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first pond shoot this year


Ira
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Well after a couple of abortive attempts to sit out on the old effluent ponds at work, now disused,cleaned up, fed and cut back, I took a local lad up to the farm to see what we could see.

 

I owed him a shoot for allowing me to shoot his permission on my doorstep and a couple of roost shoots,looks like we could have a good shooting partnership happening with land each in diverse areas.

 

So basically I have a disused reed bed pond system for taking care of farm effluent, there are 3 ponds in a line with a 4' bund between each. Each bund has 3 breaks to allow a flow. The ponds are deep and one entire side has power cables and a large tree line, which I can do nothing about. In reality it is not an ideal set up but its what I have. So I have tethered a raft out in the middle pond, I have used 2 posts and a wire rope so I can pull it in and out and feed it up with barley every so often. Also a large bucket feeder with a spring wosit me call it up on a bank. A little bit of cutting back the reeds to expose some banks and a willow hide crafted using some hedge laying skills and I think we are ready.

 

The food has been going so unless the coots are having it all I know there are ducks getting in, when I don't know!!

 

Well tonight didn't break any records and I would never want to on duck, the ponds suit only 2-3 guns so the pair of us rolled up and soon a flight came over, they circled a number of times and eventually committed and we had success, this was swiftly followed by another couple of smaller flights and each flight saw us with a pair. Then the banter started and the ducks stopped, they went into a quieter splash a hundred yards up.

 

We came away with a brace and a drake each, all mallard. The moon came out and lit the ponds we had a laugh, we both shot well, we left and the splash rose up with a half dozen birds, we left them to feed and keep the ponds healthy for next time. Cracking night and looking forward to a fortnights time and hopefully another great evening.

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