Shooting Times & Country Magazine
A Jonah of the marsh
Pariah to pintail, shunned by shoveler, Richard Negus fears he is the most pitiful of wildfowlers, until he visits a third river on a top tip
It has been a lean time in the Negus household of late. I have a raft of excuses. Wildfowlers, like anglers, always have excuses — “too dry”, “too warm”, “tides wrong”, “no wind”. Suffice to say, despite numerous outings to the foreshore and marsh, my gun has started to suspect that I have become vegan and my freezer is as empty as a used car salesman’s promise. It is not my skill that is at fault; this season the East Anglian marshes I frequent have been low on shootable wildfowl.
An email arrived from Dan Bycroft, chairman of the Great Yarmouth Wildfowling & Conservation Association. All members were requested, even implored, to get to Mautby to help protect the farmer’s recently drilled barley. The pinkfeet had returned to Norfolk from the northern wilds; not yet in tens of thousands but in sufficient number to cause lasting damage to delicate emerging shoots with their grazing bills and clodhopping splayed feet.
Shovel full of salt
Could this be the news my empty game book needed? Word on precisely where the geese were feeding filtered in. The information came from various sources, some reliable, some best taken with a shovel full, rather than a pinch, of salt.
Deadly Darren, my great friend and goose genius, believes the truth of his own eyes over any hearsay or gossip. He had reconnoitred the vast and featureless fields of Mautby.
His observations of pinks feeding and their flight patterns were noted and my expectations raised.
We parked in a farmyard at 5.30am. Great Yarmouth was illuminated by a multitude of electric lights to our backs, while before us in the pitch black the land spread out from the loop of the river Bure. Alluvial soil, rich and fertile, was claimed from the marsh by digging Dutchmen many years ago. The tidal Bure is slow flowing, home to bitterns, otters and windmills. Ploughed fields, recently harvested of sugar beet, were interspersed with swathes of citrusgreen young barley.
In these verdant acres, large circular patches of puddled mud
became visible as the watery sun struggled towards the horizon. These bare sodden patches in the barley betrayed the aftermath of grazing pinkfeet. If the brewers and pub-goers of Britain knew of this wholesale barley destruction they would doubtless have cheered on Deadly Darren and I as we secreted ourselves amid a reed-fringed drainage dyke.
No decoys
One annoying stipulation laid down by the farmer here forbade the use of decoys. Without any means of drawing in geese, we had to rely upon remaining unseen, judicious calling and trust that they would return to the previous day’s dining place. Wildfowling is filled to the muddy brim with hope; we waited with the optimism that we trusted would lead to achievement.
At 7.16am the pinkfeet appeared in the east. As a shimmering mirage they shapeshifted; a smear in the sky became skeins. Skeins transformed into one straggling frontage of hundreds of individual goose shapes. Their cry came to us, a sound so tediously described as “wink, wink” that hardly does credit to such a spinetingling call. On they came, skirting our position in an arc some 150 yards up. The vanguard could be seen tilting their heads to one side, looking for food, looking for safety.
Goose language may be incomprehensible to us but the landing message was evidently clearly understood among their number. Wing beats changed from forward propulsion to shopping mall lift-like descent. Necks dropped, paddle feet were lowered and 1,200 geese landed one after the other in the neighbouring field, 200 yards away from our now useless hidey hole.
We watched in admiration for half an hour. Small parties came to join the vast mass. One contained some white-fronted geese, their yodelling distinct among the pink music. None came within shooting distance.
Sated with birdwatching we hauled ourselves from the ditch. Our sudden presence caused alarm among the massed Anser ranks. As one they rose, clamouring away over the Bure.
Deadly and I trudged back to our vehicles, humbled by one of nature’s great pieces of theatre. Darren returned the next day with another friend. They shot a brace apiece.
Three days later I sat at dusk on the banks of the Waveney at Geldeston, grateful to be back on Suffolk soil. I waited in hope of shooting a wild duck or two in this most inland of the Alde and Ore Wildfowler’s Association’s marshes. The Waveney is one of the physical barriers between my home county and our Norfolk neighbours. The valley here is a true
nature reserve, thanks to it being largely free of intrusion from RSPB or Wildlife Trusts meddling.
Bucolic in every season, its marshes flood dramatically after winter’s rains. Currently the splashes remained dry. More than 50 mute swans dabbled and paddled before me. Their dog turd-sized dunging befouled what standing water there was, dissuading any self-respecting teal from using the facilities.
Ticking boxes
The marsh is famed in the club for its prolific number of species, having provided a tick in every wildfowl quarry box in the annual bag return form. Mallard burbled contentedly away to my right as the November light dropped rapidly. Mabel, my cocker spaniel, fidgeted at the crowing of the marsh pheasants at their roost in the willows that line the river. A snipe creaked overhead; the whisper of wings fleetingly caused me to raise my gun.
However, the promised moon was obscured by thick cloud and I realised my novice folly at standing within this dry marsh. I vowed to return after the rains have saturated the water meadows. Three times I pulled the cocking handle of
Barry White, my ugly Hatsan semiautomatic, to make it safe. Whistling Mabel back to heel, I walked disconsolately away from the Waveney and back to the warmth of my truck half a mile away.
I let the weekend pass in fowlfree family activity and then rang “Unsinkable” Simon Trinder. I had started to fear I had become a Jonah, that most pitiful breed of wildfowlers; the man whose mere presence on the marsh guarantees a blank — pariah to pintail, shunned by shovelers and mugged off by mallard.
Simon is an artist of paint, canvas and the muddy foreshore. He lives on the upper reaches of the river Alde and knows the inlets, creeks and eddies nigh as well as the resident wildfowl he studies, draws and occasionally bags for his supper. Under his guidance I returned to a stretch of foreshore on the inland side of the Alde that I had last visited on the opening day of the season.
I rose at 3.15am, fed Mabel and the pair of us set off for the 50-minute drive to the Alde. From my vehicle to the saltings it was an easy stroll in the glow of a three-quarter moon. Venus hung due east, adding to the silvered light. I set up my hide in an
“Like quicksilver, teal appeared, one after another passing in front of my hide, oblivious of my presence”
oozing inlet. With no sign of dawn yet on the horizon, the moon caught the splashes left by the dropping tide, half an hour behind full.
I hedged that teal would return to these watery havens as dawn broke. The river spoke to my dog and me, making sucking, popping sounds as mud was revealed at the tide’s retreat. There came the fluting of curlew that had decided to beat the redshank in the race to be first awake.
A bubbling sneeze reached my ears. I reached down to ensure Mabel hadn’t chosen to slink off for a moonlight swim. Her wet nose reassured me she was still present. It proved to be a seal, the moon glistening on his slick head as he disappeared to join the tide.
Samphire carpet
Then like quicksilver, teal appeared, one after another passing in front of my hide, oblivious of my presence. I fired at the lead bird, missed, fired at the second and down he came with a splash on the samphire carpet. It was an easy retrieve for my young dog and a huge weight lifted from my shoulders as I cradled the cock teal in my hand. The river had provided me with a chance and I had gratefully taken it.
No more duck came my way that morning. Greylags passed high overhead, curlew waded, redshank delved, knot gave aerial displays.
Life was good once more.
Follow Richard on Twitter @Troopersnooks