A Christmas Tail by Anthony Baggott
It was a Christmas Eve straight from a Christmas card scene, that day of days some twenty years ago. Even at noon the hoar frost threw a blanket of white over the still countryside, spidery white cobwebs decorated the under- growth. I whistled up the old setter and the sound carried for miles across the eerie still-
skimming the tops of the rushes and my hastily snapped first barrel didn't hinder his progress. What it did do was to lift two pin tail duck off the river, some twenty yards away and I hastily got onto the drake and pulled the top bar- rel. He collapsed in midair and I ad- mired his plumage as I placed him in my game bag.
I contin- ued my walk, ad- miring the cold blue- ness of the sky
ness .Prince the big boned .slow hunting red set- ter joined up with me and a neutral observer would have to admit that his honest features held the equivalent of a doggy smile. I had been busy with the mad rush that Christmas has become and Prince had spent more time in his shelter than he would have liked. So we set off, me with my ancient game bag over my shoulder, a sure sign that this was going to be a long wander along the valley floor ,following the river which wound its way along it.
My breath was visible in the cold air as I saw the rivers sheen ahead. Prince was stepping gingerly on the iced puddles ahead when I saw him slow and that glazed look began to creep into his eye. A couple of seconds later he locked, head a little to one side's a snipe lifted and flew hard and low,
and the way the air tasted, cold clear, like a good wine. Every side I looked there was a scene fit for any calendar. There are days like this every so often, and you can feel the blood zinging through your veins as you walk, and you feel like you could go on forever. I diverted from the river bank and set a course for a thicket of ha- zel scrub where many years earlier I watched my late father shoot the first woodcock I had ever seen. I will never forget the soft feathers floating plentifully in the air as the bird tumbled to the left barrel of the old hammer gun. As I stood in the same spot many years later I reflected on the time in between and I felt the old regrets came flooding back.
I Shoot and Fish E-Zine December 2011
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