Otago hunters squelched their way back to work this week after an extremely wet start to the wapiti hunting season in Fiordland.
One hundred and forty hunters spent the last week of March and the first week of April hunting the elusive elk during the wapiti bugle.
Dunedin electrician Brent Fokkens said this week conditions were "pretty miserable" and probably the worst he had experienced on a hunting trip.
Of the 10 days his Dunedin party of five spent in the bush along the north arm of Lake Te Anau, the sun shone on only one day.
The rest of the time there was hail, snow and plenty of rain.
"It wasn't just drizzle. It was heavy, very persistent rain.
"It didn't really let up at all."
Niwa climate scientist Georgina Griffiths said a front stalled over Fiordland was responsible for rain on 13 of the first 14 days of the wapiti season.
The amount recorded at Milford Sound over the 14 days to 9am on Easter Monday was 752.2mm.
The normal long-term average for the entire month of March is 640mm.
Mr Fokkens' party, and most other wapiti hunters, went into Fiordland the day after a storm created slips that closed the Milford road and toppled trees.
"You had to get round all the dead fall - very hard work and, although it's hard to say, miserable, it was really."
Mr Fokkens said his party had tried for five years to get a wapiti block through the ballot system and was determined not to come home early because of the rain.
"We had waited five years to get a block and, by hook or by crook, we were going to stay there till the end."
"It was pretty demoralising.
"The animals don't like it any more than we do.
"They all tuck themselves away as well, which makes it even harder.
"But we're out there supposedly doing what we want."
Some hunters had to wring out their sleeping bags because they were so wet.
However, although Mr Fokkens' party spent every day in wet clothes, they managed to keep some things dry through "very, very good management".
"You've just got to keep dry clothes for the night-time so you can keep warm, tucked away in your tent.
"That's the key."
Mr Fokkens said they had shot an animal for meat, but had returned home without the trophy head they had sought.
A second group of hunters went into Fiordland on Monday and Mr Fokkens wished them better weather.
