The Shortest Day Duck Hunt coincides with the shortest day of the year this weekend and is right in the middle of the three-month game bird hunting season.
Operation manager Ian Hadland said Fish and Game was trialling the new event as a solution to a "longstanding gripe" about mid-season hunting and hoped it would recreate the hype and success of opening weekend.
"We want the region's duck shooters to commit to hunting this weekend like they would commit to the opening weekend of the duck shooting season."
Hunters could get better value out of their licence by not limiting themselves to opening weekend, but sometimes became a bit discouraged when there was not a lot of other hunters out keeping birds on the move.
"We know that when birds are kept in circulation, many more ducks are harvested in the area by the attending hunters.
This is primarily why better than half the ducks shot in Otago are taken on the opening weekend."
The lower Taieri and lower Clutha river areas were targets for the event, as they were productive hunting areas and, thanks to weather conditions which clearly favoured the ducks on opening weekend, there were still plenty of birds out there, he said.
"I'm hoping that this event might encourage more hunters out and put more ducks in the bag. It's a sort of second opening," Mr Hadland said.
To take part in the collective hunting effort, hunters were encouraged to head to those areas and hunt during what little daylight the weekend provides.
"We hope hunters take advantage of the dedicated weekend and, if the trial works out, we hope the event becomes as regular a fixture on the gamebird hunters' calendar as opening day itself."
