nic Posted July 12, 2021 Report Share Posted July 12, 2021 as said, only 50 to go, not that i am counting, honest Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ultrastu Posted July 12, 2021 Report Share Posted July 12, 2021 2 weeks mate 😉 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bruno22rf Posted July 12, 2021 Report Share Posted July 12, 2021 You guys on a promise?? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ultrastu Posted July 12, 2021 Report Share Posted July 12, 2021 2 weeks till i get some time off. On my holidays. What you talking about ? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
London Best Posted July 12, 2021 Report Share Posted July 12, 2021 1 hour ago, Ultrastu said: 2 weeks till i get some time off. On my holidays. What you talking about ? I think nic was referring to the start of the wildfowling season. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
marsh man Posted July 12, 2021 Report Share Posted July 12, 2021 10 hours ago, nic said: as said, only 50 to go, not that i am counting, honest Sorry nic , can't really find any thoughts of the new season in the height of the Summer , at the moment the dykes down the marsh have got a nice lot of good size broods of duck and on the Broads it is a good average to well above average when it comes to broods of young Greylags . By the way , what type of fowling do you do in early September ? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ultrastu Posted July 12, 2021 Report Share Posted July 12, 2021 1 hour ago, London Best said: I think nic was referring to the start of the wildfowling season. Oh yeah just realised its in the wildfowling section. 🤣 OK my bad . Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nic Posted July 13, 2021 Author Report Share Posted July 13, 2021 (edited) 14 hours ago, marsh man said: Sorry nic , can't really find any thoughts of the new season in the height of the Summer , at the moment the dykes down the marsh have got a nice lot of good size broods of duck and on the Broads it is a good average to well above average when it comes to broods of young Greylags . By the way , what type of fowling do you do in early September ? take new members out and show them the marshes mainly.....plus the canadas that inundate this area... so much so that the local estate and Slimbridge oil/***** all the eggs that they can find usually. Come October I will be heading north as the pinks start to arrive and come November I am out a lot on the shoots beating so do not get as much opportunity again until feb. as to thinking about it... with all the admin for a local club and a conservation project on the go creating new wetlands on our clubs grounds i don't get much let up from thinking about it. Edited July 13, 2021 by nic Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NoBodyImportant Posted July 15, 2021 Report Share Posted July 15, 2021 September 4 for me😞 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tom Malone Posted August 11, 2021 Report Share Posted August 11, 2021 “Currently foaming at the mouth” - Labrador 🐶 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
marsh man Posted August 20, 2021 Report Share Posted August 20, 2021 On 13/07/2021 at 11:09, nic said: take new members out and show them the marshes mainly.....plus the canadas that inundate this area... so much so that the local estate and Slimbridge oil/***** all the eggs that they can find usually. Come October I will be heading north as the pinks start to arrive and come November I am out a lot on the shoots beating so do not get as much opportunity again until feb. as to thinking about it... with all the admin for a local club and a conservation project on the go creating new wetlands on our clubs grounds i don't get much let up from thinking about it. At one time with less than two weeks ago before the big day we would now be in fowling mode and the evenings would be spent on the different blocks of marshes to weigh up the prospects for the new season , we would have already rowed over the estuary and checked out the zos grass ( Widgeon grass ) to see how thick it was , some years would be that thick you had a job to row through it , then another year it would be a bit on the thin side , might had been the start of the climate change even in those days , while we were out on the estuary we would see how many Lew ( Curlew ) were going down to the higher grounds on top of the tides , these were normally shot hard about two to three days before the first full moon in September , this would be when you get a Spring tide and most of the estuary would be covered by the evening flight time , once we had a good go we would go easy on them for the rest of the season. On the marshes we had a lot of Wheat and Barley fields as Rape was light years away , if we had a wet spell just prior to harvest the Mallard would be dropping on it in big numbers and some years the numbers were well in the hundreds , if this was the case we would keep our fingers crossed for continue rain so the combines couldn't get on to cut the crops , even if they cut it a few days before the season it wasn't a case of would you get any duck it was more of a case of how many you would get and I can well remember stopping shooting at our self imposed number of ten while duck were still coming in strong . Now Curlew are no longer on the list and never likely to return on the shooting list , very little Barley is grown on the marshes now and when it is grown it is normally off weeks before the season start , Mallard are nowhere near as plenty full as they once were and now the marshes have got big numbers of livestock grazing and they don't come off till November. In those far off days on a Friday night the talk in the pub was where each other was going on the first morning , we knew for a fact if you asked the old hands they would tell you the first place that came into there heads as they would never tell anybody any good places they had found , and to be honest who can blame them as once we had started to learn the ropes we were exactly the same when it came to disclosing the hot spots . Have a good season everyone , and above all have a safe one Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
captainhastings Posted August 20, 2021 Report Share Posted August 20, 2021 Monitoring the stubble around here trying the figure out the geese patterns. All a mattering of timing with combine and movements of the birds Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NoBodyImportant Posted August 20, 2021 Report Share Posted August 20, 2021 Just found out my favorite field is not allowing shooting this year. I didn’t plant my fields because I always shoot over this field. So now I’m stuck using public park fields. 😬 trying to find another private field before opening day. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
marsh man Posted August 21, 2021 Report Share Posted August 21, 2021 10 hours ago, captainhastings said: Monitoring the stubble around here trying the figure out the geese patterns. All a mattering of timing with combine and movements of the birds Most of our geese at this time of the year are locally bred and are not the wildest geese you will come across , why this should be ? , well the bulk of them are hatched out around the Broadland areas and learn to trust the human race for being fed , you have only got to look around Wroxham on a nice day when there are stacks of geese at all different age levels being fed by the holiday makers with left overs from there fish and chips , this will go on right up to the start of the shooting season and beyond , one day they are being fed with food and the next day they might be fed with steel shot which is not a healthy alternative , one thing about geese they soon get street wise and by the end of September the ones that are still with us become a vastly different species of geese from the half tame ones that you come across at the beginning of the month . Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
captainhastings Posted August 21, 2021 Report Share Posted August 21, 2021 12 hours ago, marsh man said: Most of our geese at this time of the year are locally bred and are not the wildest geese you will come across , why this should be ? , well the bulk of them are hatched out around the Broadland areas and learn to trust the human race for being fed , you have only got to look around Wroxham on a nice day when there are stacks of geese at all different age levels being fed by the holiday makers with left overs from there fish and chips , this will go on right up to the start of the shooting season and beyond , one day they are being fed with food and the next day they might be fed with steel shot which is not a healthy alternative , one thing about geese they soon get street wise and by the end of September the ones that are still with us become a vastly different species of geese from the half tame ones that you come across at the beginning of the month . I got to say the geese I see are no push over. If see them down on the field and try sneak up the sentry birds have got thermal vision. When decoying in as well you got keep well hidden. More than likely situational awareness I reckon Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
marsh man Posted August 21, 2021 Report Share Posted August 21, 2021 15 minutes ago, captainhastings said: I got to say the geese I see are no push over. If see them down on the field and try sneak up the sentry birds have got thermal vision. When decoying in as well you got keep well hidden. More than likely situational awareness I reckon What are the species of geese do you decoy in early September around your neck of the woods ? , ours are mainly Greys and Canadas and I have got no interest in decoying geese this time of the year , or any other time come to that ,as for the odd one I want now I can normally drop onto one while flighting down the marsh later on during the season. Two instances I can well remember concerning half tame geese was many years ago when I rented a rough shoot that ticked all the boxes and a few more besides , the Wheat at that time was the last to be combined and we always had a lot of stubble to go on in September , this stubble would attract a good number of geese from the nearby lake and Broads . A week before the season started me and my mate would go down there one night to see what was going into our flight pond , what duck were using the river , what duck were flighting into the stubbles and what geese were down there , anyhow , this night we went they had a good 200+ Greylags that came off a big lake nearby , we had two Labs with us and I said to my mate we will keep the dogs at heel and walk straight towards them and see how near we can get before they jump up , well at 100 yds they hadn't noticed we were on the same field and heading in there direction , at around 60 yards the necks started to go up and were wondering what we were doing , we then got into range and would have put paid to a few as the heads and necks were very close together , as we got nearer they started to split in the middle to let us walk past and it wasn't till one the dogs decided to try a catch one that they finally decided to lift off . Another time I was down the same place shooting Pigeons from a bale hide on a stubble field when a party of four Canada geese made the mistake of coming to close , after my two shots I had one dead and the other one was flapping about and honking at the same time , the two that got away had no more to do than turn around when they heard the one on the deck making all this racket and came sailing in more or less straight to my hide and they ended up joining there two mates ,if they done the same now they would be perfectly safe as I no longer shoot Canadas but it just goes to show how daft the early geese can be . Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
captainhastings Posted August 22, 2021 Report Share Posted August 22, 2021 10 hours ago, marsh man said: What are the species of geese do you decoy in early September around your neck of the woods ? , ours are mainly Greys and Canadas and I have got no interest in decoying geese this time of the year , or any other time come to that ,as for the odd one I want now I can normally drop onto one while flighting down the marsh later on during the season. Two instances I can well remember concerning half tame geese was many years ago when I rented a rough shoot that ticked all the boxes and a few more besides , the Wheat at that time was the last to be combined and we always had a lot of stubble to go on in September , this stubble would attract a good number of geese from the nearby lake and Broads . A week before the season started me and my mate would go down there one night to see what was going into our flight pond , what duck were using the river , what duck were flighting into the stubbles and what geese were down there , anyhow , this night we went they had a good 200+ Greylags that came off a big lake nearby , we had two Labs with us and I said to my mate we will keep the dogs at heel and walk straight towards them and see how near we can get before they jump up , well at 100 yds they hadn't noticed we were on the same field and heading in there direction , at around 60 yards the necks started to go up and were wondering what we were doing , we then got into range and would have put paid to a few as the heads and necks were very close together , as we got nearer they started to split in the middle to let us walk past and it wasn't till one the dogs decided to try a catch one that they finally decided to lift off . Another time I was down the same place shooting Pigeons from a bale hide on a stubble field when a party of four Canada geese made the mistake of coming to close , after my two shots I had one dead and the other one was flapping about and honking at the same time , the two that got away had no more to do than turn around when they heard the one on the deck making all this racket and came sailing in more or less straight to my hide and they ended up joining there two mates ,if they done the same now they would be perfectly safe as I no longer shoot Canadas but it just goes to show how daft the early geese can be . Mostly canada's with a few pinks. They seem to arrive on the estuary and then in the morning flight to the left or the right. It is not easy trying to predict which way they might head to feed. The decoys I would not say attract them as such as the goal is to get where they want to be any way. But I think it does drag them a bit to the part of field we need them to be or they will give them a flyby to check them out. What seems to have the biggest impact is the goose call. One spot is a very high vantage point and you can see for miles and on more than one occasional we have turned a whole flock that were specs in the distance that have then come at us like an arrow. The adrenaline when you hear them getting closer and closer clucking away and that special time of morning just after a lovely sun rise on the stubble is out of this world. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gerry78 Posted August 28, 2021 Report Share Posted August 28, 2021 With the hot weather and the climate changing I very rarely go out September 1st I think it’s always too hot and I’m wasting my time Talking to a couple of older Fowler’s 40 years plus experience they were discussing in the future would it be better putting the season back a month Was just a debate but maybe Something to think about Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
marsh man Posted August 29, 2021 Report Share Posted August 29, 2021 On 28/08/2021 at 16:26, Gerry78 said: With the hot weather and the climate changing I very rarely go out September 1st I think it’s always too hot and I’m wasting my time Talking to a couple of older Fowler’s 40 years plus experience they were discussing in the future would it be better putting the season back a month Was just a debate but maybe Something to think about The subject about moving the start of the season forward have been discussed for as long as your two older fowlers have been shooting wildfowl , this year seem cooler than the recent starts to a new wildfowling season so it haven't been mentioned until now , we all know that Mallard and possibly other species of duck can and do nest every month of the year and it's not unusual to see ( Flappers ) still following their parents in the dykes in September and even though it would be legal to shoot duck as young as that who in their right minds would think about raising their gun when they can barely flap along the dyke ? , only the other night I saw a very late brood of young duck that were still 3/4 weeks away from being air born , hopefully they will stay in the reeds for the next few weeks and keep away from anybody who tends to be trigger happy . Very few people would think about shooting Partridges on the 1st of September , and the same with Pheasants , even though you can legally shoot a Pheasant from the 1st of October who would seriously walk Pheasants up as early as that ? , so why do people carry on shooting wildfowl as early as the 1st of September . If I had the powers to alter the dates I would put the start back till the 20th of September and finish the same time as the coastal boys on the 20 th February , so inland and coastal both start together and finish on the same day ,I would be happy to lose three weeks in September and gain three weeks in February when wildfowl are in peak condition, if wildfowling carry on for another 40 years I am sure the subject about season start and finish will still be discussed , but no longer by me Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gerry78 Posted August 30, 2021 Report Share Posted August 30, 2021 Agree 100 percent MM 👍👍 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
muncher Posted August 30, 2021 Report Share Posted August 30, 2021 One thing is certain, they will gladly shorten the season but they sure as hell will not extend it. Leave well alone would be my advice as they Never do us any favours. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
marsh man Posted August 30, 2021 Report Share Posted August 30, 2021 35 minutes ago, muncher said: One thing is certain, they will gladly shorten the season but they sure as hell will not extend it. Leave well alone would be my advice as they Never do us any favours. If the inland boys started on the 20th of Sept and finished on the 20th of February then we wouldn't be losing anything , the only ones who dip out are the ones below the sea wall , maybe slightly different up the Wash area where the geese arrive early in September but down this way I found once they took the Waders off the list then shooting on the estuary was a total waste of time , now with all the holiday makers still about on the cruisers around here, I don't think anyone now bother till well into October , only today we got a club email to say no walking up dykes next month as their are still a lot of duck in the flapper stage , it also stated that it was a poor turnout to mark the marshes , only those who mark the marshes can shoot on the first day, I am sure if it was put out to vote the majority would happily give up the first 20 days and get it back in February when the fowl are at their best and not full of stubble's like they are in early September . Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
muncher Posted August 30, 2021 Report Share Posted August 30, 2021 1 hour ago, marsh man said: If the inland boys started on the 20th of Sept and finished on the 20th of February then we wouldn't be losing anything , the only ones who dip out are the ones below the sea wall , maybe slightly different up the Wash area where the geese arrive early in September but down this way I found once they took the Waders off the list then shooting on the estuary was a total waste of time , now with all the holiday makers still about on the cruisers around here, I don't think anyone now bother till well into October , only today we got a club email to say no walking up dykes next month as their are still a lot of duck in the flapper stage , it also stated that it was a poor turnout to mark the marshes , only those who mark the marshes can shoot on the first day, I am sure if it was put out to vote the majority would happily give up the first 20 days and get it back in February when the fowl are at their best and not full of stubble's like they are in early September . That’s not what I’m trying to say, In principal I agree, and I do go on the first as I have since I was 12 years old I hopefully shoot a couple and I stop. I would like to hope that most Fowler’s show respect for their quarry and let the young be. The problem is that if we even entered dialogue with defra it would only lead to more restrictions ( which they are trying to do anyway). Let sleeping-dogs lie , people go on about this ever year and bag returns both will result in more taken from us and nothing gained. I have spent years with other committee members trying to get consents, meetings with NE and more and more hurdles are put in our way. I wish they were reasonable, they are not. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ian willetts Posted August 30, 2021 Report Share Posted August 30, 2021 Out pigeon shooting yesterday brood of partridge with their pairents just able to fly we don’t start our rough shoot until November and still watch out for young birds birds maybe having 2posibly 3 broods with warm weather from early February Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nic Posted August 31, 2021 Author Report Share Posted August 31, 2021 they finish the seasons when they do as birds can start breeding then. So how will you convince the non shooting majority to eat into the poor little birdies 'mummy and daddy time'? All you will end up doing is to reduce the season by 20 days. or however long. I will be out, i will be looking at Canadas.... they are on general licence so could be shot all year and around where i am, are more than enough in number. local estates and WWT all oil the eggs when they find them due to numbers, as did RSPB near to when i lived oop north. I will not be looking for shooting ducklings and flappers... we still have plenty of them about partially due to the amount of conservation work, wetland creation projects and the use of duck tubes done by the local fowling club. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.