Te Puke's Beau Bedford, 5, was all smiles during duck hunting with his dad Marc Bedford at the weekend. Photo / Supplied
Te Puke's Beau Bedford, 5, was all smiles during duck hunting with his dad Marc Bedford at the weekend. Photo / Supplied
Many hunters were worried there would be no duck shooting season at all this year - so despite an unproductive opening day they were happy to finally get out.
The season got under way on Saturday, delayed by the Covid-19 lockdown, with Eastern Fish and Game expecting fewer duck numbersfor opening weekend as hunters faced testing conditions.
Fish and Game Eastern Region manager Andy Garrick said overall results were a "mixed bag". While he had heard from Bay of Plenty duck hunters who had a successful weekend, Garrick expects game hunter surveys to reveal a slow start.
"There's probably a couple of reasons for that. A dry spring followed by a dry autumn is just not conducive to productivity and I think the bird population was depressed as a result of that. You've got to have a good breeding season to have a good hunting season," Garrick said.
"The other thing with those dry conditions is a lot of wetlands and farm ponds just don't have water in them. That makes it hard and on top of that, parts of Bay of Plenty, particularly south of Rotorua and inland, had a lot of fog on Saturday morning."
Garrick said most hunters in the Eastern region were well behaved and followed all the safety and firearms rules.
"We had some incidents where we seized guns. We had a couple of people who didn't have a hunting licence and a couple of issues with semi-automatic shotguns in which the magazines weren't restricted.
"We also had an incident with hunting from a boat under power on the Waikato River. We find that really disappointing. It's obviously a temptation for some but it's a dangerous pastime as well as not sporting."
But most were responsible, happy to be out hunting, he said.
"It was very clear to us that a lot of hunters were concerned there would be no season at all so they were just over the moon to get out there. While it wasn't as productive as we all might've liked, we didn't encounter a hunter who had any issues with it, which is always encouraging.
"The tradition and the experience is a big part of it. A lot of people only get together once a year just for that very purpose - the hunting is one element of it, getting birds to eat is another, but certainly, a major element is the camaraderie."
Among those out were Te Puke's Marc Bedford and his "super-keen" 5-year-old son, Beau.
Bedford learned to hunt from his dad and is passing on the tradition to his own children.
Duck shooting season got underway at the weekend. Photo / File
"It was good, I think most of us are thankful we did get a season, there was a strong possibility there that we weren't going to. I take my hat off to Fish and Game and the likes for lobbying for us and getting it done," Bedford said.
"The weekend itself was pretty textbook for us, sunny weather and no wind here in Te Puke. We try to get the kids involved as much as possible; a good friend of mine who I shoot with every year, his eldest son joined us for the first time this season.
