Back to the marshes after weeks of partying

There's not been much chance to get out on the marshes lately, with my Big 40 and Christmas forcing a lot of drinking and parties my way :-)    I think my waste line has definitely seen slimmer times, so I need to use the next few days before going back to work, trying to loose a bit of weight.

On the 22nd my boy, big cuz Ian and big Bro Vera hit a little bit of rough shooting in a festive way.  It was a horrid wet day, not much good for the pheasants which kept off the wet ground and well out of our  way.  We managed to bag 2 woodcock and 2 partridges for our efforts, but we did have a good laugh with festive hats and one or two hip flasks..

The birds, plus  a pheasant from Ians shed were put to good use in my

Christmas dinner.  I boned out a 17lb turkey, and added another 10lb turkey, a 10lb Chicken the 2 woodcock and partridges along with the pheasant breasts. and lots of stuffing.

Once all the meat was in, everything was stitched back together with the aid of my Christmas sidekick and cooking Guru Roger

Stage 1 - bag your birds

Stage 3 - over 20lb of pure meat,
only two leg bones remain

Stage 2 - bone your bird
on the kitchen table

28th December the usual crew (Bro, Big cuz and Henry) tried to shed off the hangovers by getting up at silly o'clock and heading out on the broad.  The forecast was for gales force southerly winds and heavy rain - a recipe for disaster on the broad, and quite a dangerous place to be, so Me and Ian took the easy option and headed onto the 'Slaughters', which would provide the only shelter on the broad and Darren headed out to 'The point' in defiance of nature.

A nice spread of decoys

The flight never did really get started, lots of sea gulls as normal - but no duck.  Certainly not the expected teal buzzing our large decoy pattern.  but luckily the heavy rain kept in check for the first hour, giving us relative comfort.

He loves it

We kept ourselves amused as much as possible, practising with our duck and geese calls and mastering the 'diving' duck call.

Then the geese started to move, which gave us a bit of hope, a pair were called our way and went 100 yards to our side, then another pair followed the same line!

Wondering if we should move, but by now quite wet and getting cold we couldn't be bothered, and set about making all kind of weird and wonderful noises with our calls again. 

Picking up my Canada call reminded me that I hadn't shot one on the broad for years, and sparked off a bit of conversation about where they may have gone etc. As if by magic, we heard the magical burrrdup burrrdup, burrrdup call of a B52 coming from the short dyke, I called it back and got the BB's rammed home in the spout.  They called and got closer but then became quiet, keeping out of sight.  Disheartened i dropped the call, only to see a pair appear up over the wherry's and heading straight at Ian (located 30yds to my left).

Boom, the left bird dropped, leaving the remaining bird open for everyone to pile in.  bang, boom, bang bang boom -  the goose was hit in the belly, the face and the hard in the arse with some BB's, but it kept in the air!  making a good 300 yards before falling dead at the top end of the slaughters (this never would have happened when we used lead).

This Canada was so heavy he
could hadly lift it.

No sooner had we re-loaded than another pair of geese appeared on the exact same line, as they drew closer I recognised them as Gypo's (Egyptian geese) something me and Henry have been trying to get our hands on for the last two seasons since they were brought onto the shooting list.

Once again Ian dropped one with his first shot, followed closely by a barrage which brought the second goose down ( both stone dead)

So in one session, Henry got his hands on a Gypo and a Canada - the unfortunate thing is that he cant claim any of them for himself as they were either Ian's or a group effort.  But his time will come and he was more than happy to have been a part of things and we are 99% certain he was bang on with his shooting as the bird which carried shot before dying, had a few small pellet holes in the head !!  and one things for sure it wasn't the BB's being shot from Ian or me, or the thing would have been down, so the conclusion was that it must have been Henry's little steel 20bore loads.

A pair of Gypo's nicely
retrieved by Benson

Shortly after the Gypo's were in hand, things were getting very wet and cold so we decided to cut things short and head for home.  By evening time everything was still wet though despite being hung by the fire, so Henry and I decided to cook some nice pork ribs and chips for tea and stay in.. As they say Tomorrows another day  - and we have already decided to give Davids marsh a look.

8 December

Not much shooting this weekend, last night (Friday) was the 'Managers' Christmas party, so no chance of getting up early  - and Tonight is one of my Birthday celebrations so that counts out the evening flight..

Being as it was a still sunny day, I thought i would give my new air rifle a go, so popped down to the copse for an hour to clear my head.  The gun worked fantastically with its new scopes,  i took 4 pigeons and a magpie for 7 shots.

The two missed shots were because the pellet hit a branch en route, 3 birds were head shot and the other 2 were hit in the vital organs and dropped instantly (head shot was not possible due to vegetation)

I'm very please with it, and it's a great use of the £ people kindly gave me for my birthday.


Shooting over, a quick change and off for Drinks at Lisa and Danny's (Bro & Sis in law)  Who had arranged a 'Hunting' themed party..  Lots of fun there, and some great pictures of my past put together by Roger.

Party people in the house....

Wendy's 'hunting' cake

Sunday i got a call from Ian to say he was on the Rape filed and the pigeons were going mad !! Once my eyes had stopped spinning and the hang over eased a bit, I went over for a quick hour.   Poor Ian must have wished he'd never asked - I think the dog could have shot better, I only managed 3 birds with about 15 shots.  Luckily he did better and picked up 97 at the end of the flight.

Some times you get lucky

We had people over Saturday night, so I wasn't feeling too sharp Sunday but Henry had been thinking about the day before and was keen to go out again.  Following his disappointment of hitting, but not dropping a few birds on the broad, he decided he wanted to have his first outing with my old Franchi semi auto.

It was a perfect winters day, the sun was out, a sprinkling of snow on the ground and not a whisper of wind - so not expecting to see much I agreed to take him out for his 1st session with a 12 bore; thinking  we may see a pigeon or two on the hawthorn trees down the Suffolk marshes which would give us a chance to see if he can handle a 12 bore well enough to make the transition from a 20 bore.

We got down the marsh around 3pm and there wasn't a feather in sight, by 4pm the sun had dipped, things were getting cold and still no sign of a bird - no pigeons, rooks, ducks or even a snipe dared to make a move and only the faint sound of Pinks feeding in the distance to keep us entertained.

by 4.30 and in pretty much blackness, I had had enough and questioned Henry if he was cold and wanted to go home, but the little chap was so keen to have his first shot on a marsh with his 12 bore that he said no and commented 'You never know, something may turn up' and pretty much instantly 'Wink Wink' 4 pinks passed high to our right.

Initially i didn't bother to call, as they were obviously off to roost somewhere; so i didn't think it would have any effect.  But then they swung around a Marsh about half a mile away and seemed interested in landing somewhere - so the call came out the the little monkeys turned and swung our way, chatting to me as they came. 

500 yards and closing fast, they set their wings and dropped to 30 feet - swinging their heads side to side and looking hard for a goose to land with in the twilight.  We crouched low in the dyke, and i kept calling them - they crossed the dyke 40 yards down and were quartering towards us.

'Now Henry - Take em' - he jumped up, fired one and missed, then folded a bird clean dead with the second shot.  I followed in but couldn't get another one.

Ben soon picked the bird up for our inspection, Over the moon with this bird - we started to gather our gear for the walk home - then all of a sudden, we could hear hundreds of geese in the air, and could just make our a skein heading our way, i called and once again they came, but were looking to cross further down the marsh, so i told Henry to make a move and get under them.  He kept low and ran - managing to get under the line- 2 shots rang out, closely followed by the unmistakable sounds of pellets striking feathers, a bird dropped but didn't fall.

I got the things together and walked down to join him, thinking that would be it.  But no sooner had i got to him than a bunch of pinks were heading for the top of the marsh.  Off he sped again Bang, Crack, Bang Crack and a goose dropped 20 feet from the pack, I cheered and thought it was down - but only to see the thing gain height again and re-group.

It was pretty much pitch black by now, but there were hundreds and hundreds of geese in the air - you couldn't see them coming but you could see them when they got within 100 yards.  I really wished I had something heavier than the 32grm 4's for Henry to shoot - In the excitement i had totally forgotten that my Franchi had  a 3inch chamber and i had a pocket full of 3inch number 1 heavy load steel ! 

I gave him a hand full and he loaded up - the next skein came and boom - crack.. I strained to see if one was coming down and could make out one was loosing altitude above us, all of a sudden there was no question of it falling, it was stone dead and coming straight at us in the darkness - thud, it hit the deck 5 feet behind me.. I hate to think of the bones that would have broken it it had landed on me.

We had a few more shots and I brought one down, then decided we were wasting our time shooting at shadows and packed up.

One happy boy - with his first 12bore outing. 
n.b The gun was unloaded and double checked before the picture

The ground was white with frost by now - and Henry's hands were so cold he couldn't even unload his gun.  Funny how you don't feel it when the adrenalin is flowing, but as soon as you stop you cant move.

Double treat for Henry as he got to off-road the truck on the way back ; -)

A cold start

Its been raining cats and dogs for the last two weeks, the marshes have plenty of water and the waveney is bursting its banks at Geldeston.  A lot of the country have it bad with sever flooding in the South West. 

This week, it turned cold for the first time this winter, with some heavy frosts and

Northerly winds (gusting over 50mph) perfect weather for fowling, and we just happened to have a Boat on the Broad !!

I dragged Henry out of bed at 4.30 and looked at the thermometer which was reading -2.  We had all our clothes laid out in front of the wood burner to keep them warm and I had purchased some "Hot socks" to try and keep our feet warm, but i must admit i wasnt sure if Henry would be able to cope with the cold.

It wasnt long before the Zippo hand warmers ( a great piece of kit for anyone who spends time outside) had been sparked up, the trailer hitched and we were off.

Big Bro was already in the car park, full with anticipation..  and luckily there was no one else either !!  well apart from the Muppet's hand netting the quay for live bait !  some people have no morals.

Boat loaded, we rowed out under the light of the moon and set up on "the point" and "east" not great positions given the Westerly wind, but really good positions for the teal and widgeon we were expecting to see.

You cant beat a cuppa coffee
 to keep you warm

The decoys set, and a cup of coffee later we were loaded up and ready for the 6.43 start time. Teal were into the coys straight away and Henry took his 1st teal from the broad.  The widgeon then started to fly, circling the broad in big bunches of around 50, but keeping high and out of range as normal.

Just a one big bunch was crossing the broad, wings down and heading for Bro - a bunch of about 15 teal went webs down into our pattern.  Henry took his second teal from the broad and i managed one as they exited.

Our pattern of coys, with the rotary 'lucky duck' bottom right
and Darren's decoys at the far reed bed

A happy boy with his 1st teal from the broad. 
Well worth the cold early morning

The action continued, with barrels hot from the action at times.  Then it started to Hail, then snow and finally Rain..  By the time we finished we were well and truly soaked, but the modern gear we have kept us dry and mostly warm.  Unlike poor Benson, who did a couple of long retrieves and was feeling the effects of the weather by the time we finished, but soon got wrapped up in a big towel to warm up while i rowed in.

The snow sets in

Final bag was 4 teal, 1 Gadwall and a Mallard to our boat and 3 Mallard to Darren.

High lights:

Henrys first decoyed teal
Darrens left & right on Mallard
The sheer number of birds in the air & Henry trying his best to blow 3 different calls at once


Low lights:
No geese at all
I shot like Barney the Dinosaur
The Rain

Mikey the builder!  nothing to do with the post, but putting this nut shell on Mikey kept Henry happy for hours.