Mixed Bags For Duck Shooters

Once a year quite a large section of New Zealand's sportsmen include in their night's prayers a request for blustery weather with a bit of drizzle for the following day. The sportsmen, of course, are the duck shooters who are up at an ungodly hour, huddled in mai mais, often in water, with nothing to keep the cold out other than the contents of the hip pocket. Their prayers weren't answered this year. The opening of the duck shooting season provided the calmest conditions for years. Some were lucky. Some weren't.