174 SHOOTING THE GOOSE 



been with us but a few weeks they become suspicious 

 of anything which floats, and no one can approach 

 within half a mile of them. Neither art nor wisdom 

 can be discovered in such a practice, and every time 

 this folly is committed the geese become wilder and 

 more difficult of access. I am well aware that it is 

 sometimes hard to restrain oneself from trying a long 

 shot at the big ' gaggles ' when they rise again and 

 again just out of range of the gun. But this is not 

 punting as fowlers understand it. Far better would 

 it be to wait for the few real chances, which will 

 assuredly from time to time occur, when the fowler 

 at length succeeds in deceiving the sentinel birds by 

 his stealthy approach and creeps up to the main body 

 of the revellers. 



The critical stage will then have been reached 

 when he must decide at once whether he will fire at 

 the geese as they sit or when they rise up from the 

 water. In nine cases out of ten a flying shot answers 

 best, as geese rise slowly and horizontally into the air. 

 The target presented by their bodies and wings will 

 come fairly within the shot circle, and while the 

 top pellets kill the upper birds which have already 

 sprung, the bulk of the charge will strike home just 

 when their wings are first extended in flight. In the 

 case of a very small number of birds a sitting shot 



