Wildfowling

The SWWWC is associated with Anglesey Wildfowlers, we pay for membership of their club and have access to wildfowling on their marshes.
It is a long trek (about three hours), normally driven overnight so that we can be on the marsh at dawn for hopefully a duck flight or maybe even a chance at a goose or two. There are no guarantees with wildfowling - the ducks are either there or they’re not and weather, tide and available food for the quarry dictate this.

However, with some knowledge of the tides and favourable weather (usually the wilder the better!), you increase your odds of a shot or two, or even a red-letter day.
You most probably won’t shoot big bags, but you will get to see the sun rise in a natural environment on a wild marsh with all the sights and sounds of wildlife on the marsh awakening - a rare thing nowadays and a sight to see.

If you fancy a trying wildfowling we would be happy to take you. One of our experienced wildfowlers would accompany you, acting as your guide to ensure your safety and help you identify the correct quarry.

``It's hardly worth going`` - or is it?

"My night on the estuary" by Paul Carine

"It's hardly worth going" proclaimed my better half as I announced that I'd be getting up at 2.30am to head off to Anglesey with Paul Bidmead. I've never really been phased by early get-ups especially to go and do something I enjoy. Granted, I wouldn't do it every day but now and then isn't too bad at all. But what does phase me is the cold, and, as I'm defrosting the seeming inch-thick windscreen ice I'm wondering if I have packed enough clothes and how long Dora the Explorer Spaniel will last without contracting hypothermia.

As it turned out it wasn't too bad at all at the inlet. We had soon set our bags and decoys out and were waiting in the eerie gloom for flighting birds. The sounds of curlew and mallard echo around with no real direction, geese off in the bay taunt with their cries and every now and then a wingbeat close overhead startles you into action. Crack, crack! The calm is broken, one from each of us at a squadron of mallard, nothing falls but that doesn't faze my eager Spaniel or Paul's Labrador, Ike, who assume that we've done our job properly and now it's their turn to do theirs. Great, now I've got a soggy dog who will likely shiver for the next 5hrs, but at least the swamp donkey now blends with her new grey mud camo-look.

Soon the world around us is lit up by the morning sun and we head for the hides. I always find it peaceful sat in a hide, being 'part of the environment not just passing through’ kind of thing. Of course, that is after the obligatory game of wrangle a Spaniel out of camo netting. All is quiet, even the curlew seem to have moved on. After what seems like an age, some widgeon do a fly-by or two, teasingly close - until one strays too close over my hide and we don't have to do a lap of the marsh in our pants - or whatever the wildfowler equivalent is. I go to sort my decoys and hide after the eager beaver spaniel has stampeded them to claim her bird following Ike's retrieve. "duck over" I call to Paul from the water’s edge, landing gear down, ripe pickings, but he's faffing too and too slow to pick up the gun - opportunity gone. The sun makes an appearance and I enjoy watching some duck work the currents like pro kayakers further downstream. It's an odd dichotomy really - enjoying watching nature do its thing, embracing the quiet surroundings, yet happy to break it in an instant with the sharp crack of a cartridge if anything suitable enters our own personal no-fly zone. A wingbeat thrum indicates our decoys have finally drawn a few close and we have 3 in the bag, a cracking blind retrieve from Ike and a spaniel entangled in a hide net.

It quietens as the tide ebbs back and it's time for us to head back south. I reflect on "it's hardly worth going" and yes, for some 3 widgeon it may not have been. But for me, I got to hear the dawn chorus, see the first light of the day, watch the flood and ebb of the tide, listen to the calls and do nothing but watch. I also got to work my dog and tire her out, have a good chat about nothing at all and importantly, shoot one more duck than Paul. So, yes, it's totally worth going.