The last time on Cranny's we got rained out the night we were going to cover Long Point again. Ten days later we were back as Cranny said he was going to poison the birds as they were hoovering up the fodder beet. I had to Google what it was. So off we went off the old road where the crops were. We decided it was kale and some sort of rye grass in the crops. We got some birds but found out the next day he meant Long Point where he was feeding out fodder beet. The first one we will call Longer Point as it was a big walk. The next day the drive belt on the Polaris broke as the boys were going to recover the hanging birds. I drove the trailer over to collect them then we had to walk in to recover the birds. I was wearing my new gum boots and rubbed my heels raw.
So the plan was to hit Long Point and Duncan's side of the river and take out the mob. We saw probably 80 birds on the point from Kumuiti Road. Then I got a call from Duncan saying he had a possum shooter going in that night. Plan B was to ring Jerram on Okirae Road. He was more than happy for us to come and cull the peafowl and any sambar hinds we could find. We shot a lot of birds and got a couple of deer. The next day was very busy. Dobs and Caleb went to Fielding to get the Polaris repaired in the morning while I processed peacocks. We all went up to process birds where we hung them the night before. It was a long day.
Then we went to Long Point. No birds were on Mike's side. They were spread out all through Duncan's scrub. You can tell these birds have been targets based on the way they were roosting. We shot as many as we could, maybe half of what we saw on the paddock the day before. They were so spread out and in difficult terrain, we would never find them all. We wanted to go on the other side of Kumuiti Road but there were rifle shots and lights moving around up there.
So we went to Peter's place, well, actually a maize paddock by a large storage building. We saw a bunch of big males during the day. They were there alright so we shot 11. We recovered five big males but the rest fell in the river. Dobs gets an honorable mention here as he climbed down and dangerously steep river bank to recover three big birds. Caleb was not going there.
I had some work to do so I called it a night. Actually I had really bad blisters from our walk in to Longer Point in my new gumboots the other day. Caleb and Dobs went back to Jerram's and shot a bunch more peafowl and another sambar.
So the next morning we breasted out some hens then packed up the peacocks, deer and gear and hit the road after a good clean up of the duck lodge. And since we were heading past, we stopped and collected 150 pheasants. There was literally no space left. It has been a very busy week for me. Today is clean up the garage, pack a bag then head to Wellington to do some fish passage work for a week. Then it will be back to peacocks!
