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Grandalf

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About Grandalf

  • Birthday 27/06/1939

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  • Gender
    Male
  • From
    North Suffolk (Waveney Valley)
  • Interests
    Keepering/Fowling/Stalking/Sea Fishing/Course Fishing.
    Conservation and bird watching.

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  1. I'll stick to my choice of Tina Turner.
  2. Nobody on this topic said they were giving up Lloyd. We all do something else. We have all fought battles with our health as we got older. In my case I have lost half the sight in my right (master) eye so I have resorted to shooting shotguns and rifles left handed. Give that a try next time you go out shooting. I have a ******** back. You can give that a try too. Try dragging a fallow or red out of a ditch on your own now. Then imagine what it is like when you are eighty. The cold strikes more, the back hurts more, the eyes see less and you have other obligations - mine was to care for my disabled wife for over ten years until she went into a care home when she got dementia. None of us are giving up. We are country men and country men never give up or stop being countymen. You just have to be reallistic and adapt. Stalking two or three days a week, aged 85, all through the year is hardly giving up!
  3. Before I get accused of slandering NE about the shooting rights, the small marsh that we shoot is just at the back of the sea wall and is owned by NE. We have just come to the end of a three year licence. Now the negotiations start all over again. No reason, at the moment, to believe that it wont be renewed. In days of old we could shoot the green margins of the mud but that got stopped.
  4. Yes, even with the winch that I have added to my truck. You have the right spot. I have shot there for 20+ years and I have shot the estate shoots a couple of times too. NE stopped all shooting on the mud a few years ago.
  5. Thanks for the support chaps. Nice to know that I am not alone on lifes field sports journey. Just got back from stalking. Gentle morning - Because I was on my neighbours land I didn't have to leave the pit until 5am - and a four minute drive from my drive to their drive. Saw two roe, which they don't want shot, and one munty buck which they did and I did. He's now hanging in the chiller in the garage. Now I thoroughly enjoyed this mornings outing, came back with a good few meals for me and Noodle and the knowledge that I have saved some of my neighbours ten thousand British hardwood trees from damage. Funny how your views and feelings change as you get old. I'll keep taking the tablets and go on as long as I can. Next up is to mentor next doors daughter on stalking so that she can protect her own trees. She has just applied to the police so god only knows how long that will take.
  6. Yet another era of my life has ended. I've decided to give up fowling. I am going to be 85 in June and, though still being fairly fit and active, the motivation has gone. Whilst still loving being out on the marsh, or anywhere else that's rural for that matter, I've decided that the thrill of the hunt is not what it used to be in the case of wildfowl. Went out yesterday for what will probably be the last time - carrying a shotgun. I had the marsh to myself, slight drizzle but nothing bad, and there were ducks and geese about. What was missing was my urgent appeals to mother nature to send them over my way. I saluted each flight as it passed by and did a lot of thinking. I have been fowling since the early 60's, when I left the army, and have enjoyed every moment of it. My original mentor was the legendary Sid Wright on the Wash marshes near Long Sutton. My headquarters was the Bull with Mrs Mitchell. (Another legend). Frank Harrison, another professional guide, Wild Goose Man Kenzie Thorpe and fowler/punter James Robertson Justice (the actor) were all part of the scenery in those days. Heady days to be fowling on the Wash as a newbie. I got hooked very quickly and it led to many years of fowling along the East Coast and Norfolk Broads. Later I had a small fowling boat on the Alde and have been a member of just about every local club and syndicate. For the last 25 years I have been with a small syndicate on the Blythe estuary and that is where I was sitting and pondering yesterday afternoon. I came to the conclusion that I had shot enough wildfowl. Simple as that. The 'Memsahib' is now in a care home so there is only me and Noodle, the obligitory labrador, to feed, so I don't need much more than the venison that I still obtain from my deer control activities. So the decision was made. Fowling has followed the game shooting that I gave up, for much the same reasons, three years ago. I still go beating. I assist the young keeper that is now doing the job that I did for more than 25 years on my local shoot when ever he asks. But mainly I go deer stalking. The deer numbers are increasing all the time where I live in North Suffolk. Farmers are asking me to 'thin them out a bit but don't exterminate them' which is local speak for Deer Control as practiced over the rest of the country. They always add 'and if your see Charlie, knock him down too'. So I am never at a loss for something to do and Noodle and I just love venison. To all of the many friends that I have made during my fowling life I say enjoy your sport while you still can, spend every spare minute you have planning your next trip or being on the marsh. The antis are winning I'm afraid. When I started you could fowl just about anywhere you wanted. Scruffy looking men, mud splatted and wearing ex army clothing whilst carrying a gun and sporting a cartridge belt never even got a second look. It is all just a little bit different today.
  7. Edenman, I never intended to imply that I had not enjoyed reading your story. Probably I could have worded it better. I have been a member of PW for many a year. I was instrumental, by way of a plea to Teal, in getting a section for fowlers added to the site. In the early days it was pigeons only. Now it includes stalking, game shooting and many other things. I think that the older members will back me up when I say that I would never deliberately shoot a man down for telling us how he enjoyed his days/nights sport. I sincerely apologise if I upset you. Above all, keep posting about fowling. If I can no longer get there I can enjoy reading about it.
  8. I'm nearly 85 but I still have very fond memories of often being out all night, often with Sid Wright the fowling guide, on the Wash marshes. That was back in the sixties. Kenzie was still at it too. It still goes on but fowlers are, in the main, people who do things and don't bother much about telling the whole world about it over the internet. Now I am reduced to being a keyboard fowler but still get up at silly o'clock to go stalking - Do you know what time it gets light in the middle of the summer? There are shooters and there are hunters. I have always been one of the latter.
  9. Pulsar or Pulsar or maybe Pulsar. Had mine for years and it still cuts the mustard. Simple to use too.
  10. Would agree with you Bishop. Global warming is increasing the UK's average windspeeds and I am sure that it is affecting the habits of my local deer. I don't say that they never come out of the woods but I certainly pick my stalking trips based on the wind forecasts. They certainly don't like heavy rain either but that is not new.
  11. Marsh Man, very nice. My Miroku also came from Richardson's, well there was nowhere else to go in those days. Now I use Jason down in Fram and he did his apprentiship with them. Sorry you don't have anyone to hand it down to. I have two sons but only one shoots. However, I have three grandsons and a grand daughter who have all dabled with shooting and two of them are in the military. Then I have a great grandson who has just turned 16 so there is no shortage of 'good homes' for my cast offs! Thank you for the comments Gentlemen. Dougy, John is the one that you met at the Stalking Show. He has just retired from BMW. Makes me feel very old. Happy Christmas to all of you.
  12. We don't have one but I have just given to my son the closest thing that we have to one - My 'Old Faithfull' game gun. 43 years ago I was just a fowler. I did a little game shooting but nothing much. Then we moved to North Suffolk and I really got the bug. Trouble was I only had fowling pieces - In those days 3" magnums were all the rage but I only had a 2 3/4" AYA Matadore. Lovely gun but heavy. I had thought about an over and under for a long while but hadn't taken take the plunge. Money was tight and we had just purchased a new property. Christmas came and the Memsahib gave me a book on gamekeeping - Something else that I was getting involved in. I thanked her and said that I would read it later. She said "Look at it now". So I did and found £50 just inside the front cover. I thanked her profusely and said that I would have to think of something that I really needed. She said "Look at the book now"! I said that I had. She said "Then look again and do a good job of it this time". I studied the book and found that there was £1000 stuffed between the pages and a note saying that it was to buy a new game gun! She'd cashed in a policy that I didn't know she had, we had only got married that same year, and half of the proceeds were mine. In 1980, for us, this was a small fortune. I went to the local gunshop in the new year. I found a nearly new Miroku that was perfect but didn't fit. The gunsmith tailored it to me and opened the chokes slightly. Over the years it became known as "Old Faithfull". (And I got a bundle of change). I had never shot game with anything else since that day untill I lost half the sight in my right eye a few years ago and had to start teaching myself to shoot left handed with a semi-auto. My eldest son came to visit last week. He took my place at the local shoot and borrowed "Old Faithfull". He shot two to one pheasants in a near hurricane so the next morning I gave the gun to him. John has just retired, which makes me feel really old, and has more time on his hands and is a member of two local shoots way over on the Welsh border so "Old Faithfull" will not be left in a cabinet gathering dust and rust. I am glad about that. I had some super days with her when I was in my prime, I'm nearly 85 now. I also had some abysmal days when I nearly threw her in the pond but never actually did. It was never her fault. Now I just have my rifles and a Hatsan for fowling. And a lot of memories of course...
  13. From your pictures it would seem that Fly had a superb life with you. With memories like that in your head he will never really die. I feel for your loss. Every dog I ever owned broke my heart at the end.
  14. I am not a gardner. If I get the urge to look at a beautiful garden then I will pay my money and go and look at the King's in Sandringham or one of the many big estates dotted around East Anglia. Or go poaching and get a looksee for free... I live on my own so a bit of lawn is all I need - mainly for the dog. It always looks tidy, I'm ex army, but no frills. Houses, and gardens, are for living in - not looking at - in my book.
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