Where there's a Will...

Every post needs a heading. Will is Andy H's mate and we had arranged for him to grab a ride down to the ponds. By the time he arrived on Friday evening, The Booger was loaded and ready, and all he had to do was get changed and chuck his gear in the car. It rained most of the way down, but the trip was uneventful. Launching was easy, in fact everything was great. Visions of steaming down the river triumphantly soon turned to custard when I couldn't get the motor started. Aha! But I had packed the operating manual, so I was fine! I giggled smugly to myself that I had it sussed. But no, after re-tweaking my arm that Simon ripped off a month ago I had to pull out the cell, Call Andy, and ask for a tow. He arrived soon after (I was still cranking the motor) and then Will jumped into the Rocket, we got the boats tied off and away we went. I sat in the stern steering and making buddabuddabudda boat engine noises. Embarrassing. Anyway I gave the motor another pull and .. the motor started! Yelled to the boys, untied, and off we went. Anyway, enough boat stuff. The hunting party was dad, Andy, me, Will and a chap called Benno from Germany, and his dog Tana. Me and Andy headed out to the Willow Pond to set some dekes and came back in for a late dinner (10pm). Hit the hay and had a damn good sleep. Got up at 4.30 (Was wide awake) and got the kettle on. Made breakfast, then dad and me headed out to the Willow Pond to get set up. My Robo had tipped over in the wind overnight so was quite surprised that it came to life first flick of the switch. We had quite a wait until it was light enough to see ducks. The Thames boys were in their pond. The wind was howling up high, and the ducks were answering the call and diving in at us. Not a huge shoot, but our bag was pleasing, made up completely of Grey ducks.

Willow Pond

We headed in to the hut at 11.30 and had lunch, the went for a walk under the trees to check out some old hidey holes that used to be so good before DOC came along and poisoned the willow trees. Andy and I headed off to find a particular little spot and picked up a jumping Grey on the way. Andy did a blood hound impression to find the bird. Finally we turned around after we realised we must have missed the spot and then inadvertently found it, marks went into the GPS. It was getting on for 4pm, so we headed back down to the hut and got ready for a night hunt. Dad came with me and we went across to the night spot. The evening was great. We picked up another Grey, and had a few more shots. As it grew darker a huge thunderstorm approached. The lightning show was amazing, orange and purple blasts streaked across the sky. It was coming our way. i knew that as Will and me had to leave we were going to get some weather, and it unleashed as we got in the boat. The drive up to the ramp was like driving through a wall of water, we got soaked. We pulled the boat and no more than a minute into our car trip the rain stopped and the sky cleared.....

German Visitor