Innholdsfortegnelse for April 2016 i Shooting Gazette

BALLOT PAPERS have been issued to BASC members for this year’s council elections. The four candidates for the one national seat are Michael Alldis, Kevin Byrne, Allen Musselwhite and Cara Richardson. There is only one candidate for England, Robin Marshall-Ball, therefore the seat is uncontested. The successful candidates will form part of a 16-strong council and serve a five-year term. Voting, which can also be carried out via the BASC website, closes on June 15. The election results will be announced at the BASC AGM on June 18. Richard Ali, BASC’s chief executive, said: “BASC’s council is collectively responsible for promoting the success of the association. Council provides leadership, develops strategy, sets policy, ensures the necessary resources are in place for the association to meet its objectives and monitors delivery.”…

Books about game shooting come in all shapes and sizes, from handy pocket guides to weighty tomes covering every imaginable facet of our sport. Many of the contributors to this very magazine can lay claim to having their own speciality published in book form – Donald Dallas on shotguns, Graham Cox on gundogs and Will Garfit on pigeon shooting to name but three, each being able to write in an engaging style that is easy to understand. The same can be said for journalist Tony Jackson, who has decided to focus on driven shooting, wildfowling and the DIY shoot in this, a salute to the hard work carried out at the grass roots level of our sport. Sections on the early history of driven shooting, of guns, cartridges and the…

Social media was alight in mid February after an episode of Countryfile featured presenter Matt Baker’s visit to Easton & Otley College near Norwich to meet gamekeeping students. Bizarrely, a vocal section of the programme’s viewers took exception to scenes of rifle shooting and game butchery, some swearing never to watch the programme again. Our Facebook followers leapt at the chance to defend what they saw as an example of what Countryfile should be doing more of… Peter Jonker Johnson posted: “I take it all them that complained must be vegetarian. Or do they think meat just jumps into the freezer in the supermarket?” Noel Kiernan posted: “Gamekeepers are dedicated people who work 24/7 if necessary. The spin-off is the huge amount of songbirds and mammals that thrive where game…

Perhaps in response to public interest, most safari writers usually devoted a chapter or two to the animal they regarded as the most dangerous or treacherous. Although many agreed that buffalo represented a deadly combination of cunning and strength, there were others who spoke on behalf of the leopard and the lion. Having just re-read Colonel Patterson’s account of the Man-Eaters of Tsavo, I must say that from the perspective of an armchair big game hunter, no other animals provide such a wealth of drama and terror as the King of Beasts, and I found that I nearly dropped the book with excitement once or twice during some particularly thrilling passages. But while opinions vary on the most dangerous African animal to hunt, it is fair to say that buffalo…

Q: A friend of mine has an old labrador. It’s getting on now – its unwell and beginning to lose mobility. There is nothing the vet can do to prolong its life and the quality of its life is going to become an issue shortly. The time is coming for him to make the most difficult decision. When the time eventually does come he doesn’t want his dog to die in the vet’s surgery but instead at home in familiar surroundings. He wonders if it is legal to do it himself? A: I am sorry that your friend is suffering in this way and I’m sorry too that his dog’s life is nearing its end. It is one of the cruellest blows that their time with us is so short.…

Bruce Carter sent us this Gallic image and he said: “I’m the keeper at Chapel Shoot in Holwell, Herts, and this picture shows the beaters and guns who had a lovely last day combining good banter with safety. Our little shoot is only possible with the generosity of the land custodians who hopefully will be joining us for the end of season charity dinner/auctions at our local pub including the beaters, helpers and guns. Our two chosen local charities this year are Garden House Hospice and The Mental Health Society, and all proceeds from the dinner and auctions will be split between them. We decided the theme dress this year would be to show solidarity with the French citizens who have suffered terrorist atrocities. As legitimate gun owners with ultimate…

“The names Openshaw and Halstead are synonymous with success in the gundog world.” This is the gundog issue and in it there are, among a plethora of other superb features, profiles on two men whose names are synonymous with success in the world of training and field trials. Ian Openshaw is the undisputed king of the spaniels with more than 100 Field Trial Champions to his name; not far short of miraculous in this ultra-competitive and pitfall-laden arena. He is also a man with very strong opinions on what is good and what is not in the modern gundog world as we discover in his interview with Amy Bates on pages 94-97. He’s famous for not mincing his words so it’s fascinating to read what he has to say about…

“One gun in the line has been shooting Gurston since 1973.” Time was when driven game shooting was done almost exclusively by landed gentry. English milords invited their peers from home and abroad to enjoy the largesse of their coverts, woods, moors and waters. The costs were, if not incidental, certainly not a deal-breaker to the men concerned. Landowners and their chums gathered together and were attended in their sport by legions of servants. Within the grand houses, butlers buttled and boot boys polished. While outside, ostlers ostled, chauffeurs jostled and under the beady and all-seeing eye of the headkeeper, underkeepers, beatkeepers, loaders, cartridge boys and estate workers provided the manpower to beat, stop and pick-up. All served their masters and few questioned this natural order of things. Shooting continued…

It’s obvious opinion is divided in relation to the Countryfile piece about gamekeeping, which was aired on Sunday, February 14. I’m a born and bred Londoner (a proper townie), and for most of my life didn’t know the first thing about the countryside except that it was a beautiful place to visit every now and again. I certainly didn’t have a clue about shooting or gamekeeping and didn’t understand the need for it or how any of it worked. Fast forward 10 years and I now live in the countryside, where I belong to a shooting syndicate and share gamekeeping responsibilities with my fellow syndicate members. We shoot pheasants that are reared in large, stunning woodland areas and not in tiny cages like many of the chickens eaten everyday in…

“It stands as one of the most extraordinarily mysterious and wonderful sights I have seen.” We always link woodcock with winter. They are superbly evocative birds, and the sight of a rust-brown wing never fails to bring back memories of naked branches, blue frost and bare brambles sprawling like a ship’s rigging. They were made for winter, and when the GWCT recently reckoned that by Christmas time up to a million of these birds will have come over from Scandinavia each year, it was almost no surprise. Such large numbers of woodcock are involved in this movement that if they were easier to see, they would be as much a symbol of advent as the cock robin. We live alongside woodcock all winter; they feed in suburban gardens and flit…

Have you ever been to a Holt’s auction? If not it is high time you went. Taking place in a stylish old army barracks in London, the sale is brimful of a fascinating array of guns, accessories, accoutrements and anything remotely connected to the subject. There are thousands and thousands of lots, varying in price from £5 to £50,000, and there is something for everyone – the only problem is you will require a whole day to view the auction, such is the abundance of treats on offer. I have a well-practised routine of selecting interesting items from the Holt’s website, looking at them first and then having a general scout around. In last December’s sale I employed my usual technique, then began raking around. On one table there were…

Charles Boswell made a business out of his sport and half a century earlier the founder of Holland & Holland, Harris Holland, did exactly the same. Harris Holland was a keen live pigeon shot and was a member of the Hornsey Wood Tavern live pigeon ground. He regularly won competitions and like Boswell noticed how much money was spent on the sport. By the mid 1840s he had expanded his then tobacconist business in Holborn into a business dealing in guns and equipment, and such was the success of this, by 1850 he was dealing in guns only. Harris Holland was no gunmaker so he employed gunmakers to do the work for him. Like Boswell, he bought in guns from a variety of makers and finished them on the premises.…

Even the most casual observer of the shotgun market in the UK cannot fail to have noticed the increasing appearance of Turkish guns on gunshop shelves up and down the country. With the seemingly endlessly popular and desirable Italian and Japanese-made guns from the likes of Beretta and Browning firmly sticking to their £1,500-plus price point, a number of importers have spotted a gap in the market for a basic, reliable over-under shotgun for less than £1,000. The last few years have seen large numbers of products from a variety of Turkish manufacturers attempting to break into the UK market and secure this coveted spot. Clearly, someone at importers Edgar Brothers has a soft spot for Turkish guns, as Akkar becomes the latest addition to their stable alongside Armed Guns…

The Tiger Brand from Robert Lisle of Derby (1910); the Victa from Robert Lisle of Derby (1910); the Field from Robert Lisle of Derby (1910); and the Pheasant from J.A. Hooke of York (1900). The Eclipse from T.J. Hooke & Son of York (1926); the Special York from Hardy & Holgate of York (1910); the Blue Rock from Langley & Lewis of Luton (1910); and the High Velocity from Aubrey Lewis of Luton (1910). The Prizewinner from Aubrey Lewis of Luton (1926); the Vectis Special from F.P. Spencer of Newport, IoW (1910); the Eley Patent from E. & G. Higham of Liverpool (1910); and the Pheasant from Clayton & Son of Huntington and St. Neots (1926). CENTRAL-FIRES FROM THE 19TH CENTURY This battered and very rare box of .360 shot…

“There can be no greater magnet than a 4x4 parked up in a quiet area.” There cannot be anything more heart wrenching, not to mention disturbing, than returning home and finding one’s kennel door has been forcibly opened, only then to discover that the occupier, a much loved shooting companion, is missing. Last year I attended a rural crime stakeholders meeting with a local constabulary in the south. To my amazement, the general overview of the force was that gundog theft was not the issue people thought it to be, and that their figures confirmed this. One has to put this in to perspective, for I suspect when incidents of dog theft are compared against other forms of crimes such as burglary, car theft and assault, gundog crime doesn’t come…

SNEYD’S Wonderfeeds has launched a super-premium dry food called Wonderdog Elite. It offers a balanced diet for dogs that not only combines the right combination of vitamins and minerals to support a healthy life, but also caters for those dogs suffering from food allergies or intolerances. Over the past ten years the pet insurance market has seen an increase in the number of claims for diet-related illnesses from vets and it is now thought that around one in 10 cats and dogs in the UK suffers from a food intolerance or allergy, mirroring the human trend for special diets. Wonderdog Elite contains a high percentage of freshly prepared meats such as lamb, salmon and trout with no artificial colourings, additives or preservatives. The Premium Hypoallergenic contains prime lamb and rice…

HOW TO WIN For your chance to win a Ridgeline smock, email your high-resolution pictures to: katemaxim@outlook.com. Please put “Gundog Picture of the Month” in the subject line. The winner will be chosen by the Shooting Gazette judging panel. Good luck! The prize will only be posted to winners with a fixed UK postal address.…

FOR 2016’S Country Market and Sporting Sale, the Heather Trust has teamed up with Finzean Estate and the Banchory Lodge Hotel on Royal Deeside to offer the chance of a MacNab in the gorgeous surroundings of Aberdeenshire. Finzean won the Golden Plover Award for Moorland Management in 2014 in recognition of the huge amount of work it has put into conserving capercaillie and improving upland biodiversity. The beautiful estate lies a few miles outside Banchory, where the Banchory Lodge Hotel provides warm hospitality overlooking the River Dee. The Finzean MacNab will be combined with a night’s B&B at the Banchory Lodge and offered for sale as part of the Heather Trust’s annual fundraising auction. All proceeds raised will go to support the Heather Trust’s charitable work, promoting sustainable and integrated…

9am START TIME OF THE 2016 FEMMES FATALES CUP AT RBSS ON APRIL 30 (FEMMES-FATALES.CO.UKFEMMES-FATALES.CO.UK) $250,000 Amount the .275 Rigby rifle, built by the London gunmaker as a tribute to Jim Corbett, sold for at auction at the recent Safari Club International Convention (John Rigby & Co.) 27,000 The number of shotgun certificate holders in Kent, correcting a figure of “70,000 licensed guns” given by Ann Barnes, the county’s police and crime commissioner. (BASC) £340 Cost of a team entry into the Whitfield Annual Clay Shoot, being held on May 14-15, in aid of the GWCT, Countryside Alliance and other charities (GWCT) 26.2 The number of miles sporting agent Charles Brownlow will run during the London Marathon on April 24 in aid of the Henry van Straubenzee Memorial Fund (Tweed…

A good shoot day is all about pace and timing – it can’t be crash, bang wallop all day long. And the elevenses break comes as the perfect opportunity to stop and reflect on the privilege of spending a day in the field. So in recognition of this most excellent of sporting traditions we have teamed up with Foxdenton, makers of traditional drinks for the perfect elevenses and famous for their Goliath bottle, to select one shoot to feature in excellent elevenses each month. And this month our winners are Joe and Melissa Smith from Fosseway Game (who until recently managed the Sutton shoot, from which this elevenses is taken). Melissa sent us these pictures and she said: “We offered a lovely selection of Bramley & Gage spirits for elevenses.…

Prime Minister Cameron expended a lot of energy trying to persuade 27 other European nation states that share our burden of comprehending the EU to support him in his ambition to keep Britain ring-fenced from being subsumed into an even bigger, more expensive one-nation black hole. Eventually, pips squeaking, they did, but at what cost? If we thought the Scottish referendum was bad, we have three months of watching and listening to the leading lights of the ‘better out’ and ‘better in’ campaigns as we approach our own. Those apex predators, Michael Gove and Boris Johnson for the former and Cameron and George Osborne for the latter, have begun to assault our waking senses like some mendicant religious order of old, travelling to urban areas for the purposes of preaching…

Was it a busy season in general for you? “I shot around a dozen days last season. It’s probably much more than that actually... mainly walked-up shooting over the dogs. A group of us will take a small day, say around 40 birds, walking-up partridge – five guns shooting and five dog handlers working, and we all share the costs. I suppose that’s going on nationally in September. We go to Hy-Fly game farm nearby and they kindly host field trials and training days for us. We also take days at Checkley in Cheshire. We’re primarily training the dogs, but it’s a wonderful sporting day, too.” Is this for labradors only? “In our case it is, but it’s mainly for retrievers of all kinds, it depends largely on the group.…

DON’T MISS BE THE HOST WITH THE MOST The 10 commandments for a great day's shooting FIELD AND COUNTRY FAIR All the latest news on the summer’s new hot event in Oxfordshire on June 10-12 WATSON TAKES CENTRE STAGE Wonderful guns from Watson Bros WORKING FOR WADERS Why all moorland birds are important to shooters WILDFOWLING STRUGGLES Fighting for a decent meal on the foreshore PLUS Top kit, fine cars, great hotels, sage advice and sublime shoot features THE MAY EDITION GOES ON SALE ON THURSDAY APRIL 28…

TRAVEL The Gurston Down shoot is located just beyond the village of Broad Chalke at the western end of Wiltshire’s Chalke Valley. Take the A354 Blandford road out of Salisbury, after six miles turn right at Coombe Bisset and follow the road past well-known shoot names such as Bishopstone, Flamstone, Stoke Drove and Knighton, until mobile telephones lose their signals. One mile beyond Broad Chalke and before Prescombe appears on the radar, a signed right turn leads through Gurston Farm to the Pavilion beyond. The shoot is 30 miles from Southampton Airport and Parkway rail links, 100 miles from London using the M3/A303, and 50 miles from Bristol. STAY This part of Wiltshire is well blessed with good inns and hotels. The Beckford Arms at Fonthill Gifford has great food…

Today pigeon guns are very popular among sportsmen, not on account of their intended use but for the great fashion of high pheasants. With their particular specifications they are ideal for this practice. Although live pigeon shooting was outlawed in Great Britain in 1921, pigeon guns continued to be built as the “sport” still flourished in Europe and the USA. Consequently, they were made long after the 1921 ban. Live pigeon shooting was driven by gambling and as such was taken very seriously; competitors had to win and consequently they demanded specialised guns to give them the best chance. Live pigeon guns always have longish barrels, usually with tight chokes to take far-out birds. Nothing more than 12 bore was allowed, so large charges were used along with 2¾” cartridges.…

“Soon wisps of smoke appeared from one adjacent hole...” I enjoyed a new sporting experience one Saturday in early February when I joined a small group of grassroots countrymen to go ratting. These are men with as much passion and excitement at the sight of a bolting rat as the scar-faced, yapping terriers that fell out of their van as soon as the door was half opened. Richard, who works in the building trade, had invited me to join them. His special invitation to be welcomed by the inner circle of the ratting world was an experience not to be missed. Jamie, the keeper on one of the finest shoots on the Cambridgeshire/ Hertfordshire border, had arranged two venues for the team. The first was a rat infested-release pen on…

This sub-£1,000 section of the market is getting increasingly competitive with guns from the likes of Bettinsoli, Lincoln and Silma facing up to an influx of Turkish guns from Revo, Yildiz and now Akkar. We are now looking at a very crowded marketplace, and one has to wonder just where they are going to fit. The Double Crown is quite a large looking gun overall, though the action is quite slim – similar to a Caesar Guerini or Rizzini. The ejector mechanism bears many similarities with these Italian manufacturers, and it is clear it has been built very much in this style. The action itself is reminiscent of a Winchester Supreme and is mechanical, rather than inertia-based. Overall the gun looks good with a pleasant matte black finish to the…

Yes, gentle reader. It’s a van. This month your intrepid motoring reporter is not forcing himself to sample the latest Rolls-Royce or Bentley but is driving a light commercial vehicle. Until the bottom of the page, I shall be your horny-handed son of oil, relearning my gap-year skills of being able to roll a fag with only one hand. Although I should point out to any filthy-minded public school types, this is not a euphemism. In the interests of helping to find what might just be the perfect means of transporting your gundogs, I am prepared to make these sacrifices. The only thing is that the latest version of the Volkswagen Caravelle is hardly a four-wheeled hair shirt. With more than 200bhp, four-wheel drive and a sophisticated dual clutch gearbox,…

The farmland market is undoubtedly undergoing a period of change. In January we reported an east-west divide in terms of values had emerged as average values for arable land fell slightly for the first time in a decade, while grassland values continued to rise. Another aspect of the market showing signs of change is the buyer and seller profile. Last year farmers made up 50 per cent of farmland sellers, the highest proportion recorded by our research for seven years. For some this may be due to low commodity prices and the short-term outlook for UK agriculture. Others, and in particular those without successors, will undoubtedly have been prompted by the chance to capitalise on high land values and retire. On the flip side, farmers made up the smallest proportion…

“The competition promised to be intense, and so it proved.” The Kennel Club’s 86th Championship for English Springer Spaniels was held in the third week of January on the Stowell Park Estate, Gloucestershire, by kind invitation of Lord and Lady Vestey. This was a first for the championship on the estate and also for headkeeper Eddy Graves MBE, although he has managed many spaniel trials during his long career, both at Stowell Park and on other estates. The three-day championship was organised by the Spaniel Club with generous sponsorship from Skinner’s, Marsden’s Game Feeds, BASC and with financial support from the Kennel Club. It was the first championship to be run in the south of the UK for some years, and consequently a large number of spaniel enthusiasts came to…

Q I HAVE been training my dog in the basics for 12 months and am looking to go beating on the local shoot next season. What should I look out for? A ONCE YOU have instilled all the basics, you need to think about what type of shoot it is (formal/commercial or informal/DIY?) as this will dictate the actual level of control and training needed and also what variety of training you decide to do next. It’s a generalisation but the more formal/commercial the shoot, then the more risk of an inexperienced dog messing up an expensive drive. More important, oddly enough, is what you want the dog to do. ‘Beating’ is a catch-all term in some respects and doesn’t cover all the various tasks. A dog has basically three…

GAME COOKERY will be a major feature of the forthcoming 2016 Field & Country Fair, set to take place at Cornbury Park, Oxfordshire, on June 10 – 12. Gloucestershire chefs Will and Calum Thomson, the brothers behind the award-winning restaurant Eat Wild, will be joined in the Game Cookery Theatre by a host of food writers and lecturers including River Cottage’s Tim Maddams. The fair’s celebration of fieldsports and the country way of life does not stop there, of course. Alongside the 300 high profile retailers on trade stands around the site, visitors will be treated to a number of demonstrations, tutorials and advice from leading figures from the worlds of gundogs, game and clay shooting, falconry and fly fishing. Shooting Gazette is looking forward to taking pride of place…

THE EAST Anglian Game & Country Fair will return to the Norfolk Showground on April 23 – 24 and Shooting Gazette has 10 sets of family tickets to give away. Visitors of a fieldsports persuasion will be well catered for during the two-day event in Norwich, with gundog demonstrations, clay pigeon shooting, fly fishing and falconry displays, cookery workshops, 300 shopping stands and much more on offer. For your chance to win one of 10 family tickets (for two adults and three children) simply email your name and address and a contact telephone number to: info@ukgamefair.co.uk no later than April 15. Mark the email as ‘Shooting Gazette EAGCF Competition’ in the subject line. Ten emails will then be drawn at random by the organisers and the tickets sent out to…

What was your first shotgun? I was fortunate to be able to use an AYA side-by-side No.2 sidelock given to me by my father. Where was your first shoot day? After a season of being allowed to walk with my father and friends with an unloaded air gun at the age of nine, my first shoot day was walking the wild hills of Wales with one cartridge in the AYA. After seemingly miles of yomping through two-foot high heather, a pair of grouse were flushed in front of me and I shot one of them. Do you remember your first bird? In the same year as I was allowed to carry the loaded gun, I remember pigeon shooting with the aforementioned one cartridge rule in operation. A single pigeon that…

Rabbit sandwich SERVES FOUR PEOPLE Ingredients • 4 large rabbit loins• 4 slices of bread• 50g garlic mayonnaise• 100g wild garlic• Cornish sea salt• Milled black pepper Method Season the loins and sear in a hot pan for two minutes. Remove from the pan and rest. Cut the crust from the bread and roll out as thin as possible. Spread with a little garlic mayonnaise and place the seared loins on the bread. Roll the rabbit in the bread as tight as possible to make the cylinders. Panfry until golden then rest again. Slice and serve with the garlic mayonnaise and a little fresh wild garlic or watercress.…

Dear Uncle Giles On a day last season the gun to my right started well and shot some good birds (without leaving many) but by the third drive he had started to shoot over my head more regularly, not always waiting for my second barrel before doing so. Then on the fourth and last drive before lunch he started shooting at my birds before I had even had the chance to pull the trigger once. Apart from being incredibly annoying, this had the effect of making me shoot worse. Other people noticed and commented, so what should have happened? Should I have said something or should the shoot manager/keeper have said something? Please help. Uncle Giles writes Your question raises two issues. On too many shoots the pegs are so…

Pictured above are the guns, beaters and pickers-up from the marvellous day at Gurston Down in Wiltshire, which is featured on pages 36-43 of this issue. Brian Westaway sent us this picture of members of the Tidwell Shoot at East Budleigh in Devon enjoying an end of season bumper day in glorious sunshine, making a change from the wet days they endured during the season. The guns who shot at the South Eastern Gundog Society’s Novice Retriever Field Trial held in January 2016 at the Worth Forest Shoot, Paddockhurst Estate, West Sussex, by kind permission of John Hoare and keeper Nigel Firth. The day was organised through Darren Phizacklea and his sporting agency, Viscount Sporting Estates. John, Nigel and Darren showed some excellent birds for the guns, provided fabulous terrain…

TRAVEL The Quidenham shoot lodge is five minutes drive south of the A11 near the Snetterton race circuit in south Norfolk. This is approximately halfway between Thetford and Norwich and the recently improved dual carriageway section of the A11 around Thetford means it’s extremely easy to get to from Cambridge and the west. The nearest train stations are in Thetford and Norwich (both less than half an hour away) and the nearest airport is Norwich which is 40 minutes drive away. It would be easy to get here from London or anywhere in East Anglia or the East Midlands in the morning. STAY If you're coming from farther afield or just don’t fancy an early start then there are three recommended and convenient options for an overnight stay. The Angel…

“There are those who think that releasing millions of game birds must be bad.” There is no easy way to say this, dear reader, but here goes. This is my last column. After 12 years and 144 articles I’ve come to the conclusion that I have wrung as much blood out of the proverbial shooting stone as is enjoyable and it’s time to hang up my pen, at least on a regular basis. The editor threatens that I might have to write the occasional one-off article and I guess I’ll find it hard to resist as I enjoy putting my shooting thoughts across to the knowledgeable and discerning readership of this magazine. For the last time when I can write what I want, it seems appropriate to sit back and…

Pickers-up stand back! Lying in bed following a foot operation (timed for after the shooting season) and catching up with my January Gazette, I read Roderick Emery’s Dog’s Life piece about the frustrations of pickers-up retrieving all the birds before the end of the drive. It is a brilliant article and so very accurate. I never release my dog until I have put the gun in the slip and sorted myself out in order to be fully aware of what she is up to. But how many times does the picker-up at the back of the field send his/ her dog forward to retrieve dead birds between themselves and the guns if they have not already done so during the drive? Runners are a different issue. I was always taught…

“A dog is part of the hunting experience... a partnership forged across millennia.” 1 DOGS LIKE WATER MORE THAN WE DO I’ll make this really simple. A number of years ago – actually, quite a few years ago – I was shooting some spectacular pheasants in Ireland. On one drive we lined out with our backs to the river Nore. There was snow on the ground and the river was swollen with melt-water, which crashed past us as we stood. Every bird we shot fell either in the river or beyond it. And it was not a short drive. And even as we were shooting there were dogs piling into the river after those birds. They were going in behind the line and they were coming out a goodly couple…

Human The days are getting longer and things are beginning to bloom hither and yon about the place. Spring may actually be coming. I doubt if it is actually here because we often get a vicious frost in the first week of May to remind us who is in charge, don't we? Anyoldhow, there has been a good deal of debate about the house and after considerable musing and extensive soul searching we have reached a decision: we are going to get another dog. This determination, I would have you know, is in no way a reflection upon the current dog. Indeed, it is a testament to the wholly satisfactory nature and performance – both indoors and out – of the current dog that we have arrived at this conclusion.…

“This makes deer both Great Britain and the USA’s most dangerous animal.” We are currently in the grips of what is known as an “exponential deer population increase”. To put it another way, we’re in a situation where many areas have damaging numbers of deer. The important questions here are how and to whom or what are large numbers of deer causing damage. How many deer is “too many” will of course depend upon the eye of the beholder. Where people are concerned, is it only really those directly impacted by numbers who should have a majority say? Even then their opinion should be quantified. For some foresters and farmers just one deer is too many, while others are prepared to give and take a little, and some are totally…

The Double Crown had the chance of a test against some challenging pigeon on a very windy day on the farm and certainly proved a capable companion. The gun does mount consistently well and thanks to the balance of the weight being felt clearly in the front hand allowed for some very smooth swings. The safety catch was very easy to find and positive to operate, and cartridge ejection was very powerful; overall the gun performed pretty well. As previously mentioned, however, the gun felt considerably heavier than its figure on the scales would suggest and I found using the gun during quite a busy session required effort and concentration. While the gun performed well, it never quite felt like a natural extension of my body as the best guns…

Press day of the Geneva Motor Show is nearly upon us and it’ll be the first chance for the world to see a number of important new vehicles for the shooting fraternity. Chief among these will be the Maserati Levante 4x4, although we’ll probably see considerably more examples of the Volvo V90 estate car, which looks set to be the Swedish marque’s return to form for antique dealers up and down the land. Ferrari will also have the GTC4 Lusso, the quite stunning facelift of the FF shooting brake, which combines a Reliant Scimitar-like estate body with four-wheel drive and a mighty 680bhp out of its normally-aspirated V12.…

As reported last mont five-year-old cocker spaniel, FTCh Centrewalk Sweep, and his owner Richard Preest from Badminton in Gloucestershire won the Kennel Club Cocker Spaniel Championship 2016. The competition, sponsored by Eukanuba, was held at the Dunira Estate in Perthshire, by kind permission of the Enngaard family, and saw a total of 35 entries, demonstrating the continuing popularity of the working cocker spaniel in competitive gundog sports. Caroline Kisko, Kennel Club secretary, said: “Our congratulations go to Richard and Sweep on their victory. The Kennel Club Cocker Spaniel Championship showcases some of the best working cockers in the country and we were impressed by the high standard at the competition, so Richard should be extremely proud of their performance. “The dedication of the owners taking part in the competition to…

AT ONE trial last season it was handbags at dawn, with the four female judges shouting across the field at each other. The gallery laughed and shouted “where’s the fifth judge?” Later, at the same trial, the senior judge said in her speech she was glad she was judging and not running because the ground was so difficult. I wondered what the host who was standing next to me was thinking. The judge then went on to explain that the reason there hadn’t been a first place awarded was that one cannot recover from a bad first retrieve or win on a minus. Now even I know, having read the J regs from cover to cover, that you can win on a minus and if the first retrieves were so…