Wildfowling club memberships .

[holloway]

I was just wondering how club membership of wildfowling clubs was holding up ,there was a time when you would be on a waiting list for a while ,it seems now many are struggling to find new members ,whats it like in your clubs ?

[marsh man]

Not really sure as I ended my membership after nearly 60 years last year due to old age and my eyesight can no longer pick out duck in bad light , but you were right in what you were saying , there was once a waiting list and maybe with some clubs there still is , but the two clubs I was in were still taking on members , it was also around 10% would drop out and around the same numbers were taking on to keep the membership about the same , now I would have thought it might be slightly more drop out than new members joining , why this should be I don't really know , but I found it good value for the money .   MM

[grahamch]

Numerically my club is fairly stable but we now get very few members to meetings to he point you wonder why we bother put a monthly meeting on. 

That said a lot of members are getting on and maybe cant be bothered to turn out. 

Think we will be gone if a few years time. 

 

[marsh man]

7 minutes ago, grahamch said:

Numerically my club is fairly stable but we now get very few members to meetings to he point you wonder why we bother put a monthly meeting on. 

That said a lot of members are getting on and maybe cant be bothered to turn out. 

Think we will be gone if a few years time. 

 

I found that as well where most of the members on a meeting night were getting on a bit , and no doubt they just liked talking about the past ,  to them it was a night out , now the younger ones have got more important things to do , they turn up on the subs night and that is it for another year , some of our ole meetings used to be packed and very often would have a beer break and then carry on till the pubs shut , I know when our estuary was going to made into a reserve in 1968 that the meetings went on halfway through the night , the ole boys who were punt gunners had everything to lose and very little to gain , in the end they lost punt gunning but they put up a hell of a fight and were not the type of people to be messed about with , they lived and died for wildfowling in those days , not quite the same this day and age .   MM

[Pushandpull]

Meeting attendance and membership are not quite the same. Back in the day, you might have a couple of channels of black and white telly at home. Come the monthly Friday meeting you got cleaned up, put on a jacket and tie, and went to see a colour film or to hear the man from WAGBI   (HQ) speak. No forums, few phones, so it was catch-up time. Driving home after two or three pints was still acceptable too. As for membership, if you want to shoot a goose the experience can be booked online, with pretty much guaranteed results as numbers are so high, and you can post your bag there for all to see and wonder. It's another world whether we old'uns like it or not.

[marsh man]

27 minutes ago, Pushandpull said:

Meeting attendance and membership are not quite the same. Back in the day, you might have a couple of channels of black and white telly at home. Come the monthly Friday meeting you got cleaned up, put on a jacket and tie, and went to see a colour film or to hear the man from WAGBI   (HQ) speak. No forums, few phones, so it was catch-up time. Driving home after two or three pints was still acceptable too. As for membership, if you want to shoot a goose the experience can be booked online, with pretty much guaranteed results as numbers are so high, and you can post your bag there for all to see and wonder. It's another world whether we old'uns like it or not.

Another reason we don't take in consideration is members are scattered far and wide , unlike our early days when most of the members lived within walking , or biking distance to the meeting venue , in the very early days a group of local shooting people where I was born got together and formed a club called , The Cobholm Gun Club that was made up of mainly Cobholm people, then it expanded to the Great Yarmouth Wildfowlers , then they opened the door to outsiders and it then became The Great Yarmouth And District Wildfowlers , now it have changed again to , Great Yarmouth + Conservation Association , same when W A G BI was first formed , who would have thought that one day it will become B A S C , even now it take some getting used to .  MM 

Edited August 12 by marsh man

[Pushandpull]

Didn't know that bit of early GY club history - it's a bit off my map !  Thanks for posting.

[marsh man]

48 minutes ago, Pushandpull said:

Didn't know that bit of early GY club history - it's a bit off my map !  Thanks for posting.

No problem .... Many , many years ago I was at one of the Yarmouth clubs meeting night when the then secretary  B F had on his table a painted signboard that someone bought off a car boot sale in Norwich and sent it to him , I believe which was the original signboard from the Cobholm Gun Club , at the time of forming the club the Platt brothers , ( one of them made our double gun punt ) were all very good shots and the landlord of the pub where we had our meeting showed me a photo of the Platt brothers standing behind a table that was full of large silver cups that they had won for shooting , clay or rifle ? that I don't know but I will put the feelers out and try and find out , MM

[holloway]

Really grateful for all of your replies, my view is that although there are some die hards it is becoming harder to recruit new members ,the younger generation with few exceptions are not interested ,i have felt for a while that eventually proper wildfowling will die a natural death.My own club has struggled to find new members ,when i started i was so keen that i banged on every door and asked everyone i knew how to get started, it was a calling that i pursued until addiction took over and left me desperate for my fix of wild weather and the rare chance of a wild duck or goose.

   Then the trips further afield in search of grey geese started ,at first guided always on the foreshore mostly with little success,then exploring with a like minded friend or two on our own until we always seemed to achieve moderate success .

Success was never measured by dead birds or piles of photographed corpses but in the crac and the effort we put in ,i still aim to continue for as long as i can or are allowed by law and hopefully add some more memories that no one can rob me of.

I feel like i am now a dinosaur edging towards extinction my son has never shown any interest ,but reading your answers i am certainly not the last dinosaur so hears wishing you all a successful new season.

[Dave at kelton]

Our numbers are pretty steady a couple drop off one end and we manage to add a couple but it’s a slog. The point you make about youngsters is a good one! Most of us are….well…old!

[marsh man]

10 hours ago, holloway said:

Really grateful for all of your replies, my view is that although there are some die hards it is becoming harder to recruit new members ,the younger generation with few exceptions are not interested ,i have felt for a while that eventually proper wildfowling will die a natural death.My own club has struggled to find new members ,when i started i was so keen that i banged on every door and asked everyone i knew how to get started, it was a calling that i pursued until addiction took over and left me desperate for my fix of wild weather and the rare chance of a wild duck or goose.

   Then the trips further afield in search of grey geese started ,at first guided always on the foreshore mostly with little success,then exploring with a like minded friend or two on our own until we always seemed to achieve moderate success .

Success was never measured by dead birds or piles of photographed corpses but in the crac and the effort we put in ,i still aim to continue for as long as i can or are allowed by law and hopefully add some more memories that no one can rob me of.

I feel like i am now a dinosaur edging towards extinction my son has never shown any interest ,but reading your answers i am certainly not the last dinosaur so hears wishing you all a successful new season.

Very nice post and I would also like to wish you a very good season and above all a safe one.

We have to accept we are not only into a new century we are also into a new millennium and nothing will ever stay the same , maybe when we first started we were in a time warp , everything revolved around the estuary that was on our doorstep , our club was formed in 1955 and in those early years had no marshes to go on , all the wildfowling was done on a four and a half mile stretch of water and mud flats , some of the older ones were retiring and some local youngsters were then starting out as a lifetime wildfowler , I was recently shown a photo of myself and three others all in our late teens sitting outside one of the houseboats that were scattered around the estuary , this could have been around 60 years ago and believe it or not the four of us are still above ground and still do a little fowling , in those far off days every duck and goose was earn't the hard way , often out in extreme weather day and night , waders were classed as a Bronze medal , duck a Silver one and a goose was certainly worthy of a Gold one .

Moving on to nowadays, the number of wild geese that now come down our way have changed the the wildfowling scene possibly for ever , many fowlers are now only interested in the geese and I remember once when they were talking about bag returns where the geese had caught up the number of duck shot and for the first time overtook them , having the time and living local it is not the hardest thing in the world to go up to certain marshes with the right weather conditions and you will bag a goose , if you asked some of the same people to try and bag a few duck they wouldn't know how to and possibly wouldn't want to know how to . 

Still it take all sorts and nearly 25 years ago when me and my late wife were walking along the sea front on New Years Eve in 1999 I was thinking how much longer will we be able to carry on Wildfowling , well  nearly 25 years later we are very close to a start of another season with no signs , or very little signs of it closing it's doors . Have a good en    MM

[Aled]

Nice posts guys. Cheers. Aled

[Svenandolaf]

We have a waiting list in our club. We always aim to have around 20 associates per season and there are currently a couple on the list already to join in 2025. 

[holloway]

5 minutes ago, Svenandolaf said:

We have a waiting list in our club. We always aim to have around 20 associates per season and there are currently a couple on the list already to join in 2025. 

Thankyou good to hear 👍

[marsh man]

2 hours ago, Svenandolaf said:

We have a waiting list in our club. We always aim to have around 20 associates per season and there are currently a couple on the list already to join in 2025. 

Good to hear that , is it a very big club ? and do you shoot on inland marshes or coastal ? 

You can P M me if you wish not to disclose any information on a open forum .   MM

[Sweet11-87]

im coming at it from the other side of it. I love my fowling and im chomping at the bit for the season to start. its nothing to do with whats on telly or cant be bothered its more whats the point?

i did look into joining a club and even attended the meetings for a few months but it was like a 45 min drive, short run down of the agenda then 2 hours of the old boys telling stories from the 60s and 70s that all finished  "nothing like that anymore" then a 45 min drive home.  Dont get me wrong salt of the earth blokes but clearly it was more of an opportunity and reason for those who have been friends for decades to get together to reminisce to a time when they  had it all in front of them. Nothing wrong with that of course i hope they get at if for as long as they can but nothing for me their.

[holloway]

1 hour ago, Sweet11-87 said:

im coming at it from the other side of it. I love my fowling and im chomping at the bit for the season to start. its nothing to do with whats on telly or cant be bothered its more whats the point?

i did look into joining a club and even attended the meetings for a few months but it was like a 45 min drive, short run down of the agenda then 2 hours of the old boys telling stories from the 60s and 70s that all finished  "nothing like that anymore" then a 45 min drive home.  Dont get me wrong salt of the earth blokes but clearly it was more of an opportunity and reason for those who have been friends for decades to get together to reminisce to a time when they  had it all in front of them. Nothing wrong with that of course i hope they get at if for as long as they can but nothing for me their.

Yes but you clearly have some non club ground to shoot over ? many have no access unless they join a club or travel to Scotland.

[Dave at kelton]

10 hours ago, Sweet11-87 said:

im coming at it from the other side of it. I love my fowling and im chomping at the bit for the season to start. its nothing to do with whats on telly or cant be bothered its more whats the point?

i did look into joining a club and even attended the meetings for a few months but it was like a 45 min drive, short run down of the agenda then 2 hours of the old boys telling stories from the 60s and 70s that all finished  "nothing like that anymore" then a 45 min drive home.  Dont get me wrong salt of the earth blokes but clearly it was more of an opportunity and reason for those who have been friends for decades to get together to reminisce to a time when they  had it all in front of them. Nothing wrong with that of course i hope they get at if for as long as they can but nothing for me their.

I see your point but unless you join one of these clubs the old boys will be no longer and nor will the club. In my club we get very little support for meetings but we still need members to maintain the shooting that we do have and to promote wildfowling as a whole. I would urge you to join a club(s).

[marsh man]

It is to far back now to remember , but I dare say we had similar problems when we ( ole ) boys first joined our club , I loved all the ole tales they used to run on about and now I realise that some of them were exactly that , tales .

If you are into field sports in general then being a member of a wildfowling club can open many doors and once one door open it will soon lead to another one and so on .

A wildfowling club is no longer all about wildfowling like it was when I first joined , now some of them have there own game shoot , flight ponds , gun dog training sessions , clay pigeon shoots , Wood pigeon shooting , rearing marshes and so on .

Cost wise it is normally within reach of most peoples pockets and can work out less than £5 a week throughout the year , and for some a bit less than that .

Nowadays you can catch up with all the news by the news letters some clubs send out or on line , no need to even attend a meeting this day and age, but the internet cannot replace the craic and the atmosphere we used to have at the meetings before technology caught up with us , a good nights entertainment was had by all .     MM

 

[Poor Shot]

The wildfowling club I am a member of handles the whole meeting scenario quite well. There are monthly meetings but the only mandatory meetings are the AGM and August permitting meeting. Meetings are strictly formal and related only to last meeting minutes, current agenda and any other business. There are no informal chats, no circles of oldies swigging ale and telling tales and we are pretty much in and out within an hour. They have a closed Whatsapp group for anything raised in between meetings which is strictly moderated and anyone reposting jokes, memes, pornography etc are immediately clamped down on. 

Suits me perfectly as I really couldn't give a toss about fowling in the 70's and tales of times gone by. I'm all about the shooting and nothing more. That said, there is a Christmas quiz evening which is quite enjoyable which I make an effort to attend every year. 

Members wise the club holds a pretty consistent membership level with new associates every year. Retention rate of associates is a bit poor but I suppose that's the nature of wildfowling. Being crouched in a smelly reen, up the knees in mud with no guarantee of even getting a shot off isn't for everyone but those who love it tend to stay long term. 

The cost of annual membership is less than a 30 bird driven day but even with less than ideal tides and weather you can still average 15+ flights per season. Good value IMO. 

[Sweet11-87]

9 hours ago, Dave at kelton said:

I see your point but unless you join one of these clubs the old boys will be no longer and nor will the club. In my club we get very little support for meetings but we still need members to maintain the shooting that we do have and to promote wildfowling as a whole. I would urge you to join a club(s).

 

18 hours ago, holloway said:

Yes but you clearly have some non club ground to shoot over ? many have no access unless they join a club or travel to Scotland.

i hear what you're saying my comment was in response to  the question and assumptions of why clubs arnt as popular as they used to be. I posted simply to offer some insight into why me personally and maybe others who are in the early stages of a shooting career are choosing not to go down the route of club membership and that its not that we just cant be bothered to put in any effort or were not interested. I contacted the club and attended meeting off my own back well before i had access to fowling, realized it was of little to no value to me personally and then used the money and time to find other opportunities.

 

Times have changed, with geese in such numbers that most stubble fields will see some in the late months of the year and landowners being encouraged to "re-wild and build habitat allot of duck ponds are around, failing all that the internet will have you in touch with a guide who will put you on a good evenings duck or goose shooting for the cost of the membership. Dont get me wrong i support clubs and think they're a good thing but avenues are now available that probably weren't in the 60s and 70s

[Dave at kelton]

29 minutes ago, Sweet11-87 said:

 

i hear what you're saying my comment was in response to  the question and assumptions of why clubs arnt as popular as they used to be. I posted simply to offer some insight into why me personally and maybe others who are in the early stages of a shooting career are choosing not to go down the route of club membership and that its not that we just cant be bothered to put in any effort or were not interested. I contacted the club and attended meeting off my own back well before i had access to fowling, realized it was of little to no value to me personally and then used the money and time to find other opportunities.

 

Times have changed, with geese in such numbers that most stubble fields will see some in the late months of the year and landowners being encouraged to "re-wild and build habitat allot of duck ponds are around, failing all that the internet will have you in touch with a guide who will put you on a good evenings duck or goose shooting for the cost of the membership. Dont get me wrong i support clubs and think they're a good thing but avenues are now available that probably weren't in the 60s and 70s

Not suggesting you can’t be bothered at all. There is though a massive difference between wildfowling and wildfowl shooting and I have done both. A guide put you bin a hide or behind a dyke for decoyed bird just doesn’t have the appeal any more. I have shot my share and on occasion put my gun down as it wasn’t sport.

For me it’s lying out in mud on the Merse in awful weather for the chance of a shot. Yes you have to be mad and it either grips you or it doesn’t. Last season geese were thin on the ground. I had 19 geese for 55 trips out!

Everyone to their own . The important thing is you are part of a younger generation coming through. Encouragement of that was why I wrote the article for BASC.

[holloway]

2 hours ago, Sweet11-87 said:

 

i hear what you're saying my comment was in response to  the question and assumptions of why clubs arnt as popular as they used to be. I posted simply to offer some insight into why me personally and maybe others who are in the early stages of a shooting career are choosing not to go down the route of club membership and that its not that we just cant be bothered to put in any effort or were not interested. I contacted the club and attended meeting off my own back well before i had access to fowling, realized it was of little to no value to me personally and then used the money and time to find other opportunities.

 

Times have changed, with geese in such numbers that most stubble fields will see some in the late months of the year and landowners being encouraged to "re-wild and build habitat allot of duck ponds are around, failing all that the internet will have you in touch with a guide who will put you on a good evenings duck or goose shooting for the cost of the membership. Dont get me wrong i support clubs and think they're a good thing but avenues are now available that probably weren't in the 60s and 70s

👍 understandable .

[Sweet11-87]

1 hour ago, Dave at kelton said:

Not suggesting you can’t be bothered at all. There is though a massive difference between wildfowling and wildfowl shooting and I have done both. A guide put you bin a hide or behind a dyke for decoyed bird just doesn’t have the appeal any more. I have shot my share and on occasion put my gun down as it wasn’t sport.

For me it’s lying out in mud on the Merse in awful weather for the chance of a shot. Yes you have to be mad and it either grips you or it doesn’t. Last season geese were thin on the ground. I had 19 geese for 55 trips out!

Everyone to their own . The important thing is you are part of a younger generation coming through. Encouragement of that was why I wrote the article for BASC.

couldnt agree more its quality over quantity and this will be my 4th season out on the mud flats. i conceded that if i had gone down the membership route the old boys would of probably gave me a few pointers on when what and where with local knowlege i cant find on the internet. its all been hard learned so far.

[marsh man]

Are we getting near the stage where club meetings will just fade out before long as more and more people are on line and can find everything that is going on at club level with a touch of your finger while drinking a beer or a cup of tea .

I found it pretty full on pay your subs night , several turn up if we were having a sporting auction and at Christmas ,although this was dependant on the weather , we had no meetings in the Summer through lack of interest , and having them the last Friday of each month didn't suit the younger ones as it was there night out in the pubs and clubs , so is it worth still having club meetings    MM