Innholdsfortegnelse for June 2016 i Shooting Gazette

Shooting competitions and shopping will be at the heart of the forthcoming GWCT Scottish Game Fair, set to take place at Scone Palace, Perthshire, on July 1 – 3. The clay shooting area, designed by Elite Clays, will offer activities for all abilities, from ‘have a go’ to pool shoots and a young shots competition in association with Holt’s Auctioneers. Gnat Planes are also returning by popular demand. The fair will be home to around 450 traders and gunmakers across the weekend, including Ormiston & Co., Cheshire Gun Room, John Dickson, Gilsan Sport, Graham Mackinlay, Hull Cartridge, Cluny, Promatic, Seeland and Harkila. For more information about the fair, a more extensive exhibitor's list and also to purchase tickets, visit scottishfair.com…

How were you introduced to shooting? Having been brought up around generations of people who were passionate about hunting, some of my earliest memories are of shooting. Weekends would be spent with our father, either in the field or on the river. Do you remember your first successful shot? At seven years old I shot my first roebuck, a photo of which sits on my desk at Rigby. The buck was very beaten up after the rut and the perfect animal for my first deer. There are many other memories of shooting before then, however that is certainly one that really stands out. Do you prefer driven game shooting or hunting? Driven game shooting is a real passion of mine, however if I could choose only one it would be…

Wild venison pizza SERVES FOUR PEOPLE Ingredients • 400g cooked diced venison• 200g goats cheese• 200g red onion confit• 200g tomato sauce• 4 pizza bases• 100g rocket• Cornish sea salt• Milled back pepper Method Spread the tomato sauce on the pizza bases. Add the goats cheese and the red onion. Add the venison and half the rocket. Place into a hot oven (220°C) for five minutes. Remove from the oven and top with the remaining fresh rocket. Finish with a little sea salt and serve.…

Dear Uncle Giles I have been invited to stalk this autumn and have two questions. Is it appropriate at any point during proceedings – either before or after the shot is taken – to relieve the stalker of any part of the burden? Carrying the rifle, for example? Or assisting in the gralloch? Or the drag? Or should I confine myself to shooting? And what is an appropriate tip? BAE, by email Uncle Giles writes It is not unreasonable to offer your participation at any point during proceedings really, short of opining on which beast might be a suitable target. That is always the stalker’s decision. However, I would not expect your offer to be accepted at any early stages. Unless you are SAS trained and at peak fitness too…

For your chance to win a bottle of Taittinger Champagne for Picture of the Month, send us a team photograph or a picture of something unusual from your shoot. Send high-resolution images or prints with captions to Shooting Gazette Gallery, Time Inc (UK) Ltd, Pinehurst 2, Pinehurst Road, Farnborough, Hampshire, GU14 7BF or email: will.hetherington@timeinc.com The guns and beaters from the day at the Affeton shoot in Exmoor, which is featured on pages 32-38 of this issue. Student keepers from Warwickshire College saw off 23 other teams to win BASC’s Gamekeeping College Clay Shoot at Park Farm Shooting Ground, Worcestershire. Second place went to Hartpury College. High gun was Ben Taylor from Warwickshire College with 75x80 clays. The picture shows the winners with BASC head of operations Stephen Curtis on…

Our ambition has been to create a show where country sports lovers can congregate. When we were at the May Day Scarecrow Festival in the village my wife and I strolled around with the older labrador and our new puppy and almost every 10 yards we bumped into someone we knew for a friendly catch up. It might sound a bit Vicar of Dibley, but so what? We were only there for a couple of hours, and in that time we thoroughly enjoyed the rare opportunity to see so many friendly faces in such a concentrated area. We are all used to social media, virtual chatrooms, instant messaging and all the other advances that modern technology afford us, but can anything really replace that face-to-face conversation with an old friend…

“Critically, martens and red squirrels seem to be co-existing at the expense of greys.” For the past few months we have enjoyed the company of several red squirrels in the garden. My wife keenly plies them with peanuts and they reward us with their antics – it’s a fair exchange. Despite having suffered catastrophic declines over the past century, Dumfries & Galloway is still a stronghold for these thoroughly endearing little beasts, and long may it last. Ten or 15 years ago, even the most optimistic scientists and researchers began to admit the future did not look rosy for our reds. There are so many case studies where greys have come in and out-competed the reds into non-existence that the gathering storm clouds south of the border could hardly be…

Human I can tell you what is not going on and that is sex. Now don’t go all pink and puffy round the edges. Pick up the toast from the rug and mop the coffee off your pully. Calm down. I’m talking about the dogs. Or a dog. The dog. Actually the bitch. When last we spoke we went to see the batty spaniel woman about getting a spaniel to bring on alongside the current dog and we thought we would have an English Springer for a bit of a change. I don’t know how the batty spaniel woman got her name because she is actually not that batty at all but she does pick-up on our local estate and she does have very pretty spaniels and she is completely…

“There was no way forward and the situation was threatening to become a major incident.” After watching for a while, the position for my hide became obvious on the newly drilled field of peas as a steady trickle of birds arrived at the northern end, where trees along a hedge extended beyond the garden of a house in the corner. It is important to make a courtesy call to anyone in a house in the vicinity of where one plans to shoot. The aim is to explain you will be shooting pigeons to protect the crop and that the shooting will present no danger. Usually the response is positive and people are keen for you to kill as many pigeons as possible as they are decimating their vegetables. Having driven…

What more can we say about the Beretta Silver Pigeon? It has proved itself consistently over many years as one of the best value guns on the market. Pleasingly, Beretta has moved to simplify the Silver Pigeon range with guns based on the classic 680 action now being available in two trims: Field and Deluxe. Both are mechanically identical, the Deluxe featuring upgraded engraving with a game scene and a higher grade of wood. In previous years we were swamped with as many as five different Silver Pigeon models at a time, each offering some combination of finishing and engraving on the same basic action. While the loss of character is perhaps unfortunate, it does make things rather less confusing! While the 28 bore Silver Pigeon is only available in…

Q Is there a danger of getting over-excited on a simulated game day and shooting too much, thereby allowing some bad habits to creep in. Or can you never shoot too much? A We are all aware that any type of shooting practice out of season is good for you; it helps you to maintain your timing and general fluidity of shooting during the close season. I find that good simulated clay days are a fantastic way of a) having fun, which is the most important thing, and b) focusing on your technique, particularly your timing, stance, footwork and gun mount, which can all really benefit from good quality trigger time. Safety first as always and be aware at all times of where your muzzles are pointing, remember your beating…

Jonathan Sainsbury may have travelled the world for his art, but it was a childhood spent in rural Warwickshire which first nurtured an interest in both drawing and collecting the natural environment around him. The 60-something first cut his artistic teeth as a teenaged volunteer at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre, with one of his earliest jobs being making parts for the witches’ cauldron for the 1966 production of Macbeth. It was at his pre-diploma art course at Leamington Spa that his creative instincts exploded. He moved back into the paint shop at the RST to paint scenery under the tutelage of set painter, Jonnie Collins, for a couple of seasons in Stratford, with trips to the Oxford Playhouse, the Aldwych Theatre in the West End and even a tour to…

“I’ve been watching trials for 40 years... the standard has never been higher.” Tell us about your picking-up? “We shoot six days a week and on occasions we can have five groups on the same day, so I’m out every day hosting a party and normally have a couple of labs with me. I have a long shooting season, five months, but I do enjoy it. I place the guns and watch what is happening and control the drive and pick-up throughout the day. There are very few dogs I don’t like but if you are going to have a retriever for a picking-up dog then you can’t do better than a labrador.” What are your thoughts about trialling? “I think trialling is flourishing. I’ve been watching trials for 40…

THE SOUTH Western Golden Retriever Club’s all-aged trial was held at the Eastbury estate near Blandford, where we were warmly received by the headkeeper, writes Andrew England. It was an interesting trial with a mixture of small drives and some walked-up. The judges were Judy Rainey, Ken Green, Alex Brain and Gill Yates who helped create a smooth-running trial. Despite the presence of two field trial champions and all the others having field trial awards, the judges could only hand accolades to two dogs. Results 3 Vicky Pritchard with FTCh Vamp Parsley Potage CoM Andrew England with Dairycott Populous Tremula Guns’ Choice was awarded to Marion Hanman with Haddeo Teyla…

AT THIS time of year, puppies are on our minds, as we hope those little balls of fluff will become field trial champions, especially if we have bred them ourselves or they are the progeny of our beloved stud dogs. I saw on social media that a trial-winning bitch with an elbow score of 1 (Kennel Club advice is to breed from dogs ideally with an elbow grade of 0) was in pup to a ‘championship diploma-awarded dog. But even though the sire had an elbow score of 0, it still carried a high estimated risk of producing progeny with bad elbows when evaluated by the My Kennel Club website. In a nutshell, the breeder is putting a bitch that shouldn’t be bred to a dog, with a high risk…

THE WAIT for the Field & Country Fair at Cornbury Park is almost over, and all of us here at Shooting Gazette are looking forward to welcoming you to what promises to be a memorable few days in Oxfordshire. Whatever your interest, from gamekeeping, gundogs and fly fishing to cookery, shotguns and country clothing, we’ve pulled out all of the stops to create an event where the focus is on every member of your fieldsports family. This inaugural event, being held over June 10 - 12, will be home to a variety of household names from across the fieldsports community, each taking their respective places in areas including Gunmakers’ Quarter, Game Fishing Village, Game Cookery Theatre, Gundog Arena, Craft Pavilion and Retail Quarter. Listen and learn as world champion clay…

This easily accessible handbook offers welcome advice on all things shooting, from etiquette and safety to shooting technique and treatment of game. Now in its fourth edition, having first been published in 1990, it remains relevant, useful and distracting. The author is a retired cavalry officer who was introduced to game shooting as a small boy by his grandfather. He now lives in north Yorkshire and has a clear passion for game shooting. During a shoot day or at any time when in conversation with fellow shooters, there are often questions about our sport which crop up and nobody quite knows the answer. Well, this is where this little book will come in handy. Take night shooting for instance: did you know for the purposes of the law that night…

Q David Whitby recently pored over the reasons why only around 35 per cent of the 35,000,000 game birds released in the UK ever reached the game cart. In the article, David said the following: "I often wonder why so few guns seem to care about a wounded bird yet express horror at the thought of wounding a deer. Is it the complete lack of facial expression from a pigeon or pheasant that causes such disregard?" Sallie Cordery posted: “None of the guns I know are blasé about a wounded bird and will spend a good length of time to find it.” Simon Lefevre posted: “Bit of a sweeping statement; all the guns I know are completely the opposite and considerable time and effort is put into retrieving wounded birds.”…

Ernest Thompson Seton became quite a notable figure during the course of his life. He wrote and illustrated several bestselling nature books and was one of the founding pioneers of the Boy Scouts of America. His book Wild Animals I Have Known set a standard for a whole new literary genre, and it would one day inspire a young David Attenborough to learn more about natural history. Wild Animals I Have Known is made up of a series of short stories about various American animals, from crows and foxes to the wild mustangs of the Great Plains. The most famous episode relates the true story of Lobo, “the King of Currumpaw”; a mighty wolf who, with his pack, was responsible for criticism, but this was at a time when nature…

Q: Usually, I travel from London to York by train when shooting in north Yorkshire and I go with my guns. If I travel first class, the porter wants to take my luggage and place it in a separate baggage car, which is not attended. My guns are broken down in a locked metal case, which is inside a large rolling duffle bag. Am I breaking the law if I let my guns go into the baggage car? And what if I place my large duffle at the end of the car I am riding in and keep my eye on it? A: Condition 4(b) on your shotgun certificate requires you to take reasonable precautions for the safe custody of your gun when in transit. What is reasonable is not…

Having read your news article in the May issue on the BBC refusing to allow guns at its own Countryfile Live event this summer, I could not hit the keyboard fast enough. It's no secret the BBC continues to get a bit of stick over Countryfile, and from one week to the next the scoffers and cynics will invariably find varying quantities of manure to fuel the criticism. In February we had an excellent, if not long overdue, piece on the programme from Matt Baker featuring City & Guilds trainee gamekeepers. Part of the feature turned to the role of guns and their legitimate and necessary uses. Adam Henson, farmer and son of a farmer, simply cannot have avoided guns over the years. Perhaps his next slot on Sunday could…

“Stalking in the Highlands. Just saying it has the taste of excitement.” THE JOURNEY I don’t much like driving. Who does? Once upon a time, driving was fun. Driving was exciting. Driving was freedom. Roof down, wind in your hair, pretty girl beside you and a thrilling road ahead. What’s not to like? Today it’s all roadworks, temporary speed limits, cones and the blasted cameras. And when you finally cross the border into the Peoples’ Republic it actually gets worse. The A9 from Perth to Aviemore – a distance of some 100 miles up to and through the Cairngorms – has a speed limit of 50mph and average speed cameras from bottom to top. It is just AAAARRRGGGHHH! I sincerely hope the number of traffic accidents has fallen substantially because…

Our winner Peter Davies is in his 60s and (like many people) had shot rifles at school. He enjoys shotgun shooting during the season and also at the village clay shoot, so he is a fairly typical sort of shooter. He has average fitness with a gammy knee but is keen to try something new. Peter pitched up at Holland & Holland Shooting Ground last December and we had a coffee and discussed what he had previously done in terms of shooting, and I asked him how he felt about shooting something much bigger, like a deer. He said he felt fine about it, no qualms. I always ask anyone considering going stalking this question. Shooting pheasants is one thing, but seeing the effects of a bullet on a larger…

What do you do if you are fabulously wealthy and own vast tracts of land where game abounds? There doesn’t seem to be much point in buying a single gun, so why not buy eight all at the same time? That is exactly what the Maharajah of Patiala did in early 1875 when he purchased eight Alexander Henry rifles and shotguns – nos. 3498-3505 – in a single order. Alexander Henry was only in business for a short length of time between 1852 until his death in 1894, but in that period he became a revered rifle maker known throughout the world. His 1860 patent that created Henry rifling was the most accurate rifling system in the second half of the 19th century, and his single-shot drop-block rifle of 1865…

In the Prusso-Danish War of 1864, the Prussians rapidly overwhelmed the Danes with their new bolt-action Dreyse needle-fire rifle. The call quickly arose for a new breech-loading rifle for the British Army and in response to an advertisement by the War Office in 1866, several gunmakers put forward such rifles for consideration. One such gunmaker was Alexander Henry, who had taken out a patent for a falling-block rifle in 1865. Trials were held between November 1867 and February 1868 organised by the War Office for the future rifle and the result was that the Henry breech-loader came out on top, winning the £600 prize. However many thought the competition too rigid and the trials were reconvened. This time they were split into two, with separate barrel trials and breech trials.…

I recently criticised the RSPB for not being more proactive in the defence of the millions of songbirds slaughtered in the Mediterranean and other European countries. It was therefore with some surprise that I watched a film clip on the Fieldsports Channel condemning Chris Packham for direct intervention in Malta. Now don’t get me wrong, I am no avid supporter of the man from Springwatch, and I simply cannot stand Bill Oddie, but the former is not all bad. After the massive criticism of the shooting of the large Exmoor stag a year or two ago, it was Chris Packham who stood tall and defended the action. He further stated that deer have to be culled and organising hunts help the rural economy. He has further said he has nothing…

This little 28 bore acquitted itself very well indeed on a very windy day at Grange Farm Shooting School. The extra barrel length meant the gun mounted consistently well and its light weight meant the gun moved beautifully naturally, allowing for some very rapid changes in direction as the wind turned even the simplest clays into very challenging targets. Trigger pulls were very crisp and there was essentially no recoil or muzzle flip. The presence of instructors Bruce Marks, Ed Smith and Steve Wood meant the gun was really put through its paces, and all four of us found it to be a great pleasure to shoot. However, universally we found the comb was not high enough, with a real effort required to push the cheek hard into the stock…

It’s a truth often wistfully remarked on that we laud, revere and remember winners but struggle to recollect those who finish second. Why wistfully? Well, because we are under-rating a quality we rightly admire as well: consistency. Of course, when a competitor, whether it is dog, horse or human, combines the two, we know that we have something very special indeed. One dog who, with her handler, exemplifies that point, is the English springer spaniel FTCh Reece of Avendale, whose career culminated in her victory in the Fifth Championship Meeting for Spaniels held late in the season in 1925. My thanks for bringing the chronology of her remarkable career to my attention go to Joan Hayes, who has just retired from the KC Judges A Panel, having first gone on…

Q I HAVE AN older dog who is trained quite well to the gun and now I have a new puppy. Is it wise to train the new puppy using the older dog? A HELPING TO TRAIN a puppy with an older dog can have benefits in speeding up certain learning processes. All young dogs learn skills, behaviour and activities by participating and watching. Seeing a positive reinforcement being given to another dog carrying out a task is also setting a good example. But be selective. If your dog has any bad habits these may also be passed on during a learning process. Use the older dog to show steadiness and obedience as these will be picked up quite quickly, and retrieving and recall can also be useful for a…

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£0 THE COST OF ENTRY FOR UNDER 12S ATTENDING THE FORTHCOMING FIELD & COUNTRY FAIR AT CORNBURY PARK IN OXFORDSHIRE ON JUNE 10-12. 142 number of pupils from Darland High School in Rossett, North Wales, who tried clay shooting at an introductory event at Commonwood Shooting Ground near Wrexham recently (BASC) 1,000 lower estimate of the number of participants set to take part in National Ladies' Shooting Day on June 11 (Shotgun & Chelsea Bun Club). 70 number of delegates from around Wales that attended a workshop designed to encourage uptake of the Welsh Government’s new code of best practice on the use of snares in fox control (Countryside Alliance) 01423 329154 head office telephone number for the newly formed company following the merger of the Yorkshire Chauffeur Company and…

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’s winner is the Hall shoot in Devon. Shoot manager Jeremy Boyd said: “A lot of our teams shoot through so elevenses is an important part of the day. We use locally produced Westaway honey roast sausages and also offer a cold meat platter…

Once upon a time, politicians, policemen, bankers, peers of the realm and even media barons mostly commanded respect and popularity. But now it only requires such a person to advance a hypothesis they consider to be for the greater good for hundreds of the lesser-qualified to come raging out of the woodwork and suggest they are wrong or not sufficiently politically correct. Leaders of organisations from the United Nations to the RSPCA find themselves vilified. The views of the latter used to be regarded as holy writ as they became one of the charities of choice for bequests from little old ladies, but recent activities have brought management, motives and finances into question. A glance at this year’s Sunday Times UK Rich List reveals another sociological paradigm shift in that…

“Your first stag is a major thing and people are often so surprised by the emotions they feel.” Did you have a crack at the stags last year? “Yes I did. I haven’t missed a year for probably the last 12, no... maybe 15 years; something like that.” Do you go to the same estate each year? “I do. The estate is Letterewe, which is on the further side of Loch Maree. You can still only get to the house by boat. It has an old 1940s Clyde Police launch that chugs backwards and forwards and that is how you get across. So when you stalk, there is no getting into a Land Rover to go up to the spying point, you have breakfast and then you walk out of…

TRAVEL Affeton couldn’t be in a more rural part of Devon. Its base in East Worlington sits within easy reach of Exeter, Barnstable and Taunton, with the shoot lodge located between the A377 and the A361, both of which eventually feed into the M5 and the rest of the UK motorway network. If you’re thinking of travelling by rail then Exeter St David’s is around 20 miles away. Should you have air travel as an option, Exeter International Airport lies to the east of the city. STAY Shooting Gazette stayed at Highbullen during our trip to Devon. The Victorian Gothic-fronted wonder was thick with guns and if there is any shooting-related wont that the hotel has missed you’ll do well to find it. The 37-room hotel is overseen by the…

Is there room for a completely new gunmaker? This must surely have been one of the questions asked during the CLA Game Fair at Ragley Hall in 2010 when Longthorne Guns first appeared. Who was this company that no one had ever heard of? What did it have to offer that was different, or dare it be said, better than what was already available? Elaine and Jim Longthorne Stewart were complete unknowns when they launched Longthorne Guns in 2010. Their background was in precision engineering and they had nothing to do with the gun trade. They ran a successful engineering company in Australia but decided to return to the UK in 1998, eventually settling in Lancashire. The pair opened a factory in St Helens that had high-precision tools in a…

The first day’s hunting started when we gathered outside in the cold but mercifully dry 2°C temperature at 8.30am for a briefing from headkeeper, Laszlo. It is mandatory for boar hunters to wear fluorescent orange items of clothing, and fluorescent hatbands were also distributed to the hunters by Laszlo’s team. The beaters had fluorescent tabards or jackets, too. The undulating woodland was not unlike mature English beech woods and provided a good field of view for approaching quarry. In our location the widely spaced trees were mainly stately and mature hornbeams, grown for timber, alternating with blocks of scrub and the occasional softwood copse: classic boar country and a delight to just sit and admire whilst awaiting some action. The beaters were 30 or more strong and evidently relished their…

Our current trend for increasingly pocket-bursting mobile telephones aside, the advancement of technology in recent years has also been an on-going march towards miniaturisation. From silicon chips being manufactured in nanometre thicknesses approaching single figures, to the humble vacuum cleaner taking up ever-decreasing space under the stairs, small is cool. This trend has also made its way into the shooting world, with sportsmen and women turning to smaller-bore shotguns thanks to their superior handling characteristics and more elegant designs. Though the very best shots will swear by their ability to use small bore guns on even the highest pheasants thanks to the continuing development of a range of high performing and consistent cartridge loads, for many the likes of a 20 or 28 bore gun is seen merely as a…

DON’T MISS 10 BEST SHOOTING GROUNDS Where to bash clays in sumptuous surroundings this summer WHEN THE PUPPY ARRIVES  Expert advice on integrating a new arrival ONE OF SHOOTING’S FINEST  Help For Heroes founder Bryn Parry on his love of shooting WALKING STICK GUNS  The irresistible charm of a British oddity THE PURDEY STORY  A tribute to the biggest name in gunmaking PLUS THE GREATEST GREAT WHITE HUNTER?  We profile one of the biggest names THE JULY ISSUE GOES ON SALE ON THURSDAY JUNE 23…

Size does matter. Ask my wife. She absolutely swears by our Land Rover Discovery, which is capable of transporting seven people, an enormous amount of clobber and towing a huge trailer all at the same time. The Porsche Macan is much smaller than Mrs S’s Disco but, for those albeit rare occasions on which an ability to move a flock of sheep and its attendant shepherds isn’t necessary, Cayenne Minor is just about perfect. At a time when every new model is a couple of inches wider and longer than the car it supplants and the replacement for the Freelander is bigger than the original Range Rover, the Macan actually fits on British roads and into British parking spaces. The first thing I did with the top of the range…

The cumulative value of the UK forestry market has increased by more than 200 per cent in the past five years, with the sector accounting for £137,000,000 worth of investment last year. Our recently-published Spotlight: UK Forestry Market indicates that forestry remains a strong performer amongst all land-based investments with the aforementioned significant increase in the average value per hectare. Likewise, the overall area of forestry transactions grew by about 30 per cent to nearly 21,000 hectares last year, compared with just over 16,000 hectares in 2014. It is worth noting this increase was largely due to a few significant off-market sales, including 16 properties sold by Finnish forestry firm UPM to the Church Commissioners for around £50,000,000. Forest values are increasingly influenced by the productive capacity of the asset.…

The Holkham from Herbert Cawdron of Wells-next-the-Sea (1910); the Special from F. Randall Ltd. of North Walsham & Cromer (1926); the Pheasant De Luxe from Roys of Wroxham (1925); and the Pheasant Champion from H.E. Kerridge of Great Yarmouth (1910). The Watton Waterproof from C.E. Golding of Watton (1911); the Special Pheasant from Holtom’s of Lowestoft (1926); the Special Pheasant from C. Bowtell of Bungay (1925); and the Pheasant from R. Rous of Beyton (1925). The Pheasant from Geo. Brackenbury of Framlingham (1926); the Pheasant Smokeless from A.H. Dykes of Stowmarket (1925); the Pheasant from F. Lewis & Sons of Dunmow (1926); and the Pheasant Smokeless from A.G.F. Last of Layer-de-la-Haye (1925). FINE .410s AT NO. 7 BEDFORD STREET No. 7 Bedford Street in Norwich is currently the home of…

with his homebred two-year-old chocolate brown cocker, George. As well as Kelmarsh Country Show, qualifying rounds are held at Highclere, Sussex, Lowther, and Countryman Fairs’ newest additions – the Broadlands Country Show and Knebworth, with the grand final being held at the Midland Game Fair in September. Countryman Fairs’ gundog events co-ordinator Laura Bacon said: “The competition at this year’s Kelmarsh Country Show was fierce, with more than 500 dogs entering on the Sunday. It was great to welcome back lots of familiar faces but super to see a good number of new ones. Congratulations to the four qualifying handlers and dogs. Now onto Broadlands Country Show in Hampshire on May 1 and 2 to find the next four qualifiers!” For more, visit worldseries gundogchampionship.com. FOUR AMATEUR gundog handlers beat…