July 10 to 14: We headed down to Fordell to target a new block on Ohaumoko Road. Steve and Dylan headed down a day early and had not been in the area before. They arrived after dark, found the Duck Lodge, then went and saw Mike. They found their way into an easy block and picked up a deer and a few birds.
Dobs, Jae and I arrived on the 11th, late in the afternoon. Steve and Dylan met the manager at Ohaumoko Road that morning and were shown the two main hot spots for peafowl. Instruction was no fallow to be taken but feel free to take sambar deer. Unfortunately, it was raining. So we had a feed in the comfort of the lodge and waited...It did clear up around 9 PM so Dobs and son Jae went to the river and small bush block near Mike's house. They had a great time and got 26 peafowl. It poured rain as they were coming out.
On the 12th, Dobs, Jae and I had had some processing to do for the day. Steve and Dylan headed out early in the quad to scout and hunt the back blocks on Mike's place. When we finished the processing, we drove over to Ohaumoko Road to have a quick look for ourselves. We saw plenty of birds along the road and we were excited for our first hunt on this new block. We had showers off and on all day.
With the weather forecast, Spider was in no hurry to get there. Luckily, we caught him before he left to bring his quad. Long story short, Steve's 4wd on his quad stopped working, we did not think we would need the side by side at Ohaumoko, and conditions were really sloppy. One of the two places the manager had shown Steve was quite a way in in sloppy conditions.
Spider showed up early that evening. He would take Jae and Dobs behind the yards on the sloppy track with the 4wd quad. Steve, Dylan and I would go up the hill behind the manager's house.
Off they went. They wound up with only 27 peafowl and five possums after a long hunt. The birds were spread out in small numbers and quite a few spooked. It was tough going and they went as far as they could before they could not get the quad any further due to the conditions.
Steve, Dylan and I wound up with 40 peafowl and 13 turkeys. Some were along the road on our way out. Unfortunately, some big peacocks were lost in a creek. I went and recovered some of the wet birds until I sank in the soft silt, fell over and got soaked. That was enough for the night.
Sunday was a day of processing for me. Steve and Dylan went out early then Spider, Dobs and Jae went back to Ohaumoko Road to pickup turkeys and peafowl we had hung the night before. They had a chat with the manager and he told them about the guy up the road who would not tolerate hunters up there. He did say we could look anywhere up a k or two further up the road. We will have to save that for next time. They shot a few more birds while there.
Steve and Dylan went home that morning with a few fallow as Dylan had to be at work the next morning. After butchering all of the birds, Spider, Dobs, Jae and I went and scouted Long Point to make sure we remembered how to get in there in the dark. We had a big hit on peafowl there last year and there were lots of birds back there again. Duncan's block is across the river from Long Point on Kumuiti Road. He was more than happy for us to cull all the peafowl we could find. But, thanks to Blair, no more deer as he had friends who would like to have some for themselves.
The plan was simple for Sunday night; go to Long Point then back around to Duncan's side of the river to finish the job. It rained from late afternoon and got heavier as it got dark. We settled in, had some food and beverage then set the alarm for 0400 Hrs.
We got up and the stars were out. We headed to long point. It was foggy. There were no birds on Long Point this time. They were all roosting on Duncan's side of the river. We decided we did not have time before sunrise to go onto Duncan's side and do the job properly. So we made our way back to the old road. We wandered around in the fog trying to find an area we shot last year, then salvaged the morning with a fallow on the way back to the lodge.
I finished processing some wings, we cleaned and packed up, and headed back towards Whakatane late that morning. Not the greatest mission due to the weather but we still had a great time.
