Innholdsfortegnelse for 22-Feb-2017 i Shooting Times & Country

So we have yet another call for an increase in fees for firearms and shotgun certifi cates (see p.4). This time it’s from Conservative members of the London Assembly, including Steve O’Connell who represents Croydon and Sutton. His contention is that certificate fees should reflect the cost of administration, and therefore proposes an increase to £200. It is clear that Mr O’Connell is wholly ignorant of how the current system is run. I do accept that some police forces run their licensing departments reasonably well, but many are hugely inefficient, which wastes police time and frustrates and deprives certificate holders and applicants. I am sure that this inefficiency has a significant knock-on effect on costs. Mr O’Connell should be less concerned with getting certificate holders or applicants to pay more…

26 FEBRUARY COUNTRYSIDE ALLIANCE POINT-TO-POINT RACES Badbury Rings, Blandford Forum, Dorset Tel 07974 141933 9 MARCH GWCT GAME MANAGEMENT BEST PRACTICE DAY Allerton Project, Loddington, Leicestershire Tel 01425 651013 9-12 MARCH CRUFTS 2017 National Exhibition Centre, Birmingham, West Midlands Tel 01217 804141 10 MARCH CORNWALL LADY GUNS “GIVE IT A GO” CLAYSHOOTING DAY Colquite Estate, Washaway, Bodmin Tel 07729 756913 16 MARCH HOLT’S AUCTION OF FINE MODERN & ANTIQUE GUNS Princess Louise House, Hammersmith, London Tel 01485 542822 18-19 MARCH WEST OF ENGLAND GAME FAIR Bath & West Showground, Shepton Mallet, Somerset Tel 01392 421500…

Savills estate agents and the Game & Wildlife Conservation Trust (GWCT) have launched the 2017 Shoot Benchmarking Survey, an annual summary that allows shoot owners to compare their operations with similar shoots, helping them to identify areas for improvement. In return for completing the survey, contributors will receive a detailed report that compares their shoot’s vital statistics with averages for similar-sized shoots. The bespoke report contains exclusive statistics and trends that are not published elsewhere and are only available to participants. The survey is open until 7 April, with the reports to be distributed during the summer. Savills director David Steel said: “The survey is now covering its seventh season and each year participant numbers have increased as shoot owners recognise the benefits of benchmarking their business against others of…

“On 18 December 1913 seven Guns, including the Prince of Wales, slew 3,937 pheasants” I read the letter of the week from J. Norbury (Big bags and bad taste, 1 February), with a sense of déjà vu. The topic of large and apparently excessive bags in the driven game field has been touched on time and again in recent years, usually with a degree of nervous trepidation. It is, after all, an extremely sensitive subject, embracing as it does the financial and long-term interests, not only of commercial shoots but also those of gamefarmers and dealers, gamekeepers and even, on a lesser scale, beaters and pickers-up. Before condemning what may appear to be grossly excessive bags of birds, you must take into account the more isolated parts of the country,…

Jim Churchill, now in his seventh decade, has keepering in his blood. He was brought up in a family of keepers and it was never in question what career path he would take. As you might expect, Jim is a traditionalist and his rearing methods have not changed in the 41 years he has been working on the shoot. At the end of each season he will catch up 500 or 600 pheasants and put them in laying pens before then collecting the eggs, hatching them in the incubators and rearing the day-olds. This can be quite labour-intensive and Jim admitted that he couldn’t manage without the help of a couple of good friends and, of course, his family, who not only help out during the rearing season but also…

Find a suitable wood A good roosting wood is hard to come by these days but if you have one, do look after it. When you are trying to find a good roosting wood there some basic things to look out for. A pigeon likes good shelter, warmth, safety, little disturbance and a good local food supply. If a wood ticks all these boxes, you have a roosting wood. The best roosting woods are conifer woods that tend to be surrounded by deciduous or hardwood trees. The pigeon has the best of both worlds in this case. The hardwoods provide resting places during the day and before roost where the pigeon can digest food, and they can then retire to a warm bed in the firs at night. If a…

“A Brittany will do anything, from sitting on a peg to trialling, where they will catch the judge’s eye” LAST WEEK I reported Rory Major’s ratings of seven breeds of HPR that we see working in this country (Which is the best HPR?, 15 February). Rory is arguably our leading professional HPR trainer and has first-hand experience of almost all the HPR breeds. Among the breeds he rated last week were the Slovakian rough-haired pointer, Korthals griffon, spinone Italiano, bracco Italiano, Weimaraner, and braque Français. This week he considers his top seven, including two Hungarian breeds, one French and four German. Starting with number 7, here are his top dogs. Hungarian vizslas are “really nice dogs and easy to train, and they make good house dogs, too, like German shorthaired…

Latin name: Corylus avellana Common name: Hazel Also known as: Cobnut, common filbert, hale nut, hazelnut, stock nut, wood nut How to spot it and where to find it: A deciduous tree or large shrub, the hazel has broad leaves and eye-catching yellow catkins in early spring, followed by edible nuts. Its leaves are soft to the touch as a result of the downy hairs on the underside. It is often found in the understorey of lowland oak, ash or birch woodland as well as in scrub and hedgerows but does not tolerate deep shade. The catkins, also known as “lamb’stails” appear before the leaves and hang in clusters from mid-February. The flowers that then appear are tiny and bud-like before developing into oval-shaped fruits that hang in groups of…

We are only accepting applications for the 2017 Shooting Industry Awards for two more days. The awards celebrate the achievements of the trade throughout the previous year. Applications from all corners of the industry are welcome, with 17 award categories including best gunshop, best ground and the pick of the top rifles, shotguns and cartridges. Due to a technical difficulty, if you entered online before 1 February 2017, you will have to complete the online entry form again. To enter (or re-enter) visit po.st/ShootingAwards by Friday, 24 February.…

Ed Ling named CPSA Clayshooter of the Year Ed Ling was voted Clayshooter of the Year at the sixth annual Clay Pigeon Shooting Association (CPSA) Awards earlier this month. The Taunton-born shooter (pictured) received the award after having been voted for by CPSA members from a shortlist of five contenders, which also featured fellow Olympic bronze medallist Steve Scott. Upon receiving his award, Mr Ling said: “It is a great honour to be up here and I would like to thank the CPSA for organising the event. I must also thank my family for all the support they have given me over the years. This is a fantastic way to round off a great year.” Chudleys dog food deal has been extended Working dog food brand Chudleys has extended its…

THREE IN THE BAG Neil Robbins from Carmarthenshire sent in this picture of his partner Jasmine Esther, 25 (below), who is new to shooting but had a chance to stand on beaters’ day and bagged three birds. “I was so proud of her,” said Neil. “We will need more cartridges for next season.” EVOCATIVE VIEW This wonderful picture (above) was sent in by Kellie Hoplins and taken by Gary Bide of the beaters’ day January 2017 at Chideock Manor shoot. ARCHIE’S FIRST DAY Megan Pollitt sent in this picture of her friend Angela’s dog Archie (below left), which went out working for the first time on beaters’ day. HEDGEHOGS AND BADGERS I was reminiscing about my childhood capers with my father, aged 82, a gamekeeper and true countryman. He asked…

“The demise of the curlew is imminent, unless we pull out all the stops to save it” This year the Scottish Gamekeepers Association (SGA) will be asking for the legal measures, which are clearly written into the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981, to be properly honoured and for applications for control licences to be judged on merit alone. This will give our members and others a chance to manage the conflicts they face — economic or conservation — appropriately and legally, something that the SGA has been pushing for since its beginning. The main speaker at the SGA’s annual general meeting in March will be Roseanna Cunningham, cabinet secretary for environment, climate change and land reform. We hope that she will have some positive news regarding species management in Scotland.…

“Compared with driven gameshooting, the subscription to a wildfowling club is cheap as chips” End-of-season blues? Nothing to do now that another shooting season has slipped into history? You must be joking! February has got to be one of the busiest months of the year — it is a struggle to fit everything in. Those people who put the gun away until October comes around again are missing out on a lot of fun. A glance at the diary shows that almost every day — and night — in the month is accounted for. To start there is the roe doe cull to complete: two off my little bit of ground and four from a neighbour’s farm will see the job done. Barring bad weather we should manage it with…

I have been asked about one particular aspect of ferreting more than others lately; the beginner or inexperienced ferreter asks: “How do you tell if a rabbit is at home?” A lot of time is wasted ferreting barren ground. It is frustrating but we have all experienced times when we thought we knew better. Fieldcraft is essential. The behaviour of the rabbits at different times of the farming calendar is designed to confuse us. Around this time of year and onwards, rabbits start to dig into old warrens to make new chambers for breeding and carry out essential housework from within. This doesn’t necessarily mean that they live in that warren all the time but they are preparing to visit. To save time and especially if doubting your ferrets’ working…

“The fact that we need to repeat predator control each year is a mark of the sustainability of what we do” In late February breeding time is imminent and our game is sorting its domestic arrangements. Cock pheasants will be marking out their territories and strutting their stuff in hopes of attracting as many hens as possible; grey partridges will be pretty firmly paired, and the redlegs likewise, though their more “continental” approach will not preclude the odd liaison with the girl next door. Preoccupation with territory — and in the case of partridges the split from coveys to pairs, with just two pairs of eyes — makes our game that bit more vulnerable to predation compared with autumn and winter. Incubating birds will be more vulnerable still. So those…

It is always intriguing to discover what are the most popular shooting dogs in Europe, though it is essential to remember that the choice of breed invariably reflects the most popular style of shooting. Labradors may be the most trainable of all the gundog breeds and they make great pets, so it is surprising not to find them more popular on the Continent. The reason, of course, is that the Labrador is a retriever rather than a hunter, and on the Continent there is much more need for dogs that hunt rather than dogs that retrieve. There is not a single continental breed that I can think of that doesn’t hunt, point and retrieve, though my observations of the French shooting field suggest that, for most French chasseurs, the last…

The Countryside Alliance (CA) is rebranding itself with a new logo that it hopes will “more closely reflect the huge range of work and campaigning” it undertakes. While traditionally associated with issues relating to shooting, hunting and fishing, the non-profit organisation is also a leading voice on topics affecting rural services and small businesses, as well as charitable projects such as the CA’s Fishing 4 Schools and Casting for Recovery programmes. The CA says that its new look will emphasise its aim to secure a future for the countryside that both preserves its traditional values and promotes a thriving rural community and economy. CA chief executive Tim Bonner commented: “We are committed to supporting those who hunt, shoot and fish. This is about communicating the remarkable work we do to…

Shooting Times is giving you the chance to win the latest in Beretta’s series of boxlock over-and-unders, the 690 Field I. Simply attach Token 2 to the form from last week’s issue, and find Token 3 in the 1 or 8 March issue. Entries close on 3 April 2017. Terms and conditions : Closing date is 03/04/17. • All entries must be received on the original official entry form with the correct tokens attached. • Entries received mutilated, illegible, altered, incomplete or not complying exactly with the rules and instructions will be disqualified. • No responsibility can be accepted for entries lost or delayed in the post or elsewhere. • No correspondence will be entered into and entry implies acceptance of the rules as final and legally binding. • Employees…

Members of the Lammermuirs Moorland Group have raised more than £700 for cancer research charities by placing a “charity tariff” on one Borders shoot any time a white pheasant was shot. These birds are less common than the more frequently seen long-tailed gamebird. The idea came from Billy Reid (pictured below with a £280 cheque for Cash for Kids), a tractor driver, who lost a friend to cancer. Freya Kennedy, the winner of a recent competition by working dog food brand Chudleys, has generously donated part of her prize to Springer Rescue Scotland. The prize package included a Seeland Woodcock outfit, a luxury hamper and 40 bags of Chudleys food, 20 of which she gave to the charity. More must be done to combat fly-tipping, which is now a “blight”…

Graham Downing’s Have Your Say piece (Woodcock — to shoot or not to shoot?, 18 January), commenting on those shoots where woodcock are not shot and the Game & Wildlife Conservation Trust’s guidance, rightly draws attention to the vulnerable status of the local UK breeding population. However, it may be that there is a further reason why some shoot hosts do not permit this species to be shot. In the six decades during which I have participated in gameshooting, we have witnessed a great decline in the number of hares and rabbits appearing in bags. “Shoot nothing (game or pest) on the ground” is now a component of many, if not most, pre-shoot briefings. This may be attributed to a number of causes, including not only the greater number of…

“Jim would release about 1,500 pheasants and the family would shoot five days a season” In 1976, young gamekeeper Jim Churchill and his family moved from Peterborough to take up a single-handed keeper job on the Kirtlington Park estate. Descended from a long line of gamekeepers — Jim’s father and his five uncles were in the trade and worked all over the country — Jim had started his career in Dorset before moving to Cambridgeshire. Fast-forward 41 years to Saturday, 28 January, and I had the pleasure of meeting Jim at the shoot’s beaters’ day. But it was to be a beaters’ day with a difference because, sadly, this was Jim’s last season before taking well-earned retirement after more than four decades of keepering the shoot. With his retirement the…

Roost shooting is, in the majority of cases, where the pigeon shooter starts. A cold and windy February evening spent in a wood, targeting roosting pigeon will always evoke fond memories for a lot of shooters. Roosting pigeon can provide some of the most fantastic sport and those moments when you find yourself wishing you could stay out for just one more hour, or berating yourself for not bringing along more cartridges. It is tough to predict what your bag will be from an evening’s roost shooting but whatever the circumstances, there are ways to improve your chances of netting a decent bag and ensure consistent success in your shooting.…

1 For flightline shooting, you must be in the perfect spot to maximise any shooting possibilities. If you are not under the flightline you will end up shooting at birds that are too far away. 2 As with any shooting, you must have a level, correct and comfortable shooting position (right). Footwork is vital in order for you to adjust to the various shots that will be on offer. 3 Bird selection is so important — you must focus on what the bird is doing in flight. If you can do this, you will read the bird correctly and mentally prepare yourself for the shot. 4 For roost shooting try to find a position where you will have a good window to see birds arriving, can maximise your angles for…

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While the use of tunnel traps about the shoot — and perhaps a few cage traps beside the release pen fence — will often account for a mink, those with waterways about the shoot should think hard about deploying a mink raft or two. Set out at a rate of about one per kilometre of waterway, they will prove invaluable in helping you spot the presence of mink before they do much damage. In detection mode you check the raft about once a fortnight and, once the mink leaves its footprints in the clay tracking pad, you can install a cage trap and expect to catch the culprit within a week. This is so much less time-consuming than the conventional approach where you have traps out all the time and…

“There was another change in the top order this year with Somerset providing 26 heads, followed by Hampshire with 24” One of the things that I enjoy about measuring trophies is when a hunter — because they have just shot something bigger than normal or have been encouraged by a friend to have a head assessed — finds that with little understanding of the measuring process they end up with a medal, often silver and sometimes gold. Their delight is obvious because invariably they have little expectation of a medal and are interested just to see how the head compares to the standard required. What is also particularly reassuring is how often that going through the measuring process encourages in them an interest in the part that antlers play in…

BILL HARRIMAN BASC’s head of firearms and global authority on guns MAT MANNING Airgunner and journalist from the West Country BRUCE POTTS Shooting Times rifl e reviewer and stalker DAVID TOMLINSON Highly regarded writer and ornithologist LIAM BELL NGO chairman, 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 Veterinary surgeon with a special interest in gundogs TONY JACKSON A game Shot, keen stalker and former editor of Shooting Times TOM PAYNE Professional shooting instructor and avid pigeon shooter SIMON WHITEHEAD Author, professional ferreter and rabbit controller IAIN WATSON Keen stalker and senior CIC international trophy judge Contact the team Email: stanswers@timeinc.com By post: Shooting…

Grey herons are susceptible to cold winter weather, when water bodies freeze and snow covers up the activities of moles, so February can be a tricky month for them. The British Trust for Ornithology has been monitoring their numbers since 1928 by asking volunteers to count the number of active nests in a sample of heronries across the UK. There are population crashes after cold winters, with the most obvious drop in numbers occurring between 1962 and 1963, and numbers have been low for the past few years because of a couple of cold winters and springs. The general trend for the past 85 years is upwards, attributed to better water quality and less persecution. Herons are early nesters so the first eggs will already have been laid in local…

Outdoor pig units are a common sight across East Anglia, especially in areas with free-draining soil. Though some enterprises use pure-bred pigs, most favour a hybrid between two distinct breeds: the large white and the landrace. The history of the large white can be traced back to 19th-century Yorkshire. The name describes the breed perfectly, as it is indeed large — sows weigh around 260kg to 300kg, while boar can go to 380kg — and white. The breed’s popularity is based on its prolificacy, with sows producing 12 or more piglets per litter. The first landrace pigs were imported to the UK from Sweden in 1949 and soon became the UK’s most popular breed of pig. Landrace boars have a well-earned reputation for improving other breeds, producing fast-growing piglets for…

“The BBC complaints system is about as effective as an ashtray on a motorbike” Fake news is in the news. The term applies to websites that originate news coverage that is fiction. This falsified news is designed to attract a lot of hits, which in turn are used to attract advertisers. The Times ran a fascinating investigation into how so-called “programmatic advertising” software tools have led to ads for mainstream brands being placed on sites promoting extremist propaganda. After the paper’s exposé, a host of big-name brands suspended their online advertising. Anybody who shoots or hunts will recognise that “fake news” is not a new phenomenon. The antis have been spewing their poison via the internet for years. The difference now is that the mainstream media has finally begun to…