Q Are you a farmer?
I’m working full-time as a builder in Gore, but I live on my family’s sheep and beef farm, a couple of kilometres out of Mandeville, which I work on in the weekends.
Q How did you go at the New Zealand Young Farmers competition in Whangarei in July?
The Otago Southland region won the best region award. I placed third in the clay target shooting tournament and me and Upper Manuherikia Young Farmers Club member Shane Sanders won the best team award in the shooting.
Q Congratulations. How was the clay target shooting tournament?
About 20 people were competing and the rain was coming in sideways.
Q How did you get into clay target shooting?
I did a lot of it at Gore High School and when I left school I continued it as a hobby.
Q Are you a keen duck-shooter?
Of course I am, I’m from Southland. Duck-shooting was my only practice for the tournament because I was too busy to go to a club. Ducks don’t fly straight and neither did the clays in Whangarei on that day.
Q Did duck-shooting give you many opportunities to practice?
There weren’t many around opening morning because I finished building a new mai mai on my mate’s place about four days before and the ducks were a bit sceptical of a new shed sitting in their pond.
Q I thought a builder would have prioritised finishing a mai mai project earlier?
The first time I went out we got nothing done, we were just talking, and the second time, you think you’re going to get stuff done and you don’t. I didn’t have a level, so the mai mai’s on a bit of a lean, but once the broom went on, no-one could tell.
