HEY HEY, MAIMAI - Happiness is a warm gun

Kelly Wright loves duck shooting so much he had a mallard tattooed on his arm.
"The tattoo lady said it was the first duck she'd ever done." Plenty of eagles, but never a duck, he reckons.
This weekend, rain or shine, like duck shooters everywhere, Kelly will be in his element - decked out in camouflage gear, Baretta at the ready, lying in wait in a maimai near Whangarei with is daughter Hayley and good mate Graham "Douggie" Douglas.
Douggie, a factory foreman, has been going there for 22 years; Kelly, a property investor, nine years; and Hayley, 13, will be there for her second year shooting.
"I've been coming here since I was seven, helping with planting and stuff," she says. She doesn't have a gun licence, and doesn't need one if she's with an adult who has one. But she does have a seasonal hunting licence and a permit to shoot in the wetlands. "She loves it," says her proud dad.
Yesterday the three were busy preparing for today's 6.30am start.
Besides Hayley and one other girl in the camp of 20 or so people, it's strictly bloke territory - Club Mud, they call it. Several maimai are nestled against man-made lakes in the Jack Bisset Wetlands, named after the man who created the area about 25 years ago on about 50ha of swampy land.
Run by Fish and Game and a committee of hunters, it's at the end of an unsealed road off Whatitiri Rd, west of Whangarei.
The trio's maimai has a bathroom (consisting of a big plastic drinking container of water collected from the roof), a kitchen (a cupboard containing a gas stove), a hand towel dispenser and mirror for applying camouflage and bar stools. Everything is painted green - "That's Douggie's department," explains Kelly. "He'd paint the grass green if it wasn't already."
Douggie's been out positioning floating decoys. "It's a science," he says, perfectly deadpan. "There's more to it than you'd think."
In his prized punt - the design of which could make them millions he reckons, if only he had a patent - he deftly throws overboard lifelike dummies to bob about in a formation designed to leave "landing bays" of open water to encourage real ducks to splash down.
From the sky it must seem like duck paradise. Flocks of "silhouette" ducks populate the grass; "dippers", decoys with only a rear end, float head down; others atop sticks have motors to move their wings as if they're landing; a battery-propelled decoy will happily paddle around in front of the maimai while the sound of taped quacking comes from a stereo hidden in the maimai.
The poor old live ducks don't seem to stand a chance.
The hunters are allowed to shoot 20 birds each a day, but they're reluctant to talk opening weekend numbers.
"Many years ago we got 138. The lowest we got is 38," says Douggie.
Do they actually like eating duck? You bet. Douggie's into a cranberry sauce and bacon recipe, while Kelly likes his curried.
"In three day's time we'll be planning for next year," Kelly says, and although he's laughing, he's perfectly serious.