck.

It is your new Scottish friend here Iain who lives in New Zealand.

Well, opening day has come and gone and we had a great time. As you can imagine the level of ribbing regarding the duck calling reaches biblical proportions on opening day. I was accused of sounding anything like a duck! but it was later admitted that some of my calling was good. During the quiet periods I kind of worked out that I was using too much voice and not really blowing. At least I think so, because when I had a go later on, and blew more my mates said it was good but it sure as hell did not sound right to me. Anyway I will persevere and I have enjoyed the challenge. The call coach is really good especially for the cadence and I use it as I walk along the beach.

The weather on opening day very much favoured the ducks with the sun splitting the skies and there being no cloud cover. The ducks were up really high and there was no wind to speak of.

My mate Trev managed to run over his dog after he was driving back form the hide (Called Mai Mais here) and had to dash to the vet straight away. It transpired later that the dog was ok but it was left with my young dog who is a pointer and who was having her first outing to step into the role. She was not to great to begin with but soon got the hang of things and was fine for about three hours.During this time she got several ducks that were injured in the willows which was a real bonus. She then decided not to work anymore and did the same on Sunday. However I have been working away with her and she did two awesome retrieves yesterday in the river which was running pretty fast.

But on with the story. We had the usual flurry of ducks at first light and things were steady up until about 11am then picked up in the afternoon.Trev arrived back about ten and informed us the dog was going to be ok. You can imagine the level of ribbing he took! We got a few more in the evening and by the end of the day we had shot around 30 ducks. We bagged about another 10 on Sunday morning.The bag limit here in Southland is 20 on opening day and 15 thereafter.As usual there were some spectacular shots and some bloody ordinary ones!

During the day we have a plentiful supply of food. There is usually some seafood chowder at lunch and other seafood . We have breakfast cooked for us, including home kill bacon by the guy whose land we shoot on and a buddy comes in and joins us for tea. Steak and venison! So you can see how rough things are! On Saturday we were back home at 7.30 to watch the Rugby and tucked up by around 10 dreaming of doing it all again on Sunday.

Overall it was a great weekend and we were down a bit from last year but it is the camraderie of the occasion that is important. The season is open for eight weeks and I get out quite a bit but most guys don't bother after opening weekend!

Well Buck, that is roughly our story . I will attach a few pictures for you to have a look at and I would love you to come and have a shoot with us sometime. Opening day is always the first Saturday in May. I did notice some of you products on sale in a local store and could not resist buying one of your Tall Timber2 callers which I have been practicing with. Why not come on a promotional tour? Either way you would be most welcome.

I hope we can stay in touch and wish you all the very best with your business and with your hunting.

Yours in friendship.

Iain MacCallum