Both Barrels June 2024 - North Canterbury

We are now one month into the gamebird hunting season and unfortunately in North Canterbury, we haven’t quite had the rainfall which most hunters have been waiting for as some ponds around the region are still dry, but once we get a good amount of rain then these ponds will hunt well as there will be a good natural food source in there for ducks to eat.

For our keen big water hunters, it has been a slow start due too not getting man big winds in the forecast, however I’m sure we are due for some big winds before the season ends.

With our braided rivers being lower than usual this had allowed hunters to get easier access out into the middle of the riverbed, where the birds are likely to trade so id suggest if you do some scouting and find a nice piece of water holding birds, then you potentially will be able to get to it and have a great hunt.

Kings’ birthday weekend was the first weekend of the pheasant weekend and we also allowed pheasant hunting on the Monday, which gives hunters a 3-day weekend to hunt. We have another two weekends coming up which are 6^th-7^th July and 3rd-4^th August, so for those hunters that missed the first weekend you still have some more opportunities to come.

Gamebird Hunter Harvest Surveys

Throughout the season every two weeks, the team at North Canterbury will call up 200 hunters and ask them whether they have been hunting in the last two weeks. We pull a random sample of hunters from our licence database so there are times when some hunters get called up multiple times throughout the season.

The reason we do these surveys is because we need to gather data from our hunters about their hunting efforts, and what they have harvested. From here we can use this data to set our regulations, so gamebird hunting is sustainable for future generations.