Shooters' tales from down on the riverbank

It soon becomes clear out here at the back of beyond that what we are engaged in requires dedication, patience and a supreme ability to withstand numbing cold.

David Upton is regularly down here before dawn, crouching for two or three hours among the freezing reed beds lining the banks of the estuary. "You come and you take your chance," he says candidly. "There's a lot of good luck involved rather than good judgment.

"You need some form of cover, although in some of the areas you need to be, the cover's a bit sparse. So it's literally down into the mud, face down in the mud, and keeping a low profile." This suggests that wildfowling's reputation as shooting's version of an extreme sport is correct.

The Humber estuary provides some of its richest pickings. "All our shooting's below the mean high water mark," adds David. "Depending on how the tide runs, you're out whether it's early in the morning or in the evening. That's the time that birds are on the move, either coming back into roost, or going out to feed." It's not at all like the usual game shooting, where you pays your money and more or less expect birds to come to you.

David Upton is the wildfowl secretary of the Hull and East Riding Wildfowlers' Association, one of several clubs on either side of the estuary. For him the attraction is the battle with the elements and second-guessing the whims of the birds he is seeking.

"You can come here some days and not shoot anything, but you've enjoyed the morning, you've seen the sun come up, the dog's enjoyed itself, you've seen all sorts of wildlife. We get deer on here, foxes, other wildlife. You get birds coming in really close, sights that people don't normally see, and while everyone's tucked away in bed you've seen all the sights and then it's home for breakfast. And then you'll try for the next time."

The Hull and East Riding club has about 150 members, of whom about 60 shoot. David Upton says the sport has periodic bursts of popularity. Some try it and decide that the cold and wet are not for them.

He would like to see more youngsters taking it up. That's how he started, going out with his father, a keen shooter. "Myself and my brother were introduced to the sport when we were very small, about eight or nine.

"Father used to bring us down here and we'd absorb all of the atmosphere of the geese 'flighting', and seeing the ducks and watching my father shoot. It just made a bit of a change to playing football out on the street with the rest of the kids."

But these mudflats and the marshes which surround them are protected areas. The entire estuary as far as Goole is designated a Special Area of Conservation. The estuary is also designated a Ramsar site giving it European Union protection and there are numerous Sites of Special Scientific Interest (SSSIs). So why are people allowed to come and shoot wild things here? And how do wildfowlers justify their claim that they are conservationists at heart?

Their governing body is called the British Association for Shooting and Conservation (BASC).

WAGBI, the Wildfowlers' association which later became BASC, was founded by Stanley Duncan who worked in Hull and at nearby Sunk Island and he played a key role in defining how shooting and conservation overlapped.

Dr Conor O'Gorman from BASC explains that early wildfowlers like Stanley Duncan sought to save these areas from development and from excessive agricultural drainage at a time when there was very little formal protection. That work puts them among the earliest conservationists. Sometimes habitats were saved by the shooters' clubs buying up sites to protect them.

The BASC estimates there are about 10,000 people who regularly take to the water's edge with their guns.

"Long before there were any national or European designations on the estuary, local wildfowlers have ensured that shooting was sustainable and that good habitats were provided for migratory wildfowl," says Mark Greenhough, the association's wildfowling officer.

"Conservation policy has been slow to catch up on that ethos of sustainable use. It's important that any new plans for coastal access do not adversely impact on either existing uses of the estuary or the undisturbed areas of mudflats and saltmarsh that are managed by wildfowlers."

This is an increasingly sore point. Dealing with the conservation authorities is something they are used to. Coping with the public is something new. Many of the wildfowlers' favourite spots are now being opened up to all under coastal access legislation which became law in December.

Ken Arkley, the general secretary of the Hull and East Riding club who negotiates the permissions needed, says the impact depends on how close a shooting ground is to the shore and to the flood bank which is likely to carry the new national coastal path.

"The closer the point of access is, there is a potential for problems. We have to conform with all sorts of additional paperwork now. We're now having to consider how many times we can visit the foreshore, there's issues with the number of birds which can be shot in some areas and I can only see it getting worse."

Weather has also been an issue this winter.

If there are 14 days of continuous ground frost, wildfowling is banned – in the case of Scotland for nearly a month to ensure birds had a better chance of survival at a time when food was scarce.

A species which has struggled on the Humber is wigeon. They favour grazed land and don't like Phragmites reed and Sea Club Rush which is overgrowing the shore. The reed beds do suit other birds such as marsh harriers, however, and they have quite large colonies of bearded tits. Some around the Humber are resident, others are migratory. The pink-footed geese come in from Iceland.

There are also migratory grey lag geese, and Canada geese which are now increasing in numbers and presenting problems on local on playing fields and golf courses.

Wildfowling is a relatively cheap form of shooting. New, the guns could cost about 1,000. Buying good second hand models are 250-500. David Upton uses a Remington 12-bore automatic, a WW Greener side by side, and a JW Tolley 4-bore.

Club membership is 125 a year and annual permits about 40. Add to that 200 for a good waterproof coat and waders. One other essential that can't always be got for money is a good dog.

The next wildfowling season starts on September 1 across the UK.