SHOOTING SIDELIGHTS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 13 May 1939, Page 8

SHOOTING SIDELIGHTS

GOOD & POOR BAGS OF DUCKS. DECOYS THAT WERE LEFT HIGH AND DRY. The largest bag of duel's so far recorded on the opening days of the shooting season at Wairarapa Lake is one of 70 secured by a party of five in three days in the lower reaches of the lake. This area seems to have provided the best shooting. At the north end of the lake very poor bags were secured, two or three ducks being the usual result. Two sportsmen who selected a shooting area near the mouth of the Tauherenikau placed their decoys in six inches of water in readiness for the opening day, but when they arrived on the scene .the next day they found their decoys high and dry. It is stated that the lake water fell very rapidly following on the outlet being opened just before Ihe shooting season commenced, a fact borne out by the experience of these shooters, who, in consequence, had to bo content with two ducks and a single swan.

Two small parties of .Masterton shooters who decided to try their fortune on the dams in the Whareama district waited so long without any sign of a duck that they proceeded along the banks of the Whareama River. Here, in the absence of feathered game, they found plenty of sport in shooting kahawai as they jumped cut cf the water.