My first experience of wildfowling

[harrycatcat1]

I thought this would make some titter as my first experience of wildfowling. This was wrote the afternoon I got back which I believe was October 2010.

 

"Well the clock went off at 03.15 and I set off at 03.30 for a 2 hour journey to the marshes. Got there and had a sandwich and a drink when my mentor turned up. I met this chap after joining the wildfowling club, he was at a clay shoot and lived not too far away and has 40+ years experience on the marshes. I tapped him up and he said that I could go out with him and as he was 68 I thought that I should be able to keep up with him, wherever he goes I should be OK I have got other offers but they are younger than me and tend to want to race off and tire me out.

Anyway we got togged up and the next thing I am on the sea wall with gun,hide,poles and haversack and the dog pulling me everywhere. My mentor said wait till your eyes adapt to the dark then go about 50 yards out onto the marsh and make a hide around the gate post as I will go further down the sea wall to a different spot. Well I set off into the darkness and the marsh the next thing was the flippin mud pulling my waders off my feet and I thought what the **** am I doing here !!

I couldn't find/see the efin post and it was like walking through treacle. So I went back to the sea wall in the pitch black to get my breath back even though I had only ventured 50 yards. I did this another twice before throwing the towel in.

I eventually got settled in some long grass waiting for the dawn thinking "this is the last time I am coming on this jaunt up at 3.15, tired out, nope not again".

The dawn chorus started before it got light with the oyster catchers and others that I could not identify. Two exorcet missiles went past/over me which were the vapour trails from ducks and I did not even get the chance to lift the gun. I saw other duck even faster and the large skeins of geese were a good sight. It was a landscape that I am not used to and it was beautiful. I saw the dawn break and it was a lovely red sun with a clearish sky. I did not fire a shot but before coming for the first time I had said that I intended to use my first season to learn the ropes not to shoot everything that moved.

I got my gear together when the creek behind me started to trickle in with water and I thought time to go. My little terrier loved every minute, she was soaked to the skin and thick with mud but happy.

In conclusion it is cold, tiring ,and needs a lot of research as I have never been wildfowling before, but I thoroughly enjoyed it and will be back again on the same marsh in a couple of weeks time and if I can keep my eyes open I will post some photos of the dawn breaking on the east coast.

 

My advice is if you get the chance, have a go at wildfowling as it is totally different to shooting ducks inland.

Edited December 20, 2012 by harrycatcat1

[anser2]

I used to live in a small Broadland village and most of the local lads went fowling on the marsh. The grazing marsh backed onto a large tidal river with its deep reed bed with scattered shallow pools that attracted lots of teal and shovellers in the early season and later with the first frosts the wigeon and mallard came. Not quite true coastal fowling , but to me it was still wildfowling , shooting duck in their natural not man made environment. They were magical days shared with my old yellow lab.

 

 

I was 16 when I visited the Wash for the first time. It was just after the close of the season and I had my binoculars instead of gun. I walked out across the saltings to the marsh edge and was staggered by the numbers of fowl I saw. Huge packs of wigeon and mallard were scattered all along the edge of the green and as the tide flowed thousands of waders fled before it , coming over my in uncountable numbers. To an inland fowler who thought 20 duck were a lot to seen duck in the numbers I saw that day was mind blowing. But the real highlight came as I was walking back along the shingle beach . The big creek was full of goldeneye , scaup and eiders, birds I never saw in my Broadland marsh and then the pink feet came . Thousands of geese flew high over head followed by a succession of skeins and as their calls flooded the marsh I knew I just had to return here in the wildfowling season. The following season I knocked on the treasurers door of the club who controlled the shooting and paid my subs for the year ( no probation period in those days ) and I now had free range on 7 miles of saltmarsh.

 

 

My first day was a breezy sunny September morning flight . I was restricted to the sea wall by the tide and though no duck came close enough several curlew and redshank ended up in my bag. I will never forget the top of the spring tide when I lay back in the sun with my lab , on the sea wall watching the distant wader flocks and countless shielducks the atmosphere of the place washed over me and I was hooked on coastal wildfowling. That was to be the first of 20 years of exciting wildfowling on that marsh. My first pintail was bagged a couple of months later ( I will never forget the shining breasts of 5 drakes , stark against the powder blue of the clear frosty sky ). Then several seasons later my first pink foot bouncing on the turf. Later I joined a second club on the North Coast and being a lot closer to home my visits to the Wash became less frequent until alas due to a life change I had to give up my membership of the Wash club. I still had my fowling on the North coast and as time passed it became better and better with more duck and massive numbers of geese started to using it.

 

 

Now in more recent years the wheel had turned full circle. I still love my coastal fowling , but I joined a Broadland club and now shoot some of the very same marshes I used to shoot when I was a kid. It means so much to me to hide along the reed girt river listening to the ringing calls of bearded tits and the squeal of the water rails greeting the dawn as wraths of mist swirl across the river and then unseen in the fog the call of mallard taking off and coming up river just as they did almost 50 years ago when I first started wildfowling . For me it is so nostalgic awaking forgotten memories of days long gone when a shaggy yellow Labrador shared my passion in life.

Edited December 20, 2012 by anser2