Remembering Shooting Buddies Who Have Passed On.

[marsh man]

The other night I was sorting out some old Christmas cards I had in my cabinet and one that had some ducks on the front cover was from one of my best shooting buddies , inside it said , To John and family , Have a good Christmas and don't shoot to many , All the best AXXXXX , this card might well had been between 30 and 40 years old .

We first met at one of our very early club meeting nights , the club was formed in the early 50s and I joined in 64 , we used to hold it in the snug bar , in the early part of the season it was not unusual for A to come in just after it had started and rest his sleeved gun and his game bag up the corner , saying sorry for being late and then order a pint , the heads started to turn to see if A had anything in his bag , the murmour got louder and louder and the chairman had to bang on the table while shouting order , order , all this done was to make every one laugh .

As time wore on we both had our own block of marshes to go on that were seperated by the fleet dyke , in a way we were both like trainees Kenzies and luckily enough A couldn't trespass on mine , and visa versa , we both got on well with each other and would often be down the marsh at the same time , one first morning I well remember was when his farmer had some laid barley that couldn't be combined due to it being in water , and on my side we had some wheat which  was the same , Mallard were everywhere and when it was time to go I shouted across the dyke , howd yer *** on ole cock , he shouted back , I have got 10 , he then said it was the first time I was beginning to feel sorry for them as they were becoming to easy , how did you *** on then boi , I have got about the same and when I tipped my post office bag out I had 11 , well you done well and we should get a few more before they buggex off .

As we got older and wiser we spent nights out under the moon , walk the dykes up under the moon, took our gun punts out and just about every way where you were likely to shoot fowl , I would invite A on mine when there was a lot of duck on my splashes and he would invite me when there was good numbers on his .

Geese then began to be the main target and very rare we went through a season without getting any , in those far off days we didn't have the amount that come down this way like they do now so they were harder to come to terms with , two times that stick out was one morning he was with his brother in law and another friend , we had several White fronts using the area and the three of them were flighting apart on the estuary wall , A was certainly in the right place at the right time as when the flight had finished he had five and the two others who were either side didn't get a thing , another time he had his young dog that was still under a year old when he hit a goose hard and it planed out way to far for a young dog to pick , A was not the sort of person to leave it , so he dropped his trousers and started to wade out across the estuary with his young dog half swimming and half splashing beside him , after a while the water was up to his waist when he finally got to it and he held it up aloft while me and my mate gave him a wave .

In his 60s his ole joints started to play up and he was off sick when he came up for retirement  , he done a bit more shooting but passed away when he was about 70 , I still remember a gun I bought off him , it was a three inch Midland Gun Company , 32 inch barrels that were full and full , we done a deal for 20 quid and I gave him another 3 quid for a leather cartridge belt that was nigh on full of cartridges , days we will never see the like again    MM

Edited May 9, 2022 by marsh man

[oldypigeonpopper]

Hello, nice post MM, I still miss my fishing friend (trout) we had many good days together, some years after he died I went to the area he and family had their holidays, Padstow , I remember he liked to read the paper every morning in the park, he described where and his family had a seat installed and I found it first time, it felt good to just sit down and admire the view and remember him, 

[ditchman]

growing old is a bitch........its starts when your mind keeps making appointments your body cant keep........

as the old saying goes......."im not as good as i once was..........but once im as good as i ever was........."

[Lampwick]

Not growing old is a bitch!!! 

[dead eye alan]

Nice post, growing old is a bitch but preferable to dyeing young.

[harrycatcat1]

My old mate ayano3 off here passed away recently and it really knocked my "duck" off. We had some good times out on different marshes and he taught me and others a lot about wildfowling.

[marsh man]

3 hours ago, harrycatcat1 said:

My old mate ayano3 off here passed away recently and it really knocked my "duck" off. We had some good times out on different marshes and he taught me and others a lot about wildfowling.

He did get in touch with me and I was going to show him around the area as he had a flight with Grandalf on the forum and I believe he got a goose , he said he was looking forward to retirement and was going to spend more time wildfowling and the Broad land area was on the top of his agenda , sadly that will no longer happen , sound like a really nice bloke .   MM

[harrycatcat1]

13 minutes ago, marsh man said:

He did get in touch with me and I was going to show him around the area as he had a flight with Grandalf on the forum and I believe he got a goose , he said he was looking forward to retirement and was going to spend more time wildfowling and the Broad land area was on the top of his agenda , sadly that will no longer happen , sound like a really nice bloke .   MM

Unfortunately he didn't have a long retirement, he was 2 months older than me. He was a very nice bloke and helped a lot of people.

[Old farrier]

3 hours ago, harrycatcat1 said:

My old mate ayano3 off here passed away recently and it really knocked my "duck" off. We had some good times out on different marshes and he taught me and others a lot about wildfowling.

He was a great chap he took me out on shep white’s a few times with his help I shot my first pink foot 

im wondering now what happened to the stick I gave him hopefully gone on to another wildfowling home 

some good memories 

[Vince Green]

My mate Bob who i had been shooting with since I was in my early twenties died of covid during the pandemic.

[bishop]

My shooting  m8 and best pal died on his 44th birthday some years ago now. his ashes lie in the river bed across from our favorite flighting spot .I often find myself saying  "how the fek did i miss that one eck!" More than once i have found myself annoyed with him for having died so young when i felt we should have had had so many years of fowling and nights out in the pub ahead of us. Memories eh?. I recall one morning (back in the 80's) i sat under an overhang in the river bank that was  made from massive sheets of ice left by the sea on the tops of the reedbeds during the night tide. Utterly bitter weather .I managed to drop 2 greylag  after having shuffled about, moving up and down the rivers edge  under those ice sheets  , trying to intercept the random flightline that  never seemed to come over me that morning .They came crashing down with one hell of a thud  through  that   bizarre ice cathedral when i did manage a shot. Having been over that side of the river a good hour I waded back across the river to my m8 Eck and there he was with a frosted white moustache  crouched in against the sea wall ,  almost blue and statue like. He had not wanted to move in case he spoilt my chance of a goose. We had been out all night for only  a few duck in the bag you see .The daft sod had the first stages of hypothermia  at least. I would never have guessed that 20 years later his ashes would lie at that same spot. Picture was taken perhaps a year before he passed. Rest easy m8.

 

Edited May 13, 2022 by bishop

[marsh man]

4 hours ago, bishop said:

My shooting  m8 and best pal died on his 44th birthday some years ago now. his ashes lie in the river bed across from our favorite flighting spot .I often find myself saying  "how the fek did i miss that one eck!" More than once i have found myself annoyed with him for having died so young when i felt we should have had had so many years of fowling and nights out in the pub ahead of us. Memories eh?. I recall one morning (back in the 80's) i sat under an overhang in the river bank that was  made from massive sheets of ice left by the sea on the tops of the reedbeds during the night tide. Utterly bitter weather .I managed to drop 2 greylag  after having shuffled about, moving up and down the rivers edge  under those ice sheets  , trying to intercept the random flightline that  never seemed to come over me that morning .They came crashing down with one hell of a thud  through  that   bizarre ice cathedral when i did manage a shot. Having been over that side of the river a good hour I waded back across the river to my m8 Eck and there he was with a frosted white moustache  crouched in against the sea wall ,  almost blue and statue like. He had not wanted to move in case he spoilt my chance of a goose. We had been out all night for only  a few duck in the bag you see .The daft sod had the first stages of hypothermia  at least. I would never have guessed that 20 years later his ashes would lie at that same spot. Picture was taken perhaps a year before he passed. Rest easy m8.

 

Sadly not everyone reach what we would consider old age and your shooting buddy was one of the unlucky ones , no doubt you often have a similar situation during the fowling season when you were both together that bring the memory flooding back , I know I do as my mate was addicted to geese and several times when I have had a bit of luck of being in the right place at the right time and one or two have gone in the bag my thoughts turn to the times when we were out together in whatever the weather threw at us , well before he passed away he started a mini wildfowl collection with the lightly wounded fowl he shot , I also gave him the odd ones I got and very soon he had a large allotment that was getting full of assorted fowl , as luck would have it he had a dyke that ran beside his garden with plenty of duck weed in , we built a wire netting fence in the dyke and the duck and geese were well looked after , one ole Whitefront  had Black bars on it's chest when we first got it and it was still hobbling about nearly twenty years later , so it was well over 20 years old , when the collection started getting to much for him he gave the collection away to various people who wanted the odd wild duck or goose , the only one he kept was the ole W / F, this he kept in his own garden till it's time was up and I believe he followed the goose a few months later .