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How Many People Go On The 1st Now ?


marsh man
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With the season only a matter of days away , how many still go on the 1st ?

 

At one time virtually all the fowlers who I knew were out on the first morning and no doubt 95% of the fowlers up and down the country were also out , where as now I get the impression a lot are not as keen as they once were.

 

In the first club I was in they had marsh marking on a Sunday a few weeks before the season started and if you wanted to go on the first day you had to turn up and do your bit to secure a place for the 1st , this was always well attended and most of the marshes had the full amount of people on.

 

Now I am in a different club and instead of marsh marking they have working parties on the flight pond or clay shooting ground on two Sunday mornings during the summer , at first it was for a permit for the first week in September , and believe or not very few people turned up , so they changed it for the last full week of the season and that was well attended as nearly every one preferred the last week than they did for the first week .

 

So , are YOU going on the first ? and how many will be given the coast a look .

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I will be out on the first , Morning flight in the Broads on club ground and evening flight in the Yare valley on a friends shoot over stubbles. Apart from a few years when I was at university and had no dog I have not missed the first morning since I started shooting in the 1960s. There is something magic about the first that no other day in the season can equal.

 

However shooting on the first is something that is traditional in some areas while in others few ever bother. Only once on the N Norfolk coast have I ever been out and seen another gun out and I always see the season out in February and I usually have the marsh to myself. In contrast many people go out on the first of September on the Wash and Broads. Indeed in the past the amount of gunfire in the Broads on the first would make you wonder if world war 3 was just starting.

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I don't think I have missed a 1st since I started shooting unless it was on a Sunday. Always a great feeling to be out with the hound and gun again and a bird in the bag is a bonus, I am trying not to think about the 1st too much don't want the goose fever getting too much of a grip ha ha

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I didn't use to as it's not generally that good

I do now as it's not about the shooting

The tide is a bad one for the Marsh I am going to but the crack is far better

Last season I got a left and right for just those two shells on greylag. Waited for the totally perfect opertunity ignoring any that were not a pretty much sure thing. It paid off on the very final skien

The 1st is far more than the shots you might just get though

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Thanks for all your replies , and good luck to you all up and the country when you take your gun out for the first sun rise or sun set of the new season .

 

I maintained the enthusiasm for around 50yrs , but I found the last couple of years I went I didn't no longer have any intention in trying to shoot the few duck that were using the marshes I go on , so I carry on shooting pigeons until the stubbles are all pulled up which is normally around the last week of Sept then my pigeon gear is put away and my fowling bits and pieces see daylight once again.

 

Last year when I started to go again I had another first , it was the first time I had shot a Pink foot before I had shot a duck and as it turned out I did then get a duck but I got another Pink a few days later .

 

So unless we get some water on my marsh ( with all the rain we are having at the moment it is very likely there will be some splashes before long ) it will be another four weeks before I hope to see something with webbed feet hanging up in my shed .

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Its my first season as a wildfowler after 50 years of dedicated pigeon shooting, I have joined the Norwich wildfowlers and am looking forward to getting out on the marshes, but first I need to get 6 yes 6 signatures from members prepared to show me the ropes, so far I have zero volunteers, but I cant help feeling excited about the prospect of getting out on the marshes, something i've always wanted to do but never had the opportunity, so if you are an NWA member and wouldn't mind some company feel free to drop me a line, :rolleyes::rolleyes:

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Have never missed a first morning on my own up until 4 or 5 yrs ago. I done 19 on the trot and really should have made the effort to make the two decades. But the weather was summer like and i just couldnt be bothered. I had been going out with my father since i was knee high before i was old enough for a licence.

 

September for me now is a month for walking the dog and Kids and i never really start anything until it gets cooler and the fowl start coming down from the North.

 

Good luck to all who venture out on the 1st.

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