Making use of rivers

 

Many landowners with sizeable rivers running through their properties find that duck flying along the valleys are often too high to shoot except in very rough weather. They can sometimes be induced to drop in and feed along sheltered stretches out of the current. But in this case, if the visits are casual and take place intermittently during the day rather than at a well-defined evening flight, one hears the complaint that 'after one bang they all go!'

Flighting ducks on rivers can certainly be difficult, and our advice is often to get the ducks off the rivers to flight ponds elsewhere on the shoot. Before the owner does this, however, certain alternative ideas are worth trying.

Feeding duck in for an evening flight is worth trying, in spite of what we have just said, providing there really are suitable places available. These can consist of still backwaters gravel shallows where mallard can wade, or bays of the main stream. Artificial bays can usually be dug at little expense and without using any appreciable amount of land.

All these have one thing in common - they provide sheltered places where both ducks and food can remain without being swept away by the current. A big disadvantage of rivers is that heavy rains can spoil a month's patient work on one night by putting the food out of reach or washing it away, and directing the duck to freshly flooded feeding grounds.

Nevertheless if duck are observed dropping into the quiet stretches of a river even in small numbers, regular feeding can sometimes build up a good flight. There are also times when duck will rest on a river during the day, using a run of shallows or a slow-moving stretch, and in such cases they can be flighted at dawn from hides on the bank.

When a river regularly floods its banks in winter, a very successful technique can sometimes be employed. Spring barley can be drilled along the bank in patches or strips of up to an acre or so. These are left standing right through the winter. Sometimes only half a crop will result, but when these patches flood, mallard and teal will flock to them and make excellent shooting. If the water is only a few inches deep, pheasants will also be regular visitors!

One of the best `river shoots' that the author had ever visited was composed of a duck basin lying in a horseshoe bend of a river, but not actually connected to it. The wetland area consisted of about two acres of open water, stocky marsh, rushes and bog bean, which was slowly beaten through like a pheasant covert.

The actual shooting of a river can present its own special difficulties. Chief among these is the problem of retrieving duck that drop into the water, particularly wounded birds. This has been overcome on a local river by stretching an old salmon net from bank to bank - downstream from the Guns -and stationing a man at either end with a dog and a torch. It is normally very effective, though when darkness falls it can sometimes be difficult to tell when a 'swimmer' reaches the net. "which is also illegal, as the water bailiffs will tell you in a court of law".

As a matter of interest, this shoot is one of the few successful ones on a river, with up to 500 wild duck flighting in to the shallows to feed. These provide a very calm area, which is in fact a ford only inches deep, and is probably the secret of its success.

Another problem is that duck, instead of pitching in at the same spot every night, will sometimes drop in farther upstream and swim down to the feeding point. For this no real answer has yet been found.

Where a main river proves to be unshootable, it is best to forget all about it and build a flight pond some distance away.

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