With booming populations, several unique species and bag limits as high as 77 ducks per day, New Zealand is a waterfowler’s dream destination.
Stuck in Vegas for two weeks to work trade shows felt bad enough, but to be trapped there over my birthday added insult to injury, even for one who doesn’t particularly like birthdays. Hoping to cure my blues with jagerschnitzel and hefeweizen, my long-time boss Jason Morton and I shot texts off to friends who might be in town as well, caught in limbo between SHOT Show and Safari Club International’s annual convention.
Answering the call were some literary legends of the industry – Kevin Steele and David Draper accompanied by a jovial yet reserved individual I hadn’t met before. Introduced as a lowly sheep farmer from New Zealand, I met Richard Burdon, a rancher yes, but also much more than that.
The third generation of Burdon to operate Glen Dene Station on New Zealand’s South Island and forever a sheep farmer at heart, Richard’s calm demeanor belied how involved he is, in the world of hunting and conservation. Perched on the picturesque shores of Lake Hāwea and with 15,000 acres of lush mountainous terrain out the back door, his crew coordinates and guides hunts, fishing tours and sightseeing excursions that take in all that the South Island has to offer. The hats he wears are many – rancher, outfitter, resort manager, conservationist and champion of all things New Zealand, not to mention an officer of the New Zealand Professional Hunting Guides Association, trustee of Hunters for Conservation in NZ and Vice President on the Board of Directors of Dallas Safari Club. Heavy hats, at that.
Fast forward a few years and I’d finally found the courage and the coin to make a New Zealand trip a reality, using my fifteenth wedding anniversary as clever cover to chase stag and birds on the back side of the world. Knowing Richard and having monitored the continual praise for the experiences Glen Dene produced, it was a no-brainer to reach out to him.
Lucky for me, though the timing of our anniversary would put us into the late season for stag, it meant we were still smack-dab in the heart of duck season. And boy, do they have ducks! Paradise shelducks, shovelers, gray ducks and mallards galore.
Introduced to the island nation first in the 1870s, the US bog-standard mallard didn’t take immediately, with a rocky start before they eventually boomed to the spectacular numbers of today (4.5 million birds and counting). Considering that the total mallard tally in the US in 2024 is just over 6 million and that New Zealand’s land mass doesn’t even match that of the state of Colorado, the proliferation of greenheads there is rather staggering.
Reinforcing that fact is the liberal daily bag limit that soars as high as 50 birds per day per person in certain regions. Native paradise ducks are also in abundance, with a bag limit of as many as 25.
Knowing that this might be a once-in-a-lifetime trip for me, I’d asked Richard if we could pack as much as possible into my visit. A devoted bird hunter, I was keen to chase any game bird in season, and it just so happened that Richard was planning to spend a weekend with childhood friends in the maimai – Kiwi for a sunken, grassed-in wood-and-tin duck blind.
To that end, I knew I needed a shotgun that was up for the adventure. Being late in the season, knowing that the weather would be iffy and not knowing if some of our duck hunting might take us beyond the freshwater, I wanted something that would be impervious to the inevitable moisture. Benelli’s BE.S.T finish sounded like just the answer – a diamond-like coating that shrugs off extended exposure to salt water and worse.
Another factor in play was the unknown quality of shells abroad. With an eleven-pound limit to the weight of ammo I could bring with me, two boxes of 12-gauge shells were all I could swing when added to the weight of my rifle ammo. A shotgun that could digest anything I stuck in the pipe was a must, and the Super Black Eagle’s simple inertia operating system is known for chewing up and spitting out just about any 12-gauge shell in existence. The improved bolt lock-up of the SBE III was the kicker – spring pressure on a ball detent helping to persuade the rotating bolt into full battery even if the bolt is bumped or drawn back to confirm a shell is in the chamber.
Knowing what I was after, my local Rocky Mountain Discount Sports had exactly what I needed on the wall, and I spent two months shooting trap, 5-stand and sporting clays to become one with the SBE III. Light in the hand (partially owing to its landing-strip-sized carbon fiber rib), it pointed well for me without so much as changing shims and was designed with a slightly-higher-than-common point of impact. Enough shells made that a moot point as I got used to it and became confident in its operation and reliability.
Having connected with my stag on the second day, I’d taken the SBE III on a tour of the South Island, knocking over invasive wallabies in the alpine tussocks with turkey loads, pass-shooting pūkeko in the river bottoms and walking up pheasants behind flushing dogs at Craigmore Station. Richard and I then packed our gun boxes and hopped a plane to the North Island, met at the airport by his life-long friend Paddy Lowry.
Much like Richard, Paddy is a busy man. Dairy farmer, land manager and much more besides, he and a core group of friends try to make the fleeting weekends of duck season count, meeting up for as many as feasible before it closes down each year.
Light came up on the farm pond to reveal the spread we had set by moonlight the night before. A dozen mallard decoys to our right and half again as many paradise ducks floating to our left, the striking white and black faces of the parries distinctly different in the morning haze.
Even the planted hills around us were a great departure – kale as far as the eye could see. Put in the ground as a cover crop but also serving as winter livestock forage, the leafy fronds weren’t ideal for luring in birds, but with numbers as they are, the open water itself was the draw.
What wasn’t unfamiliar was the dynamic in the maimai – it was no different than most any duck blind in the world, I imagine. Old friends rehashing stories of their youth, razzing each other for their shooting skills and soaking in the company of the folks they hold dear. Myself, just along for the ride and enjoying every minute of it.
The ducks came in waves, ebbing and flowing as a gentle rain also came and went. Simple, short honks of the parries echoed through the rolling hills – low tones from the males and shrill notes from the females. From an outsider’s perspective, they felt like a hybrid between a duck and a goose and proved to be an incredibly hardy gamebird. Luckily, they decoyed well with a light amount of calling, and on more than one occasion we were able to leave no stragglers.
For a foodie like me, the vittles in the maimai were the things dreams are made of. First light produced a still-piping-hot breakfast pie, packed away in a cooler by Paddy’s wife Bridget. Mid-morning brought out tubs of fresh-caught bluff oysters from Invercargill, drained of their brine and splashed with vinegar, salt and pepper to be eaten raw. Lunch was fresh lamb roasts, seared to perfection on the grill and also hit with a dash of sea salt and cracked pepper. More oysters filled out the afternoon as well as an arms-length of sausages fresh from the butcher.
Mid-day on the pond saw nothing but mallards, far fatter than any I’d shot before and in beautiful full plumage. As sunlight started to drop, we had one last blitz of parries, the SBE III belching one final spit of flame and dropping a solo shelduck before we called it a day. By headlight we cleaned up and reached a final tally of 54 birds, almost equally split between the two species.
“Normally we’d have shot a lot more ducks than this, apologies for the slow day!” Paddy said sheepishly.
Shaking my head, I had to chuckle – the ‘slow day’ in the maimai had been nothing shy of perfect in all regards. It seemed par for the course in New Zealand, as every single hunting pursuit had exceeded expectations in what is without question a sportsman’s paradise.
