I count it as a great privilege to be on the estuary, particularly at dusk and dawn, when you can be alone with your thoughts in the most beautiful setting while awaiting the sport of the day to unfold. You get so close to all manner of wildlife and birds.

Occasionally, I take my 16ft punt out but, with our very fast tide, our estuary is not really best-suited to shooting in punts.

We have a good working relationship with both the RSPB and English Nature. And who says they are all politically correct? My friend Matt Blüger and I took their representatives out fowling a couple of years ago. They came as observers on a morning flight ­ and what a flight. I managed seven widgeon and Matt shot a pintail. Matt says he was grateful that the bird came down stone dead.

Matt is responsible for collating all our annual duck returns, interpreting them for our use and sending them to BASC which sends them on to the Crown Commissioners and the RSPB. He knows what was shot, where it was shot and even how many cartridges were fired.

It is a useful conservation measure. Generally speaking this estuary is not among the top wildfowling estuaries in the UK. Nonetheless, it still provides very good sport. North Devon's Taw & Torridge Rivers share the same estuary and gained renown when featured in the writings of local author Henry Williamson, in both Tarka the Otter and Salar the Salmon.

The River Taw now enjoys the World's toughest conservation as a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve, the first such site granted to the UK upon the merits of its many interlocked environments that support an excellence in fauna, flora and bird life.

The club was formed in 1976 by a small group of farsighted enthusiasts who were concerned that the traditional sport of wildfowling was under considerable threat on the Taw. Plans were afoot by "conservationists" to make the whole estuary into one vast bird reserve.