Innholdsfortegnelse for 03-May-2017 i Shooting Times & Country

Last month, while eating a poorly seasoned pasta dish, a rather serious-looking girl asked me what sort of magazine Shooting Times is? A fieldsports magazine, I replied. During pudding, I considered the question further. I thought about all the readers I’ve enjoyed meeting: the old boys who’ve wandered up at game fairs to tell me they’ve been “taking Times for 50 years”; the MPs who’ve recalled reading it at prep school; and a young boy I met who trained his cocker almost exclusively based upon things he’d read in back copies. The following day I attended our Woodcock Club dinner(p.56). It was an evening of swapping stories about forays into the field and conversations about what more can be done to conserve the brilliant little bird that the dinner is…

6-7 MAY NORTHERN SHOOTING SHOW Yorkshire Showground, Harrogate, North Yorkshire Tel 01472 809727 11 MAY RAINBOW TRUST ANNUAL CLAY PIGEON SHOOT Holland & Holland Shooting Grounds, Northwood, London Tel 01923 825349 13 MAY 2017 COUNTRYSIDE CLAY SHOOT Six Mile Bottom estate, Cambridgeshire Tel 01283 810910 21 MAY BENELLI SP’AUTO CHAMPIONSHIPS Southdown Gun Club and Shooting School Tel 01903 877555 24 MAY BASC & GWCT SHOOTING FOR THE FUTURE COURSE Allerton Project Visitor Centre, Loddington, Leicestershire Tel 01425 651013 31 MAY NGO GAME MEAT HANDLING COURSE The Shoot Room, Ox House Farm, Combrook, Warwickshire Tel 01833 660869…

Strategy is “missed opportunity” The National Farmers’ Union (NFU) says that the Government’s new Litter Strategy for England is a missed opportunity to tackle the problem of fly-tipping in the countryside. It currently costs the taxpayer around £800million in clean-up fees and the new strategy has introduced tougher consequences for those responsible. However, NFU deputy president Minette Batters said that relying on the perpetrators being caught and prosecuted is a “fundamental problem”, as the existing powers for enforcement are not being fully utilised. CLA president Ross Murray agreed, commenting: “Fines and other penalties are important, but they only work if they are enforced and it’s not clear what additional resources councils and police forces will have to do this. This is especially the case when dealing with the organised criminal…

I read with interest Lindsay Waddell’s comments regarding gamekeepers’ jobs and living arrangements (Upland Keeper, 12 April). In 1976 I was in a similar situation. My employers gave up the shoot and I was made redundant — for the third time in 20 years of keepering. I thought: if you can’t beat them, join them. I applied for a lease on a large estate in Hampshire. The agent told me there had already been 100 inquiries, but most had been time-wasters. There was now a shortlist of six. As I was local, the agent agreed to meet me the following morning. I now had a problem — first impressions were important and my clapped-out old mini van was not acceptable, so I borrowed my friend’s new Jaguar. I told the…

I have mentioned more than once that gundog training is all about building on foundations and not moving on to another exercise until the previous one has been fully understood by the dog. It is also vital that you don’t just plough on with your training regardless of how the dog is reacting, and this month has been a case in point. I noticed that Logan had been getting a bit stale with his retrieving and sticky with his hunting. This can happen as you start to put the pressure of steadiness on a young dog, so I decided to give him a break and let him chill out for a week or so. This coincided with Dolly finishing her season, so I have been able to get back to…

“A crate gives the animal a refuge and protects your house from the damage a puppy can inflict” I WAS FASCINATED to read that a new owner, buying their first dog, will spend on average £4,791 in the first year. This was the conclusion of a study undertaken by Nationwide Home Insurance. The figure includes the cost of the dog, its bedding, toys and equipment, plus food for 12 months. It prompted me to see what I thought the figure was. Purchase of the puppy is certain to be the biggest expenditure. A nice, unregistered springer from your local keeper will set you back about £350, but springers are the bargains of the gundog world. A well-bred eight-week-old cocker might cost around £600, a Labrador rather more, so we will…

LAURENCE CATLOW, A PASSIONATE SHOOTER AND ANGLER FOR MORE THAN 40 YEARS, HAS WRITTEN FIVE BOOKS ABOUT SPORT WITH ROD AND GUN. HIS NOTEBOOK RUNS IN THE FIRST ISSUE OF EVERY MONTH. We broke the record at High Park last season. We released 250 pheasants and 158 of them fell from the sky. I am far too slow to turn this into a percentage, yet just sharp enough, however, to recognise that 158 is well over half of 250 and an exceptional return. What makes it more impressive is that the season was less than ideal for holding birds because autumn was settled and warm, then winter brought almost no snow and no prolonged periods of hard weather. Perhaps even more remarkable than our return is that, in February, we…

Though traditionally a bird of gravel banks and islands along rivers, the expansion of sand and gravel extraction during the last century created new breeding opportunities for little ringed plovers, which colonised the bare ground of quarry bottoms. As old pits were discarded, pumping ceased, the holes filled with water and birds moved on to new pits. But it wasn’t long until conservation organisations and shooting syndicates became wise to the potential benefits of old workings, and realised that the profiles of these pits could be modified before they started to fill with water. Instead of steep-sided lakes, it is possible to create areas of shallow water, beaches and shingle islands, which are ideal places for pairs of little ringed plovers to nest every year. All that is needed after…

ATTEND The Rainbow Trust, a charity providing support to families who have children with serious and terminal illnesses, is holding its annual clayshoot fundraiser at Holland & Holland Shooting Grounds in London on Friday, 11 May. Teams of four are invited to take part in the shoot, with all proceeds helping to continue the Trust’s work. There are three packages available, ranging from bronze at £1,030 per team, to silver at £5,030 and gold at £10,030. Contact Nicola White tel 01372 220090 or visit http://po.st/ rainbowclay for further information. VISIT The Northern Shooting Show is at the Yorkshire Showground in Harrogate this weekend and will feature a clayline, gundog field and many other great attractions and exhibitors. The team fromShooting Times will be there too, sharing a stand with our…

1 Croots Malton leather cartridge belt £139 www.crootsengland.co.uk This 25-capacity bridle leather cartridge belt has open loops, a wide stopper band and quick-release clips for fast loading. With a 1¾in-wide solid brass buckle, it is available in sizes M (36-42in) to XL (48in-54in) for either 12- or 20-bore cartridges. 2 Pinewood vest RRP £106 www.pinewood.eu/uk Practical and functional, this reversible, windproof vest is suitable for all types of hunting. Its padding makes it warm yet lightweight. There are two side pockets and one chest pocket on each side. Available in sizes S to 3XL. For your local stockist, email sales@koolbox.co.uk. 3 Sako rifle RRP £5,985 www.sako.fi/rifles Finnish gunmaker Sako is launching a limited edition of numbered Sako TRG 22 “Finland 100” sniper rifles with white camouflage, to celebrate Finland’s 100…

“No one is going to give you a deal if you are slagging them off round the countryside” From everlasting sofa sales to supermarket specials, it seems that everyone’s launching offers to tempt the customer these days. Everyone, that is, except shooting. When it comes to letting driven game days, agents and estates with a reputation for showing sporting pheasants and partridges set their price per bird for the coming season, and stick to it. Regular teams are given first refusal, after which any spare days are advertised and sold at the going rate. Deposits and balances are settled even before the summer’s out and a shot has been fired. Not many years ago though, if you were a regular well-known customer, it was possible to find commercial operators willing…

Cold game retrieving over an obstacle LAST MONTH I STARTED teaching Remy to jump over a small man-made obstacle. He has steadily gained in confidence to the point where I have been able to increase the height of the jump and introduce a further element of difficulty: cold game. Remy has already picked-up cold game, but it was a good few months ago so I would start out by giving him a straightforward seen retrieve of a small gamebird, such as a woodcock or partridge. I insist on a good delivery at this stage as Remy tends to get quite excited when retrieving, so making sure he sits and takes a few seconds to calm down will help to focus his mind. STEP ONE: A SMALL BIRD TO START Picking-up…

Most gundogs don’t go for walks, they venture out for private hunting expeditions under little or no control by their owner. The worst culprits are untrained spaniels and pointers, especially as their owners frequently fail to appreciate quite how destructive these dogs can be when they come across ground-nesting birds. I have long exercised my dogs on an extensive local heath. At one stage it was a so-called country park, but the council couldn’t afford to look after it so it went on the market, to be snaffled by the county wildlife trust for a £1million. Since then the trust has done an excellent job of managing it, with much clearing of scrub and felling of trees. The aim is to attract nesting woodlarks and nightjars, both of which are…

I’ve been helping with capercaillie lek counts on Speyside and Deeside for the past few years. Though most of my work is devoted to blackgrouse in southern Scotland, the chance to spend time around capercaillie is like a dream come true, particularly since horrendous declines over the past 50 years have made the birds precariously scarce. A gamekeeper friend and I headed into the forest near Banchory this spring in a fever pitch of excitement. This estate counts twice each year under a licence granted by Scottish Natural Heritage and the first visit in 2017 had revealed two cocks and two hens on the lek. As much as the cocks grab your attention, I am always stunned by the beauty of the female birds, which refine camouflage into an intricate…

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 Times rifle 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 A highly successful species BIRDS…

With its distinctive red-roan coat with white dorsal line (called finching) and tail, the Irish moiled cow is a handsome beast. Hornless —it is the only polled Irish breed — it was common on farms in Northern Ireland, its stronghold in Tyrone, Armagh and Sligo. By the late 1950s it was in sharp decline and today is one of the rarest of all our native breeds of cattle. Medium sized and with a placid temperament, the moil (or maol) can thrive on the poorest of pastures, requiring less acreage and less concentrate than most other breeds. It is also long-lived, still calving at 15 or 16. The name comes from Gaelic and refers to the distinctive dome or mound on top of the head. In the mid 1970s only 32…

“Imagine if we found wolves hunting just outside London. What would the press make of that?” Did you know there are wolves living within a day’s loping distance of the Eiffel Tower? According to the French wolf group, Alliance Avec Les Loups, there is good evidence that a pair of wolves have taken up residence in the Rambouillet forest, 30 miles south-west of Paris. At least one other wolf is thought to be living in Essonne, a department south of Paris that falls within part of the capital’s administrative area. I find this remarkable. Imagine if we in the UK found wolves living and hunting just outside Greater London. What do you think the tabloid press would make of that? But then, France is a heck of a lot bigger…

THE LONG HAUL I have owned and used a Longthorne Hesketh over-and-under sidelock 12-bore for almost four years. They are fabulous guns, 100 per cent British-made in Longthorne’s own factory. It makes its own barrels, unlike most other gunmakers in this country. These barrels are to its own patented design and are probably the strongest shotgun barrels in the world. I had my gun serviced after 12 months by Longthorne, which it did free of charge. During the three years since then, I have shot thousands of cartridges, both at game and clays, without any problems. At the end of the past game season, I thought it was about time for another service. I sent my gun off to Longthorne and the service was completed. Unfortunately, during transportation back to…

“The quality of an egg almost always comes down to what the bird has been fed on” Incubation needn’t be expensive, complicated nor overly technical. In fact, it can be great fun and fairly straightforward; more so if you use bantams and broody hens to do the hatching for you. Hatching under bantams and broody hens will not be for everybody, but if you only have a limited supply of eggs and don’t want the worry of an incubator, nor the trouble of setting up a brooder for when they hatch, the bantams/ broody hens route is worth a try. Before you start thinking about the broodies themselves, you need to make sure your eggs are up to scratch. Not even a broody hen will be able to get eggs…

“If my reaction had been too hard it could have caused further issues; she might drop the dummy or even not want to pick it up” NOW THAT DOLLY has finished her season, I have been able to get her back in training. I have been working to raise her steadiness, especially when retrieving. STEP ONE: START WITH THE BASICS When moving on to a new exercise it is always worth going back a step or two and just reinforcing some earlier lessons. With Dolly, I took her back to some very basic steadiness lessons where I sat her up on a lawn and got a helper to throw a few dummies all around her. Despite previously being totally steady she broke on a couple of occasions and this gave…

I was given a little book by a friend the other week and can recommend it to the more mature and the younger readers alike. The Farm and the Village by George Ewart Evans is an insight into much of agriculture, which has now gone, but that I was fortunate enough to see. For the more mature, it will bring back many memories, and for the younger, it will give them a vision of what they missed. I can recall, for example, three villages that all had a blacksmith’s shop, complete with hand bellows, the earliest of which I was invited to pump on occasions to revive the glowing charcoal embers. All are now gone, the last in the 1970s and now the local doctor’s surgery. What struck me from…

Common name: Hawthorn Latin name: Crataegus monogyna Other names: May tree How to spot it and where to find it: Common throughout Britain it is often confused with Midland hawthorn, with which it can hybridise. Reaching heights of 15m, hawthorn has a brownish-grey bark, with slender, thorn-covered twigs. The flowers of the hawthorn are white or pink and highly scentedand develop into red fruits called haws. Interesting facts: The May tree is the only British plant named after the month in which it blooms. And though its clusters of blooms are pretty, it has long been held that bringing May into the house will bring death. A chemical found in the blossom is one of the first chemicals formed in decaying animal tissue, which may have given rise to the…

WHAT TO LOOK FOR Barrel: .22 Hornet is popular but calibres like .45-70 and .30-40 Krag are sought after, as they are rarer. Action: Best in the world, bar the bench-rest precision-made ones. Weight: 6lb Length: 38.5in Features: None — that’s its charm. Price: Second-hand only. Expect to pay £350 plus, as it is rare now. The Ruger No. 1 rifle is one of my all-time favourite rifles: classic lines, superb engineering and a single-shot falling-block action that makes you concentrate. The No. 3 is its smaller brother but it uses the same falling-block action, albeit with a modified opening lever, and both are made in the US. It was designed as a cheaper version to the No. 1 but with its simple lines and reliabilty, it soon found favour…