Innholdsfortegnelse for 18-Oct-2017 i Shooting Times & Country

I suppose our mothers do rather a lot for us. Mine maybe does a little more than most. Every evening, from late summer through to February, she goes down to the pond at dusk and scatters a few handfuls of barley around the water’s edge. Last week, on my way north to fly a Harris hawk on some pheasants, I returned home. As I always do, I went into the kitchen, had some tea and a piece of cake, pulled a gun from the cabinet and slipped outside into the gloaming. For the first time in years, my mother had been away and the birds remained unfed. It was one of those cloudless moonlit evenings when the trees cast long shadows across the fields and all the ducks seem to…

A simulated game shooting competition, the Royal Flush, has been announced by the Royal Berkshire Shooting School (RBSS). The contest opens on Monday, 6 November, and closes on Saturday, 24 February. Each entrant must shoot 100 targets off five sequences: the Purdey Grouse, the Sunseeker Tower, the Chase Distillery Partridge, the Boodles La Mancha and the Aon Walk Up. The competition offers entrants the chance to win one of five luxury sporting holidays for eight Guns as the top prize, as well as £1,000 cash for each top Gun on the five stands. The sequences reflect the choices for the top prize: a day’s grouse shooting at Bransdale, Yorkshire; a day’s driven pheasant at Lyneham, Devon; a Spanish partridge day in Madrid or Mallorca; a driven partridge day at Prescombe,…

21 OCTOBER GAME & WILDLIFE CONSERVATION TRUST YOUNG SHOOTERS DAY Allerton Project, Loddington, Leicestershire Tel 01425 651013 29 OCTOBER AINTREE COUNTRYSIDE ALLIANCE RACE DAY CHARITY RACE Aintree Racecourse, Liverpool Tel 020 7840 9207 8 NOVEMBER ONE-DAY GAME SEMINAR Westminster Kingsway College, London Tel 020 7963 4181 9 NOVEMBER BASC LADIES GAME DAY Sherbourne Farm Road, Sherbourne, Warwickshire Tel 01283 810910 14-15 NOVEMBER KENNEL CLUB HPR CHAMPIONSHIP 2017 Elveden estate, Thetford, Norfolk www.thekennelclub.org.uk/HPRChampionship 22 NOVEMBER GWCT MACNAB BALL The Dorchester Hotel, Mayfair, London Tel 020 7290 0110…

Return of the reds More than 150 red squirrels have returned to a Northumberland country estate, six years after they were almost wiped out by greys. The National Trust appointed a ranger at Wallington to oversee the red population rise. Squirrel ranger Glen Graham said: “The constant presence of rangers, alongside the support of visitors and volunteers, is crucial to safeguarding red squirrel populations. “Looking to the future, contraceptive methods and new technologies could provide long-term solutions, but in the meantime we need public buy-in to protect one of Britain’s best-loved species.” There is reported to be only around 15,000 red squirrels left in England. Full calendar at Edradynate A full calendar of sporting activity is continuing at Edradynate, the estate has said. Earlier this month (News, 4 October), Shooting…

Double-glazing may help to keep us warm but it is a shame that it also cuts out the noise of tawny owls. They are very early breeders so it is important to make sure that a territory is clearly defined before the winter starts. Resident pairs are chasing out young interlopers and new breeders will need to find a mate and carve out a good territory before winter starts to bite, if they are to maximise their chances of raising chicks in 2018. The number of eggs laid depends upon the female being well fed in January and February. Then the number of chicks that fledge successfully will be dependent upon both parents being able to supply owlets with a plentiful supply of food in the spring. If the flow…

Willy Poole died, aged 76, on 18 August. Willy by any yardstick was a character and, sadly, living out of his time. He was a Master of five packs of foxhounds, which he kept on nothing a year. Rotund with a crisp military moustache, Willy was a good friend but did not suffer fools gladly or otherwise. A master of the pen, he wrote five books and contributed in fine style to the rural press, notably for Shooting Times under the pen-name Arthur James. I knew Willy as an essentially kind and generous man but one who found the creeping destruction of the traditional ways of rural life in Britain increasingly irksome. In 2006 he and his wife moved to France to enjoy their way of life in a small…

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…

Unlike the distinctively black-and-white Friesian cow, the Friesian horse is a solid black animal, usually with no white markings, though a small white star on the forehead is permitted. This Dutch breed has a long history, for its ancestors were the warhorses of the Middle Ages. The modern Friesian has the build of a light draught horse, while the long flowing mane and tail and silky feathers on the lower legs are distinctive. So, too, is the arched neck, coupled with a compact body and relatively short legs. Friesians are most popular as driving horses, but they can also be ridden, and some are used for dressage. Their striking looks and fine temperament has made them popular with filmmakers and they star in such movies as The Mask of Zorro…

VISIT The ever-popular Hunting Newcomers’ Week returns in 2017 and will take place from 21-28 October. The aim of the week is to introduce as many new faces to the hunting field as possible, with the added incentive this year of a competition that encourages those who have enjoyed their day out with the hounds to write about their encounter. A handful of venues are holding events during the week. To find out more visit www.countryside-alliance.org/events/newcomersweek2017/ ENTER The search is on for the UK’s best young cooks, aspiring student chefs and home cooks. Entries are now open for the Teflon Diamond Standard Awards 2018. The deadline is 4 December. The competition has three categories targeting different age groups: Keen Young Cooks (12-16) to bake their favourite dish; Aspiring Student Chefs…

1 Troop Heritage training satchel £47.99 www.workingdogcompany.co.uk Look stylish while training your gundog with this satchel, which has lots of pockets and a deep, spacious main compartment to fit all your essentials. The super-strong canvas comes in rich brown with leather trimmings and detailed zip pullers. 2 Pioneros dog collar £24.99 www.farlows.co.uk Your dog will certainly stand out from the pack wearing one of these colourful and fashionable dog collars. Hand-made using high-quality brown bridle leather, with silver buckle and D-ring, it is available in a range of styles and sizes. 3 Fish4Dogs fish and apple treats £4.50 for 100g, £22 for 500g and £42 for 1kg www.fi sh4dogs.com Antioxidant-packed apple is getting in on the action in Fish4Dogs’ new treat. A version of the company’s sea wraps — Sweet…

“Most of them were selectively deaf, but they were solid dogs that would work all day” BY COINCIDENCE, last week I received two very similar emails within days of each other. The first one read: “I am looking for a male English springer spaniel puppy. I am not interested in a go-faster trial-type dog. What I want is a bigger, old-fashioned type of spaniel, the sort that has sadly gone out of fashion in recent years. He is going to spend 90 per cent of the time as a domestic dog, but will be trained so that he can help with dogging-in and beating on the shoot and perhaps also do some picking-up.” The second read: “We recently lost our black-and-white springer at the age of 14. He was a…

“It is essential to ensure that death is instant and painless, to optimise welfare” I have, I suppose, a reasonably comprehensive sporting library, built up over the years. Virtually every aspect of the sport is covered, from finding ground, creating a DIY shoot, rearing game, organising a day’s sport, feeding, vermin control and picking-up but there is never, or seldom, any reference to that most vital aspect of shooting, the humane despatching of a wounded bird or animal, be it a pheasant, duck, pigeon, rabbit or squirrel. The prime objective of shooting live quarry is to ensure, wherever possible, an instant death for the creature we are pursuing. We are, hopefully, taught how to shoot by qualified instructors, but inevitably there will be occasions, notably on driven shoots, when birds…

“I stick to a routine, feeding each drive at the same time of day as it would be shot” The leaves are falling thick and fast — autumn has well and truly arrived — and the season is upon us. This is my favourite time of year; the really hard graft is done and all the many pieces in the jigsaw are falling into place, with the past few weeks having been spent on making the final preparations for our first day in late October. All is shipshape: the gun stands are pegged, the stiles are fixed, and the flushing lines and tracks have been cut to keep the beaters happy. Even our game cart has had a lick of paint. The other good news is that my birds are…

Latin name: Quercus petraea Common name: Sessile oak Other names: Durmast oak How to spot it and where to find it: Taller and straighter than the English oak (Native Britain, 10 May), the sessile is the most common and abundant of the species found in Britain and Ireland. Its branches begin higher above the ground, too, and the crown, while impressive, is not as wide as that of the English oak. But perhaps the most distinguishing feature is that its acorns have no stalks — they sit directly on the branch — which is where the “sessile” comes from. Acorns on stalks are “pedunculate”. Interesting facts: A grand old man of the British woodland, the sessile oak may live for 1,000 years but it won’t produce its first crop of…

“Natural England seems obsessed with controlling those it can, rather than those it should” Does being well behaved make us an easy target for bureaucrats? I ask because it seems that well-managed wildfowling is treated differently to other countryside activities by Natural England (NE). Coastal wildfowling in England seems to bear the full weight of the regulatory burden, whereas potentially harmful activities such as unrestricted dog-walking or off-road cycling appear to be ignored. Wildfowlers tend to organise themselves into clubs and several clubs may cooperate on an estuary or stretch of coast. Often, these grounds have a conservation designation, such as a Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI). This entails NE issuing consents for shooting. Clubs keep bag records, issue permits, control member access, create and manage habitats, warden reserves…

Many years ago the game cart on our shoot was organised by the late Charlie Swan (father of your contributor Mike). I was — and still am — a picker-up there. I bought a game despatcher. It worked well but an irate Charlie said: “Some b*****d is breaking the necks of the pheasants and as I am driving along the heads are coming off and the birds are falling off the rails.” As Mike will testify, Charlie was very particular and forthright. When I told him I was using a game despatcher and the fault was probably mine, he was, to put it mildly, not best pleased. I cannot repeat in a family magazine what he told me to do with the game despatcher. Suffice to say I went back…

I’m always surprised at how few people who are passionately involved with working gundogs ever make the effort to go to see their local pack of foxhounds. One morning last week I set the alarm early to ensure that I would wake up in time to see my local hunt meet at 7am. As it turned out I didn’t need the alarm, as anticipation of a morning’s hunting was sufficient to wake me up naturally, and the meet was only five miles from home. Like most packs, my local hunt’s opening meet isn’t until the first Saturday in November, so this was what used to be called cubbing, but now goes by the more politically correct name of autumn hunting. It is invariably a low-key affair, as the huntsman isn’t…

“The river was sparklingly clear, the riverbed polished marble; like looking into a glass of water” I needed an adventure. While I was in a pub lamenting about life and the rotten luck I was having on the river, my friend Max attempted to cheer me up by talking about fishing. As the number of empty glasses on the table grew, he talked about Slovenia. Crystal-clear alpine streams, filled with big rainbow trout — they were getting bigger the longer we sat there — and, the biggest prize of all, the indigenous wild marble trout. Marble trout ( Salmo marmoratus ) once swam in the great river system of eastern Italy, the Po. However, the introduction of brown trout and the resulting cross-breeding means that the sole remaining pure population…

“The legislation would weed out bad apples, but it made us all feel like criminals” I was taught to set snares when I was 17. Within a week of leaving school, I had taken on a job as an underkeeper on a respected pheasant shoot near Kirkcudbright. The headkeeper was a mine of information and I followed his lead for several weeks through rearing chicks and preparing the poults for release. When the time arrived to put the birds to wood, I spent a day learning how to set snares on all the paths and tracks around my pens. The small pieces of flexible wire were fixed to heavy wooden drags, and the loop was held in place by a cut hazel tealer. I remember thinking how unlikely it would…

Choosing the right HPR GUNDOGS Q I have always used cross-breeds for rough shooting, rabbits and wild pheasants, plus a fair bit of duck shooting as well. They have been all sorts and never very obedient. I now have the funds to be able to afford a pedigree puppy and really fancy a pointer of some sort, but I’m not sure which breed would best suit my needs? A Certainly the English pointer would not be useful, as their primary function is to locate, point and flush game birds for the gun, and retrieving and working with duck or fur are not their skills. However, one of the breeds from the hunt, point, retrieve (HPR) sub-group would be ideal for the type of shooting you describe. You will need to…

Little grebes really are tiny; they are the smallest birds you will see on a lake, apart from youngsters, of course. In terms of weight, you will need more than five little grebes to make a coot and seven to make a mallard. A little grebe, or dabchick, seems to bob along on the surface of the water, with its fluffy rear sticking in the air. Suddenly, however, it disappears. Huge paddle-shaped toes propel it under the surface of the water to feed on fish, molluscs and crustaceans. In the autumn, youngsters dispersing from breeding sites can turn up in unusual places such as millponds, ditches and rivers. It is worth waiting a minute if you catch a disturbance of the water out of the corner of your eye. If…