Essexfowler

This is what I have always gone off for my birds. Page 3. https://basc.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/CoGSP-compliant-Release-Pen-.pdf For Pheasants I go off my total area of woodland in metres squared divided by 3, then divide by 10. This means you use no more than a third of your total woodland for overall pen area, so you avoid overstocking your shoot and gives you the total amount of birds to release giving each bird 10m squared of room each. However the 10 changes if you are on ancient semi natural woodland or on SSSI etc where you follow the rules of a licence. This is an example for my old syndicate. 14,120m^2 / 3 = 4706m^2 / 10 = 470.6m^2 = 470 Pheasants at 10m^2 in the pen Hope this helps.

I counted 5 on the 30th August, roughly 20 on the 1st and last night I see a total of 30 whizzing over the marshes. Definitely moving in quickly, hopefully the wigeon are not too far behind them.

I must have missed them, im more near Thames area. I’ve personally never seen them until the last few days of August. Do you reckon they migrated or bred in the area?

Thats very interesting regarding your number of teal, id have thought your area would have a good number of them due to all the large reservoirs, lakes and dykes We expect the odd wigeon by the third week of September typically, Teal are none existent until the final week of August then see, to have a steady increase through the season. I’m wondering how this season will turn out, due to lots of ponds and dykes bring bone dry will we see an increase of fowl out on the marshes or will they be heading inland toward the large reservoirs ?

What I would do to get myself a nice little rough shoot for friends and family to spend the day out in the country, working the dogs and a hope of a shot, sounds like you were a lucky man MM. Those are the ones that do us no good, the folks like us understand what’s fair, the shoots that take large bags of released and wild duck are detrimental to wildfowling/duck flighting. Personally not a massive fan of released duck, difficult to get to fly well, eat an awful lot, not very sporting, and have the potential to damage water/soil quality if no other option of ponds are available. Just has a quick wander round the sea wall, plenty of teal are on the move, how are they fairing in your area? I hear the British populations have had great breeding success this year.

Top work👍

It’s great to be able to share views in such a way that’s more of a discussion than a debate. Personally I believe that’s one issue we will face in the future, the inland flight ponds that do shoot the bigger bags. Don’t get me wrong I lease a flight lake however it’s shot on a very small scale maybe 6 - 10 times a season between family and nothing more than 15 - 20 birds at a time. We put in a lot of nesting tubes, we feed very small amounts, feed the songbirds, predator control and we keep records of bird numbers and bags. So i hope it’s seen as more of a sustainable shoot than one that just takes large bags wild stock. Its just a shame on the marsh we are massively regulated and a stone throw in the wall there are the view who take the absolute mickey. It will be interesting to see how it all folds out.

I go out on the 1st for tradition rather than pulling the trigger, I personally leave mallard alone until the 3rd week of September to allow “flappers” to mature and become stronger in flight. Typically my focus is on the greys in the area starting to attack some of the farmer’s early crops. In a normal year there are plenty of immature mallard on the small ponds which cause us to have a lot of flappers arrive onto the bigger lakes in the area once September arrives. However whilst observing a lake on the shoot that I manage, I noticed that all of the mallard on there were fairly mature and flew very well. I believe this to be due to the severe heat of the summer which has dried up all the small ponds causing any paired mallard on them to have failed broods whilst any pairs on the larger lakes have had successful early broods causing birds to be mature more early in the month. Now I understand this is completely different in other areas this is just an observation and theory on my part. I don’t believe seasons should be moved, as a community we should be able to show voluntary restraint when it comes to shooting. We do it currently with woodcock. Rather than be restricted we should take responsibility. Its something I believe that we as wildfowlers should demonstrate, and clubs across the country should be able to demonstrate. Committees of clubs could surely be able to ask there members to hold off shooting immature birds and wait for a couple weeks. I’ve known a few clubs to restrict numbers of geese or mallard early season. It’s also not a bad time of year to do some bird counts, it’s good for the conservation books. Cheers EF

Likewise fella 👍🏼 Hope you have a good season.

Thank you. 👍

Hi all, glad to have finally joined PW again, used to be on here years ago however could never remember the name. Who am I? I’m a gamekeeper based in rural Essex who has a passion for shooting and conservation. I’m crazy about my pursuit of wildfowl on the marsh as I have done since the age of 8, I still go with my dad every season. I love all forms of shooting, I enjoy my fishing too. I come from a line of shooting family, who have all been involved in gamekeeping some way or another, and hope to share stories, tips and many other things with you all. Cheers, EF