I often awake in the night, its moonlight the wind is howling and i get this urge it just takes over i have to act then ..right now. Grab my cloths get dressed fast get the shotgun stuff over a dozen or so shells in my jacket pocket and truck keys call one or more of the dogs to heel as i walk through to outside. The cold hits your face, load dog, into the truck and away.
the drives a blur you are on auto pilot your thoughts are fully focused on whats to come. your mouth is dry in furvent anticipation.
You draw up at the fence the lights go out. your out the door , "come on Lad" the dog. you see nothing but the black shape running past in your peripheral, you can see the coast the silver sea illuminated by the moon lit clouds ever changing as the howling wind keeps obscuring the moon with the clouds. you can hear the waves now lashing the rocks the silhouette of the dog against the sea . you whistle him close and step down among the rocks get tucked in low with a good vantage point of the mud flats in the silvery gloom.
Its cold you pull the dog in close and pull your collar up and reach for your Neoprene gloves in a vein attempt to repel the bitter cols.
An hour flicks by with the shoreline waking up a otter goes from the rocks a hundred yards away clearly vissible eating something in the margins stepping back quickly when the enveloping waves threaten. you look away see some sea gulls glance back the otter has vanished as quick at it emerged.
Its starting to get light now, and with dawn you get that cold . the cold light of dawn is a thing ask any waterfowler who hunts the longshores.
Packs of ducks moving up the coast out of shot and in the hundreds, and in the lulls in the wind yu get that distinctive near musical sound of roosting geese waking up from their night of slumber on the mud flatts. Its half light now and the clomour of geese clearly audible now, and in the distance the occasional single goose circling wide the mud flatts. half hour latter the clamour grows to creshendo of goose music, and "They are UP!"
You urge the dog " STEADY Steady Down" .
you dare not look up directly at the approaching skeins, mearly looking out over your eye lids looking downwards for fear of the geese ppotting my white face.
You can hear the dogs tail thrashing in the dry windswept mash grass and he starts to whimper softly in anticipation. you check him"Steady Lad".
The first skein is heading too far south over your right shoulder but there is a small satelite bunch out the main skein coming low and straight for me, but sudenley the mud flatts erupt in a seemingly black cloud of geese growing louder and louder, the bunch is up to me but i can not bring myself to shoot, in awe at the hunge approaching skein behind them.
The main V is centered squarely but to my right but the birds on the tip of the left arm of the skein are going to be perfect and are 40yards up, i flick off the safetey and hutch forward get ready to kneel up and take the shot, they get nearer and nearer and its on. up barels past the bird then some squeeze the bird balls up in the air head and necjk flick over its back it falls like a stone and thumps down on the marsh clearly audible, "get on" the dog is gone and the geese are in disaray now some falter and turn back presenting a perfect angleing away shot as the geese loose altitude to gain speed and escape . i pick a bird who is acctualy crossing right to left, i swing through it and then some and bang he is angling down straight into the rocks at the tides edge. Dog is back tail wagging " Good BOy" Dead". " Get on Lad" i wave him back for the second goose.
I take out the empty hulls and close and shoulder the gun. Watching the geese head off inland to feed. Dog is back now, " good Lad Mine dead" i slip that goose in my game bag and pick the other up from my feet and in Buckle up the bag hutch it on my shoulder reach out grab my wading stick out of the mud and walk off dog at my side wagging his tail.
Pampered by being there being part of it in conditions that leave you in no doubt whatsoever you have been in a precious beautiful wild place, and that in becoming a part of that place for just an hour or two and harvesting just what you need t fills you to the brim with fervour to defend that place from those that would distroy it in the name of profit and greed. Waterfowlers are called WILDFOWLERS in Britain because we really do it in the WILD. And may that remain forever.
