It's no doddle up the creek

Adam Hart plans a last outing of the season to provide food for friends, but it’s hard won

- Adam Hart

With one final trip to the foreshore planned, the pressure was on to bag some free meals to bring back to university.

The versatility of game meat is a great strength for the university student. In September, I return with kilos of pigeon breast ready to be transformed into pie. After Christmas, duck, woodcock and snipe fill my fridge-freezer in the form of casserole. The occasional marsh pheasant makes a great curry. My housemates willingly help butcher the meat and chop vegetables in return for a free dinner.

But this season has proved a lean one. Less shooting has left the freezer relatively empty. A final foray to the foreshore was in order.

To boost my chances of success — or at least to boost the number of cartridges fired — I decided to try to find a snipe beforehand. Fortunately, snipe often frequent the estuary’s margins where little freshwater springs mix with the brackish puddles. It is usually the last place to freeze in the county.

A week or so before, I recce’d a section of estuary that curves around a thumb of farmland and marsh. To my delight, the marsh was alive with snipe, which were still in season at this point. Great wisps of 15 or 20 were lifting out of every clump of reeds. They seemed to be getting up far closer to me than when I ever have a gun. The estuary edge, too, held plenty of twos and threes which darted away over the brown water. I thought at least if I fail on the duck, I can bag a snipe or two. My housemates, two of whom are from Hong Kong, probably would not have the faintest clue what a snipe even is.