The Loxton Branch Noora committee have worked together and spent a considerable amount of volunteer time in the months leading up to the 2016 Duck opening to prepare for the season, a majority of duck hides have been repaired and the camp site tidied and ready to go for the season.
The Noora committee met to discuss dates for the upcoming season, we decided to spread our shooting dates out earlier in the season and run a few extra shoots at the end of the season, we also worked our dates around the local Game Reserves open days as well to give members the most opportunity to hunt throughout the open season period. The proposed dates were send to the appropriate DWENR personal for approval, once approval was confirmed Noora Duck hunting dates were send to SAFGA to be advertised on the State Website and also the dates need the advertised on 3 entrance points at Noora Evaporation Basin, as per our agreement with DWENR.
With low volumes of water in the Basin due to evaporation the first few programmed shoots had to be cancelled, we always expect this after a long hot summer so it was no surprise to the Loxton boys. Our first few duck hunts went well, with most hunters getting their bag of birds or close to it, we then ran our 2-day shoot in May on the 14th and 15th. This shoot turned out to be an excellent weekend, the Noora committee organised a raffle on the day with local members donating first rate goods, also of interest was a good quality Tikka rifle gun bag kindly donated by Platinum Ag Services in Loxton. Many thanks need to go out to all members who donates goods for the raffle and to Platinum Ag Services for their continued support to the Loxton Club. For our meal the main course meal we had 2 goats donated by one of the Renmark/Berri members and cooked up to perfection by the Loxton boys. We also managed to get quite a few visiting members and some new faces to meet and greet.
Noora shoots are still continuing at this stage and as expected water levels have increased slightly with good local rain as well, bird numbers are very high at the moment most hunters are experiencing high numbers of Pink Ear duck at the moment as well as the prolific Grey Teal. Noora has been travelling on nicely with visiting hunters welcome.
The final stage of the re-vegetation project will be completed this year, ripping, spraying and machine seeding will commence soon now that the ground is wet. This latest stage of the project was started in 2010 with Loxton Branch participation in seed collection programs from the surrounding areas. Many thousands of trees have been either direct seed drilled or planted in the Basin over the past 36 years since Loxton Branch has been involved with the property. The re-vegetation is an unbelievable site to see on once bare paddocks with local native vegetation covering a huge area.
