I40 THE COMPLETE WILDFOWLER 



follow the game for sport do not, as a rule, set out for a shot 

 in a fog, unless circumstances are different to the ordinary 

 run of things. Amongst amateur wildfowlers it is not con- 

 sidered sport to go punting in a fog. 



We now refer to the most dangerous position a float 

 shooter can be placed in. This is to be afloat amongst 

 crunching floes of ice at the tide mark. If there is an 

 accumulation of ice of any size, and he get well amongst it on 

 a rising tide, then heaven help him, for his punt is sure to 

 suffer if he alone escapes. Such a predicament is not one 

 that even the most inexperienced punter often gets into, yet 

 such has been known. To hear ice-packs during a hard 

 winter crackle and thunder as they press on before the in- 

 coming tide on the flats of a mighty estuary is a sound never 

 to be forgotten. We have seen ice packed up at high-water 

 mark in British estuaries three to five feet high, and, with the 

 force of a spring tide behind it, shear clean off a thorn fence 

 at the roots. The thorn fence had been put down as a protec- 

 tion for a sea-wall. 



To take life-belts and such-like in a gunning-punt may be a 

 wise precaution, but such articles are much in the way, for 

 there is little enough room to start with. Why not charter a 

 lifeboat and feel safe? There is nothing to beat carrying a 

 matter to extremes. 



