Whitefronted Goose?

[wildfowler.250]

Can anyone suggest an area or club that’s worth a try to get a chance of seeing / maybe a shot at a whitefront? I know they aren’t a regular occurrence and would be happy to put some time in but any suggestions or pointers on here would be appreciated.

 

Many folk on here shot one or two?

 

 

Cheers!

[motty]

The wash is a decent bet, but there are probably better places. I heard a few whitefronts in with the pinks last season.

[derbyduck]

Hal you would need to come to England to shoot them ,but if you just want to see them there's one or two places in Scotland where they over winter ! Caithness gets a few  also Dumfries ,

[wildfowler.250]

Cheers guys! Keen for a trip down to England and seee somewhere different anyway. Are they commonly in with pinks? All suggestions really appreciated! Thanks!

[Grandalf]

Commonly in or adjacent to the pinks.

Sometimes mixed right in with them.

Can't be sure when or where they will turn up though.

Norfolk or the Wash would probably be your best bet. 

[shakin stevens]

I've seen them often over the years on your doorstep , never in numbers , seen a pair on loch fleet last year with the pinks .

Only place I've known them shot by people I know is on the humber , both years when we had cold weather 2010,2011 seasons .

[motty]

I know a few people who have shot them. Some were shot on Kings Lynn marsh, some on Fenland, some on Wainfleet.

[shakin stevens]

Luck  of the draw , it could be you this year! 

[6.5x55SE]

7 minutes ago, motty said:

I know a few people who have shot them. Some were shot on Kings Lynn marsh, some on Fenland, some on Wainfleet.

And plenty of places around those to 😊 

Unfortunately Whitefronts don't get to our shores in numbers of past years due to Stopping in Holland Belgium France and Germany BUT get a good spell of hard weather they will hopefully over to there past haunts. The most regular places/clubs i know that get them is Norwich and Yarmouth but you'd have to work hard and know your Geese. Each year i get anything from 2 - 30 where i can shoot ( Motty and Conor have first crack IF they become predictable ) but getting a shot is like finding a needle in a haystack .

For seeing watching filming Island of Islay is the place where these are Greenland Whitefronts also Loch Ken or just short of Stranraer near Luce Bay around the old Airfield Martin Mere also gets both Greenland and European Whitefronts. I personally have chased Whitefronts a lot and shot loads last season i shot 2 but through experience picked them out from Skiens of Pinks. Good luck with your quest

[Dave at kelton]

I thought they turned up on the Severn Estuary so try Gloucestervwildfowlers

 

[ratty1]

Gloucester wildfowlers get them on the Severn . Not many , if memory serves me right they get get a skene of 30 ISH that return each year. 

[derbyduck]

2 hours ago, ratty1 said:

Gloucester wildfowlers get them on the Severn . Not many , if memory serves me right they get get a skene of 30 ISH that return each year. 

seem to have read somewere that  They can shoot them there but don't ! conserveation agreement I think ?

Edited September 29, 2018 by derbyduck

[marsh man]

We do get some most winters on the marshes in our part of Norfolk , although getting one is like winning the lottery , you could win with the next ticket you buy or if your luck is out you could go the rest of your life without winning which are the same odds with a White front .

When I first started wildfowling , ( like a lot of other fowlers ) I wanted one of each species on the list , at that time we had a few wading birds that are no longer on , getting them wasn't to difficult and then we moved on to duck and geese , strangely enough we had a lot more Whitefronts coming down our way than we did Pinks , so it was harder to get a Pink than a W / F , as time wore on each one was ticked off the list , then when the list was completed we moved on to the next ambition which was getting a right and left of each species .

They say the older you get , the wiser you get , and that is also true with wild fowling , the more time chasing them the more you learn about what you are chasing so every so often another right and left get ticked off the list , I was now well into my twenties and all of them were finally ticked off , bar one , which was a right and left at White fronts , time marches on and over the years I got the odd single one and one night I got a r / l at what I thought were White fronts and the first one the dog brought back was one in perfect condition and then when the dog came out of the dark with the second one somehow or other it changed from a White front into a Pinkfoot , something I will never know is was it a odd Pink or a W/ F in the skein I shot a pair out of .

Time I got towards my sixies I had all but giving up hope of ever getting a r / l , then one night a small family party came towards a splash of water I was crouching near , I wasn't sure what they were until they flared up when they spotted me but then two of the small skein were left behind and my long wait was finally over , I am not a drinking man but that night I did treat myself to a drop out of the bottle .

My last one I posted about was titled ( A Christmas Prezzie Came Early ) on the 23 December 2016 , I also included a photo , from day one , the White front is still the holy grail in wild fowling , Keep trying and one day you will get the winning ticket in wild fowling.

[Ajarrett]

We used to get 1,000+ in Kent every winter. Not any more. Still reckon on about 200 though, and with luck can get one. Last three I have shot have been in North Norfolk. Very much potluck. KWCA marshes still my best bet for one.

 

[panoma1]

They used to frequent the saltmarsh out from Slimbridge, I saw them there from the hide, many years ago, allegedly that is why Peter Scott set up The Wildfowl Trust there!.........I don't know if they still use that marsh? 

The Greenland Race (red listed!) migrate, in ever diminishing numbers, to the Dyfi estuary in Central West Wales, where there has been a voluntary moratorium by Wildfowlers, on shooting them, for over forty years!

[ratty1]

4 hours ago, derbyduck said:

seem to have read somewere that  They can shoot them there but don't ! conserveation agreement I think ?i

I think they do shoot them. I've heard of severel over the years ,I've shot there a few times and members are always on the lookout for them. 

[marsh man]

22 hours ago, shakin stevens said:

Luck  of the draw , it could be you this year! 

A friend of mine who is now sadly gone once got five White fronts on a morning flight from the river wall , his two mates who were either side of him never had a shot , all the geese went over him as if they were remote control , this same bloke hit one hard from a skein once and it carried on in a glide until it crashed out on the edge of the channel which was a good couple of hundred yards from where he standing , his young dog never saw it hit the water and he couldn't direct him that far to get it , he had no more to do than strip off and wade across the submerged mud flats to where the goose was laying in the water , his young dog swam beside him all the way , when he got there he held the goose up as if he had just won the world cup , and no doubt to him that is exactly what he had just achieved , as you say , luck of the draw.  

[Reabrook]

We get them on the Severn still, but in greatly reduced numbers. It probabably averages around the 100 mark recorded in Slimbridge each season but they have previously been recorded in the 1000’s. At least 1 usually ends up in the bag of a lucky GWA Member each year and like most Marshes they are now considered something of a Holy Grail down here.

For anyone interested in Whitefronts on the Severn one of our previous Chairman wrote a book on them

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Wild-Geese-Newgrounds-Paul-Walkden/dp/0956107001

Got to be worth the less than £5 asked of anybodies money with an interest in geese

[panoma1]

27 minutes ago, ratty1 said:

I think they do shoot them. I've heard of severel over the years ,I've shot there a few times and members are always on the lookout for them. 

If Gloucester and the east/south east coast clubs do shoot them, it's the European (Siberian) Whitefront, as the Greenland Whitefront occurs in small numbers only on the Dyfi in Wales (I understand they also winter in Scotland and Ireland) and as I said Wildfowlers have not shot GWf on the Dyfi for over forty years!

[6.5x55SE]

40 minutes ago, panoma1 said:

If Gloucester and the east/south east coast clubs do shoot them, it's the European (Siberian) Whitefront, as the Greenland Whitefront occurs in small numbers only on the Dyfi in Wales (I understand they also winter in Scotland and Ireland) and as I said Wildfowlers have not shot GWf on the Dyfi for over forty years!

You are correct about the Dyfi.

But Greenland Whitefronts are also wintering Norfolk Cumbria Lancashire albeit in very small numbers I've personally shot them ( last five years ) 3 different parts of Norfolk Cambridgeshire and Lincolnshire.

And i do know the difference between Greenland  ( orange bill ) and European ( pink bill ) Whitefronts i will admit most of my Greenland Whitefronts was shot Islay and various parts of the West coast of Scotland Before being protected

[ratty1]

9 hours ago, panoma1 said:

If Gloucester and the east/south east coast clubs do shoot them, it's the European (Siberian) Whitefront, as the Greenland Whitefront occurs in small numbers only on the Dyfi in Wales (I understand they also winter in Scotland and Ireland) and as I said Wildfowlers have not shot GWf on the Dyfi for over forty years!

Yes definitely the European whitefront on the Severn. I've only seen them at slimbridge in the same area you have mentioned. I saw three on the exe in Devon over 10 years ago. Speaking to an old boy (gone now,) he said when he was a young man large amounts of them would come to the exe when weather was hard. 

[panoma1]

12 hours ago, 6.5x55SE said:

You are correct about the Dyfi.

But Greenland Whitefronts are also wintering Norfolk Cumbria Lancashire albeit in very small numbers I've personally shot them ( last five years ) 3 different parts of Norfolk Cambridgeshire and Lincolnshire.

And i do know the difference between Greenland  ( orange bill ) and European ( pink bill ) Whitefronts i will admit most of my Greenland Whitefronts was shot Islay and various parts of the West coast of Scotland Before being protected

I do not doubt that Greenland whitefronts turn up in places other than their recognised wintering grounds, but I think it's safe to say that apart from the areas of Scotland you mention and various sites in Ireland, the Dyfi Estuary is the only traditional, long term wintering ground in the UK, where they regularly occur year on year!

As for bill colour, that's difficult to see in flight, in the half light or under the moon etc lol!........Unless of course, said Goose is very, very close! Lol!

[derbyduck]

18 hours ago, panoma1 said:

They used to frequent the saltmarsh out from Slimbridge, I saw them there from the hide, many years ago, allegedly that is why Peter Scott set up The Wildfowl Trust there!.........I don't know if they still use that marsh? 

The Greenland Race (red listed!) migrate, in ever diminishing numbers, to the Dyfi estuary in Central West Wales, where there has been a voluntary moratorium by Wildfowlers, on shooting them, for over forty years!

those are the ones I was thinking of Paul .

[derbyduck]

15 hours ago, ratty1 said:

I think they do shoot them. I've heard of severel over the years ,I've shot there a few times and members are always on the lookout for them. 

it was the the ones that Paul  spoke of in the post before yours that i was thinking of on theDyfi .

[ratty1]

1 hour ago, derbyduck said:

it was the the ones that Paul  spoke of in the post before yours that i was thinking of on theDyfi .

Ah yes,that would make more sense.