I must admit not being a great fan of decoyed goose shooting, nor for that matter shooting ducks on a flight pond.
I grew up wildfowling and wild geese really deserve to be hunted out in the wilds of the foreshore. Getting out on the marshes in the pre dawn, or at last light and be alone with your dog and your thoughts sitting in the side a creek with the redshanks and other birds calling. All your senses alert to widgeon and teal whistling through, and the inevitable do I take one or will they disturb the geese?
Then a faint honk of a greylag, or the higher putched wink of a pink being carried on the wind. Open the gun and switch cartridges for goose.
In the dawn you get just the one chance as the flight out to feed, in the evening there may be more.
The odd goose starts moving. Keep quiet and still. You daren’t spook them - they are the scouting birds. Secret of goose shooting is patience. And only shoot when you are certain of killing. Half dozen make a real racket as they come up river, you keep low but they swing by 100 plus yards to one side - no shot offered.
You decide to move quickly - no lying flat on the slope of the river bank. The rest of flats are just sand and mud banks. You have followed the tide out, its getting dark (I never good at getting out of a warm bed). A small pack of widgeon come down the remains of the old wall built by prisoners of the Napaleonic wall, but long ago the sea reclaimed the marsh. Coming straight, you move onto your knees, pick out the cock bird and it tumbles, they explode upwards and you reach upwards for another and it too falls. Dog picks the easy bird, and then suggests that you should do some work and wade out into the river to pick the other.
Geese are really starting to call on the wind. A big skein comes over really high. They go in down on the rocks at the mouth of the river. They like to to wash up before coming to roost. The wind is picking up and the tide has turned. They will be pushed of by the surf as the tide comes in. Moon is rising and low whispy cloud comes over.
It’s a waiting game. Your warmth from chasing the ducks is gone. The cold is seeping through the neoprene waders - you will give it another ten. More geese come over - still too high. Water is lapping at your feet, but still needs to come another 3 or 4 feet before the river channel is covered. We get 5m tides in the Forth and you know on this side you cannot get cut off. Not like the time when you got stuck on a salt marsh down by Lymington all those years ago when the big creek filled up behind you.
Your mind goes into the happy place, you are a bit cold and damp, and salty and muddy, but who cares.
And then - what’s that. Hairs on your neck go up and then you make a large skein coming across the marsh low and into wind directly at you. Keep low, keep still, thumb on the safety - push it forward and back - and they keep coming. Pick a bird - you can’t really see them, wait till they are against that white cloud, you can hear the wings, are they coming into land - they back peddle and pitch into the river 50 yards away. The hound is quivering. Another little gaggle just come past from the otherside - you sit up and one falls to the gun.
There is almighty racket as 200 plus geese rise up and get out of the marsh.
The hound has got the goose and dragging it back. You pick the empty cartridge case and the widgeon. Take goose and trudge back to the care. Its a good mile across the sand and the saltings. The geese keep tempting you, but so does a warm bath for you. You drive back. Hound in her towling bag to warm up and dry off on the drive home happy.
