As part of the Chronicle's new Outdoors section, we welcome hunting and fishing stories from readers. Today we hear from Murray Stevenson
Age: 65
What do you like most about hunting/fishing?
Hunting: Using well-trained gun dogs to retrieve dead and wounded game to hand, in accordance with Fish and Game etiquette. Hunting dogs that are steady to flush, shot and respond well to whistle commands.
Fishing: The tranquillity and challenge of trout fishing.
What is your favourite spot for hunting/fishing?
Hunting: Forestry areas, the coastal strip and private land (most hunters would not reveal their exact favourite spots).
Fishing: The Manganui-oteao and Lake Taupo.
Tell us about the "one that got away".
Hunting: No particular "one that got away". Mostly pheasants that sneak off.
Fishing: Too many to relate.
Explain one of your most memorable expeditions and what made it so.
Last year I was running Springer spaniels at a walk-up pheasant shoot at Utiku for some Waverley farmers. My young, very inexperienced spaniel, Bess, flushed a cock pheasant which hid behind a large boulder. I set up one of the very good shooters from the party (who also shoots at the Waverley clay target club), so that he was in a prime position to shoot the pheasant when flushed.
Bess stood steady, then flushed the pheasant from behind the boulder. There was a flurry of wings and loud crowing, as the pheasant took off down the Rangitikei River above the very fast-flowing rapids. To the shooter's mortification, he missed the bird with the first shot.
On gaining his composure, he fired the second shot and clipped the bird in the wing. The bird landed in the rapids, which began to sweep it away at a very high rate of knots.
I turned to the shooter and said: "I doubt you will ever see that bird again. If this young dog gets the bird, it will be a miracle."
I then commanded Bess to "go back" and with the appropriate hand signal. Bess entered the water with great enthusiasm.
There was no turning back. The current started taking her away. I thought: "We have lost both the bird and the dog."
By this time, the pheasant would have been 80-90m away.
Bess had obviously marked the wounded bird, as the race was on. By this stage both bird and dog would have been 100m away. To our amazement, Bess caught up with the pheasant and grabbed it. She turned to try and swim back to us against the current, then realised that this was a losing battle, so she relaxed and let herself drift across to the other side, still with the pheasant in her mouth. She finally made it to the shore and was only a little dot in the distance.
Once on dry land on the other side of the river, Bess put the bird down, shook herself, repositioned the bird in her mouth (too far away for me to give any commands). To our surprise, Bess ran along the bank on the opposite side of the river towards us.
As she got opposite us, she still didn't stop, but continued for another 50 or 60m, re-entered the water and allowed the flow of the current to carry her across the river to within a few metres of us on to the river bed and delivered the bird to hand.
Value of the bird: $100. Who said that Springer spaniels are thick?
What do you count as your most memorable catch?
My wife - hook, line and sinker (and, no, she's not an old trout).