Foam on the range

Canada geese offer testing sport and some fantastic meat for the pot, so Tom Sykes sets out some old-school decoys to lure them into shot

- Tom Sykes

In the dog days of summer, the start of the wildfowling season always feels like it is taking ages to come around, then all of a sudden the nights start drawing in and the fowling grapevine begins to buzz with reports of migratory geese flying across the sky.

Despite the first birds often being heard in August, the early season can be a difficult time of year to get under quarry as migrant species tend not to have arrived on our shores in significant numbers. This makes it a perfect time to pursue some of our resident fowl, such as the Canada. Though it is often overlooked by other fowlers, I am a big fan of this species of geese, probably due to my childhood obsession with American waterfowl videos. They are also highly prized for my larder as they produce a fantastic bounty of delicious meat, which we enjoy minced in a range of dishes.

After driving by one of the marshes and stopping for a quick glass with the binoculars, I could see a large number of Canada geese feeding on the marsh after flighting from the roost. Though they were in a club sanctuary area, I thought that it would be worth trying to intercept the birds as they flighted up the following morning.

Later that day, I spoke to my good friend Tom Killingsworth, who was also planning to go for a morning flight the following day. After running through my reconnaissance and a rough plan that I had in mind, he was eager to join me on the marsh. We decided to meet about an hour and a half before sunrise to give us sufficient time to walk out and set the decoys under the cover of darkness before the Canadas began to stir.