Poaching

[Scully]

Ditchys comment about homemade mods’ had me thinking about the exploits of my Dad and his brothers ( and some others I know still on the go but who turned mostly legit’ ) and their mates in their younger days. 
My Dad had two brothers ( one his twin ) and an elder sister, and his Dad died when the twins were just 13, after developing a tumour in his throat following a cricketing accident, of all things. 
Anyhow, it was 1940 and as teenagers they were both now the breadwinners with an older sister and brother already in the Forces. 
My Dad and his twin used to load for the gentry on a local estate, for which they were paid, and to supplement their rationing they would ‘snipe’ pheasant and duck by head shooting with a .22rf, on the same estate I assume. My Dad apparently was very good at this.
They would also tickle trout and gaff salmon in one of dozens of little Fell bottom becks, and once came away with over a dozen Brown trout from a pool no bigger than a small car. They set snares for rabbits on any land they thought they could get away with it, and as far as I’m aware we’re never caught. My Dad was once nabbed by the owner for stealing a tree, which he was forced to return as logs, but that’s just one of many other stories, and nothing to do with poaching. 
His elder brother, in the 1960’s sometime, pestered by his son to get him a rifle, brought home a service .303! No good for rabbits really. 
I know a now respectable retired RFD who was the Bain of his local water bailiff and coppers in his youth, and a ‘keeper who was once ( and I still wouldn’t trust him out of sight ) a real cold hearted destroyer of vermin by ANY means possible. 
A bloke I used to shoot and fish with once emptied a full S1 pump magazine at a hovering Buzzard ( he missed with all eight shots! )  and it wasn’t until I’d known him for years that I discovered he’d never held a fishing or rod license, and that the S1 pump stashed in his caravan wasn’t licensed either! 
I myself will only confess to a bit of Salmon gaffing as a lad, and that’s all, which I loved, and I could write a book about our adventures….but I won’t. 🙂

 

[London Best]

I’m saying NOWT!

[islandgun]

14 minutes ago, London Best said:

I’m saying NOWT!

Me neither although i might have had the odd nocturnal wonder with a folding 410 on my then local common [the woody bit down the end..😉]

[Walker570]

22 minutes ago, London Best said:

I’m saying NOWT!

I'm in FULL agreement

[la bala]

I remember someone in the 60s, they would take a 410 furlong cartridge, cut it down short enough to leave just 15 pellets. They would recrimp it with a star crimp. They told me they were very quiet I have no idea what they used it for.

[ditchman]

in 1972...1973............pheasants were very expensive food....i was always strapped for cash and took to poaching pheasants to suppliment my income as i was shortly due to go to Agric' college...........used that method moderator....used to go out once a fortnight and take maybe 30-40 birds at a time from an estate not too far away from where i live now,,...

it was very good money..and saw me thro the lean time at college......stuff was very easily off loaded at the local butcher for cash....

give you an idea a brace and a half of pheasants the money would see me right for a whole week for petrol ...fags and beer and the flicks

[Walker570]

How times have changed.

[wisdom]

This is going to turn into an interesting thread.Its not the poaching gangs that are the current plague more one or two for the pot.Love these stories.Ill own up to a folding .410 in my youth on a local estate and shooting in the dusk .Take the shot then off on my bike.The keeper was quick but we never got caught.

[ditchman]

37 minutes ago, Walker570 said:

How times have changed.

yes time is a great healer ..........you would have felt my collar in them days.....(if you could catch me .. )

[Ratlegs]

Gave my  folding single barrel 410 away when all you needed was a post office licence

wish I still had it

mention a folding 410 now  answers is mines in the footings of that house

[mel b3]

You lot are a right bunch of old rogues . Thank the good lord that I never got up to anything like that 🙏 😇🤥.

[ditchman]

9 minutes ago, mel b3 said:

You lot are a right bunch of old rogues . Thank the good lord that I never got up to anything like that 🙏 😇🤥.

oooooohhhhhh....oh.....oooohhhhhhhhh.......you ole lizard..

[Rob85]

2 hours ago, Scully said:

Ditchys comment about homemade mods’ had me thinking about the exploits of my Dad and his brothers ( and some others I know still on the go but who turned mostly legit’ ) and their mates in their younger days. 
My Dad had two brothers ( one his twin ) and an elder sister, and his Dad died when the twins were just 13, after developing a tumour in his throat following a cricketing accident, of all things. 
Anyhow, it was 1940 and as teenagers they were both now the breadwinners with an older sister and brother already in the Forces. 
My Dad and his twin used to load for the gentry on a local estate, for which they were paid, and to supplement their rationing they would ‘snipe’ pheasant and duck by head shooting with a .22rf, on the same estate I assume. My Dad apparently was very good at this.
They would also tickle trout and gaff salmon in one of dozens of little Fell bottom becks, and once came away with over a dozen Brown trout from a pool no bigger than a small car. They set snares for rabbits on any land they thought they could get away with it, and as far as I’m aware we’re never caught. My Dad was once nabbed by the owner for stealing a tree, which he was forced to return as logs, but that’s just one of many other stories, and nothing to do with poaching. 
His elder brother, in the 1960’s sometime, pestered by his son to get him a rifle, brought home a service .303! No good for rabbits really. 
I know a now respectable retired RFD who was the Bain of his local water bailiff and coppers in his youth, and a ‘keeper who was once ( and I still wouldn’t trust him out of sight ) a real cold hearted destroyer of vermin by ANY means possible. 
A bloke I used to shoot and fish with once emptied a full S1 pump magazine at a hovering Buzzard ( he missed with all eight shots! )  and it wasn’t until I’d known him for years that I discovered he’d never held a fishing or rod license, and that the S1 pump stashed in his caravan wasn’t licensed either! 
I myself will only confess to a bit of Salmon gaffing as a lad, and that’s all, which I loved, and I could write a book about our adventures….but I won’t. 🙂

 

On the subject of doing in vermin by any means possible, I know a farmer who was so concerned about the amount of badgers and the interconnected setts on part of his ground that he drove down with a huge slurry trailer full of slurry an effluent and piped the whole lot down the main hole and drowned the lot.

Another fella I went out shooting with thought nothing of peppering rabbits at 70yards with a 12bore. I refuse to be anywhere near him now for his lack of safety.

In my misspent youth I will admit to trying to poach a few pheasants from a syndicate by having my mate chase them over a small rise while I chucked my small Bowie style knife into the air to try to intercept.... could count on a missing hand how many I hit 😆

[ditchman]

14 minutes ago, Ratlegs said:

Gave my  folding single barrel 410 away when all you needed was a post office licence

wish I still had it

mention a folding 410 now  answers is mines in the footings of that house

you can still buy skeleton stocked 410 folders....https://auctions.holtsauctioneers.com/asp/fullCatalogue.asp?salelot=S0919+++5415+&refno=++142443&saletype=

 

 

[Grandalf]

Got to put my hand up to this one.   When I was a little nipper WW2 was still rumbling on.   Everyone was hungry and everyone, in our village, poached to some degree.   Rationing went on for years after peace came and so did the poaching.   By then I was getting old enough to go out with my elder brothers who had returned from service overseas.   Firearms were all over the place.   Souvenirs of the nastiness.   Rabbits were shot with all sorts of things from bows and arrows used by us kids to .303's used by the returning servicemen and the ex homeguardsmen.   Just seemed natural.   I will never starve while I am able to get out and about but now I don't need to poach as I am a respected member of the shooting community.  

[Scully]

A bloke for whom I used to do a bit of cleaning ( of his antiques and armour ) as a young lad offered to give me his folding .410 but it never happened. To say I was disappointed would be an understatement. Never got to own one. 😕

[PeterHenry]

My father's father use to poach (tickle) trout.

When I was at boarding school, a couple of friends got caught poaching phesents from the woods around the place. One of them from a very respectable family. He now runs runs a shoot.

I've got to be honest, I have little time for poaching - I've never done it, and the amount of time and effort I put into feeding wild birds along hedgerows and on flight ponds, it really winds me up when I catch someone and their whippet on one of my trail cams...

I do enjoy hearing the stories though

I will also add, that one of the house masters (again from a very respectable family) who ran the school clay trap and rifle range, still kept his father's folding stock .410....

Edited May 26, 2022 by PeterHenry

[marsh man]

Never really got into poaching game , well not on a serious basis and I can never recall of being an owner of a game licence if I happen to come across either a Pheasant or a Partridge , our wrong doing was going on the odd marsh without any paper work to say we could , when I say the odd marsh I don't think there are many , or any in a area of 8 miles long by at the widest which are nearly four miles wide , this was mainly carried out during the hours of darkness with only the moon providing any sort of light .

It also carried a lesser charge if caught ( which we often came close but not close enough ) if caught we could only be charged with arm trespass and not the more serious one which was trespass in pursuit of game  , not that either one bothered us one bit at around mid night on some lonely marsh waiting for the geese to come in under the moon from lifting out at sea .

This all took part many years ago and I could easily run on till the cows come home but my tongue might get loose and some people who are still alive might put two and two together and send the bailiffs round mine , mine you they will have to come round during the daylight hours because there is no telling where I will be if it is a Winters day with a full moon creeping up above the towns lights 

[billytheghillie]

Up here in queen Nicks land we didnt tickle trout we called it Guddling  for troot.

[WalkedUp]

When we were little we didn’t know it was called poaching. We just walked out with our air rifles through the woods and the fields, and found what we could. 

[51/50]

1 hour ago, billytheghillie said:

Up here in queen Nicks land we didnt tickle trout we called it Guddling  for troot.

Or 'rippin for salmon'.....& 'using the beastie' 😜

[Ratlegs]

11 hours ago, ditchman said:

you can still buy skeleton stocked 410 folders....https://auctions.holtsauctioneers.com/asp/fullCatalogue.asp?salelot=S0919+++5415+&refno=++142443&saletype=

 

 

Thanks for the info, will have a look

[bruno22rf]

Late 70's my final few years at school would see 2 of us rush home for a quick tea before covering God knows how many miles to empty snares, we used to prepare the Rabbits then sell them to a butcher in Aylesbury on a Saturday morning, he used to put them in his mince!! Thinking back we were always planning ways of catching Rabbits but these were the days when the field seemed to crawl with the high numbers, Myxy took away all of that in a matter of months.

[marsh man]

Looking at the above posts it seem life in general was the same for most of us , we had our own little places where we convinced our selves it was alright to have a shot or two and we carried on believing we were rarely noticed , which at the time I dare say we were .

That was then , today the countryside is a vastly different place , I walk past a place every other morning where I first started to decoy Pigeons and twice I got a Pink Foot while waiting for Pigeons , it is now an industrial site that touch the edge of the marshes , another instance is the estuary , this was free shooting and nobody blinked a eyelid if you were walking along the top of the wall with a gun under your arm , this was the same each side of the estuary that is roughly five miles long, now the shooting is all bar finished and just carried on over a very small area by permit only .

Nowadays this couldn't happen along with just about every where else where we started on the life long journey carrying a shotgun and the days of how we all started are long over . 

[Grandalf]

On 26/05/2022 at 20:42, marsh man said:

Never really got into poaching game , well not on a serious basis and I can never recall of being an owner of a game licence if I happen to come across either a Pheasant or a Partridge , our wrong doing was going on the odd marsh without any paper work to say we could , when I say the odd marsh I don't think there are many , or any in a area of 8 miles long by at the widest which are nearly four miles wide , this was mainly carried out during the hours of darkness with only the moon providing any sort of light .

It also carried a lesser charge if caught ( which we often came close but not close enough ) if caught we could only be charged with arm trespass and not the more serious one which was trespass in pursuit of game  , not that either one bothered us one bit at around mid night on some lonely marsh waiting for the geese to come in under the moon from lifting out at sea .

This all took part many years ago and I could easily run on till the cows come home but my tongue might get loose and some people who are still alive might put two and two together and send the bailiffs round mine , mine you they will have to come round during the daylight hours because there is no telling where I will be if it is a Winters day with a full moon creeping up above the towns lights 

I was mentored into fowling by the well known rogue, and my friend, Sid Wright of Wash fame.   We often poached together pretty much as you describe above.   He knew every gutter and hidy hole on those marshes and they came in usefull on several occasions.   The land behind the sea wall was our favourite area though.   Very productive on the right night.  We were both ex army, fit and up for the game.   Neither one of us needed to do it but the TV was rubbish and the internet was not even thought of.