Rather rashly I had promised to try to get Bruce his first goose, but we could not manage to fix up a trip until just before Christmas. The few local geese had been ‘shot up’ long before that, and I have never shot fewer myself, so we had to go much further afield.
There was time for an evening flight after we arrived at our centre of operations. The tide was not due until well after flight time. We saw some geese in the distance and quite a lot of wigeon but did not get a shot, then an unusual wind brought the tide exceptionally early and we were washed off.
The next morning, with a very favourable wind, we were quite hopeful. One single goose came in the half-light when