Wildfowling -To Do List!

[SuperGoose75]

As per title, are there things you really want to do to add to or make your Wildfowling career complete? Such as a a specific species you want to shoot, or a certain place the would like to go Wildfowling, or a certain gun you would like to obtain?

I'll start with a short list.

1. Shoot the Solway Firth

2.Shoot a fully plumaged drake shoveler 

3.Go on a Puntgunning excursion 

4.Fire a Big Bore Gun 

5.Have a Go the Snow Geese  Stateside. 

What's on your list? Over to the PW Wildfowlers.

Edited June 5 by SuperGoose75

[Ferretlurcher1970]

Take a goose with my new 4 bore

Finish building my punt gun

Go to orkney on shooting holiday 

 

 

[Svenandolaf]

A whitefront goose

A L & R of pintail 

Scotland on the foreshore

Scotland decoying on the pinks

To shoot with my dad as much as possible whilst he is still able to get out

[Dave at kelton]

Well anyone who wants to shoot the Solway, get over here and take a ticket at Caerlaverock, and join me, or a ticket with SSWA. As to shooting a big bore I only go up to 8 bore but could probably arrange a morning with a pal and a 4 bore. Guess it depends what you mean by Big! 
 

PS details of Caerlaverock and SSWA are on the web with Caerlaverock in my article for BASC.

Only thing for me would be out in a punt. I have done most of the rest.

Edited June 6 by Dave at kelton

[Penelope]

17 hours ago, SuperGoose75 said:

As per title, are there things you really want to do to add to or make your Wildfowling career complete? Such as a a specific species you want to shoot, or a certain place the would like to go Wildfowling, or a certain gun you would like to obtain?

I'll start with a short list.

1. Shoot the Solway Firth

2.Shoot a fully plumaged drake shoveler 

3.Go on a Puntgunning excursion 

4.Fire a Big Bore Gun 

5.Have a Go the Snow Geese  Stateside. 

What's on your list? Over to the PW Wildfowlers.

A Whitefront would be very nice.

[m greeny]

Got to be a whitefront for me 

[Penelope]

1 minute ago, m greeny said:

Got to be a whitefront for me 

You'll need to travel for that as you'd only have an outside chance of the wrong one turning up in your neck of the shore.

[m greeny]

3 hours ago, Penelope said:

You'll need to travel for that as you'd only have an outside chance of the wrong one turning up in your neck of the shore.

Yep I know it's a long shot but as long as there's a chance I will keep dreaming..

[6.5x55SE]

5 hours ago, Penelope said:

You'll need to travel for that as you'd only have an outside chance of the wrong one turning up in your neck of the shore.

100% each winter small/odd Skien of European White front ( and Greenland White front ) are around Lancashire with Pink feet. Yes I'd agree Suffolk Norfolk Kent offer better chances even those areas you need luck good goose id skills and proper wildfowling weather across the channel to push numbers over to increase your chances. 

[islandgun]

On 06/06/2024 at 09:07, Dave at kelton said:

Well anyone who wants to shoot the Solway, get over here and take a ticket at Caerlaverock, and join me, or a ticket with SSWA. As to shooting a big bore I only go up to 8 bore but could probably arrange a morning with a pal and a 4 bore. Guess it depends what you mean by Big! 
 

PS details of Caerlaverock and SSWA are on the web with Caerlaverock in my article for BASC.

Only thing for me would be out in a punt. I have done most of the rest.

Just read your article, great stuff and a great offer !

My to do list, is simply to get out more at night, enjoy time with my not so young spaniel and my new/old underlever.... just enjoy the sights and sounds TBH

[greenshank1]

Great topic 👍

I love my local shore and the fowling it provides. 
But we don’t see pintail at all so would love to go somewhere and have a chance at a drake pintail. 
The descriptions of huge rafts of wigeon at Lindisfarne sounds amazing to see and hear and of course the Solway and its legendary pinkfeet .

The flooded timber holes in states look amazing and so does their black duck 🦆  🦆 🦆 

[Dave at kelton]

2 hours ago, islandgun said:

Just read your article, great stuff and a great offer !

My to do list, is simply to get out more at night, enjoy time with my not so young spaniel and my new/old underlever.... just enjoy the sights and sounds TBH

Those are pretty good for the list. It’s all about keeping it simple for me. I have never got out to the z islands and might do that sometime. I have so much on my doorstep it seems a waste not to just spend my time here. My locking up does impinge but that’s my choice.

[Docleo]

I'm relatively new to wildfowling and my to do list is simple: shoot a pink under the moon. In the last couple of seasons I had few chances and always missed 🫣. 

 

[edenman]

A wee tour of the northern firths would do me.

Being afloat in a punt would be a dream.

 

[marsh man]

In my early day's I dreamt about shooting a goose on the Wash and to go with the legends who took people like myself out for a chance at a goose , due to lack of transport and money my dream never really got off the ground , as I got older and started to get some idea about wildfowling I very soon found that the grass is not always greener on the other side of the fence as some of the older local chaps would go up to the Wash with the likes of Kenzie Thorpe , Frank Harrison and Sid Write and I honestly cannot remember if any of them ever came back with a goose or anything else come to that .

I had ambitions like everyone else and as the years rolled by I kept ticking the odd one off , when I got one of each species then I wanted a right and left of each , this was slightly harder but through hard work and spending many , many flights both morning , evening and under the moon I finally got there , or should I have said , nearly got there as the only one that had eluded me was the Whitefront , again as the years carried on rolling by I was finally rewarded with a right and left at Whitefonts and like they say when your waiting for bus that you wait ages then two come together , and that was exactly what happened with another pair going into the bag a couple of seasons later , so the list was complete .

I was lucky in buying our first double gun punt when I was 14 and time I was 17 we had a single gun punt to go with it, along with a shed beside the estuary to keep them in , we did have punt gunning going on but we were not in the position to buy a punt gun , in 1968 the estuary was made into a nature reserve and punt gunning came to a close as the biggest bore you could use was a 8 bore ,  the only time I fired one was when I pushed on to some Tufted duck and I took one out when they lifted before we were well into range , but looking back the times under the moon on the estuary were times I will never forget and were magical , not always for what you shot but just being out on a five mile stretch of water .

So if this question was asked say 25 / 30 years ago then I might still had certain things that I would have liked to had done but now I am getting towards the end I cannot think of anything that would had made my career complete , so I am one of those contented fowlers who is happy on his own patch and happy with the sport I have had over the years , For those who are dreaming about there first Whitefront then if you keep at then your day will come like mine did many years ago

Edited June 7 by marsh man

[oowee]

If Geese are your thing then you should try for Spur Winged in SA. They are one of, if not the largest, wild geese in the world and they are armed. Very clever and crafty feeding in flocks of 500 plus. 

[islandgun]

10 minutes ago, marsh man said:

In my early day's I dreamt about shooting a goose on the Wash and to go with the legends who took people like myself out for a chance at a goose , due to lack of transport and money my dream never really got off the ground , as I got older and started to get some idea about wildfowling I very soon found that the grass is not always greener on the other side of the fence as some of the older local chaps would go up to the Wash with the likes of Kenzie Thorpe , Frank Harrison and Sid Write and I honestly cannot remember if any of them ever came back with a goose or anything else come to that .

I had ambitions like everyone else and as the years rolled by I kept ticking the odd one off , when I got one of each species then I wanted a right and left of each , this was slightly harder but through hard work and spending many , many flights both morning , evening and under the moon I finally got there , or should I have said , nearly got there as the only one that had eluded me was the Whitefront , again as the years carried on rolling by I was finally rewarded with a right and left at Whitefonts and like they say when your waiting for bus that you wait ages then two come together , and that was exactly what happened with another pair going into the bag a couple of seasons later , so the list was complete .

I was lucky in buying our first double gun punt when I was 14 and time I was 17 we had a single gun punt to go with it, along with a shed beside the estuary to keep them in , we did have punt gunning going on but we were not in the position to buy a punt gun and in 1968 the estuary was made into a nature reserve and punt gunning came to a close as the biggest bore you could use was a 8 bore and the only time I fired one was when I pushed on to some Tufted duck and I took one out when they lifted before we were well into range , but looking back the times under the moon on the estuary were times I will never forget and were magical , not always for what you shot but just being out on a five mile stretch of water .

So if this question was asked say 25 / 30 years ago then I might still had certain things that I would have liked to had done but now I am getting towards the end I cannot think of anything that would had made my career complete , so I am one of those contented fowlers who is happy on his own patch and happy with the sport I have had over the years , For those who are dreaming about there first Whitefront then if you keep at then your day will come like mine did many years ago

A bygone time mm thanks for sharing 

[marsh man]

40 minutes ago, islandgun said:

A bygone time mm thanks for sharing 

THANKS I G , although it might well had been a bygone time I would think todays fowling is as good if not better than it was when we started to get salt water in our leaking wellies , duck have doubled if not trebled in numbers and geese numbers have gone through the roof , maybe the numbers of Whitefronts are not as high but to make up for it the fowlers of today have a lot more access to the fowling marshes than we had , we had access but the owner wasn't always aware of it  

[Pushandpull]

I have been wildfowling since my early teens and will be 80 by next season (if I make it !). I have fulfilled most of my ambitions ashore and afloat, and am now pretty limited physically. In that time I have seen the quarry list decrease, places to shoot decrease, and now the impact of the absurd consent system forced on us by Natural England. If you want to achieve your dreams, then get on and do it before it is too late. Find out where you can shoot a pintail, build that punt and save your money up to visit the special places.

[London Best]

11 hours ago, oowee said:

If Geese are your thing then you should try for Spur Winged in SA. They are one of, if not the largest, wild geese in the world and they are armed. Very clever and crafty feeding in flocks of 500 plus. 

On my very first visit to SA the first quarry was Spur Winged Geese. Huge things running 18 to 22 pounds. I was fortunate to open the scoring with a right and left out of the first two skeins.

[scolopax]

I struggle to think of anything now. Quite happy to shoot my local estuary with occasional away days.

 

ive shot all the wildfowl quarry species on the foreshore, but it’s taken a long time to do it. (Tufted is v. tricky)

 

but I will say, in 35 years I have only had a few real red letter flights.  A few of them wouldn’t go amiss next season, break up the usual series of blanks lol.  Would be nice to get a dozen or so foreshore duck in a flight,  I’ve never broken into double figures before. 
 

only thing I want to do differently is maybe do a few more moon flights. I basically don’t do them, time to try a few.

Edited June 8 by scolopax

[oowee]

9 hours ago, London Best said:

On my very first visit to SA the first quarry was Spur Winged Geese. Huge things running 18 to 22 pounds. I was fortunate to open the scoring with a right and left out of the first two skeins.

Hats off to you I was hopeless on my first flights. I couldn't get to grips with aiming for the heads. Any range and body shots are not working. A memorable day was in early morning my pal in the next blind dropped one a couple of meters in front of my blind. It landed with a thud. Five minutes later it stood up and opened its wings above me (we were dug into the peanut field). Scary stuff and I was happy to be armed 😁.  

[marsh man]

9 hours ago, scolopax said:

I struggle to think of anything now. Quite happy to shoot my local estuary with occasional away days.

 

ive shot all the wildfowl quarry species on the foreshore, but it’s taken a long time to do it. (Tufted is v. tricky)

 

but I will say, in 35 years I have only had a few real red letter flights.  A few of them wouldn’t go amiss next season, break up the usual series of blanks lol.  Would be nice to get a dozen or so foreshore duck in a flight,  I’ve never broken into double figures before. 
 

only thing I want to do differently is maybe do a few more moon flights. I basically don’t do them, time to try a few.

A Red letter flight don't always mean you have ended up with a good bag of fowl , I can remember quite a few of my best flights and if I had to put them in the top ten then I am sure that some of the geese flights would be up there when they have ended up as blanks , I know one night I had 100s , if not 1000s of geese over me all at 15 / 20 yds over my range limit and I ended the flight without firing a shot , the sight of skein after skein heading back to the roosting grounds will stay in my memory bank forever.

Another night I was out in a Southerly gale which was an ideal wind direction for the block of marshes I was on , when the first lot came over me at the minimum range I knew I was in the right place at the right time , as it turned out it would had been easy to had got more geese than you could carry as they lost all sense of trying to survive , our limit at the time was six and I shot five which was more than enough for me , although it was a very good flight I don't think it would be in my top ten best flights .     MM 

[London Best]

14 hours ago, oowee said:

Hats off to you I was hopeless on my first flights. I couldn't get to grips with aiming for the heads. Any range and body shots are not working. A memorable day was in early morning my pal in the next blind dropped one a couple of meters in front of my blind. It landed with a thud. Five minutes later it stood up and opened its wings above me (we were dug into the peanut field). Scary stuff and I was happy to be armed 😁.  

I didn’t have that problem at all. Using 70mm 36 gram No.1 through a True Cylinder and Quarter choke SxS and all 19 geese except one dead on arrival. Ranges were up to 40/45 yards. I am unsure if the shot equated to English No.1 as the ammo had been supplied by my host.

[Dave at kelton]

I have a re cord of every flight, and fishing trip since 1982, some running to a page or more. Red letter days are few and far between and now written in red ink. On geese it is largely my first on the Solway, a pink and a grey on a foggy morning after numerous blank trips. Most others have been in a Gale when I put my gun down on reaching my self imposed limit of geese. It Might happen every few seasons. Lastly my big day in Canada in a -14 blizzard which I wrote about on here. 

There may be more, God Willing, but it won’t take away from those I have recorded.