Thread: Game bird diary for all

Wind was forecast to turn to southerly so we decided a later afternoon shoot was in order. Our new maimai was occupied so we wandered along and set up in another empty one. The next maimai along had a group of guys with a big spread and calling up a storm so the birds were heading into them, though most were flying pretty high and straight.

I did manage to whistle another swan over for a dose of high speed steel to a load hails of hurrah from the next maimai. I quickly exited and went for the retrieve and quickly noticed that the head was up and it was starting to paddle so I quickened the pace a bit. It was between me and the next maimai so I couldn't send a finishing shot off. Apparently in the noise I was making I missed the call of 'run Forest, run" from the neighbours before I got to a spot where I could send off a safer finishing shot.

There was not a great deal of other action until we managed to call in three mallards and had them in the perfect spot only for my mate to miss with four shots and me not to send any steel there way due to technical difficulties. For some reason my thumb couldn't find the safety to the right of the action, then the same thumb couldn't find the safety on the tang, then I finally found the flippin' safety just behind the trigger. The call from the neighbours at this effort was 'What are you doing?", just before one of the birds did a low fly pass on their maimai where it was nailed.

I did manage to get another swan to fly our way but part way over was sky busted by another crew before flying over another maimai where it was nailed. He didn't collect it so we grabbed it on the way out. Swan casserole will be on the menu again shortly.