Innholdsfortegnelse for 01-Mar-2017 i Shooting Times & Country

Fat drops of Hebridean rain ran down the back of my neck and the feeling in my fingers faded into numbness. Then in the dark grey dawn it began, that sound like a pack of hounds in full cry: greylags leaving their roost to fly inland and feed. The skein grew louder and louder and then appeared, some 20 yards to my right, silhouetted in the sky. I sprung up from behind the gorse, fired at the closest bird and watched in delight as it tumbled into the reeds. It was my first goose and it remains my favourite sporting memory. Over the next few days I shot across various parts of the Lewis foreshore with some old friends and met some wonderful people along the way. But the sun…

Shotgun shooters across the UK suddenly found themselves getting less bang for their buck last month due to the rising price of lead and the tumbling value of the pound. Speaking to Shooting Times, David Bontoft, managing director of premium brand Hull Cartridge, said that despite widespread talk of “nasty cartridge people”, the price rises were unavoidable due to the global cost of lead soaring by 20 per cent in 2016 and the value of the pound falling against the dollar, in which natural resources are valued. He added that given Hull buys its lead from the Continent, the company has also suffered due to the sterling struggling against the euro following the vote in June last year for the UK to leave the European Union. Summing up the situation,…

9 MARCH GAMEKEEPING: THE FUTURE CONFERENCE Newton Rigg College, Penrith, Cumbria Tel 01392 872932 9-12 MARCH CRUFTS 2017 National Exhibition Centre, Birmingham Tel 01217 804141 10 MARCH CORNWALL LADY GUNS “GIVE IT A GO” CLAYSHOOTING DAY Colquite Estate, Washaway, Bodmin Tel 07729 756913 12 MARCH NFU MUTUAL BASINGSTOKE AND HAMPSHIRE HUNT POINT-TO-POINT Hackwood Park, Basingstoke, Hampshire Tel 07977 920705 18-19 MARCH WEST OF ENGLAND GAME FAIR Bath & West Showground, Shepton Mallet, Somerset Tel 01392 421500 22-23 APRIL EAST ANGLIAN GAME & COUNTRY FAIR Euston estate, Thetford, Norfolk Tel 01263 735828…

I applaud the more measured response from Mike Swan (We must argue our case sensibly, 25 January). I agree with Mike that Chris Packham (right) is not an ignorant fool; far from it. He is intelligent, charismatic and knowledgeable about many aspects of wildlife and the countryside, even though, like the rest of us, he sometimes makes mistakes. Some of the things he does say are a useful challenge to us to make sure our own house is in order. Could Shooting Times offer Chris Packham and Mike Swan a chance to debate current conservation issues face-to-face and publish the result? Mike Swan responds: I would be very happy to be involved in a debate with Chris Packham, and I suspect that we might find that there is more common…

“The wise have already placed their orders of chicks; it will be a brave man who holds out for a bargain” February was cold, wet and fairly miserable, with no sign of an early spring in Shropshire. We are still feeding the birds in the drives and will continue to do so for at least another four to six weeks. There is virtually nothing for them to eat in the woods or on the fields and only some of the gamecrops are still providing food. Without our feeders and the bit of wheat we spin on the rides it would be very tough, not only for the pheasants and partridges, but also for the farmland and woodland birds that have become dependent on us for their food. Continuing with the…

The statistics quoted by BASC from the 2014 Value of Shooting report are impressive: 90 per cent of land managed for wildfowling has SSSI designation; fowlers put in 600,000 conservation work days a year, while their clubs manage more than 250,000 acres of land and have invested over £3million in securing declining coastal wetland. Wildfowlers were responsible for boosting the fortunes of our home-bred greylag geese through a reintroduction programme in the 1960s and 1970s. Indeed, there are numerous examples of pioneering conservation practice in wildfowling — a current example is Westmorland Wildfowlers Association’s famous duck nesting tubes, which are now being used widely. Wildfowlers were part of the driving force behind the establishment of many wildfowl refuges and reserves with controlled shooting zones — including the Humber Refuge (1956),…

The vast majority of wildfowling clubs are affiliated to BASC —an organisation that was founded in 1908 as WAGBI. Stanley Duncan, WAGBI’s founder, was a Humber wildfowler (and a Shooting Times contributor from the age of 16). The organisation changed its name to the British Association for Shooting and Conservation in 1981, after a vote of the membership, to reflect its greater remit. Yet the association’s wildfowling heritage is still much in evidence at BASC’s head office at Marford Mill, in North Wales. In 1950 WAGBI had five affiliated organisations: Southport & District Wildfowlers’ Association, Blakeney and District Wildfowlers’ Association, Morecambe Bay Wildfowlers’ Association, Frodsham and District Wildfowlers’ Club and the Tay Valley Wildfowlers’ Association. These famous five are among 142 wildfowling clubs now affiliated to BASC. Individual clubs range…

Watching a dog take the line of a runner is one of the most exciting things about working gundogs and even though the shooting season is over, you can artificially set up scenarios to help condition the dogs in preparation for the real thing. The damp misty weather we have had recently has been great for training the two spaniels to take scent and shot lines as a warm dummy on cold ground gives off more scent than when temperatures of both ground and dummy are similar. Being six months older than Remy, Dolly and Logan are more advanced in their training and learning to follow the line of a runner is the next step from taking a straight line. STEP ONE: PREPARE THE AREA Start by tying a lead…

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…

“By God, in my day we worried about losing body parts, not bloody iPhones” A tiny part of the wonderfully detailed instructions for the Ripley Castle shoot, in North Yorkshire, reads: “As we may be under more stress without our phones than with them, all I ask is that they are used with the minimum of disruption to the other Guns, preferably in the vehicles between drives and certainly not during a drive or at lunch. Suitable fines may be imposed on habitual offenders with all proceeds to our charity fund.” Now, Ripley Castle shoot, run by the amiable Frank Boddy, is extremely well organised and very friendly. How typical of Frank to have come up with written guidance on the use of mobiles that is both sensible and clear…

The Gamekeepers’ Welfare Trust (GWT) is hosting a series of events as it celebrates its 25th anniversary. The organisation is holding Gamekeeping for Life conferences at a number of locations across the country between March and May. The first will be held at the home of GWT chairman the Earl of Aylesford, Packington Hall in Warwickshire, on 21 March. Lord James Percy is the keynote speaker, while local estates will share their experiences of best practice. Contact the GWT on tel 01677 470180 for details about this and future events.…

Hunt sabs accused of making bomb threats Hunt saboteurs have resorted to calling in bomb hoaxes in order to disrupt hunt meets, it has been claimed. The Countryside Alliance says animal welfare extremists are changing tactics, including making fake bulk hotel and restaurant reservations and leaving bad reviews online, to cause problems for businesses serving people and communities involved in hunting. In the most serious reported incident, 300 people at the annual Holcombe Hunt’s ball at the Dunkenhalgh Hotel, near Blackburn, had to be evacuated last month, after someone called in a bomb threat. Woodcock Club continues to grow Paul Hyde, from Alcombe in Somerset, and Hugh Dick, from Farnham in Surrey, have joined the Shooting Times Woodcock Club after shooting a right-and-left on the tricky bird. As members, they…

More than 1,000 newly hatched chicks have been put down after being found dumped in a Cambridgeshire field, due to fears they had contracted bird flu. The birds were discovered close to an exclusion zone on the outskirts of Crowland, near Peterborough. It is believed they came from a commercial chick producer nearby and were abandoned by a third party. The RSPCA said it was not feasible to rehome them due to the possibility of infection and they were destroyed. Its investigation is ongoing and anyone with information is urged to contact the charity (tel 0300 123 8018). Meanwhile, France’s agriculture minister has ordered the cull of 600,000 duck in Landes as the region fights to stem further outbreaks of bird flu.…

FIRST-TIME BEATER This is our son, Freddie, aged three, beating for the first time on New Year’s Eve. Natalie and Dave Anthony, Kent OUT WITH DADDY Our daughter Mollie is two and loves shooting and hunting, especially with her father. They will be so surprised to see their picture when they open your brilliant magazine. Hannah Durham, by email UNUSUAL GUNDOG This is Ruby, my eight-year-old shar pei, at the Halwell shoot in Totnes, Devon. She loves picking-up and so far I have never met another one like her. She is a pleasure to work. Sue Nicholls, by email…

“A generation of keepers formed the opinion that those making policy were clearly cuckoo” Recently I was made party to an online conversation regarding a worthy proposal by an association with an interest in the chalkstreams to create an annual bursary for anyone seeking funding for research that will ultimately aid these rivers. It was a “reply to all” fandango and in the extensive list of replies it was intimated by a big noise from a particular environmental trust — we’ll call him “the Director” — that the sooner a particular generation shuffled off, the better the chalkstreams would be. With the number of months remaining before I raise my bat to 50 fast approaching single figures and my time in my current position about to pass the 25-year mark,…

The most esoteric subset of wildfowling is punt-gunning. A gunning punt is very low, wooden watercraft, propelled by paddles, poles or sails, of a design that hasn’t changed much in 200 years. It carries a large gun with a bore of between 1in and 1.75in. Manoeuvring the punt into position for a shot at wildfowl is a skilled, arduous task of tidecraft and stalking. Many stalks fail. Very few shots are taken in a season; even fewer succeed to any great extent. The ban on lead shot hit the punt-gunning fraternity hard in the pocket; a single firing of a large punt-gun loaded with non-toxic shot may cost the best part of £100. During a bout of legislative fever in 1967, punt-gunning came under attack. The threat was fought off…

Last month I looked at direction work with the dogs and over the past four weeks they have all made good progress, especially young Remy, the Labrador. Because of his size, it is easy to forget he is only just over 12 months old. At times he can still be quite immature but at others he is really focused and learns quickly. I have got to the stage with him now where his training exercises are getting more complex and they are starting to test his natural ability. The two springers have taken a bit of a back seat this month but this doesn’t mean they haven’t made progress. I have been taking advantage of the damp misty mornings we have been having because these conditions are perfect for teaching…

IF AT FIRST you don’t succeed, try, try and try again must have been the motto of Vincent Routledge. He first competed in the International Gundog League Retriever Championship in 1925 with his dog Blackcock, finishing second. He was runner-up again in both 1949 and 1950 with Hallingbury Snipe, a Labrador he had bred. Victory finally came in 1962 with another home-bred dog, FTCh Hallingbury Blackbird. Routledge died just two months before the 1965 championship, which was won by FTCh Sendhurst Sweep, a dog that was bred by him and sired by Blackbird. Routledge took his kennel name from his home, for he lived in a substantial half-timbered house in Great Hallingbury, near Chelmsford in Essex. It is now an independent school. He was a man with a passion for…

Latin name: Narcissus pseudonarcissus Common name: Wild daffodil Other names: Easter lily, Lent lily, downdilly How to spot it and where to find it: While it is certainly native to western Europe, it is not clear whether the daffodil is truly native to Britain, or was introduced long ago and has become naturalised. It grows at altitudes from sea level to at least 1,500m and is found growing wild in woods and grassland. It is a bulbous perennial with upright, strap-like, grey-green leaves. The leaves grow up from the base of the stem and are up to 35cm long and 12mm wide, with rounded tips. A single flower is produced at the tip of the flattened stalk. The flower consists of a yellow “trumpet” surrounded by a ring of three…

Patrick Galbraith has taken the reins of Shooting Times, becoming the 18th Editor in the magazine’s 135-year history. Patrick said that he is “honoured and excited” to join the publication. He added: “It really is the countryman’s bible. Shooting Times has a history of excellent writing — with names like the great BB and James Wentworth Day — and strives to represent the interests of the shooting community from gamefarmers to wildfowlers.” He continued: “I was brought up in Edinburgh and learned to shoot during summer holidays in Dumfriesshire. I started my shooting career, as so many people do, going out after bunnies with an old and very inaccurate BSA air rifle. I must have been about 13.” The magazine has been under the stewardship of Acting Editor Garry Coward-Williams…

Simply attach Token 3 to the form from the 15 February issue and make sure you send it in before the closing date of 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 of Time Inc. (UK) Ltd, GMK and their relatives and dealers are not eligible for entry. • Delivery to UK mainland only.…

The Countryside Alliance (CA) says that BBC Springwatch presenter Chris Packham is “clearly rattled” after he criticised the organisation in the media. Speaking to the Huffington Post, Mr Packham claimed that the CA and other organisations are trying to silence criticism of the shooting industry by calling for the BBC to rein him in over biased comments. “All they do is make me try harder,” he said. “I will be awake when they are asleep, I will be standing when they are sitting and I will be running when they are walking.” Liam Stokes, CA head of shooting, responded: “Mr Packham is clearly rattled by the CA’s efforts to make the BBC take its own impartiality rules seriously. He is quite right that we will continue to pursue this case…

MasterChef presenter Gregg Wallace will be back as the face of the Shot to Pot restaurant at the Game Fair at Hatfield House in Hertfordshire this July. Mr Wallace (pictured) will design the menu and be on hand to meet diners. Hull Cartridge celebrated its 70th anniversary last month with a new logo and the launch of three new cartridges — the 410 3in Magnum 19g No.6 High Pheasant, the 20-bore Driven Grouse 25g No.6 CU fibre and the 12-bore, 32g No.6 shot Pigeon Long Range fibre. Farmers will fail to feed the nation successfully if migrant workers are excluded from vital jobs across the rural sector following Brexit, according to the CLA. Surrey Police is appealing for information following the theft of a number of rifles and ammunition during…

DOGGEDLY WAITING The members of Finningley Park shoot thought your readers might like a photo of Keith Reynolds (below) — whose cartoon, Dog, is featured every week — patiently waiting for the quarry to fly over him. We suspect that most of his ideas are derived from the antics of co-members and that it would be nice for him to be identified in situ so to speak. Whether he connects with the pheasants or not, he is frequently complimented on his classic style. R. Holt, by email WHY BIG BAGS ARE BIG BUSINESS Having run my own roving syndicate for the past 16 seasons, I have seen and experienced some interesting changes in the gameshooting world and some of J. Norbury’s comments (Letters, 1 February) struck a chord. When I…

“The song thrushes were three days late, but the song of the first skylark was perfectly timed” It has been a long, dark winter in Galloway. We haven’t seen much in the way of cold weather but I have lost count of the times when I have risen from my bed in the dark to hear rain lashing against the windows. On days like these, there is no sunshine — just a blurry atmosphere of twilight between banks of cloud and mist. The occasional bright, frosty day made an extraordinary impact on my outlook — suddenly things seemed possible. I watched bullfinches flickering through the frosted birch tops and sent my dogs in to work round banks of gorse and blackthorn for the chance of a woodcock. The weather can…

How fares wildfowling today? Better than you might think. Wildfowling — the dedicated pursuit of duck and geese (though waders may also form part of the bag) — holds a special place within shooting sports. It was ever thus. Right from its earliest days, coastal wildfowling attracted a wide variety of people. Many shot to put something in the pot, while professional market gunners earned their livelihood from bagging large numbers of fowl. Then there were the gentlemen gunners of the Victorian era, who savoured wild sport in a wild landscape. The literature penned by some of these hardy early exponents of wildfowling includes some of the best works in the annals of shooting. I imagine that some of those early enthusiasts might be surprised and gratified if they knew…

Many clubs have found that owning their shooting land has paid dividends. Not only can they secure income from grazing and environmental stewardship schemes but ownership puts them on a different footing when dealing with officialdom, banks and neighbours. Many land purchases have been facilitated by BASC’s Wildlife Habitat Trust. It is felt that wildfowlers need to buy land to head off greedy charities. Yet there are also rumblings over what is perceived to be greed within the club system itself. One major club is regarded, by some, as operating far beyond its geographical remit. This is alleged to be detrimental to local clubs with lesser resources. Given the ever-present political threat to wildfowling, undermining local community relations like this is short-sighted, say critics. Land can be a strategic asset.…

“I thought the pheasants of Cumbria would soon be telling each other to avoid Catlow at all costs” For much of last season I found myself wrestling with a problem, a problem to which I found no solution, though I certainly tried hard enough. My problem was this and it may be one with which you too have occasionally struggled — that is, how we can somehow manage to enjoy ourselves on days when we are shooting badly. I confess that I had plenty of practice with this problem last season, for the ability to kill pheasants with anything like consistency deserted and demoralised me. We can all cope with the occasional bad day, at least most of us can, but it becomes more and more dispiriting when they become…

“Staying on a straight line is important as you do not want the dog to disturb unshot game” I am starting to really stretch Remy the Labrador and steadily increase the complexity of his retrieving. When he is ready for the shooting field I will expect to be able to send him out in a straight line and I will want him to run that line, regardless of obstacles, until he either hits a scent or shot line or I stop and redirect him. Staying on a straight line is important as not only is it the quickest way for a dog to get there and back, but also you do not want the dog to disturb any unshot ground when you are in the field, when it might pick…

When was the last time you went shooting and witnessed a medley of spaniels and retrievers running in all directions, barking furiously? In a lifetime of shooting I’ve never seen such a thing, but watching the highly acclaimed Netflix drama The Crown I was both amused and irritated to witness just such a spectacle. I am always amazed how period dramas go to such great lengths to portray scenes with historical accuracy, but then fall down spectacularly when it comes to shooting scenes. Each episode of The Crown was reputed to have cost £10million to produce. It is quite apparent that the budget didn’t stretch as far as employing a shooting advisor, as the shooting scenes I have watched were embarrassingly dire. Take the portrayal of a day’s shooting, hosted…

Barnacle geese are starting to fatten up for their return journeys to Arctic breeding grounds, with Irish and Hebridean birds going to Greenland and birds from the Solway Firth heading for the Svalbard archipelago, way to the north of Norway. There are smaller flocks of birds wintering in other areas but a lot of these are feral, with a growing number of pairs nesting in East Anglia, for instance. Though traditionally thought of as a goose of coast and salting, “barnies” now spend a lot of time on improved pasture, where their appetite for fresh grass growth is causing conflicts with farmers. On Islay, increasing numbers of barnacle geese are at the centre of a conservation storm. Here, Scottish Natural Heritage is trying to control their numbers in ways that…

The Shetland Isles are noted for their diminutive breeds of livestock, including the Shetland pony and the Shetland sheep. It would follow that the Shetland sheepdog also evolved on the islands as a miniature version of the rough collie, a breed it closely resembles. The Shetlands did have their own miniature breed of sheepdog but it became extinct in the 19th century. However, some of these small sheepdogs were brought to the British mainland where they were crossed with other breeds to form the ancestor of the modern Shetland sheepdog. It was outcrossing to rough collies that produced the breed we know today. Once called the Shetland collie, this was eventually changed to Shetland sheepdog. Today the sheltie, as it is known, is classified as a pastoral breed, but few…