It’ll come out in the wash

I head east when I go wildfowling. The coast lies in that direction; the sea, the sands and the mud. It was therefore a unique experience to load up my truck with grime-bedaubed coat, waders, gun slip, Mabel and bergen and drive westwards in pursuit of wildfowl.

It is all too easy to somewhat over-egg our hardiness as coastal wildfowlers. We talk in casual terms of rip tides and quicksands, treacherous muds and sea mists all waiting to kill the unwary. The inland fowler is denigrated because, allegedly, he shoots in his carpet slippers. I have been guilty of repeating this groundless bravado

Fowling is there to be had away from the shore and it is just as wild and just as thrilling. To my west, a mere hour or so away