1st day on ducks

[Llanshooter 0]

Saturday 03/10/09

 

 

1st Duck Day

 

Met up 08:30 as usual 1st in car park, I had brought my mate Martin as guest for the day as I was shooting another’s gun, so I had invited Martin to shoot my gun.

 

The usual ritual of the first day meeting with guns and picker’s up arriving in dribs and drabs. Finally drew pegs at about 09:20, Drew peg 14, Martin drew 16, jumped in Phil’s Landrover for the day, Phil and Glyn had drawn 13 & 15 so we were all together, which was handy as the top four guns (of 16) were to act as beaters with guns moving up 4 positions at each drive, with the exception of the final drive; where all guns lined out and two guns acted as beaters/walking guns around the edge of the reservoir.

 

The weather was a grey, drizzly day with a blustery westerly wind blowing gusting up to approximately force four to five, although it remained very mild.

 

1st Drive

This consists of small, elongated triangular wood with a very small pond at the end, hidden from the guns. Beaters approached quietly to the pond where there were approximately 250 mallard. On the horn we beat to the edge of the pond and startled a few of the duck up, to be greeted by a few bangs from the guns. The majority of the duck refused to lift, but simply rafted together and moved nervously around the pond, with quite a few leaving the water and running back up into the wood. A number of these duck that were flushed simply did a circuit or two before dive-bombing straight back into the pond. These duck did not simply land on the water with their paddles down but entered the water like high divers, disappearing below the surface on impact and resurfacing near the pond edge before running up the bank with their friends.

 

Relatively few duck shot on that one, but that was the beating out of the way at least.

 

 

2nd Drive

This is quite a large wood running roughly north/south along a hillside, with the pool located near the end of the wood. Guns line up along the east and west sides of the wood, with a couple of pegs on the southern end.

 

I had peg 2 for this drive, on the East side with peg one to my right and Martin 2 pegs to my left on peg 4.

From the amount of quacking coming from the wood there must have been a lot of duck on the pond but very few bangs from the guns so the same must have been happening as on the previous drive. One mallard came out of the wood above peg one and flew down the line. Les on peg one fired one shot with no effect, I managed to bring it down as it went past my peg.

Both myself and the gun on the next peg failed to notice Teal over us on two occaisions, due to being half asleep and not looking over our shoulders for returning birds, schoolboy error.

 

3rd Drive

 

This is a larger pool on open meadow lower down the same hill as the wood and pool on drive 2.

Guns line out above and below the pool. Depending on how the wind is, either the top line of the bottom line can do really well here, although the birds can all flush in one huge flock. Large numbers flushed but due to the wind they turned back very early so the pegs below the pool saw relatively few birds. I stood on peg 6 approximately half way along the line below the pool, Martin was peg 8, amongst a few large oak trees along the meadow. When the wind isn’t too strong that would normally be quite a good peg as the birds rise and turn over it, and as the peg is well below the pond, even very soon after they have lifted the birds are over the peg at above tree top height, ( these are mature tall oaks so at least 50-60ft up), in fact water level is about 20 feet above these pegs.

This wasn’t the case today as most of the duck seemed to fall off the wind and turn over the upper line of guns as they headed for wood and pool above, so apart from a couple of shots Martin didn’t get action unfortunately. I was a bit luckier and had a couple of birds, practicing the techniques I had been trying, as a novice, to learn about gun mount, stance etc.

 

Just as the drive seemed to be dying off, I had broken my gun and was looking around for late returning birds when a mallard screamed around the top of one of the oaks, coming down wind. I closed the gun, raised and shot completely without thinking and the bird came down dead in the air, with a clean head shot, best of the day for me, possibly one of my best shots since taking up shooting. Maybe I think too much about what I’m doing usually?

 

A small 4th drive was slipped in as a very small pond across the road from the park was noticed to be full of mallard so we snuck the guns across the lane and lined out. However all the birds flushed immediately on seeing any movement and shot straight across to the previos pool with just a couple of shots and one bird down. The guns lined out along the track were laughing as we should in retrospect have lined out at 90 degrees to where we were so could have shot at the duck instead of watching them fly parallel to the line at 200 yards distance, still we’ll know next time.

 

Last drive

This drive consists of a large, raised reservoir of roughly circular shape. Guns usually line out in two ranks, with the first at the foot of the raised banks and the second line in the field across the road, with their backs to the wood. I was in the field with Martin next peg to my left.

 

There are usually a few Canada geese on the reservoir and we had seen a largish flock on the water earlier in the day, so I loaded with suitable cartridges for geese and had more in my right pocket but, as they usually flush very early and can then disappear, I had my left pocket filled with No 5s for the duck.

 

The horn went to start the drive and we waited, and waited. It soon became apparent that there were no geese coming, so I switched the cartridges in the gun back to the no No5’s and then had a couple of mallard, which I took a bit too early as they fell the other side of the hedge in front of me.

 

As soon as I reloaded with No5s, there was an enormous amount of honking and a second later about twenty geese came rising off the water and heading our way. A quick decision was needed as to whether they were high enough to shoot, low enough to bring down cleanly with No 5s or did I have time to change back to the goose loads.

 

I decided that I should be alright with the load I had in the gun and at the height they were and took a line on one bird and fired. It came down about ten yards in front of me – cleanly killed. I drew a line a second bird and that came down too, also dead about 20 yards to my right and slightly behind. So a left and right for my first ever geese, well pleased with my decision, but next time I think I’ll keep the goose load in a bit longer I am absolutely sure that they aren’t coming.

 

I loaded again with No 5s and after a while a single mallard came upwind at a good height, so I drew a line on it, following the really useful instructions in the last few editions of Shooting Times about gun fit, stance and mounting technique and It dropped just 2 yards to my right.

 

On turning to speak with Martin I was surprised to find that he hadn’t had a shot. It seemed that all the birds that had been going towards him had fallen off the wind and flown over the two centre pegs, so myself and Terry on the next peg to my right had had the majority of the action, with Terry also having a left and right on geese. Martin was only 30 yards away and hadn’t had a chance. I hadn’t shot from the field before so wasn’t aware how critical the peg placement can be here. Had I realised, I would have swapped pegs with him, but I will know for another time.

 

Then it was all back to the Cottage to unload and bag up a tonne of grain and share out the bag. 26 brace of mallard, six geese and the odd Teal in total. Not the most productive duck day but from a personal point of view a productive and eventful one. I was glad I had been able to offer Martin a day out as he has been very helpful since my son and I taking up the sport two years ago, it was just a pity that he didn’t get many shots on the day. Still, at least he went home with a brace and a goose. If the opportunity arises for another day after we start on pheasant it may be a different story.

[olliedakennard 0]

Hell of a write up took me a while to read it but did enjoy it.

[D.Onela 0]

Well...here it is...

 

 

Every time one of the Ducks has picked up a hockey stick in their life. They have dreamed of this day.

 

Make the dream a reality.

 

LETS GO DUCKS