Shooting over stubbles in Randstad
In Holland, wildfowl and woodpigeon gave guns a golden day on stubble near Rotterdam, despite the urban nature of the setting
Wildfowl and woodpigeon gave guns a golden day, says Andrew Balcombe
Driven from my bed at 3.15am by the alarm, I chucked my gear in the car and was soon heading south through Rotterdam’s harbour region and the oil-manufacturing zone known as Pernis. Nearby was Europort, which is among the largest seaports in the world. It is one of the most heavily populated and industrialised places on earth yet in less than 20 minutes I was pulling up outside a farmhouse in a hamlet just outside the town of Poortugaal to join a wild-bird hunt.
Waiting for me in the darkness were my fellow hunters: Dirk-jan, the man who had invited me along and would be running proceedings, and his longtime shooting mates Andre and Peter, all local to the area.
We were also joined by a young man named Joel, who was in his early teens. Joel was doing a school assignment on goose hunting and how the birds were controlled by hunters protecting farm crops.
Geese are normally hunted in the winter but because the numbers were increasing significantly it was decided to allow controlled shooting to protect the valuable summer grain crops.
Another non-hunter who was joining us this morning was Arjan. He had been invited with his golden retriever, Sverre, to try his hand at retrieving downed birds.
After the introductions, we got back into our cars and drove a short way in the dark onto a nearby crop field. Dirk-jan positioned the other two hunters safe distances away to build their hides.
I then got busy with Joel putting out grey goose decoys on short poles. Dirk-jan also had a taxidermy grey goose positioned in the form of a landing bird placed on a longer pole. After setting up some extra woodpigeon decoys we got started on the camo-netting, which was placed in a box configuration next to a mesh fence.
By first light, myself, Joel, Dirk-jan and his spaniel, Edor, were cozy inside the hide.
The strategy for this morning’s hunt was to try and attract geese and pigeon to a clear piece of paddock next to a grain field. The grain in the cleared area had been cut but the geese and pigeon still found plenty lying on the ground to eat. When geese were spotted or heard, Dirk-jan would give a few blasts on his goose-decoy call and hopefully the geese would land among their “friends”.
As it became lighter, we waited for telltail formations to appear from the direction of the nearby Oude Maas River. Dirk-jan, however, noticed a flock of geese standing in the paddock about 100 metres away from our hide. These geese behaved unexpectedly and when the light cleared we understood why: it was a group of the larger Canada geese, which are a lot less wary than the shy, smaller, native grey geese. As the birds cannot be shot on the ground, Joel was sent with the dog to flush them into the air.
The birds took flight but flew in the wrong direction, heading away from our hide.
Luckily, they circled back, which brought them directly over Andre’s hide, positioned behind a wall of reeds on the edge of a canal. His over-and-under 12-gauge boomed twice and a massive Canada goose dropped out of the formation. He picked up the goose and positioned it among the rest of his decoys and returned to the hide.
We settled down and watched another flight of Canadas coming at us in a straightline formation. A couple of shots from Andre missed and the geese gained height and escaped. Not long after, a flight of grey geese came over as Dirk-jan gave a blast on his goose call. As they came just in front of the hide, Dirk-jan rose and fired twice. I watched two birds peel off and drop to the ground. Impressive.
One of the birds was only winged, however, so Dirk-jan set his spaniel loose and Edor brought the injured bird back to the hide where it was humanely dispatched. The other bird fell near the grain crop and Dirkjan retrieved it quickly and placed the two birds among his decoys.
DOUBLE DUTCH
As the light cleared, I noticed just how built up the area was. Encircling the fields was a residential zone. This surprised me although the houses were at a safe distance and the locals were used to the shots of hunters protecting farm crops from hungry birds. It was typical Dutch rural management. Space being at a premium in this part of the Randstad, they pack as many uses into their land as they can. It’s amazing that they can keep it as picturesque as they do.
Over the next hour we were able to call in more geese, both Canadas and greys. At
We watched a flight of Canada geese coming at us in straight-line formation
one stage, a smaller bird flew in to check out the decoys and Dirk-jan dropped it with his Winchester over-and-under.
When the dog brought it in, the bird had light-brown/golden feathers with green wedges on the wings. This was another introduced species, the Nile or Egyptian goose. These wildfowl are native throughout Africa and are actually a super-sized duck rather than a goose. They were introduced to the Netherlands during the second half of the 20th century and have since spread throughout the country.
Between the waves of geese coming in we were graced by loads of woodpigeon. These birds are occurring in very healthy numbers and love nothing more than munching on grain and tender green shoots. They are pretty good to eat as well. A flock of five passed close to our hide and Dirk-jan poked his gun up and fired. A plump pigeon fell and was placed among the decoys. The hunters were using number four steel shot in their guns, which was not ideal for the smaller pigeon but compromises have to be made. The geese also had to be taken at relatively short range to maximise stopping power because they are such powerful birds.
Despite the density of human habitation in the area, typical farmland species are abundant. Dirk-jan told me that roe deer are starting to colonise the area and we saw a European brown hare hopping along in the paddock nearby. Mallard were plentiful, flying over in large numbers. As the duckhunting season had not started yet, these were off the menu this weekend, however.
Among the gamebirds were birds of prey, which seemed to have little fear of people. At one point, Andre shot a pigeon and soon after a grey goose, while a marsh harrier hovered over a grain field nearby. The rare but increasingly more common predator appeared unconcerned by the shooting.
Also putting in an appearance was the common buzzard, which is making a real
As they worked the dog, geese were still tempted to come onto the decoys
comeback in the Netherlands. Buzzards eat a wide range of prey, from worms to birds and rabbits, and can be seen regularly in rural areas.
During this pretty busy time, we noticed that no birds had flown over Peter’s hide, which he was sharing with Arjan and his retriever. As Andre and Dirk-jan had bagged a good number of birds, Peter was invited to join us and Arjan was invited to join Andre and retrieve some birds that had been downed in the wheat crop.
As the light was bright now and the geese had slackened off, we stood outside the hide and chatted about the progress so far.
the wrong place
To Peter and Arjan’s disappointment, they had not had a clean shot at any of the numerous flocks that had flown in. They were just in the wrong place. It was difficult to believe but while Andre and Arjan worked the dog, geese were still tempted to come onto the decoys. Another flight of Canadas swooped in low and Andre shot one. They could not gain enough height to clear our hide so Dirk-jan managed to bag a straggler. This was one of the morning’s highlights and brought a smile to everyone’s face.
Joel was then sent with Edor into the crop to collect the bird. As he and the spaniel worked their way through the crop, a pheasant burst from the wheat with a startled shriek and flew off in the direction of a nearby forest. This was unexpected as pheasants are not as numerous as they once were, so it was a real treat to see this one winging it away.
As Peter hadn’t had a chance to take a shot the whole morning he took the opportunity to bag random pigeon that flew over our hide frequently. He had to be careful, however, as among the wild native woodpigeon were feral pigeons. Unfortunately, these birds are impossible to distinguish from homing pigeons and so were best left well alone. This seemed a shame to me, as I would like to see a lot less feral pigeons in the wild than there currently are.
The pigeon were coming in really close now and a couple of them were bagged within a range of 20 metres. Andre joined in from his position and the dogs had plenty of work collecting the birds that fell.
We then joined Arjan and Andre and watched the dogs working the area collecting birds. They had to cross the nearby canal to find them in a crop paddock and because Arjan’s dog was still learning, this took a while. If the retriever couldn’t find the bird then the spaniel was sent in.
a golden morning
As the pleasant summer sun shone on us among the golden wheat, I thought to myself that there was no better way to spend a morning. Once the dogs had rounded up all the birds, we headed back to our hide and packed away the decoys and netting before heading to Dirk-jan’s house.
The geese and pigeon would go in the freezer to hang, to be distributed among the hunters later. A breakfast spread was waiting for us as we shared sandwiches and coffee and chatted about the hunt and ourselves.
Joel had had a great experience working with Dirk-jan’s spaniel and also had enough information to complete his high-school assignment about managing geese and crop destruction. Arjan had given his dog a good run and they had both received great experience in the Dutch countryside.
Dirk-jan graciously gave me some breast fillets from a grey goose. They would be panfried later, grilled for 20 minutes and then served with salt and pepper. Delicious.
We said our goodbyes and headed our own ways, with a fantastic summer Randstad wildfowl hunt behind us.