Turkey hunting along the Medway in Kent...

Pine Marten

Well-Known Member
This weekend the PM family visited some friends in Kent, but still within the London urban sprawl. They're thinking of moving to somewhere more rural, perhaps in one of the nicer Medway towns like Faversham. Spotting an opportunity for a return to my old wildfowling squelching ground, I said:
_ Great! We could come and stay with you at the weekend and I could take your husband wildfowling!
_ You want to take him hunting?
_ Well why not, it would be fun, we could take your son too.
_ I don't know, why not? It would be good if you brought back a turkey or something.


At which point Mrs PM looked at me, replayed what she'd just heard in her mind, then burst out laughing. "A turkey??!". "Well I don't know, whatever they hunt there." answered our friend. "I'm going to have to learn more about the countryside, aren't I?".

Yes, yes I think I may buy you a book on birds and wildlife.
 
I can't remember if I read it here or elsewhere but someone has some ground near a turkey farm in the UK and has a resident population of wild turkeys that escaped years ago. I thought this was going to be a similar story but turned out much funnier!
 
Well not completely daft - I do know of one shoot in Scotland where on occasion Turkeys have been released and driven off high banks over the guns! Not sure how sporting that is though.
 
Not daft at all. A roving syndicate I was part of used to take a let day on a shoot just to the north of Basingstoke where they had released turkeys alongside the more usual pheasant and partridge. They would take off and come over (and sometimes through) the gunning line, but the fine for shooting one tended to stay the trigger finger. I've seen turkeys many times in the US (mostly in Connecticut).

Faversham is a nice town, with none of the "Islington-on-Sea" feeling that Whitstable seems to have picked up in recent years. Faversham is still home to the Shepherd Neame brewery but when I first lived there Fremlins also had a brewery in the town, sadly long gone now :( Some nice pubs in the town and surrounding countryside, but many have been converted to gastropubs in order to survive. The happy evenings at the Mounted Rifleman (Faversham) and the Hog & Donkey (Marshside) are now a thing of the past.

Obviously some good wildfowling to be had on the marshes out at Oare and beyond, with driven shooting on a number of the nearby farms and estates as well as the possibility of fallow and roe stalking.
 
On another forum there was a picture of a turkey shot on a pheasant drive. I have seen guinea fowl and peacocks come over the Guns on a drive. Fortunately I was a mere beater or I would have been tempted at a much larger and slower target than a pheasant.

Blackpowder
 
On another forum there was a picture of a turkey shot on a pheasant drive. I have seen guinea fowl and peacocks come over the Guns on a drive. Fortunately I was a mere beater or I would have been tempted at a much larger and slower target than a pheasant.

Blackpowder
An American wild turkey can get up and fly like a pheasant, though they usually set their wings like a quail after a while and glide into a landing in the woods. You want a head shot on them, anyway.
 
For goodness sake people, I'm just trying to have a laugh at the ignorant other Londoner, and everyone just comes up with reasonable, measured responses...
 
Pine Marten this is true, some years ago I was just setting off for our club's annual pre Christmas turkey shoot where the prizes were in the form of poultry. My sister who was visiting asked where I was going and I replied "to the club turkey shoot".

She then said in all seriousness " if you shoot two can we have one?"
 
Not daft at all. A roving syndicate I was part of used to take a let day on a shoot just to the north of Basingstoke where they had released turkeys alongside the more usual pheasant and partridge. They would take off and come over (and sometimes through) the gunning line, but the fine for shooting one tended to stay the trigger finger. I've seen turkeys many times in the US (mostly in Connecticut).

Faversham is a nice town, with none of the "Islington-on-Sea" feeling that Whitstable seems to have picked up in recent years. Faversham is still home to the Shepherd Neame brewery but when I first lived there Fremlins also had a brewery in the town, sadly long gone now :( Some nice pubs in the town and surrounding countryside, but many have been converted to gastropubs in order to survive. The happy evenings at the Mounted Rifleman (Faversham) and the Hog & Donkey (Marshside) are now a thing of the past.

Obviously some good wildfowling to be had on the marshes out at Oare and beyond, with driven shooting on a number of the nearby farms and estates as well as the possibility of fallow and roe stalking.

NOT THE HOG AND DONKEY AT MARSHSIDE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

If ever there was a pub in my youth that had many rumours of parties upstairs going on, it was that one?

The pub would have no one in it, and yet the car park would be fairly full, and the barman looked like Dennis Rousous. There was always a great deal of noise coming from upstairs, sent our young minds racing I can tell you!!

As for Whitstable, that's my home town and as a boy you couldn't give the property away on the sea wall where Peter Cushing lived...........................Now it is stupid money to buy a property their.

Happy days.
 
NOT THE HOG AND DONKEY AT MARSHSIDE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

If ever there was a pub in my youth that had many rumours of parties upstairs going on, it was that one?

The pub would have no one in it, and yet the car park would be fairly full, and the barman looked like Dennis Rousous. There was always a great deal of noise coming from upstairs, sent our young minds racing I can tell you!!

As for Whitstable, that's my home town and as a boy you couldn't give the property away on the sea wall where Peter Cushing lived...........................Now it is stupid money to buy a property their.

Happy days.

Poor Barman!

K
 
They must of been good parties at the Hog N Donkey, the car park was still full the day day it closed and most of them hadn't moved for years!
 
NOT THE HOG AND DONKEY AT MARSHSIDE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

If ever there was a pub in my youth that had many rumours of parties upstairs going on, it was that one?

The pub would have no one in it, and yet the car park would be fairly full, and the barman looked like Dennis Rousous. There was always a great deal of noise coming from upstairs, sent our young minds racing I can tell you!!

As for Whitstable, that's my home town and as a boy you couldn't give the property away on the sea wall where Peter Cushing lived...........................Now it is stupid money to buy a property their.

Happy days.

Many happy summers spent down there.

I remember Whitstable carnival being the big event of the summer. Days on the beach at Tankerton and then up to Valentes for an ice cream and over the road to their amusement arcade opposite. Sometimes for a treat we'd go to the Marine Hotel for tea.

The Sportsman at Seasalter is another pub that has changed a bit as well.
 
Last edited:
Many happy summers spent down there.

I remember Whitstable carnival being the big event of the summer. Days on the beach at Tankerton and then up to Valentes for an ice cream and over the road to their amusement arcade opposite. Sometimes for a treat we'd go to the Marine Hotel for tea.

The Sportsman at Seasalter is another pub that has changed a bit as well.

Yes I know all of those places very well. The Sportsman is now a highly praised restaurant serving very good seafood I hear. I used to spend many winter days bird watching along the shoreline up to Conyer creek. And further down the coast used to set mud lines in the winter for the cod coming in.

Tankerton had the remains of a Spitfire, and on a spring tide in the early days you could still see bits of the wreckage. We would often pick up the 50mm shell cases, along with a variety of other bullet heads from the flats at Seasalter as there was a rifle range during the first war off the beach. Fishing on the marshes and camping was another great adventure in the summer months.
 
Back
Top