marsh man

The shop had recently had a paint up although the colour do suit the age of the shop , only ever had one job done at Tilneys when Roberts father was alive , the gun I had at the time needed it's barrels blued , it was only alright , wasn't a brilliant job and just about passable , this might had been done by Robert rather than Lindsey , when I knew him the old man was very much into training gundogs which were mainly Labradors , our old keeper who once won the English Field Trial Championship said Lindsey was better at training gun dogs than he was at repairing guns , he might well have been right . Great video by the way MM

I have sat through a few sporting auctions in my time and I used to like the one at Kings Lynn ( Collings ) , it was like a good night out for me as I don't drink and you never knew what you were going to see amongst all clutter . Horner's at Acle is fine , you can get a burger and a cuppa and you should be able to get a chair so you ain't standing for a few hours , I was told they get through around 100 items an hour but when I was waiting for my gun to come up they were a fair bit slower than that . Good Luck if you go and take a loaded wallet , unless you are after a s x s then just take some loose change

We were the same , although we must have had twice as many Cormorants than you because after a time the estate were allowed to shoot Four , before they filled the outside woods up with log cabins we used to have morning duck flights down on the lake, when the first shots were fired the sky was full of the hungry fish eating birds , the roosting trees look like they had been given a coat of white paint as there must have been 100s of them , nowhere near as many now feed on the lake but there is still a lot come back last thing in the afternoons after spending the day in the North sea , while they are not feeding on the lake then we can tolerate them roosting in the trees , but every so often some of the numbers seem to drop off . I wonder if is bird flu or lead poisoning .

85 is a good ole age and hope you have got a few years ahead to relive those days of the past , tell me Grandalf , is your decision to call it a day because of age , or is there less enjoyment is shooting game and wildfowl than in your slightly younger days , I am not as old as you but last season I dropped out of wildfowling clubs which I had been in since 64 and just went on my own marshes to shoot the odd duck when I wanted one , now with having eyesight that can no longer pick duck out in poor light and losing the desire to sit down the marsh on a cold / wet Winters night I can now see the light getting brighter at the end of the wildfowling tunnel, my s g c run out at the end of next year and weather I renew or not I will make my mind up after this coming season . MM

In Kenzie Thorpe book The Wild Goose Man he recommend to cut the eyelids off a dead Pigeon , I know they have got good eyesight , but removing the eyelids is a bit extreme to say the least

It must had been in the very late 60s when I saw my first wild deer , I used to go Pigeon shooting before I went to work in those days , I had pulled up to a Pea field and it was to foggy to shoot Pigeons so I was sitting in my motor drinking my coffee and as time wore on the fog started to lift and 30 yds in front of me stood two magnificent full size Red deer , certainly worth getting up a little after 4 am even though I didn't shoot a Pigeon , just seeing those deer was a Red letter day , now it would be a Red letter day if you went a day in the countryside without seeing a specie of deer . MM

One of these days I can see where a shoot member get hit by a deer while walking or beating through the woods , we had a very near miss when three full size Red deer were spooked by gunfire when they were on the outside of the wood where the guns were standing , they came charging through and jumped over some Rhododendron bushes and missed an ole beater by a fraction of a inch , a few inches to one side and he would had been seriously injured , or even killed , with the amount of deer on the increase it is sure to happen if it ain't all ready happened .

The keeper ( who you know ) would often get a call from the police to put a deer down after being involved in a accident , so this must happen a lot , another question ,, how would I , or anyone else go down the car insurance route after coming into contact with a deer and resulting in a fair bit of damage ? MM

Last night I was coming back home along a country road after taking my dog out , from out of nowhere a Fallow deer jumped through the hedge about 20 yds in front of me , I applied my brakes and thought it was a good job I wasn't 15 yards nearer , no sooner had I thought that then another one ran out from the same spot , how I missed him then god above know as I only missed it by inches , this must happen a lot and would be worse with anyone on two wheels rather than four . This would have been a dear ole job ( excuse the pun ) if it had smashed my headlight and damaged the wing as I have to pay about £400 excess on my insurance , so have YOU had a near miss , or the misfortune of hitting one ? MM

I had a Peugeot 307 diesel , without a shadow of doubt the most expensive car I had when little things go wrong , two fairly small jobs were over £500 and that was at least ten years ago , I would never , never have another one . MM

There seem to be a lot of Pigeon shooters who suffer from back problems , I find if I ain't fairly comfortable then my ole back start playing up after an hour or so , I even put a small cushion on the seat if I can drive to my set up spot and nowadays my comfort is more important than the bag . I remember about three years I went on a rape stubble field which had 100s going on , it was blowing a gale so I set up on the lee side of a Fir wood , I was nice and comfortable and sheltered from the strong wind , Pigeons came in before I was back in the hide and I was on for a very good afternoon , a lot of Pigeons were over flying the decoys and coming straight into the wood , lovely as I was getting a lot of nice side shots , trouble is I was twisting my back while my legs were straight in front me , I began feeling my back playing up and then I over done it by dropping one with my second shot , it was like an electric shock went down my back and I knew straightaway my afternoon came to an abrupt halt , I managed to make it back to my motor and then to drive up my hide , after a while I managed to get all my gear and about 30 dead Pigeons into my motor and made it back home , after a few pain killers I was back to my normal after about three days so now I shoot either dead ahead or no more than a 45 degree angle if I am sitting down what get past without a shot being fired then good luck to that Pigeon , now if I get around 2 / 3 hours then I am happy and hopefully there will be another day . MM

It must had been just into the new century when I last saw game hanging up in a butchers shop , I used to sell a few head of game to a butcher in Yarmouth market place and he hung a few Pheasants in the shop , this only lasted a few days after numerous complaints , he then put them in his walk in fridge and that didn't last long neither as the inspector told he mustn't put them in the feather anywhere near other meat , so to keep the peace he took them home and plucked them in his shed and then burnt the feathers , he then got complaints about the smell from the burning feathers , in the end he bought what few he wanted from a registered game dealer and my little earner had come to a end , mind you I was better off as the fuel I was saving was costing me more than what I was getting for the game.

Going slightly off subject , I once had a chrome ash tray with a AA chrome badge that screwed into the middle of the ash tray , not sure if the AA gave them free to members or weather you had to buy them , my one was fairly old but in very good condition and I bought it off a car boot for a fiver , as I don't smoke I stuck it on Ebay and a lady bought it for her husband as a Christmas present , I think it made about £20 .

I don't know if the size of the bird would make any difference as some of the smaller ones taste better than the big ens , Partridges don't change to much in size and it's all down to supply and demand , we are in a heavy game shooting county and each year seem to get worse than the previous year as far as moving game on , last year I did hear that some people were lucky to get 50p a brace , I know the dealer who was buying some of ours were paying 30p for a hen and 40p for a cock Pheasant , that would work out £7.00 for 10 brace and that was delivered

Here yer go Chris , this is mine , very comfortable with a padded back rest and it won't be the first time that my ole eyes have got heavy and started to doze off when a Pigeon decided to wake me up from the one eye I keep open , very light and strong , had this one several years and I think I bought it from a car boot for about four quid , the one I had before that I bought from Go Outdoors the camping shop . I prefer it to tilt forward rather than level so I sometimes put a stick under the back bottom rail and all sorted . MM

Once a ( new ) farmer know you can sort the Pigeons out and leave the ground exactly how you found it by taking all your rubbish away you would be sure of being allowed on again when good number of Pigeons can be seen, also for those who have got no outlet for the bag then it might be a good idea in not leaving a pile of dead Pigeons underneath a hedge if you don't know the land owner as they can create a load of feathers and some land owners might not approve , these boys are at the top of there game and news soon filter to other landowners , one of the reasons why they are never short of places to go . MM

I believe Waitrose were one of the first , if not the first supermarket to sell lead free game . .

You done well even keeping your hide in one piece with todays strong wind , one farmer I know was kind enough to leave one of those big oblong bales in the middle of a large rape field a couple of years ago, this was handy as you could decoy in any wind direction and the Pigeons seemed to get used to a bale of straw as the top was always full of Pigeon droppings . Just go to show for those members who find it hard to get perms it is still possible to pick up some Pigeon shooting as it was new land they were shooting on today , and I would go as far to say that if anyone in our county really want some Pigeon shooting that if they put the leg work in and go about it the right way that they will find some . MM

SOLD to Bigbob THANKS

THANKS Bob P M just sent .

Certainly a nice place Dave , I very much doubt if my pension would cover the upkeep on a daily basis , nearly as nice as Simons ( Ditchman's ) neighbour's

Tales Of The Country Eccentrics by Tom Quinn Tales Of The Old Countrymen by Brian P Martin Both books in nice condition and are from a smoke free home Both books posted for £10.00

The first C L A Game Fair I went to ended up the nearest one I had been to , apart from the smaller ones that are fairly local , the one I was referring to was on T Cs door step at Stamford , apart from the lofted one I mentioned they also had a stand with the David Home Gall decoys that had a balloon inside , out of our price range and we had to make do with the gutter off cuts with a drop of light grey undercoat slapped on , tell yer we were poor , come to think of it , things ain't much different nowadays

You are right I G , I can never get enough of the place , mind you this morning wasn't so nice as it poured of rain and I got damper than Peters book , looking at his book it look like it had been stored in the bottom of one of the ole Breydon gun punts . Here are some of my ole ones about the area .

In this day and age I very much doubt if anyone can make any money by selling game of any description , covering your costs is about as much as you can hope for , that is fair enough and having spent a lifetime where there was an outlet of some sorts even though you got very little for your troubles then at least you didn't have to resort in dumping them , the last lot I took to the dealers was about two years ago , I had just over 300 and from mine was a 80 odd return trip , I knew what I was going to get before I took them as I rang them up to see what time they shut on a Sunday , they took every single one and I got 10p each , not a lot but I had the satisfaction that someone was going to make use of them , now unless things have changed I don't think they are no longer taking frozen Pigeons , fresh Pigeons might be alright , but if they are only paying about 20p and you have managed to shoot 50 you would need to live pretty close to the dealers to even cover the cost of fuel , we have now got to accept that the ( good ole days of selling game ) is over and I cannot ever see it returning . MM