Near-neighbour to the Carters Beach airport, Alice Gilsenan, called noise control, but the loud bangs continued right through the night into Saturday morning when the first scheduled flight landed.
Across the Buller River at Westport township, some of those kept awake by the gunshots figured out it might be the bird-scaring gun and speculated a power cut on Saturday night caused it to malfunction, while others were just puzzled.
"Thought it was the neighbours banging round late last night ... I even looked down my driveway from the back of my house to see if I could see any activity across from me," one of many confused people wrote on Facebook.
"Yeah sounds almost like the guns builders use," another said.
"Just googled duck shooting season but it's not that," said one.
"All night long!!!" vented another.
Ms Gilsenan, who lives at Marrs Beach, is used to the sound and knew what it was, and as the airport was unmanned when it started she also know it would go off all night.
She called the Buller District Council noise control on the after-hours number, and they said they would report it to someone. The following morning she realised people in Westport could hear it too.
Ms Gilsenan said it fired every 20 minutes, three or four times.
"Just enough to think it had stopped, then it started again. It would be impossible for some people to sleep, it's quite loud.
"I can understand why some people thought it was gunshots and that something funny was going on."
The same thing had happened in the past and she said someone should be on call in case of a repeat.
"A lot of people [that time] in Carters Beach reported it, but they still didn't turn it off."
The Buller District Council has been approached for comment.
