Innholdsfortegnelse for October 14, 2015 i Shooting Times & Country

WELCOME TO THE new-look Shooting Times. I hope you enjoy the changes, which aim to refresh while staying true to the magazine’s incredible heritage. The keepering column will rotate with four keepers in different parts of the country: Liam Bell in the Midlands, Jamie Osborne in the South, Lindsay Waddell in the North and Alex Hogg in Scotland. Our fishing column will return every other week and you will find the same number of gundog questions now included in an extended Sporting Answers section. We wanted to keep our powder dry on some new features, so watch out for these in the coming weeks. Highlights will include a shooting and conservation series by Mike Swan, Lindsay Waddell’s upland wildlife and a brand-new working dog trainer for the shooting season. In…

17 OCTOBER NGO GAME MEAT HYGIENE COURSE The King’s Arms, Newent, Gloucestershire Tel 01833 660869 20 OCTOBER GAVIN GARDINER GUN VALUATIONS Sotheby’s, Thistle House, Edinburgh Tel 01798 875300 or 07831 645551 21 OCTOBER YORKSHIRE GREY PARTRIDGE FARM WALK Dalton estate, near Beverley, East Yorkshire Tel 01425 651013 28 OCTOBER FAMILY COUNTRYSIDE CLAY DAY Millride Country Sports Club, Wolverhampton Tel 01283 810910 30 OCTOBER TASTE OF GAME EVENING Bodysgallen Hall and Spa, near Llandudno, Conwy Tel 01492 584466 31 OCTOBER YOUNG SHOOTERS DAY Allerton Project, Loddington, Leicestershire Tel 01425 651013…

BASC has called for shooting to receive representation equal to other sports in its response to a new Government consultation. A New Strategy for Sports, published at the start of this month, asks for responses on a number of issues, such as how to get young people into sport. BASC suggested widening access to shooting for young people and called for British target pistol shooters to be given equal footing to other international teams. Owning .22 calibre pistols is banned in Britain and our competitive target shooters cannot train on UK soil.…

SHOOTING’S FUTURE IS IN SAFE HANDS This is 20-month-old Samuel Farley at the Glassenbury estate on 11 September shooting over retrievers. Young Samuel took great delight in carrying eight or so of the 24 partridges and one mallard that we bagged and placing them in the back of the truck. Samuel is no stranger to being out shooting with his parents, as this time last year — while still a babe in arms — he was thoroughly enjoying getting involved. I am sure he will follow in the footsteps of his older brother, Josh Carter, in being a crack dog handler. Alan Woodward, by email HUNTING IN SWITZERLAND Mr Adams (Letters, 30 September) states that “Swiss laws prohibit fieldsports”. However, Mr Adams is incorrect: hunting is banned in only one…

I scanned the hillside for almost an hour before I saw him. My vantage point was perfect, pulled up on one side of a steep glen to spy the opposite face. At first I tried to be methodical, sweeping slowly over the broken ground in a systematic grid. After that failed to bear fruit, I began to linger in what I imagined were the most likely spots; in the shelter of the heathery scree or below the occasional rowan or holly tree. In the height of summer, the merest flash of red roe stands out like a flag among the bracken, but once the heather has turned and the bracken starts to harden off and die, it seems like every square foot of vegetation can present the possibility of a…

How many youngsters have you taken out shooting? Over the past 12 months, BASC North has provided well in excess of 600 shooting opportunities for youngsters in the region. We are staggered at the generosity of the local shooting community. How do Young Shots get involved? The basics are often started within the youngsters’ own social groups and family. They can send the Young Shots to one of BASC’s introduction-to-shooting days and progress to more challenging clays. When we think they are ready, and once they have a shotgun certificate, we help place them on our introduction to gameshooting days. We also have a list of Young Shots who receive regular emails telling them what we are doing, so that they can pick and choose what they get involved in.…

While tourists at the National Gallery jostle in front of van Gogh’s Sunfl owers, the partridge shooters among us make their way to the pastoral charms of Gainsborough’s early masterpiece, Mr and Mrs Robert Andrews. Painted in 1748 to commemorate their marriage, it’s set in the Suffolk countryside, just after harvest. The wheat has been stooked, and Robert is about to set off for an armed mooch with his hound, a handy type that’s somewhere between a foxhound and red setter. His wife, Frances, as becomes a gentlewoman, is mostly engaged in looking ornate in a manner that comes easily to 18-year-old heiresses. Since she’s rather comely, as well as rich, we can understand why Robert looks so chilled. But I think it’s also because he’s off for a potter…

Dan skins all his venison and mammalian males as soon as he can. “There’s a thin layer of adipose just under the skin, and until the fat has completely hardened, the flavour of the adipose seeps into the flesh, essentially tainting it,” he explained. “Leave the skin on in the field, so the meat isn’t exposed to micro-organisms, but once you are in a clean environment, skin it as quickly as possible. If I’m away from my processing room, I break the carcase up there and then, storing the different cuts in plastic bags and then a chiller. The meat ages very well by doing that.” In the UK we are unlikely to be more than a few hours from home, while in Michigan this could be a little bit…

Rather more than 30 years ago, a friend and I clubbed together to buy a dummy-launcher. It wasn’t a success, and was the worst piece of dog-training equipment I’ve ever bought. You are probably familiar with dummy-launchers, but, just in case you are not, I should explain that the launcher fires a cylindrical rubber dummy, propelled by a .22LR blank. Our launcher worked satisfactorily. It never, as far as I can recall, misfired, and it was well up to the job of firing its dummy considerable distances. The fact that the dummy bore no resemblance to a gamebird was incidental, as was the fact that its fast, tumbling flight was about as far from the tumble of a shot pheasant as is possible for the fall of a flying object.…

Jays are at their most obvious in October, gathering and storing acorns for the winter months ahead. Each trip involves the relocation of several acorns, carried in the crop and beak and then buried in small groups. Though many of these acorns will be retrieved, some will germinate, especially after a heavy harvest or a warm winter, both of which occurred in the years 2014 to 2015. Jays are particularly important to oak trees — how else can their heavy acorns move 100m or cross rivers? If you get a close look at a jay, you can age an individual by the pattern of black bars on the azure feathers of the wing. A juvenile bird has between six and eight bars on each feather — as opposed to 10…

The Conservative Party has become the latest of the three main political parties to declare support for the shooting industry in recent weeks. Elizabeth Truss MP described shooting as “vital for the fabric of the UK rural economy” in a speech at the rural reception hosted by BASC and the Angling Trust, at the Conservative Party Conference last week. Her comments follow those made by members of the Labour Party (News, 7 October) and the Liberal Democrats (News, 30 September) last month. But delegates did more than just voice their support, with conference attendees, ranging from Cabinet ministers to local activists, queuing up to try out BASC’s ST-2 shooting simulator. The organisation’s shotgun coaches were on hand to help delegates tackle simulated targets such as grouse and duck. Among those…

Tim Smith wins BASC.410 championships Herefordshire clayshooter Tim Smith took the world title and high Gun in the open pool, with a score of 45 out of 50 at the annual BASC .410 World Championships last month. The event, held at Mid Wales Clay Shooting Centre in Powys, was shot over a challenging 50-target Sporting layout. Drop in Scottish wildlife crime The 2014 Wildlife Crime report by Aileen McLeod, Scottish minister for environment, climate change and land reform, shows a fall in recorded crime against wildlife across the board — aside from poaching. Scottish Countryside Alliance director Jamie Stewart welcomed the report, which was published two weeks ago. Chudleys champion Alan Davies and his Labrador, Bertie, were crowned the 2015 BASC Chudleys Scurry League champions at this year’s final on…

There were the riots in London back in 2011; followed by anti-austerity marches; then, more recently, so-called anarchists lobbing missiles at an oh-so-hip Shoreditch café; and last week a mass demonstration at the Conservative Party Conference. A common denominator in all of these (apart from class hatred, which is a recurring theme) is that many of the protestors chose to cover their hate-filled faces. For anyone who has ever ridden to hounds, these balaclava-clad hooligans are a familiar sight. Growing up in Kent, I witnessed at first hand their violence and apparent disregard for the welfare of hounds and horses, this despite their declared love of animals; a reversal perhaps of Jorrocks’s “It aren’t that I don’t love the fox; it’s that I love the hound more”. More recently, the…

August came and went in a blur. September has, as always, been taken over by dogging-in. Rushing round feeding, opening pen gates and dogging-in have kept us busy until late morning. Sometimes longer. It does, of course, depend upon the day. When we have one of those bright, sunny September days, the birds move a bit then settle down fairly quickly. The sun almost hefts them into wherever they happen to be. They don’t tend to move much if there is a good wind or if it is raining. Should the rain stop, however, they usually make up for lost time and head off all at once. I often think back to when I started keepering and dogging-in was unheard of — everything was whistle-fed on straw rides twice a…

Dominant cock pheasants have harems of anything from two to six or more hens. But sub-dominant cocks rarely get the chance to mate. The crowing calls of individual pheasants differ from each other in pitch and tempo. Cock pheasants have nothing to do with either incubation or rearing the chicks. Wild hen pheasants lay a clutch of between eight to 14 eggs, though clutches of up to 17 are not exceptional. The incubation period is around 23-24 days, with the chicks all hatching at once (synchronous hatching). There are around 50 species of pheasants in the world. These include the junglefowl, the ancestor of the domesticated chicken. A pheasant’s short and rounded wings allow rapid acceleration, but are not suited to sustained flight, so pheasants are non- migratory. A characteristic…

Now that Tawny can sit, stay, wait, retrieve and be recalled, she has some ferreting skills to master. Importantly, she must be able to mark an occupied rabbit warren, be good with stock and work with the ferrets, as opposed to tolerating them. I don’t like the terminology “breaking a dog to ferrets” because “break” is such a dreadful word. I have always allowed free access and my dogs accustom themselves to their little mustelid hunting partners. As Tawny naturally marks the holes, I reiterate this by slipping in a ferret and producing the rabbits, so she will understand her most basic of instincts.…

This is one of the recipes in Wild Gourmet , by chef Michael Chiarello. You’ll need a big log-burning fireplace, and you’ll have to set up a hook beneath the mantel. We’ve adapted the recipe slightly. As Mr Chiarello puts it: “The meat is suspended from the hook and the leg spins slowly while it cooks. Every time you pass, give it a gentle push so it spins. The venison will spin until the string is unwound then, due to the meat’s weight, will keep spinning in the opposite direction until it reaches full twist and begins unwinding.” Remove the pelvic bone, but keep the leg intact and scrape the thin end of the bone clean so that you can tie the string on to it. The venison should be…

The experts THE ULTIMATE SHOOTING QUIZ TEAM BILL HARRIMAN BASC’s head of firearms and global authority on guns MAT MANNING Airgunner and journalist from the West Country BRUCE POTTS Shooting Timesrifle reviewer and stalker DAVID TOMLINSON Highly regarded writer and ornithologist LIAM BELL Shropshire gamekeeper and keen wildfowler GRAHAM DOWNING Shooting consultant and sporting author PAUL RAWLINGS Gundog expert and A-panel spaniel judge CHRIS DE CANI Riverkeeper, with specialist knowledge of chalkstreams TONY BUCKWELL Retired veterinary surgeon, acts as an advisor on animal welfare What you’ll learn BEST DOG FOR ROUGHSHOOTERSGUN FOR RATS IN THE FARMYARDHOW TO CLEAN FOULED-UP BARRELSHOW TO COLLECT A DOG’S URINE PLUS: GUNDOGS / SNOW CAMO /FIREARMS HISTORY / POULTS / WEASELS If you have a query contact the team Email: stanswers@timeinc.com By post:…

293 Sites of Special Scientific Interest that are at risk from fracking operations, according to a recent RSPB analysis of the areas that have been offered to energy companies by the Government, to explore for oil and gas. “We were bottom fishing and I got a what seemed like a bite. I hauled it in and it looked at first as if there was a dead cat on the line. When it got closer and out of the water it looked like a kangaroo.” Matt Welham from Exwick, Devon, described the moment he and friend Richard Williams “caught” a dead wallaby in the river Exe near Exeter. It has yet to be confirmed where the animal came from.…

FEED If you haven’t already, it’s time to concentrate your feeders in the areas where game is needed for shoot days. Placing your winter feeding hoppers in clusters can reduce the likelihood of dominant cock pheasants keeping other birds away from the food, while holding the game close to flush points. READ Golden Retrievers — A Practical Guide for Owners and Breeders. This recently published book offers detailed information on all aspects of caring for your golden retriever — from diet and training to breed standard and whelping — and presents itself as an essential guide for all dog owners and professionals. It is available from the Crowood Press, at an RRP of £19.95. PREPARE Any grey partridges on your land will appreciate some good nesting cover at the edge…

Simon Hart, former chief executive of the Countryside Alliance, has returned to the organisation as its chairman. Mr Hart, who is also MP for Carmarthen West, held the top spot at the Alliance from 2003 to 2010, before taking up his ministerial position — though remaining as a board member. He took over from outgoing interim chairman Lord Mancroft at the organisation’s annual meeting last month. “I am looking forward to taking over this role and very grateful for the work of Lord Mancroft and Kate Hoey, who have both undertaken this post with great energy over the last few years,” he said: “The Alliance is a unique organisation made up of some fascinating and diverse members and I am delighted to be able to do my bit to help.”…

The West Country is facing a plague of crane flies — better known as daddy long-legs — due to the humid summer. But while the influx might be bad news for anyone who doesn’t like creepy-crawlies in their homes, it’s a boon for birds and hedgehogs, which view the crane flies as a food source. Fast-food chain McDonald’s last month vowed to use only British-grown potatoes for all the chips that it sells in its UK branches. Wild salmon populations have fallen below safe conservation limits in all rivers in the Scottish West Highland salmon-farming zone, says the Scottish Government. A case of BSE, also known as “mad cow disease”, was confirmed on a farm in Wales earlier this month. The precise location of the farm is not being disclosed,…

Who are you and what do you do? I am MP for Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire. Former CEO and current chairman of the Countryside Alliance. What does a typical week at work involve? It is divided between meeting constituents, lobbyists, ministers, and colleagues. It is also spent in select committees and all party groups. What would you say is the greatest issue facing the countryside at the moment? At the moment the crisis facing dairy farmers in particular is putting intense stress on the whole rural economy. How do you explain fieldsports to the public? A wonderful way of life that binds people and communities as only sport can. What we should always avoid is trying to disguise what we do as if we are performing some public duty.…

BASC works with all parties to maintain the political consensus in support of shooting. If we were partisan, favouring one party above another, we risk shooting becoming a political football. With Jeremy Corbyn’s election as Labour leader — the first vegetarian, anti-fieldsports MP to take that post — is that consensus now at risk? Corbyn has signed anti-inspired Early Day Motions attacking live quarry shooting during his time as an MP. He voted against the welfare exemption for hunter, pointer, retrievers from the ban on tail docking in 2006. In the 2010 and the 2015 General Elections he didn’t reply to BASC’s letters asking him where he stood on shooting. He has appointed, as shadow secretary of state for the environment food and rural affairs, Kerry McCarthy MP, a vegan…

Due to the lovely weather, all the benches from the bothy were dragged into the garden so that everybody could enjoy the sunshine during lunch. The shoot provided lunch for all involved, with wives and helpers making enough meat baps to feed an army. Most of the meat was supplied by the farmers themselves from home-grown pigs and cattle that were kept within a mile of the bothy. You could taste the quality. After the baps were devoured by the hungry shooting party, tea and coffee were brought round with an assortment of home-baked cakes.…

The summer shows have finished and I’ve been getting my nets repaired and restrung on their poles. The dogs and I are getting fitter, removing the “timber” we put on over the summer months. I must not forget the ferrets. They are also nearing a fit, working state. It will take a few outings before my team is champing at the bit to bolt rabbits with gusto. Nowadays, I rarely use a lot of purse or poke-nets. The only nets I cannot function without now are my stop- and long-nets. My long-nets are between 25 and 50 yards long, whereas my stop-nets are 10 to 15 yards. I can join them up if need be, but I cannot dissect a 100-yard net. Why anyone would buy a 100-yard net purely…

Awareness:attract a new generation of lifelong conservationists by articulating the vital role that hunting and fishing play in managing our natural resources, through providing wild meat sources. Image:increase the number of people who support hunting and fishing and improve the public perception and image of hunters and anglers. Opportunity:ignite the curiosity and desire to harvest and prepare wild fish and game at home. Action:instil the desire to preserve and protect natural resources, our outdoor heritage and the unique character of the state and region.…

THERE’S NO DOUBT that the revival of the Clumber spaniel as a proper sporting dog is one of the success stories of the past 30 years. My first outing shooting over Clumbers was with James Darley back in 1990: it was a memorable roughshooting outing that ended with a single cock pheasant in the bag, but James’s dogs worked tirelessly, and the lone pheasant was a major triumph on a bitterly cold winter’s day. James has remained faithful to the breed for many years, and has played a major role in re-establishing the Clumber as a genuine working breed, worthy of consideration by anyone looking for a good shooting companion. My recent outing with members of the Working Clumber Spaniel Society (Clumbers make an impression, 30 September) was a reminder…

If someone told you to meet them at a certain “bosky bourne”, would you know what they were talking about? A bosky bourne is actually a stream shaded by trees. It gets the term because the Oxford Dictionarydefines bosky as “covered by trees or bushes” while a bourne is “a small stream, especially one that flows intermittently or seasonally”. The first record of the term dates from 1634, when English poet John Milton used it in his work Comusas follows: “I know each lane, and every alley green Dingle or bushy dell of this wilde Wood, And every bosky bourne from side to side.” According to Dominick Tyler’s Uncommon Ground, the word “bosky” can also be used to describe someone who is mildly inebriated. He says this perhaps draws a…

In France it’s called the vendange, but here in the UK it’s simply known as the grape harvest. Mid-October marks the height of the grape-picking season in the UK’s 500 or so vineyards. These range from the tiny — even five acres can produce a good crop — to the extensive. Denbies Wine Estate in Surrey, for example, covers 265 acres, making it the largest in Britain. In a good year — and it’s not until the harvest is in that we will know about the 2015 vintage — Denbies can produce around 400,000 bottles. Picking wine is labour-intensive because it’s done entirely by hand. It’s usual for pickers to work in pairs on either side of the row of vines, cutting the fruit with extremely sharp shears or secateurs.…

Chef Richard Bainbridge has just launched his first solo venture, the restaurant Benedicts in Norwich (www.restaurantbenedicts.com), with his wife. He was previously head chef at Morston Hall and is now appearing on Great British Menu. Richard sources all his ingredients in and around Norfolk, and is a keen hunter and gatherer. This is a simple dish that really shows off the great flavour of pheasant. In my house it signifies the end of the summer and the beginning of autumn, which is my favourite season. Pheasant meat is not known for being particularly moist, but this recipe helps to retain the moisture of the bird. Marrying it with the sweet cider and the saltiness of the sauerkraut makes this dish a real winner. Also, it is a one-pot wonder —…

I am an environmental vandal. I say this because I have planted hundreds of trees. Mostly native broad-leaves, usually grown from seed originally collected within my own local vegetation zone. That in itself doesn’t make me an environmental despoiler, of course. What does is the fact that I planted almost all of these trees within tree guards, to protect them from rabbits, hares and deer. And these tree guards were made from plastic. Plastic is just about the most environmentally unfriendly material known to (and devised by) man. This fact has been recognised by last week’s imposition of a compulsory 5p charge on single-use plastic bags in supermarkets. Now, when I bought the tree guards, I was assured they were photodegradable. Oh, and most of the ones I used were…